There is a lesson to be learned here, don’t except drinks from strange people you just met:
Police have arrested a man for allegedly drugging a Uzbekistani women and dragging her to a Busan motel to rob her.
Police said that on Sept 13, the man, surnamed Kang, 35, approached the victim at a bus station in Oncheon-dong. He had a vending machine coffee that contained zolpidem, a sedative primarily used for insomnia.
He introduced himself to the woman as a Japanese living in Korea. Kang told police he talked with her for about an hour before giving her the coffee. After the woman fell asleep, he dragged her to a nearby hotel and stole her belongings, including a gold bracelet, police said.
Kang also allegedly stole about 10 million won ($9,060) from 12 other victims using a similar method.
Police arrested Kang at a motel in the area after going through security camera footage. [Korea Times]
This crazy leftist should be happy he only received 12 years for his attempted murder of US Ambassador Mark Lippert:
The Korean man who attacked U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert with a knife last year was sentenced to 12 years in prison for attempted murder by the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
The top court convicted 56-year-old Kim Ki-jong, who slashed the ambassador with a knife during a forum in Seoul on March 5, 2015, for attempted murder, assaulting a foreign envoy and obstruction of duty.
“It is appropriate to uphold the lower court ruling that though it was not completed, he had the intention to murder,” the court said, “taking into consideration the details of the crime and his motive, weapon of choice, the size of the knife and usage, magnitude of the attack, as well as the area attacked and its repetitiveness.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
A group of “haenyeo,” or female divers, parade as part of an event to mark the 9th Jeju Haenyeo Festival held on the southern resort island of Jeju on Sept. 24, 2016. The two-day event, which kicked off on the day, includes various activities to introduce the female divers to visitors. (Yonhap)
Here is an update on the Hanjin Shipping bankruptcy, the Korean government is trying to get Hanjin’s former chairwoman to cough up more personal funds to help cover some of the bankruptcy costs:
Choi Eun-young, former chairwoman of Hanjin Shipping, kneels and cries during a parliamentary hearing Tuesday. [NEWSIS]Choi Eun-young, former chairwoman of Hanjin Shipping, refused at a parliamentary hearing late Tuesday to cough up additional funds from her personal assets to help save the world’s seventh-largest container carrier.
On Sept. 12, Choi vowed to provide 10 billion won ($9.1 million) in private funds to cash-strapped Hanjin help tide the company over during the ongoing crisis. She knelt in front of lawmakers at the hearing at the Sejong Government Complex Tuesday, when Park Wan-joo, a lawmaker with the opposition Minjoo Party, berated her.
“You dragged up Hanjin Shipping’s debt ratio from 155 percent to 1,445 percent during your term and now you are saying you cannot donate your own assets because [Hanjin Group] Chairman Cho Yang-ho has been in charge since 2014?” Park asked. “Do you think you have served your responsibility? You are supposed to be sincere when making apologies.”
“I am sorry if I appear I am not properly apologizing. I apologize from the bottom of my heart,” she said, falling to her knees and sobbing with her head down for half a minute. “But [coughing up more of my fortune] would be difficult because it may wreak havoc with the management of Eusu Holdings.”
She currently is chairwoman of Eusu Holdings, which was split when she gave up oversight of Hanjin Shipping in May 2014. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but according to the article she is worth anywhere from $40-$180 million dollars.
This defection is actually pretty unusual since it is only the third defection of a North Korean soldiers in the past four years:
A North Korean soldier defected Thursday across the Demilitarized Zone dividing the peninsula, the South Korean military said.
The soldier crossed the military demarcation line at about 10 a.m. inside the 2.5-mile-wide DMZ, a military official confirmed, speaking on condition of anonymity according to department policy.
The military is investigating how and why the soldier defected, the official said, adding he could not provide more details.
South Korea has reported an increasing number of defectors from the North this year as the isolated country’s ruler Kim Jong Un seeks to tighten his grip on power. [Stars & Stripes]
I wonder what the backstory on this was? Was this simply just someone forgetting to pay the bills?:
U.S. Forces Korea paid South Korea’s main electricity company nearly $2 million this week after a report that it was overdue on its bills for the year.
USFK had failed to pay 1.9 billion won worth of electricity bills from January to July, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported over the weekend. It cited data submitted by the Korea Electric Power Corp., known as KEPCO, to the National Assembly’s Trade, Industry and Energy Committee.
A KEPCO official told Stars and Stripes the utility received 1.6 billion won from USFK on Monday and 2.8 million won on Thursday. That amounts to about $1.7 million.
The military still owes some money, the official said without providing a specific amount. The KEPCO official spoke on condition of anonymity. [Stars & Stripes]
What I am wondering is why were these people allowed to operate in the U.K. in the first place considering North Korea’s long history of using insurance fraud to bring in foreign currency:
Britain has effectively deported two London-based officials of North Korea’s state insurance firm by refusing to renew their visas after the firm was slapped with sanctions in the wake of Pyongyang’s January nuclear test, a diplomatic source said.
In April, Britain blacklisted the North’s Korea National Insurance Corp. and its London office in line with European Union sanctions imposed after the North’s fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in February.
“It’s part of implementation of sanctions to deny visas for those working for a sanctioned entity,” a source said. [Yonhap]
Tourists look at Cheomseongdae, a 1,300-year-old astronomical observatory in Gyeongju, some 370 kilometers southeast of Seoul, on Sept. 23, 2016, as the historical city tries to recover from property damage caused by a recent series of earthquakes. (Yonhap)
![Choi Eun-young, former chairwoman of Hanjin Shipping, kneels and cries during a parliamentary hearing Tuesday. [NEWSIS]](https://i0.wp.com/pds.joins.com/jmnet/koreajoongangdaily/_data/photo/2016/09/28212843.jpg?resize=320%2C340)
