It is interesting how there are companies marketing products for whiter skin to darker skinned people while countries with people with whiter skin promote tanning services to give customers darker skin.  This may have less to do with racism and more do to with classism if that is even a word.  In Korea people with whiter skin were thought more highly of because it meant they weren’t farmers working out in the fields all day thus from a higher social class.  It could be the same rationale in Thailand.  Are there any ROK Heads familiar with Thailand that can comment on this?

The video advert of a skin whitening pill in Thailand was denounced by many Internet users as racist for carrying the tagline ‘You just need to be white to win.’

After receiving widespread criticism, the maker of the ‘Snowz’ whitening pill removed the ad from YouTube and issued a public apology.

The advert featured a Thai actress attributing her success to her white skin. She added that her popularity will suffer if she loses her whiteness, thus explaining the need for her to use whitening products like Snowz.

The ad ends with the now infamous tagline ‘You just need to be white to win.’  [Global Voices]

You can read more at the link.

Korea is the latest country to allow terminally ill patients to end treatment if they so desire:

The National Assembly on Friday passed the Death with Dignity Act, which allows certain life-sustaining medical treatments for terminally ill patients to be stopped. The act will take effect in January 2018.

The National Assembly convened both the Legislation and Judiciary Committee and a plenary session on Friday to vote on the bill. At the plenary session, 202 out of 203 lawmakers attending approved the bill, with one abstaining.

It has taken 19 years for the act to pass.

The issue was first brought up in 1997, after a doctor at SMG-SNU Boramae Medical Center was indicted on a charge of abetting homicide after allowing a terminally ill patient to be discharged.

According to the act, terminally ill patients or their family can make the decision to end four life-sustaining medical treatments – cardiopulmonary resuscitation, hemodialysis, anti-cancer treatment and artificial respiration – if the patients have no chance of being cured or recovering. Doctors will not be punished if they stop these four life-sustaining medical treatments if patients or their families request they be stopped. [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.

Successful defections peaked in 2009 at 2,914.
Since then decreased by > 50%, particularly in KJU era, mostly due to increased border sec.

— Sokeel Park 박석길 (@Sokeel) January 11, 2016

People sleep next to a bronze statue of a girl symbolizing the so-called “comfort women’ issue in front of the site of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on Jan. 12, 2016, as they stage a sit-in protest to oppose a recent landmark deal between South Korea and Japan over women who were forced to work in Japan’s military brothels during World War II and Japan’s demand that the statue be removed. (Yonhap)

The mass refugee issue is why I believe if the regime was to collapse the DMZ should remain in place to stop a mass population movement to the South.  It would be up to the ROK to quickly move and distribute aid to the North which would help mitigate a mass population movement:

U.S. experts have urged South Korea and the U.S. to jointly devise measures to improve assimilation of North Korean defectors to other countries in the event of a North Korean collapse.

Olivia Enos and Bruce Klingner, researchers at the conservative U.S. think tank the Heritage Foundation, released a report titled “Next Steps for Human Rights in North Korea” on Tuesday.

The report said the U.S. must adopt a multi-pronged strategy that acknowledges the two important stakeholders in the human rights debate: people inside North Korea and defectors outside the country.

It said the U.S. and South Korea should strive to remedy problems before a potential Kim Jong-un regime collapse and the humanitarian crisis that would follow.

The researchers said that if the North were to collapse, as many as three-point-65 million North Koreans could look to resettle in South Korea.

They said that such a large-scale humanitarian crisis would threaten the stability of South Korea, unless a comprehensive assimilation plan was created well in advance.   [KBS World Radio]

Over at the Korean Law Blog the actual ROK law is posted in regards to self defense.  Of interest is that if you ever got in a struggle with someone trying to kill you that required you to defend yourself to kill them you most likely get prosecuted for it:

Regrettably to many, Korea interprets the preceding Article 21 of Korea’s Criminal Act very narrowly. There is, only, one reported cases in the past 25 plus years where someone accused of murder has prevailed in a claim of self-defense. The only case I can find is the notorious Kongneung-Dong Murder Case. The case involved a break-in to a home that lead to the death of the burglar. The burglar was armed and he killed one person in the apartment.

The accused claimed, inter alia, that his act of killing the burglar was performed to “prevent impending and unjust infringement” (more injuries) of his “legal interest”(his life). He claimed that his only means of protecting his life was his actions. Additionally, the act of the burglar was at night.

The following charges still lead to charges by the police. The prosecution decided not to indict.  [Korean Law Blog]

You can read more at the link, but the moral of the story is that if you have to defend yourself in Korea use as little force as possible even if someone is trying to kill you.  A perfect example of the negative consequences  that can happen is the 2004 Shinchon Stabbing Incident or the 1995 Seoul Subway Brawl.  In these cases the GIs were punished for defending themselves while the Koreans that started the fights got away with no legal consequences.

The ROK has a history of protectionism and it appears that is what they are trying to do with their legal services sector to protect them from foreign competition:

A bill to open Korea’s legal services market to law firms based in the European Union and the United States was put on hold a day ahead of the final vote by the Legislation and Judiciary Committee due to strong backlash from those countries’ ambassadors.

On Thursday, ambassadors from the European Union, United States, United Kingdom and Australia visited the committee chairman and strongly protested that the bill goes against the free trade agreements between those countries and Korea. They said Korea would even risk trade conflicts if the bill is passed without amendments.

The Foreign Legal Consultant Act, which would allow the final stage of opening the local legal services market, was scheduled to be up for vote at the committee on Friday, the last step before submitting the bill to a plenary session of the National Assembly.

The four ambassadors, including U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert and U.K. Ambassador Charles Hay, pointed to a clause banning foreign law firms from owning a stake greater than 49 percent in a joint venture as unfair, arguing that the rule would unfairly protect Korean law firms.

They also urged lawmakers to ease or abolish a qualification requirement for foreign law firms. Under the current bill, a foreign law firm hoping to launch a joint venture with a Korean law firm is required to have more than three years of experience in legal services.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

.@BonnieGlaser says there are many more ways the US could pressure #DPRK by applying sanctions that have not yet been applied @HouseForeign

— CSIS Korea Chair (@CSISKoreaChair) January 13, 2016

Dejan Damjanovic, a former striker for Beijing Guoan, smiles during a press conference in Seoul on Jan. 7, 2016, on his return to South Korean club FC Seoul. Commonly called Dejan, the Montenegrin came to Korea in 2007 and signed with FC Seoul, launching a successful career as one of the top scoring players. He switched to China in late 2013 but decided to return, accepting a pay cut. (Yonhap)

Global Voices has an interesting article posted that shows a variety of reactions from Chinese Internet users in regards to North Korea’s recent nuclear test.  It seems at least some people in China are beginning to realize what a danger North Korea is to not only the ROK, US and Japan, but China now as well:

Instead of condemning the nuclear test, Beijing took a more moderate stance, saying it “firmly opposes” the test and urged North Korea to “remain committed to its denuclearisation commitment”.

On the other hand, Chinese netizens grew more and more impatient with the government’s tolerance of their “insane” neighbor. It wasn’t only polarizing US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump who said China is the one who should deal with North Korea. On Chinese Twitter-like Weibo, many voiced their criticism of the government’s diplomatic policy in a news thread discussing North Korea’s H-bomb test.

Below are a selection of popular comments that have received more than 1,000 likes:  [Global Voices]

You can read the various reactions at the link.

Also of interest is that One Free Korea in a great opinion piece that I highly recommend everyone read included a link to a Yonhap article that shows that even the Chinese state controlled media is confirming increasing public frustration with North Korea:

In China’s strict-controlled online media, public resentment against North Korea’s fourth nuclear test is growing with some social media users criticizing their government for not taking a tougher response to the North’s test.

Since North Korea announced that it had successfully carried out a hydrogen bomb test last Wednesday, a newspaper published by the Chinese Communist Party has conducted five rounds of online opinion polls about the North’s test.

In one opinion poll of some 42,500 people by the state-run Global Times, 81 percent say the North’s nuclear test poses a threat to China’s security.

In another poll of 4,900 people by the same paper, 82 percent responded that they support new sanctions by the U.N. Security Council against North Korea.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.