This was a good way for President Park to begin here visit to the US:
President Park Geun-hye on Wednesday paid tribute to Americans troops killed in the 1950-53 Korean War as she began the second day of her visit to the United States.
Park laid down wreaths at the Korean War Veterans Memorial and observed a moment of silence as a military brass band played somber music.
“I came here to convey South Koreans’ mind that (we) will not forget those who helped us when we were in trouble,” Park told a group of surviving veterans and family members of those who served in the war at the ceremony that drew about 120 people.
High-profile participants included Clifton Truman Daniel, the eldest grandson of former U.S. President Harry Truman; and retired Col. Thomas Fergusson, a grandson of Edward Almond, the late commanding general of the U.S. X Corps.
Almond helped about 98,000 North Korean refugees evacuate by deciding to dump all weapons overboard to get more refugees aboard evacuation ships at the port of Heungnam in 1950.
Park also later shook hands with some of the participants.
“You are a true hero. Countless of Koreans are alive today thanks to you,” Park told retired Rear Adm. J. Robert Lunney, who served as a crew member of the S.S. Meredith Victory that brought 14,000 North Korean refugees from Heungnam to South Korea during the war. [Yonhap]
This persistent disease continues to afflict one Korean who is the last known MERS case in South Korea:
The patient once thought to be the last South Korean with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) has been rediagnosed with the viral disease, officials said Monday.
The 35-year-old patient, who had tested negative for the MERS virus in two tests on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, has been infected again, the Health Ministry said.
Earlier in the day, the ministry said the patient had been admitted to Seoul National University Hospital with a high fever. Doctors and relatives who had come in contact with the patient, 61 individuals in total, were quarantined.
After the patient had tested negative, the government was to officially declare the end of the MERS outbreak on Oct. 29, 28 days after the test results became available.
No additional cases or fatalities from MERS had been reported since July until Monday. [Korea Times]
You can read the rest at the link, but this year a total of 36 people died of MERS in South Korea which had a mortality rate of 19.4%.
This is a pretty amazing coincidence that these two separated sisters were able to find each other after meeting at the same Florida hospital they both were working at:
Two Korean women who were separately adopted by American families when they were children miraculously reunited as they happened to work on the same floor of an American hospital, The Herald Tribune reported Saturday.
Meagan Hughes and Holly Hoyle O’Brien, who started working at Doctors Hospital of Sarasota, Florida, earlier this year, have discovered through DNA tests that they are blood-related sisters. [Korea Times]
The problem the South Korean government is trying to address with leftist history textbooks being used to teach students could have unattended consequences. At some point the Korean left is going to regain the presidency and this will set the precedent that will allow them to put their own mandated changes in the history textbooks:
A civic group stages a rally in front of the Education Ministry in Sejong City on Wednesday to protest the government’s plan to take back control over history textbooks.[NEWSIS]The presidential office and the ruling party continued on Wednesday to push a plan for the government to take control of history textbooks from private publishers, which the opposition vowed to oppose.
“President Park Geun-hye has openly showed concerns about the overall problems in Korean history education,” an official at the Blue House said on Wednesday.
He said Park issued an order to the Ministry of Education February last year to come up with a way to end distortions of historical fact and ideological biases in classrooms, including the development of new history textbooks with balanced views.
The ruling Saenuri Party announced its support for the government to take control over history textbooks for middle and high school students from private publishers.
“Current history textbooks are pushing the students deeper into a sense of defeat and making them citizens who blame everything on the society and the country,” Saenuri Chairman Kim Moo-sung said Wednesday in his speech at the World Korean Community Leaders Convention. “The most important mission for us is guiding the future generation to challenge the world with positive minds and creative thinking and develop Korea into the world’s 10th largest economy. To realize this goal, history textbooks must be published by the government.”
Currently, eight publishers develop and supply Korean history textbooks for middle and high schools. The ruling party complained over the past few years that seven of them were leaning far too left, giving biased history to the nation’s youngsters.
During a Saenuri Party senior leaders’ meeting Wednesday morning, the need to change the current history textbook system was addressed by several participants.
“History textbooks for middle and high schools, regardless of their publishers, are written consistently with an anti-Korean view that denies our history,” Chairman Kim said. “It appears to be an attempt to teach people’s revolution to the students based on a leftist world view.”
Kim also criticized specific textbooks, saying they justify the Juche, or self-reliance, ideology of the late North Korean founder Kim Il Sung(1912-1994). [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read the rest at the link, but the glorifying of North Korea in these textbooks if true needs to stop. 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 is trying to address now.
Why would anyone want the immigration problems that Sweden has?:
A world renowned scholar has called for gender equality improvements in South Korea, saying it lags behind the country’s economic advancement.
In an interview with KBS on Saturday, Swedish medical doctor and statistician Hans Rosling said United Nations’ data proves that South Korea has become an advanced nation comparable to countries like Japan or Sweden.
However, he said that in the area of gender equality, such as birth rate or the percentage of women politicians, South Korea lags behind Sweden by about 50 years.
He said the traditional thinking that women are in charge of childcare and household chores has not caught up with the nation’s economic development.
Rosling also said that accepting immigrants could be a solution to South Korea’s low birth rate and pointed out that more immigrants not only boosts population but also expands social diversity. [KBS World Radio]
Here is what this Swedish scholar wishes to impose on Korea:
Sweden takes in more refugees per capita than any other European country, and immigrants – mainly from the Middle East and Africa – now make up about 16 per cent of the population. The main political parties, as well as the mainstream media, support the status quo. Questioning the consensus is regarded as xenophobic and hateful. Now all of Europe is being urged to be as generous as Sweden.
So how are things working out in the most immigration-friendly country on the planet?
Not so well, says Tino Sanandaji. Mr. Sanandaji is himself an immigrant, a Kurdish-Swedish economist who was born in Iran and moved to Sweden when he was 10. He has a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago and specializes in immigration issues. This week I spoke with him by Skype.
“There has been a lack of integration among non-European refugees,” he told me. Forty-eight per cent of immigrants of working age don’t work, he said. Even after 15 years in Sweden, their employment rates reach only about 60 per cent. Sweden has the biggest employment gap in Europe between natives and non-natives.
In Sweden, where equality is revered, inequality is now entrenched. Forty-two per cent of the long-term unemployed are immigrants, Mr. Sanandaji said. Fifty-eight per cent of welfare payments go to immigrants. Forty-five per cent of children with low test scores are immigrants. Immigrants on average earn less than 40 per cent of Swedes. The majority of people charged with murder, rape and robbery are either first- or second-generation immigrants. “Since the 1980s, Sweden has had the largest increase in inequality of any country in the OECD,” Mr. Sanandaji said. [Globe and Mail]
Why would anyone in Korea want to sign up for this?
If you are traveling to Korea for work, the government has now implemented a three month waiting period to qualify for health insurance:
Foreigners entering Korea for employment purposes will have to wait three months to get health insurance, as will overseas Koreans.
In the past, foreigners and overseas Koreans could register for health insurance on the first day they entered the country, but from Oct. 1 they will have to wait.
The Health Ministry says the relevant law has been amended to prevent people from entering country under false pretenses to enjoy health insurance benefits and leave soon afterward. [Chosun Ilbo]
Here is another interesting ruling by South Korea’s Supreme Court that people who cheat on their spouse are not allowed to file for a no-fault divorce:
The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that the spouse directly responsible for ruining his or her marital relationship is ineligible to file for divorce, in accordance with no-fault regulations.
The highest court’s decision upheld the ruling of a lower court, which dismissed a divorce suit brought by a 68-year-old plaintiff against his 66-year-old wife.
The names of the two were not disclosed, however, according to court files, the plaintiff wed his wife in 1976 and the couple had three children together. The man then began an extra-marital affair in 1996 with another woman, with whom he had another child.
In 2000, the plaintiff moved in with his mistress, though still continued to pay living and education expenses to his original children.
He officially filed for divorce in 2011, after he was diagnosed with kidney disease and his oldest children refused to donate.
Among the 13-member panel of judges, six argued that divorce suits should be accepted in cases in which the marital relationship was undeniably ruined, while the remaining seven said it was still too premature to begin accepting divorce suits by unfaithful spouses given the parameters of current laws.
However, an unfaithful spouse, the top court added, still has the option to divorce by consent. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
