I wonder if Donald Trump will mention South Korea’s illegal immigration crackdown on the campaign trail?:
The government said Monday it will clamp down on foreigners staying in South Korea without proper visas and reduce the rate of illegal aliens in the country below 10 percent by 2018.
The government will selectively allow entry to foreigners with low possibility of violating the immigration control law and beef up screening of visa issuance, it said during a planning committee meeting on foreigners policy held in Seoul.
The government’s move is in response to a recent series of airport-related security problems that caused alarm bells to go off.
In January, two Chinese nationals snuck into the country without being noticed by immigration officials or picked up by the airport’s security systems. Later in the same month, a Vietnamese transfer passenger forced his way through the gate of an unmanned automatic immigration checkpoint without being checked.
All the people that entered South Korea illegally were later apprehended.
Last year, 11.3 percent of foreigners in South Korea were believed to be staying here illegally, according to the Ministry of Justice. [Yonhap]
The people most needed to fight the North Koreans, the younger generation are the ones the least likely to want to fight according to the below survey. I guess this survey could be used to justify why the ROK continues to need the mandatory service requirement:
A government survey finds that 72 percent of South Koreans are willing to fight for the country if a war breaks out.
According to the survey by the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs, those in their 50s were the most willing to participate at 83-point-five percent, followed by those in their 60s at 81-point-five percent.
The rate was 50-point-seven percent among those in their 20s, with the rate for those in their 30s reaching 59 percent.
The rate was lower among younger people, white-collar workers, students and highly-educated people.
Fifty-five percent of the respondents said that the country should side with the U.S. if a war breaks out between the U.S. and North Korea. Twenty-four percent said the country should remain neutral, while five-point-eight percent said the country should side with North Korea.
About half of the respondents viewed the country’s security conditions as serious.
The ministry conducted the survey on about one-thousand people age 15 or order in November last year. [KBS World Radio]
I wonder how much not selling this shoe in South Korea impacts Nike’s bottom line? I would think not much considering they are moving forward with the sale of this shoe world wide. It seems to me that they will have problems trying to sell this shoe in China as well:
A professor at a university in Korea has sent a letter of protest to key executives at Nike about its iconic Michael Jordan shoes, calling for the sportswear giant to stop using the Japanese Rising Sun flag as a design on its sneakers.
Professor Seo Kyoung-duk at Sungshin Women’s University, who is also a dedicated Dokdo campaigner, said Thursday that he sent the letter to Nike President and CEO Mark Parker, Vice President for Design Tinker Hatfield, six other executives of the company and also Jordan.
He said the multinational market player and its high-profile shoes should consider the overwhelming impact of its products on young people worldwide.
This is the third time for the company to use the flag’s design on their shoes, a symbol of Japan’s militarism and imperialism in the late 19th and 20th centuries, despite criticism here in Korea, with the previous incidents occurring in 2009 and 2013.
“I wanted to let the company know what it did was wrong and why,” he said. “I would like to encourage the executives to avoid making the same mistakes in the future by helping them realize their insensitivity, indifference, and ignorance of historical facts.”
Alongside the letter, he sent a picture and video footage in English explaining that Japan’s Rising Sun flag symbolizes Japan’s wartime atrocities like the Hakenkreuz, or swastika, the symbol used by the Nazi Party in Germany. [The Korea Times]
The first ever export of a submarine by South Korea must not have made the Chinese government very happy considering the maritime and territorial disputes they are having with Indonesia in the South China Sea. If these submarines ever do see combat it would likely be against Chinese ships:
South Korean-made submarine with Hall Number code H7712 has been released from Okpo Port on Thursday, March 24, which was witnessed by Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu along with Indonesian Ambassador for South Korea, John A. Prasetio, and Chief of Navy Staff Admiral Ade Supandi.
According to Indonesian Minister Counselor for the Indonesian Embassy in Seoul, the submarine is the first of three submarine units ordered by Indonesia to secure Indonesian territory. The construction had begun in 2013 at the Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) in Okpo, South Korea. All the process is under the supervision of task forces for submarine procurement project (Satgas Yekda KDSE DSME209) led by Col. Iwan Isnurwanto.
“Based on the contract, the first and second construction of the submarine will be done at DSME, while the third will be done at PT PAL Indonesia shipyard with a transfer of technology (Tot) process,” Aji said in a statement on Thursday.
During the third submarine development process, PT PAL Indonesia has also sent 112 engineers to DSME, South Korea, so they could be directly involved in the ToT process and development study, as well as independent submarine development via on the job training (OJT) stage.
The diesel electric submarine DSME209, which is South Korea’s first export production, is an improvement from Chang Bogo Class type submarine owned by the Republic of Korean Navy (ROK Navy) and Cakra Class submarine, which belongs to the Indonesian Navy. According to Indonesian Military Attaché of the Republic of Indonesia for Seoul, Col. Aditya Kumara, the submarine measured 61.3 meters long with a maximum speed of 21 knots underwater and has the ability to sail for more than 50 days. [Jakarta Post]
Via 10Mag come this article about how someone on the Internet is selling stickers to fight back with against all the illegal parkers in South Korea. I have seen apartment security guards use stickers on illegal parkers and they are an effective way in my opinion to discourage illegal parking:
Example of illegal parking in Korea via Flickr user night2300.
If you can’t stand illegal car parking in Korea (or anywhere for that matter), then read on:
“Have you had enough of asshole parking?” asks Parking Vigilante Korea, “If so, you’ve come to the right place.”
Parking Vigilante Korea is a new website that sells stickers designed to be attached to cars that have been parked with little to no consideration for others. Promising to both anger and embarrass guilty parties, the stickers read, “Congratulations. You’ve been chosen as a perfect example of a self-centered, entitled, asshole driver.” [10Mag]
This list sounds flawed to me coming from an American perspective, but maybe this is what a lot of Asian tourists want to do in Korea:
Visitors to Korea want most to experience street food, a survey showed Wednesday.
The state-run Korea Tourism Organization recently surveyed 4,369 foreign visitors. Of these, 54. 2 percent put street food at the top of their to-do list, followed by staying in traditional “hanok” housing and shopping at traditional markets. The fourth most anticipated experience was to visit a “jjimjilbang,” or public bathhouse. [The Korea Times]
This photo taken on March 22, 2016, shows a shamanic ritual, ” Chilmeoridangyeongdeunggut,” being staged on South Korea’s largest resort island of Jeju. The UNESCO-designated ritual, held every year in the second lunar month, welcomes the goddess of diving women and fishermen. (Yonhap)
I think this guy got off light with a 12 year sentence for trying to kill US Ambassador Mark Lippert so any more time in prison the Koreans can give him the better:
A local court on Wednesday sentenced the 56-year-old man, who attacked the top U.S. envoy to South Korea last year, to an additional 18 months in prison for assaulting prison staff.
The Seoul Central District Court found Kim Ki-jong guilty of hitting a prison officer and a surgeon when he was denied the right to go to a hospital for his ankle injury. The staff rejected Kim’s request as the injury was treatable in jail, prosecutors said.
Kim is currently serving a prison term for attacking U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert with a knife at a function in Seoul in March last year.
“The defendant denies the allegations and only emphasizes the legitimacy of his (action), without showing any remorse,” the court said.
In September, the same court sentenced the 56-year-old to 12 years in prison on a string of charges, including attempted murder. [Yonhap]
South Korea due to its small size seems like an ideal location for the use of eco-friendly and driverless cars. It will be interesting to see how this technology develops over the next few years:
President Park Geun-hye pledged Friday to support the development of self-driving cars to ensure local carmakers won’t lag behind their global competitors.
Park said South Korea can compete with Google and other foreign rivals in developing driverless cars and eco-friendly vehicles, including electric cars, citing the technological prowess of local carmakers and information and technology companies.
South Korea is the world’s fifth-largest automobile producer and is home to Hyundai Motor Co. and its smaller affiliate, Kia Motors Corp., the two flagship units of Hyundai Motor Group.
“I think our carmakers won’t lag behind global competition and (will instead) stay ahead of it,” Park said at Hyundai’s assembly plant in Asan, about 100 kilometers south of Seoul. [Yonhap]
