Category: Korea-General Topics

Elementary school students in South Korea will be facing increased scrutiny from teachers for signs of child abuse this year:

South Korea will check all 480,000 children set to enter elementary school this year for signs of child abuse, the Education Ministry said Sunday (Feb 5).

“If soon-to-be enrollees are unaccounted for, failing to show up at preliminary meetings organised by their designated schools, we will pay a visit to their houses and check their living situation,” said an official from the Education Ministry.

This marks the first time that the government conducts a nationwide inspection of pre-school children, after a high-profile case last year revealed a loophole in the current education system to detect child abuse cases.

In February 2016, the body of seven-year-old boy named Shin Won Young, who had been locked up and beaten for three months by his stepmother – was found months after his death.  [Strait Times]

You can read more at the link, but there have been other cases of kids not showing up to school and months later have been found to be killed by their parents.

Culture shock for ex-culture minister Cho Yoon-sun & ex attorney general Kim Ki-choon: holed up in 71 sq feet cell.https://t.co/eiRAHVH5Qs

— Noon in Korea (@AllNewsKorea) January 28, 2017

I have not read this book in question, but I have read The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan, by Sarah Soh and based on facts undoubtedly there were women that voluntarily became prostitutes for the Japanese military.  Arguably most were forced into prostitution by Korean brokers who acquired girls sold off by their families or misled women into thinking they were doing other work. This same system was in place even after the Japanese military left and the US military entered South Korea:

A local court on Wednesday acquitted a South Korean scholar of defaming women who were sexually enslaved by Japan during World War II through her controversial book.

The Seoul Eastern District Court found Park Yu-ha, a professor at Seoul’s Sejong University, not guilty of the charges, saying academic freedom is a basic right guaranteed by the Constitution.

Park was indicted in November 2015 over her book, “Comfort Women of the Empire,” which has been accused by victims and some civic groups of disputing the coerciveness of the “comfort women” system.

Prosecutors said Park defamed victims by describing some of them as “voluntary prostitutes” or “comrades” of Japanese soldiers.

“The opinion rolled out in the defendant’s book can raise criticism, objection and could also be abused by those who deny the coerciveness of the comfort women system. But it is, in any case, a matter of value judgment that goes over the authority or ability that can be executed by the court under the procedures of criminal cases,” the court said.  [Yonhap]

You can read much more at the link.

It looks like the state sponsored textbooks is another casualty of the President Park political scandal:

The parliament’s education committee on Friday passed a bill to ban state-authored textbooks amid the boycott from conservative parties.

The National Assembly Education, Culture, Sports & Tourism Committee approved the bill that bans the use of textbooks whose copyrights are held by the government. The bill has been handed over to the Legislation and Judiciary Committee.

The bill targets the Park Geun-hye government’s plan to provide middle and high school students with state-authored history textbooks, which critics say is intended to imbue students with rightist views of the nation’s modern history.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the significance of this is that these textbooks are hold overs from the Sunshine Policy years where leftist teachers were able to get pro-North Korean textbooks into the schools.  Today the Sunshine Policy and its leftist supporters have been greatly discredited, but the books still remain in the schools which is what the Park administration however incompetently was trying to address.

Eggs from US chicken farmers have now arrived in South Korea to stop the rise in prices caused by the ongoing bird flu epidemic.  Fortunately there was no one out protesting about Mad Egg Disease or any other nonsense to stop this US import like we have seen in the past:

Eggs imported from the United States began to hit shelves Saturday, industry sources said, as the government seeks to contain rising egg prices amid the outbreak of bird flu.

About 96 tons of eggs from the U.S. passed the state food regulator’s quarantine review earlier in the day, the sources said, a week after they arrived in South Korea to serve as a cheaper alternative to the expensive eggs from local farms.

Local egg prices jumped in recent weeks as South Korea is struggling to control the spread of bird flu that has led to more than 30 million chickens and ducks being culled since the outbreak in mid-November.

Right after the eggs cleared procedures for safety checks, distributors transported some of them to discount supermarket chains in Seoul and adjacent areas, according to the sources.

They said that distribution of the imported eggs began Saturday, and most consumers will be able to purchase them at supermarket chains starting early next week.

A carton of 30 U.S. eggs was being sold at 8,950 won (US$7.61) at a mart in southwest Seoul, almost 1,000 won less than the cheapest bundle of local eggs being sold, according to an official.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

#Asia's largest #drone show hits Busan this week from Thursday – Saturday. https://t.co/0gfkigosa2 #korea #busan #tech pic.twitter.com/RtPJ7SXbdq

— Busan Haps Magazine (@BusanHaps) January 16, 2017

New evidence shows that Korean military fired at citizens from a helicopter during the 1980 Gwangju protests https://t.co/TesadWBWGt pic.twitter.com/EalJiaGaiV

— KoreaJoongAngDaily (@JoongAngDaily) January 16, 2017

Yonhap has an interesting article published about the different incentives being offered in South Korea for families to have 3 or more children in order to improve the nation’s birthrate:

The government spent more than 101.6 trillion won from 2006 to 2016 to encourage people to have more babies, though it was not enough to boost the low birthrate. The government said it has set aside more than 22.4 trillion won this year to help raise the country’s birthrate.

“It’s fair to say financial incentives are part of South Korea’s efforts to raise the low birthrate,” said Kye Bong-oh, professor of sociology at Kookmin University and a member of the Population Association of Korea.

Still, he said it remains to be seen how effective South Korea’s birth promotion policy will be.

Kang said she feels relieved that her county offers 10 million won in incentives to promote birth.

Kang’s view was echoed by Lee Su-min who is entitled to receive 47 million won from the southeastern county of Changnyeong and the central government over the next five years for her fourth baby.

“Financial incentives are of help to my family, as my husband is the sole breadwinner,” Lee said by phone from Changnyeong.

The southern South Korean island of Wando also offers 5 million won as a lump sum and another 15 million won in installments over three years for those who have a fifth baby. So far, there is only one recipient, but he declined to give an interview, citing privacy.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

This bankruptcy of the light rail in Uijongbu is completely unsurprising because of how unnecessary it was.  It is very easy to get around Uijongbu via the bus system that made the light rail a redundant form of transportation that would never meet the expected daily usage rate that was projected.  According to the article the U-Line needs 118,000 people a day to ride it to break even and last year they only had 35,000 a day:

The Uijeongbu Light Rail Transit Company filed bankruptcy to the Seoul Central District Court on Wednesday after just four and a half years, as the light rail failed to draw enough commuters and was insolvent for years.

The board members of the light rail company unanimously agreed on Wednesday to file for bankruptcy after its debt rose beyond 240 billion won ($200 million) at the end of last year.

The light rail trains, smaller in size and shorter than subway trains, run on the Uijeongbu Line, or U Line, in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi. The railway stretches 11.1 kilometers (6.9 miles) from Balgok Station to Tapseok Station. The light rail opened on July 1, 2012, and was expected to draw nearly 80,000 commuters a day in its first year, according to figures obtained by the company from a consulting agency.

Only a daily average of about 10,000 used the light rail on its first year, and by the end of last year, the daily reached some 35,000. To break even, the business needed about 118,000 people daily.

“The company needs to make 45 billion won a year to operate the railway, but it’s scraping in only 15 billion won a year on average,” said an employee of the company.

Five financial institutes, including KB Kookmin Bank, lent some 352 billion won as operating funds to the Uijeongbu Light Rail Transit Company. The group sent an official letter to the company on Jan. 2, requesting that it shut down the business.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but the Uijongbu city government is vowing to keep the light rail running which means the public will be picking up the annual operating losses.

If President Park was pressuring Lee Jae-yong to have Samsung donate millions of dollars to Choi Soon-sil’s organizations in return for political favors this would justify the impeachment:

Lee Jae-yong, Samsung Group’s de facto leader, has claimed that President Park Geun-hye forced his company to provide billions of won to various organizations linked to her confidante at the center of a corruption scandal, an official said Friday.

Lee, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics Co., made the claim to a special probe team investigating the widening scandal involving Park and her friend Choi Soon-sil, the official close to the team said. His latest statement does not match what he said at a parliamentary hearing held last month. At the time, Lee said the president only talked about matters related to the conglomerate and its investment plans during a private meeting in 2015.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but Lee’s story differs from what he said last month that he was not pressured to give money to Choi.  However, according to this KBS report Lee said that he was pressured by Park to give money, but he did not request any political favors in return:

The decision on whether or not to request an arrest warrant for Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong for his links to the Choi Soon-sil scandal may come as early as Saturday.

The independent counsel team’s spokesman Lee Kyu-chul told reporters on Friday that a decision regarding Lee, who faces bribery and perjury charges, will come on Saturday or Sunday.

The team is said to be leaning toward requesting the warrant as it believes Lee was deeply involved in giving Choi and her family hefty sums of money in return for government support for Samsung C&T’s merger with Cheil Industries in 2015.

The team led by Park Young-soo will also take into account conflicting statements he made from his testimony during a hearing last month at the National Assembly.

Lee returned home at around 8 a.m. Friday after undergoing 22 hours of investigation by the independent counsel team.

The Samsung heir is said to have told investigators that though it’s true that Samsung Group extended huge amounts of money to Choi and her family due to pressure from President Park Geun-hye’s, the funds were not given in return for favors.  [KBS World Radio]

I guess we will see how this plays out in the coming days.