What I am wondering is how many other well connected Korean kids received special treatment to attend Ewha Women’s University as well? I seriously doubt Choi’s daughter is the only one to receive special treatment during the admissions process:
Chung Yoo-ra, the horseback rider daughter of Choi Soon-sil, President Park Geun-hye’s longtime friend (Yonhap)
Chung Yoo-ra, the daughter of President Park Geun-hye’s embattled confidante Choi Soon-sil, was illegally admitted to a prestigious university in Seoul and was also given special treatment in academic records after enrollment, the Education Ministry confirmed Friday.
In a briefing to release the result of the audit of Ewha University and its faculty members, the ministry said that the school manipulated its admission process to accept Chung and she was given overly generous marks despite not attending classes, taking exams and turning in assignments.
Chung is a 19-year-old horseback rider and the daughter of Choi, the civilian accused of peddling influence and meddling in state affairs through her ties to Park. [Korea Herald]
I would hope these passengers would have showed some better respect if they knew the “special military family” were in fact a gold-star family. Regardless I have been on many flights where people who needed to catch connecting flights were allowed to de-board early to catch their flights and have never heard of anyone booing them:
The father of a soldier who was killed last weekend in Afghanistan was disappointed and hurt after airline passengers booed him and his family as they flew to meet his son’s remains.
Stewart Perry, an ex-Marine who lives in Stockton, said the ordeal left him feeling disrespected.
“It was really disgusting on the passengers’ part,” he said Friday.
His son, Sgt. John Perry, was one of two killed in an explosion at a United States airbase on Nov. 12. He was honored at a memorial service in Lodi on Thursday and will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery. (……….)
Stewart Perry said he, his wife, Kathy, and daughter were flying on an American Airlines flight from Sacramento on Monday to Philadelphia, with a quick transfer in Phoenix. From Philadelphia, they traveled to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to receive his son’s remains.
For unknown reasons, Perry said, the flight to Phoenix was 45 minutes late. The crew feared the delay might cause the Perrys miss their connecting flight.
So, when the plane landed in Phoenix, the captain made an announcement for all passengers to remain seated and to let a “special military family” exit the aircraft first, Perry said.
Several passengers in first class began to boo and complain, Perry said.
“Some people were saying ‘This is just baloney,’ and ‘I paid for first-class for this?’ ”
He said American Airlines “did everything they could” to accommodate his family. [RecordNet.com]
People opposing the resignation of President Park Geun-hye march toward Namdaemun Gate, an iconic landmark from the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) and South Korea’s National Treasure No. 1, in Seoul on Nov. 19, 2016. Park has been under pressure to step down over a nation-rocking political scandal involving her and her longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil. (Yonhap)
This guy definitely went off the deep end. If he wanted to defect it would have been easier for him to fly to China and walk into North Korea that way:
On November 15, a North Korean defector known as Mr. A was caught while trying to re-enter North Korea in Yeoncheon County, Gyeonggi Province. Following the incident, the relevant government departments including the police and the Ministry of Unification have made statements urging more proactive approaches toward helping defectors experiencing difficulties in settling down.
According to the police and the military, Mr. A was caught on CCTV near a fence under the jurisdiction of the 25th Division of Yeoncheon Province in the afternoon of November 15, and was arrested by a dispatched force. The military handed Mr. A over to the police as he is a civilian.
Mr. A is known to have defected from North Korea in 2001 and settled in South Korea. He is married to a female North Korean defector and had been working as an assistant driver of a forklift while living in Ulsan. During the police interrogation, he is reported to have said that as he was suffering from economic hardship and his marital relations had broken down, he wished to re-enter North Korea under the belief that life across the border would be better for him.’ [NK Daily]
I don’t see how South Korea can be considered a low cost manufacturing country especially considering the KORUS FTA has made it cheaper for them to manufacture in the US compared to South Korea:
Trump hasn’t spelled out how he wants to rearrange NAFTA, but the basic idea is to encourage or compel more production in the United States, which would mean less production in places like Mexico. But that would be highly disruptive and would penalize American automakers more than their foreign rivals. Trump could probably rewrite the rules in a way that limits Mexican imports to the United States, for instance. But that doesn’t mean automakers would simply move Mexican factories north of the border. They might look for other low-cost countries instead, such as South Korea, India or China. The Trump administration could pursue trade restrictions on those countries as well, but that becomes a game of free-trade whack-a-mole in which the government is trying to tell multinational companies where to invest their money—hardly the lightly regulated pro-growth environment Trump says he wants to create.
If Trump tries to stop US automakers from producing in Mexico, that doesn’t mean he can stop foreign automakers from operating there. So the government would essentially be raising costs for American firms by forcing them out of Mexico, but not for their global competitors. [Yahoo Finance]
I wonder if these two American figure skaters would be given dual citizenship or will they have to renounce their US citizenship?:
South Korea will likely grant citizenship to four foreign athletes in preparation of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
The Korean Sport and Olympic Committee met Wednesday to discuss the issue at the Korean National Training Center in northeastern Seoul.
The four include two American figure skaters, Alexander Gamelin and Themistocles Leftheris, and two Russian biathletes.
The two American figure skaters paired with South Korean partners and have been competing in ISU championships as South Korean teams since June of last year. [KBS World Radio]
A section of Haeundae Beach on the southeastern port city of Busan bears the marks of being submerged on Nov. 16, 2016, apparently affected by an unusually high tide stemming from the pull of the recent supermoon, which happens when a full moon or new moon coincides with the moon’s closest approach to Earth. (Yonhap)
