The left in the US continues to make the claim that President Park Geun-hye is becoming a dictator like her father. They rhetoric is clearly meant to be inflammatory and draw a response and the Korean consulate in New York City was stupid enough to take the bait:
Tim Shorrock
The main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy on Monday demanded the government offer an apology for a claim by a U.S. weekly that the South Korean consul general in New York protested an article criticizing President Park Geun-hye.
The newspaper, the New York-based Nation, ran a story last week lambasting the Park administration’s crackdown on antigovernment protesters, likening her approach to the authoritarian rule of her deceased father and late strongman, Park Chung-hee.
The writer, Tim Shorrock, since wrote a post on his Facebook account on a “spate of phone calls” that he received from his editor about a complaint lodged by the consulate general, saying officials there wanted to have a meeting “to discuss” his article.
“What a disgraceful self-portrait of Korea. I have to question if they are trying to export a Korean-style censorship to the U.S.,” NPAD floor leader Rep. Jun Byung-hun said at a senior members’ meeting. “As it is not a matter borne out of the consulate general, I demand a proper explanation and grave apology from the government.”
NPAD lawmaker Jung Cheong-rae also said: “It’s a shame that the reporter exposed via Facebook that the consulate general officials called the newsroom to complain about the story and requested a meeting with the editor. We’re urging a probe into the consulate general officials.” [Korea Herald]
You can read the rest at the link, but how stupid can you be to take the troll bait coming from a publication like The Nation? Anyone that follows the news in the US knows not to expect any unbiased reporting in The Nation. This is like complaining to Sean Hannity about not having unbiased reporting on President Obama. Anyway here is the link to the article in the Nation by Tim Shorrock which continues the leftist claims of South Korea becoming a dictatorship again which as I have explained before is absolutely ridiculous.
I sure don’t remember the left complaining that South Korea was becoming a dictatorship when President Roh Moo-hyun was busy putting down protests around Camp Humphreys or in Incheon around the MacArthur Statue which featured Braveheart style battles. The claim is as stupid as the people who claim President Obama is setting himself up to be a dictator. It is just propaganda best left to echo chamber media and not taken seriously.
This seems to happen to every national health insurance program, at some point taxes have to be raised to make up for increased costs which is difficult politically for politicians to do. Thus they begin to run into deficits:
Major forms of social insurance in South Korea are threatened with unsustainability. Health insurance finances in particular are set to run out in ten years without an increase in premiums or cuts to payouts. On this basis, the administration has argued for raising premiums and reducing benefits – an approach it is billing as “the right cost, the right payout.”But with income and generational differences poised to generate conflict over any social insurance changes, no matter how badly needed, the issue is now likely to be a key concern on the upcoming political calendar, and the 2016 parliamentary and 2017 presidential elections in particular.
On Dec. 4, the administration published a report on South Korea’s long-term financial prospects through the year 2060. The analysis focused on the future financial situation based on the current economic growth rate and changes in the population structure, assuming no or only minor changes in the social insurance system. It marks the first time an administration has ever published financial predictions for a date so many decades away. [Hankyoreh]
I don’t really see the purpose of a glass bridge but the city of Chuncheon is about to spend a bunch of money to make one anyway:
Chuncheon City will build the country’s largest skywalk in order to enable visitors the opportunity to stroll above the water.
The city in Gangwon Province plans to spend six-point-eight billion won to construct the Soyang Skywalk near the Statue of Soyang River Maiden at the waterfront of Lake Euiam.
The 174-meter facility will stretch to the heart of the lake, with the 140-meter section being a glass walkway. [KBS World Radio]
It is good to see the anti-government protests this weekend did not turn violent like the last ones. I do have to chuckle in regards to the opinion of how many people showed up. The protesters say they had 50,000 while the police say there was 14,000. At least the discrepancy isn’t as bad as all the million man marches in the US where there is only a few thousand people actually there:
Tens of thousands of protesters held a massive rally Saturday to protest the government’s move to adopt state history textbooks and push for labor reform and it ended without any clashes with police.
The rally, the second of its kind in three weeks, brought together about 14,000 participants who gathered at Seoul Plaza in central Seoul and marched peacefully, according to police. Organizers put the number at some 50,000.
The focal point of the rally was whether the rally would turn violent as some participants at the Nov. 14 one brandished metal pipes, clashing with police who fired water cannons at them.
A farmer still remains in critical condition after being knocked down by a police water cannon.
Organizers vowed to hold Saturday’s rally in a peaceful manner, while police also warned that they will take stern action if the rally turns violent. [Yonhap]
So does anyone agree with the Korean court that the KCTU can be trusted to hold a peaceful rally this weekend in Seoul?:
A court has ruled against a police move to ban a rally planned for Saturday in central Seoul by civic, labor and farmers groups that held a massive anti-government demonstration on Nov. 14.
The Seoul Administrative Court said Thursday that it had accepted the request from the groups to annul the police ban on their second rally.
The decision comes five days after police announced a prohibition of the Dec. 5 rally requested by the groups, including the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), citing a possible repeat of the violence between police and protesters at the previous demonstration.
“It is unreasonable to presume that the second rally will be violent only because the organizers are the same to the first one,” the court said. “The organizers have repeatedly said they will hold the second one peacefully.” [Korea Times]
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]
