Category: Korea-General Topics

No shocker here:

The thick smog that blanketed most of the country over the weekend was largely from pollutants from China, the JoongAng Ilbo reported exclusively Thursday after analyzing the Korean and Chinese governments’ data on fine dust movements in the atmosphere.

The paper analyzed the Air Quality Index (AQI) in cities and regions in China put out by the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the PM2.5 fine dust levels across Korea put out by the Korean Ministry of Environment’s National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER).

It found that rises and falls in the AQI in China were mirrored in the levels of PM2.5 in the atmosphere over Korea last week.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Moon Jae-in at a press conference: #SouthKorea's "gap btwn the wealthy & the poor and inequality have become the worst in the world." On what basis? Is that what his new head of Korea Statistics said? After all, Moon fired his predecessor for being too accurate. https://t.co/UgXM2G4osr

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) January 11, 2019

Here is the response from the Finance Ministry about the claims of interfering in private companies and politics by a whistleblower:

The current and former finance ministers finally broke their silence over controversial claims by a whistle-blower that the ministry issued deficit-financing bonds unnecessarily and tried to change the CEO of Korea Tobacco & Ginseng (KT&G), a private sector company. 

Current Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said Friday that the whistle-blower, former Finance Ministry employee Shin Jae-min, misunderstood what was going on because he had limited information as a low-level employee. Decisions by his predecessor Kim Dong-yeon would have considered all economic factors, he said, suggesting that political influence or pressure were not part of the picture. 

“When it comes to ‘facts’ there was no outside pressure,” Hong said. 

“[Former Finance Minister] Kim would have made decisions considering the various factors.” 

Hong said while whistle-blower Shin, who was working in the ministry’s treasury bureau, might have had his own thoughts on the issuing of bonds, former Finance Minister Kim had to make decisions with a long-term view with managing the government’s fiscal policy for the next five years.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but the responses really don’t fully dispute the whistleblowers claims.

The former Finance Ministry employee who accused the Moon administration of intentionally raising the national debt has now been taken in custody for supposedly trying to commit suicide:

The former Finance Ministry official who accused the Blue House of fiddling with state coffers and intervening in private companies went missing for hours on Thursday after leaving a suicide note on the internet that read he was going to hang himself in a motel – until police found him alive.

Officers at Gwanak Police Precinct provided scant details to the local press about Shin Jae-min’s health condition but said he was hospitalized in Seoul in a “favorable state.”

Police refused to hold a press briefing detailing how they discovered Shin or what he was doing by the time they arrived at the motel in Gwanak District, southern Seoul, saying they didn’t want to “stimulate” someone who was already “mentally instable.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

Shin allegedly left a suicide note as a web posting on a forum hosted by his alma mater Korea University:

In his post, Shin wrote that he thought people would trust him and his whistle-blowing accusations if he died. 

Shin added he hoped Korean society would adopt a culture that embraces whistle-blowers and reveal how government policies are made to the general public. 

Shin lamented blowing the whistle on a left-leaning government, saying he could have received legal help from Minbyun – Lawyers for a Democratic Society, a non-governmental organization with special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, if he was whistle-blowing on a conservative Blue House. 

Shin said he was “deeply disappointed” after hearing that every attorney in Minbyun refused to defend him if Shin revealed to the press he was being backed by the progressive group. 

I don’t know why he was surprised the Minbyun group would not help him because they are notorious for basically being Kim Jong-un’s lawyers in South Korea. They have been used to legally attack North Korean defectors, one of the groups behind the US beef riots, and have long attacked the USFK relocation plan. They have recently been calling for the signing of a peace treaty to end the Korean War so US troops can be withdrawn.

Minbyun of course are not going to do anything that would damage a North Korean friendly administration in South Korea. Shin best toughen up because the leftists in South Korea know how to defend their own and will do everything they can to destroy him. Just ask the conservative journalists sitting in jail for reporting accurate information about the Moon administration.

This had to be a pretty gruesome death. Condolences to his friends and family:

A Russian worker died after being sucked into an auto parts-making machine, police said Thursday.

The accident happened at a factory in Yesan County, South Chungcheong Province, at 5:13 p.m. Wednesday. 

The victim was Russian with ethnic roots in Korea and was registered on the factory’s regular payroll. 

An investigation is under way to determine the accident’s cause. 

Korea Times

It looks like the prisons in South Korea will soon be staffed with Jehovah’s Witnesses and other religions that forbid military service:

Able-bodied men who refuse to serve in the military for religious reasons will be subject to three years of alternative duty at correctional facilities, the Ministry of Defense said Friday.

In its draft guideline for revision of the conscription law, the ministry also said alternative duty will become possible in January 2020.

The move comes after the Supreme Court’s ruling in June that religious faith is a valid reason to refuse military service and the law should be amended accordingly. 

The decision triggered a dispute over where, and for how long, the conscientious objectors should serve their alternative duty, so other conscripts, many of them serving the country under harsh conditions, do not feel left out emotionally.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I wonder when the horrible air quality is going to begin to have an effect on South Korea’s life expectancy?  So far it appears it is not having much effect considering that the average life expectancy in Korea continues to climb:

Life expectancy at birth averaged 82.7 years in 2017, three months longer than a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.

The average life expectancy for South Koreans stood at 62.3 years in 1970 when South Korea began to compile relevant data.

Kim Rak-hyeon, a deputy director handling the issue at Statistics Korea, said improved public awareness of health and the policy on medical checkups have contributed to the dramatic hike in life expectancy in recent decades.

Baby boys and girls born in 2017 were expected to live 79.7 years and 85.7 years, respectively, with the male-female difference narrowing by one month to 6 years.

#SouthKorea has no oil & nuclear energy produced about 30% of energy needs. Then #MoonJaein announced nuclear energy exit, which let to blackouts, increased coal & gas imports, reduced nuclear science majors/scientists, stopped SK from further nucl energy export, raised costs… https://t.co/vfk0ycrdMr

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) December 25, 2018

Korea’s smokers will now have even more gruesome images to look at every time they buy a pack of cigarettes:

Tougher anti-smoking warnings will be applied to cigarette packages from Sunday.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare said that it is replacing all the eleven graphic warnings on cigarette packs starting from Sunday. Tobacco companies will now have to insert new warnings on the packaging of cigarettes including electronic cigarettes.

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link.

It seems to me that going on strike and denying taxi service to customers only encourages those same customers to use ride sharing apps:

Tens of thousands of taxi drivers in South Korea protested in front of the National Assembly Thursday, calling for a ban on Kakao Mobility’s ride-sharing service.

The app was set to move from beta testing to full operation this month, but the company put those plans on indefinite hold after a taxi driver self-immolated in protest in front of the National Assembly and later died.
 
Taxi industry and labor groups waved banners and held up photos of the deceased driver near the legislature, complaining that such ride-sharing apps pose a direct threat to the livelihood of taxi industry workers.

At least four taxi industry and labor groups took part in the rally, the third of its kind in the past three months. Police estimated 40-to-50-thousand were on the streets.

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link.