This is one of these only in Korea stories where Buddhists are in conflict with leftist anti-government thugs who are hiding from authorities in their temple:
A monk at Jogye Temple in downtown Seoul tries to calm down a devotee, who is urging Korean Confederation of Trade Unions head Han Sang-gyun to stop seeking refuge there, in the temple’s grounds which are milling with Buddhists, civic activists and journalists, Tuesday. / Yonhap
Calls are mounting from citizens who attend the Jogye Temple for the head of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), Han Sang-gyun, who has taken refuge from police there, to stop “abusing” the place in pursuit of a political agenda and face investigation.
Such objections are rare, as the temple and other religious facilities have long been used in Korea as sanctuaries for social activists on the run from the authorities.
The head of the nation’s second-largest umbrella union is on the police’s wanted list for refusing to appear in court on charges of organizing illegal rallies. While evading police, he appeared at the massive anti-government rally in Seoul on Nov. 14 and then took refuge at the temple.
As he has remained there for over two weeks, frustration is running high among those who go to the temple because it has become the center of a political confrontation and is surrounded by more than 500 police officers and a large number of media crews.
During his stay, Han has continued to be active online, including posting a message calling for another massive rally on Dec. 5.
According to the temple, a group of Buddhists attempted to forcibly kick the labor activist out of the temple Monday afternoon, saying Han and the KCTU were disturbing their right to meditate in silence. But the effort failed, because Han vigorously resisted during a scuffle. Approximately 10 other KCTU leaders who had taken refuge in the temple with Han were all forced out. This was the first attempt by citizens who use the temple, not law enforcement authorities, to force the activists to leave. [Korea Times]
In a sweeping revision of Korea’s tax system, the government plans to tax religious leaders for the first time and change regulations governing “corporate cars.”
The revisions were proposed at the taxation subcommittee of the Strategy and Finance Committee of the National Assembly on Monday.
In a move to be approved by the National Assembly on Wednesday, the government said it will begin collecting income tax from pastors, clergy and monks starting in 2018. The decision comes after long-standing discussions on the sensitive issue over the past 50 years.
“We decided to take the next two years as a time to prepare for the new rule, since it is the first time that Korea has implemented such a law,” Rep. Kang Seog-hoon of the ruling Saenuri Party said. “During the two years, we will keep communicating with religious groups so that the policy can settle down without turbulence.”
The revision categorizes income of religious leaders as “religious income,” instead of what is currently classified as an “honorarium,” and it will be collected under the same conditions as regular workers’ income. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
I don’t see any issue with the high dependence on nuclear power as long as the reactors are safely designed unlike what we saw at Fukushima:
South Korea’s reliance on nuclear power is the fourth-largest in the world while its use of renewable energy ranks near the bottom, a report showed Monday.
According to the World Factbook by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Asia’s fourth-largest economy possessed a total installed power generation capacity of 94 gigawatts (GW), placing it 13th in the world. The country’s annual electricity generation output stood at 517 terawatts (TW) placing it 11th, while it ranked 10th in terms of consumption at 482TW.
The numbers represent power generated by thermal and nuclear power plants, hydro-electric dams and renewable energy sources.
The European Union’s combined installed power capacity stood at 9,071GW, with China and the United States ranking second and third with capacitites of 1,505GW and 1,063GW each.
South Korea’s power capacity and consumption of electricity is roughly on par with its global GDP ranking that stood at 13th last year.
On the other hand, the country’s reliance on atomic power to meet its energy requirements was high.
The country receives 26.8 percent of all power from nuclear reactors, placing it behind France, Armenia and Belgium. France received 48.8 percent of its power from reactors with numbers for Armenia and Belgium standing at 34.3 percent and 30.4 percent, respectively. [Korea Times]
Hopefully it does not come this, but it would be interesting to see what the reaction in South Korea would be to a Paris style ISIS terrorist attack? Fortunately it would be logistically very difficult for ISIS to pull off such an attack with the limited access to guns in South Korea. That is why if they did try an attack I would think an explosive or fire in a confined area with a lot of people is the route they would go:
The so-called Islamic State has once again included Korea on a list of potential targets of terror attacks.
In a video clip on Wednesday, Korea was included among 60 countries belonging to what ISIS calls a “global coalition” that also includes the U.S., Japan and France.
In September, Dabiq, ISIS’ glossy propaganda magazine, named Korea among 62 countries that are supposedly part of a new “crusader coalition” and targeted for potential terror attacks.
The latest list includes two new targets — Russia and China — that were for some reason not on the list earlier. [Chosun Ilbo]
By the way I did notice that North Korea did not make the list. I wonder if Kim Jong-un feels left out?
This sounds like an off the cuff remark that President Park should not have said because as bad as the KCTU is they are not ISIS. With that said if the KCTU would not hold violent protests there would be no need for masks in the first place:
South Korean President Park Geun Hye on Tuesday (Nov 24) called for a ban on masks at demonstrations, less than two weeks after huge anti-government protests rocked Seoul, as she warned “terrorist elements” may infiltrate demonstrations.
The president also drew parallels between masked protesters and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) – prompting organisers of the recent rally to say her comments had left them “speechless”.
More than 60,000 people protested against the conservative government’s push for labour reform and state-issued history textbooks in Seoul on Nov 14, in the biggest protest in the country for nearly a decade.
Many scuffled with police, who responded with water cannon and liquid pepper spray, leaving dozens injured and one protester in a critical condition.
Police have come under fire for what critics describe as excessive use of force, while about 200 demonstrators are being investigated after dozens of police buses were damaged.
Park described the clashes on Nov 14 as an “unacceptable” incident and called for “strong measures” against the protesters, especially those in masks.
“At a time when acts of terrorism are taking many lives around the world, some terrorist elements may sneak into such protests and pose a threat to the lives of our people,” she said at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
“In particular, masks in protests should not be tolerated. Isn’t that what the ISIS is doing these days, with their faces hidden like that?” she added. [New Straits Times]
I saw this posted over at the Marmot’s Hole about how a professor from Sejong University Park Yu-ha was charged without detention for writing her book “Comfort Women of the Empire”. What crime did she commit writing this book? The crime was defamation due to her attempting to accurately portray an unbiased history of the comfort women issue:
“she wrote the book in an attempt to re-portray them in light of the variety of testimonies provided by former comfort women. She said their words opened her eyes to the sheer diversity of the circumstances and experiences of Korean comfort women, and to the bigger picture of ‘an empire and its colony.’
“Park believes that Japan did not recruit comfort women in Korea, which was part of Japan from Tokyo’s perspective, in quite the same way that it did on the front lines and in occupied areas, such as in the Philippines. In those areas, records show that Japanese soldiers were directly involved in the forcible and violent taking away of comfort women. ‘Many of the Korean comfort women were apparently recruited while being cheated by agents of prostitution, some of whom were Koreans, or being sold by their parents,’ Park said. ‘While some have testified they were forcibly taken away by military personnel, I suppose that such cases, if there were any, were exceptional.’
But Park emphasized that Japan is not exempt from its responsibility for the comfort women, who were taken to ‘comfort stations’ against their will and experienced pain. That is because she sees the relationship of an empire and a colony in the backdrop of the Korean comfort women issue. [Asahi Shimbun]
You can read the rest at the link, but the Korean public likes to think that all the comfort women were girls sleeping in bed and kidnapped by evil Japanese soldiers while the Japanese rightists like to think they were all willing prostitutes. Both historical narratives are untrue if one really looks at the history.
What Professor Park writes about is the same historical narrative that Sarah Soh wrote about in her book “The Comfort Women“. In the book Soh provides documented evidence that most of the Korean women put into the comfort women system were sold by Korean brokers. The actual kidnapping of Korean women by Japanese soldiers would be a very rare occurrence when the broker system made so many of these women readily available. This does not absolve the Imperial Japanese from responsibility since they ran the comfort woman system that provided the demand for the Korean brokers to meet. To make even worse is that many of these girls were teenagers when sold into prostitution. I see no way that a young teenager should be considered a willing prostitute. Especially when many girls were sold by their families into prostitution for money due to the extreme poverty. This was actually a practice that was going on well into the US military era in South Korea.
It is pretty clear that the comfort women issue is not black and white, but has more nuance to it then each side is willing to admit. Ultimately the Imperial Japanese government was responsible for the actions of the Korean brokers that supplied the majority of the Korean girls. The Imperial Japanese had to have known how young the girls were and the unethical and deceptive actions the Korean brokers were taking to make them available to the Japanese military. There is no need to rewrite the history of what happened to the comfort women when the truth is bad enough.
The Joong Ang Ilbo is continuing its fascinating series of interviews with the 89 year old former Korean Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil. This next interview describes how Kim Jong-pil started the first tangerine orchard on Jeju Island and started his own cattle ranch which was ultimately seized by the military dictator Chun Doo-hwan:
Kim Jong-pil visits an orchard on Shikoku Island, Japan, in November 1968 to learn about the tangerine farming for his orchard on Jeju Island. [Kim Jong-pil]During my 46-day confinement at the Army Security Command in 1980, only once did I cry. It was after I heard the news that the security command had announced in corruption charges that I had illegally accumulated 21.6 billion won ($18.6 million). A number of my assets were to be confiscated included a tangerine orchard on Jeju Island and a cattle ranch in South Chungcheong that I had donated to the Unjong Scholarship Foundation. I could not keep myself from crying after learning of the Chun Doo Hwan group’s perfidy. During my lifetime, I shed tears just a few times. I cried at the funeral for President Park Chung Hee in 1979. Recently, I cried when my wife Young-ok passed away.I shed tears in the interrogation room 35 years ago because the Chun group took away my dreams and ambition. Though 35 years have passed, I feel compelled to raise the issue in regard to the Unjong Scholarship Foundation. In May 1968, I declared my retirement from politics and relinquished all formal positions. I was determined to contribute to the improvement of the country through other means. I remembered a line from a book on Napoleon that I had read in middle school. The Duke of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon in the battle of Waterloo, was asked how he had beaten the French emperor. He said he had fought in the spirit of Eton College and the victory was possible because of what he had learned on that school’s playing fields. His remark inspired me deeply and led me to nurture ambitions that I would one day set up a school just like Eton.
To set up an educational institution, I needed financial means. So I decided on a pioneering farming venture. In June 1968, I visited a vast track of land in Seogwipo, Jeju Island, and decided to turn it into a tangerine orchard. Agricultural experts told me I would fail and said the land was not suitable to such farming. But I pushed ahead. I bought 430,000 square meters of land for 32.5 million won. The price was very cheap because everyone thought the land was infertile. I deployed a crane and even dynamite to break through rock. I set up a tent nearby and spent the whole winter of 1968 there. I purchased 49,840 tangerine seedlings from Japan and planted them. About three years later, they bore fruit. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read the rest at the link which includes how he started his cattle ranch in Seosan and how Chun Doo-hwan seized these two agricultural properties from him.
