Category: Korea-General Topics

Reading the details of this bomb found at Incheon International Airport makes it sound like this may have been more of a hoax then some warning from a Islamic extremist group.  I am sure the ROK authorities are scouring over video footage to try and pin point who left the device and hopefully we will get answer soon:

Police said Saturday that they have found a warning message written in Arabic inside a box recently discovered at South Korea’s main airport that raised terror alarms in the country.

The message, which was written in Arabic on a sheet of paper half the size of A4, reads, “This is the last warning to you. God will punish.”

It was not a handwritten but a printed sentence with some grammatical errors, according to the police, who suspected that it could have been translated by a computer program or by a person whose Arabic skill is not that good.

The discovery was announced a day after the police found a box suspected to contain explosive devices in a men’s bathroom in Incheon International Airport.

The area was cordoned off, but no explosives or detonators were found, just with two butane canisters and one bottled water taped to it.

Also found inside the box, along with the warning message, were guitar strings, electric cords, batteries and some pieces of vegetables, the police said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

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It will be interesting to see who Korean-Americans support in this year’s Presidential election.  Hopefully it is now for someone who wants the tried and failed policy of engaging North Korea and receiving little to nothing in return:

The U.S. presidential election in November is expected to be like no other. As the flamboyant candidates are currently challenging one another on a range of issues from immigration to foreign policy, many say that this year’s race is expected to be pivotal not only for Americans, but also for Koreans as well.

A prominent Korean-American political activist says it will also be significant for Koreans in Korea.

“Eligible Korean voters living in the U.S. have the capacity to have an influence on Washington’s various policies that directly affect Korea,” said Kim Dong-suk, founder and chairman of New York-based Korean American Civic Empowerment (KACE), in an interview. “In that sense, this year will be a turning point for all of us.”

He said that the ethnic minority vote will become an increasingly decisive factor in changing the outcome of U.S. elections, which means American politicians must appeal to people in all Asian communities, including Koreans.  [Korea Times]

I would hope the majority of Korean-Americans are not thinking like this:

Paul Lee, chairman of the Bergen County Republican Committee (KARC), based in New Jersey, agrees that the election should be an opportunity for the Korean Peninsula to get the “fair analysis it deserves.”

“The U.S. is now talking to Cuba and Iran,” said Lee, who heads the committee that is under the umbrella of a local Republican party organization. “Is North Korea that much more crazy? Have we really made an effort to end the war in Korea? Whoever wins the White House, whether they’re a Republican or Democrat, they need to tackle the North Korea issue.”

North Korea is not crazy, but the Kim regime is definitely more oppressive and dangerous than the Iranians or Cubans.  Also has Mr. Lee not been paying attention to all the overture to North Korea that have gone no where other then providing free goodies to the Kim regime to allow them to further their nuclear and ballistic missile programs?

Here is a long, but interesting article about what is going on in the Seoul real estate market in regards to the jeonse rent system that continues to see higher prices which is causing renters to instead become buyers.  This is in turn is making the jeonse rent go even higher and causing apartment shortages:

Up until last fall, 39-year-old office worker Kim Ji-seok was renting his apartment in Nowon District, northern Seoul under a jeonse agreement, a long-term deposit contract that is usually guaranteed for two years.

At the end of the summer, however, he bought a 59 square-meter apartment nearby for 320 million won ($267,468).

He decided to buy a house after his 220 million won jeonse rose nearly 30 percent to 280 million won in just two years. “I had to borrow 50 million won from the bank just to renew my jeonse contract,” Kim said. “I just decided to buy an apartment of my own as it seemed the jeonse price would again go up after two years.”

The housing market last year saw all-time record transactions as people like Kim, who were living on jeonse agreements, decided to finally buy an apartment. [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.

Basically these international marriage brokers are using socially awkward people from the lower economic class in Korea to make money by setting up marriages that have no chance of succeeding.  Additionally many of these women appear to be using many of the same tricks that juicy girls in the ville use to fleece money out of soldiers:

Ahn argued that the government fails to protect its own citizens from illegal brokers, who he claimed deliberately approached those who are socially marginalized.

“The government should illegalize all private international marriage agencies,” he said.

South Korea in 2010 introduced a new law on international marriage agencies with a strengthened screening process. All brokers are now required to translate their clients’ certified documents of legal marital status, health conditions and criminal records and provide them to their potential spouses.

The number of such couples has dropped since then, from 35,098 in 2010 to 24,387 in 2014 — the lowest since 2003. The proportion of Korean men who were at least 10 years senior to their foreign wives has also dropped. In 2014 they made up 37.5 percent of the total, down from 44.8 percent in 2012.

Still, Korean men who married foreign brides through brokers took up 25 percent of all international marriages as of 2012, according to the latest Gender Equality Ministry data. Notably, 75.7 percent of those who married Cambodian women, and 65.8 percent of Korean husbands who married Vietnamese wives, and 40 percent of those who married women from Uzbekistan met their wives through matchmaking agencies. Over 85 percent of marriage migrants here are women, as of 2014.

Statistics also show that international marriages ended more in divorce here. Korean couples on average stayed together for 14.3 years in 2014, compared to an average of 6.4 years among international couples. Half of the divorced Korean husbands said their foreign wives ran away from home, thereby ending the marriage, according to a 2012 government report.  [Korea Herald]

You can read much more at the link.

I actually remember the last time it got this cold in Korea back in January 2001 because I was out in the field during that time freezing in a bradley turret:

South Korea on Sunday experienced the coldest weather this winter with temperatures dropping to record lows.

The temperature in Seoul fell to minus 18 degrees Celsius, the lowest since Jan. 15, 2001, when the mercury dropped to minus 18.6 degrees, the Korea Meteorological Administration said.

On Saturday, the agency issued a cold wave warning for Seoul for the first time in five years. Such a warning is issued if the morning low drops at least 15 degrees from the previous day and at least 3 degrees compared with the average year, or if the temperature remains below minus 15 degrees for two or more days.

Other parts of the country, including Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, near Seoul, were also subject to the warnings.  [Yonhap]

You can read more about the weather closures in South Korea at the link.

It looks like a lot of Korean women are willing to put up with sexual harassment for various reasons:

Nearly half of women tend not to raise the alarm when they are subjected to sexual harassment because they fear the consequences, a survey suggests.

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea polled 450 working women and 350 female university students.

Some 40.2 percent of respondents said they would not raise the issue when they are sexually harassed. Fear of the complaints rebounding on their own reputation was the biggest reason with 20.8 percent of the group, and fear of a negative impact on their career came second with 14.4 percent.

Fear of more emotional distress came in third with 13.8 percent, while 10.2 percent said they would find the prospect of having to face the aggressor too difficult.  [Chosun Ilbo]

The CSIS report favors deploying the THAAD missile defense system to South Korea.  I think it is pretty clear that there is no debate left on the military utility of deploying the THAAD system to Korea, it is strictly a political issue at this point:

A Congress-commissioned study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has recommended deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) anti-ballistic missile system in South Korea in light of the growing missile threat from Pyongyang.

The Thaad system provides a “valuable capability” for South Korea, the Washington-based think tank said in its January report reviewing U.S. defense strategy in the Asia-Pacific region.

However, it added, “Chinese demarches have made the potential U.S. deployment of Thaad on the Korean Peninsula a sensitive issue for Seoul, despite the fact that South Korea has no area defense capabilities against North Korean ballistic missiles.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read much more at the link.

It looks like unless the KTU gets rid of the fired teachers that it maintains on its rolls it will not be recognized by the government as a legitimate union.  For those unfamiliar with KTU the government decided to take action against the union due to its anti-Park government and pro-North Korean agenda that led to teacher firings.  ROK Heads may also remember that the KTU has a long history of teaching anti-Americanism in the classroom as well:

The Seoul High Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the government’s decision to outlaw a progressive teachers’ union, dealing a blow to the group’s two-year legal battle to stay alive.

The appellate court’s decision to uphold a lower court’s ruling to outlaw the Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union (KTU) effectively removed the legal rights the group has enjoyed since September 2014, when the Seoul High Court issued an injunction to suspend the government’s decision to outlaw the group.

The high court’s decision was expected given a Constitutional Court ruling last year that Article 2 of the Teachers’ Labor Union Law, which bans dismissed teachers from having union memberships, was constitutional. That was the issue that led to the government’s outlawing of the KTU. The KTU argued that the article violated the basic rights of teachers.

“In accordance with the ruling by the Constitutional Court, a claim by the plaintiff that Article 2 of the Teachers’ Labor Union Law was unconstitutional cannot be legally accepted,” said the court Thursday.

The court said the KTU was required to comply with the article that prohibits it from allowing fired teachers to be members.

“As it is apparent that the KTU has been accepting non-education workers as its members, the labor ministry’s notice to outlaw the group is not against the law,” the court added.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.

Everyone in Korea get ready to bundle up:

The nation will likely experience its coldest weather conditions so far on the weekend.

The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) said on Wednesday that the cold wave will abate temporarily on Thursday and Friday, but a severe cold spell will grip the nation from Saturday to Monday.

The weather agency forecast that many parts of the nation will have the coldest weather on Sunday.

The cold wave is expected to begin easing up starting next Tuesday.  [KBS World Radio]