Category: Korea-General Topics

Should Korean students study abroad? http://t.co/M8HUUgSKhB pic.twitter.com/v9yf5cdM2I

— KEI (@KoreaEconInst) August 3, 2015

Is South Korea's Intelligence Agency Spying on Its Own Citizens? http://t.co/zPOIX8zCCi pic.twitter.com/kBa9fyUOJY

— The Diplomat (@Diplomat_APAC) August 3, 2015

Just when you thought this story had gone away it is back:

Cho Hyun-ah, the South Korean airline executive accused of assaulting cabin crew for serving macadamia nuts in a plastic bag, must wait until September to find out whether a lawsuit filed against her in New York is to be dismissed.

Kim Do-hee, the flight attendant on Korean Air who served Cho the nuts last December, filed a lawsuit at a Queens county court in March, South Korean outlet Newsis reported.

Kim’s lawsuit claims Cho “poured insults and assaulted [Kim] in the cabin,” and that not only was she “traumatized” by the experience but also “suffered damage to her career and reputation,” Yonhap reported.

Cho’s legal advisers requested the case be transferred to South Korea on July 13, on the premise the parties involved were South Korean nationals and all material in the investigation is written in Korean.  [UPI]

You can read the rest at the link, but at this point this all just looks like a money grab against Cho.  If this flight attended was traumatized by criticism about how to serve macadamia nuts then I would not want this flight attendant every working on an aircraft ever again anyway.  If “nut rage” was so traumatizing how would this person react during an inflight emergency?

Hacking led to intelligence on North Korea weapons, Seoul says http://t.co/uCGwZOMIJr

— Elizabeth Shim (@GlobalAsianista) July 29, 2015

This is a tough issue to address because I like the openness the Internet provides for people to share ideas, but with all the false information passed on the Internet to influence politics in South Korea I can understand why many in Korea think this law is needed.  Anyone in Korea in 2008 can remember how crazy the madcow crisis became based off of Internet speculation and false news reports:

The Constitutional Court ruled constitutional Thursday a law that mandates a user-identification system on news outlets during an election period, citing the fairness of the election.

While the online real-name verification legislation was abolished in 2012, the current Public Official Election Act requires Internet news sites, including news aggregators, to provide the system for users to input and verify their identities when posting articles either supporting or countering a candidate during 30 days of election campaigning.

The court said in a 5-4 vote that considering the public confidence and awareness of the Web sites, information distortion could happen instantly through the spread of rumors or propaganda.

As it does not take much time to go through the verification process and it guarantees the protection of users’ personal information, the clause does not infringe upon the freedom of speech nor the right to self-determination, the court said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Dead-Beat Korean Fathers of ‘Kopino’ Children Revealed Online http://t.co/RIkcsgScac

— The Grand Narrative (@JamesTurnbull) July 28, 2015

The unemployment and under-employment of young people in South Korea continues to get worse, but I have to wonder how much this has to do with jobs that younng Koreans will no longer do:

The number of young people out of work has reached a record high in the first half of this year.

Statistics Korea said on Sunday that 410-thousand people in their 20s were unemployed in the January-June period, which is the largest first-half figure since 2000 when the nation began to compile related data.

The number of unemployed young people, which posted 308-thousand in 2013 and 380-thousand last year, surpassed the 400-thousand mark this year.

Analysts attribute the rise to the sluggish economy and aftereffects of increased employment last year.

Statistics Korea said that one out of three people aged between 15 and 29 are hired for temporary or part-time posts as their first jobs.  [KBS World Radio]

As I was browsing through the Stars & Stripes archives I found this interesting nugget that the first German to gain Korean citizenship, Fritz Hohmann did so in 1967 in Yeosu of all places:

December 2, 1967 edition of the Stars & Stripes

I wonder if Mr. Hohmann decided to stay in Korea or not over the long term?  Considering that he received citizenship and changed his name to Yongbu Homan it seems he was committed to living his life out in South Korea. I hope everything worked out for the best for him.

Considering that South Korea is home to Hitler Bars it should be no surprise that anti-Semitism is so open in the media:

U.S. hedge fund Elliott Management’s bid to block the merger of two affiliates of business giant Samsung was always going to generate plenty of contentious media coverage in South Korea. Samsung Group, after all, accounts for roughly 20 percent of the country’s economy; any shakeup in its organization, or foreign move to prevent it, would be a big deal.

Less easy to predict may have been the deluge of coverage about the hedge fund’s Jewish connections. Leaning heavily on anti-Semitic tropes that would meet nods of approval on Stormfront, several media outlets honed in on the Jewish background of CEO Paul Singer, who on Friday ultimately lost his bid to convince shareholders to reject the merger.

Speaking to prominent weekly magazine Sisa Journal this week, Park Jae-seon, a former ambassador to Morocco and a current member of the preparation committee for the PyeongChang 2018 Olympics, warned of the outsized influence of Jews in global finance.

“The scary thing about Jews is they are grabbing the currency markets and financial investment companies,” he said.

Park, described as the “country’s top expert on Jews,” continued: “Their network is tight knit beyond one’s imagination.”

Mainstream outlets Money Today and YTN joined the fray with similar stereotype-laden reports. But the most egregious offender was Mediapen, which rallied against the supposed Jewish conspiracy to hurt South Korea over the course of several articles.  [The Diplomat via One Free Korea]

You can read the rest at the link, but reading what is written about Jewish business people these anti-semitic types in South Korea make them out to be the equivalent of ISIS by secretly coordinating for world domination with Samsung being one of their targets.

It will be interesting to see if this guy’s suicide note is ever released to public to see what the “national interest” information is:

An employee of South Korea’s spy agency has been found dead in his car with his will, which contains information about a hacking incident that has triggered a controversy in the country, police said Saturday.

Police said that the person identified only by his family name Lim worked for the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and was discovered around noon on a mountain road in Yongin, south of Seoul. Investigators present at the site said there was a burnt coal inside the car and no sign of forced entry, making it likely that the 45-year-old took his own life.

They also said he left a three-page, handwritten will on the front passenger seat that expressed his feelings about family and work, which included matters of “national interest.”

Police said they could not release more details about the will because relatives were opposed to the contents becoming public.

Family members reported his disappearance after Lim left home around 5 a.m. and could not be contacted, authorities said.

The apparent suicide and the will are expected to further stoke the controversy surrounding where and how the NIS used the hacking program.

The software program, which uses Remote Control System technology, allows hackers to manipulate and track smartphones and computers by installing spyware.

The NIS said it bought the program made by an Italian company in 2012 and confirmed it can be used to hack into up to 20 mobile phones simultaneously.

The NIS claimed it used the program for the purpose of strengthening cyber warfare capabilities against Pyongyang.

Such explanations, however, are met with skepticism by many in the country, and in particular, the main opposition party, which thinks the NIS used the program to spy on South Korean civilians.  [Yonhap]