Firefighters chosen as calendar models put on a performance with musical stars in downtown Seoul on Nov. 16, 2015. The calendar will be available for sale until Dec. 6 through online shopping malls, and all proceeds from sales will be donated for the treatment of burn victims. (Yonhap)
What I have learned this week is that you can rape teenagers in Korea as long as you say you love them, but if you touch a minor inappropriately and film it you will go to jail:
A man who asked his girlfriend to harass sexually her eight-year-old son was sentenced to three years and six months in jail.
According to Suwon District Court, the man, 43, identified as Park, incited his 40-year-old girlfriend, identified as Kim, to abuse her son sexually and film it on her smartphone.
Park said he wanted to see Kim touching her son’s bodyparts while he was asleep, and asked her to send a video in December 2014. Kim and Park had been having an affair for three years since 2012.
Kim filmed her son and sent the video to Park.
Kim was indicted for filming a minor, and also sentenced to three years with five years probation. [Korea Times]
With the amount of wildlife around the DMZ it seems to me these sensors will just be filled with false alarms all day:
South Korea will develop and deploy new ground sensor technology aimed at detecting North Korean movement inside the Demilitarized Zone, defense officials said Tuesday.
The initial planning phase for the 3.6 billion won ($3.1 million) project should be complete by next year, with further systems development slated through 2019, multiple defense officials told Stars and Stripes on condition of anonymity, which is customary in South Korea.
The sensors would be capable of notifying commanders of early-stage movement by North Korean special operations in the event of an attack, according to a statement from South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration.
Concerns over DMZ movement increased in August when two South Korean soldiers were maimed by land mines planted near a guard post. South Korean officials labeled the incident a “clear provocation” by North Korea and vowed retaliation. Pyongyang expressed regret for the incident but did not admit involvement. [Stars & Stripes]
South Korean golfer Bae Sang-moon smiles as he prepares to report for military duty in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, on Nov. 17, 2015. All able-bodied South Korean men are required to fulfill military draft, and Bae was charged in February with violating the law for not returning after his overseas travel permit ran out. The court in July refused to extend the permit. (Yonhap)
Here is the latest controversy on the religious freedom front:
A sign outside an Army training center at Fort Shafter, Hawaii, that featured a knight with crosses on his breastplate and shield was taken down Monday afternoon, hours after the head of a religious-freedom advocacy group called for the image’s removal.
The image represented the “Fighting Knights” of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 8th Special Troops Battalion. Members of the unit recently transformed an unused motor pool area into a warrior training center, 8th Theater Sustainment Command spokeswoman Sgt. 1st Class Mary Ferguson told Army Times. A news release detailing the offerings of the center went out Friday at Army.mil and other locations and included an image of the sign.
The knight with red crosses is “not an approved logo,” Ferguson said. She said she wasn’t sure how long the sign had been up or who approved the design, noting that the center had opened recently. A photo of the sign hosted by the U.S. Pacific Command website is dated Oct. 23. [Army Times]
You can read the rest at the link, but if the cross was whited out is having a knight as a logo still approved or are knights now officially politically incorrect?
By the way Army Times if you wondered where the image came from just do a Google image search for the word knight and the knight on the board is one of the top search results from this webpage.
For anyone that wants to commit statutory rape in Korea, just say that you loved the victim and the Supreme Court will find you not guilty of the crime:
The Supreme Court will review the case of a man, 46, who was found not guilty of raping a teenage girl, Yonhap has reported. Prosecutors appealed the Seoul High Court’s “not-guilty” ruling on Thursday.
But the nation’s highest court is unlikely to change its stance on the case, which it has reviewed before, legal sources said.
The man, identified only as “A” and owner of an entertainment company, was indicted for allegedly raping a middle school student 27 years his junior.
According to evidence given at lower court trials, the man had sexual relations with the woman, identified as “B,” many times and got her pregnant in 2011. “B” was 15 at the time.
“A” was indicted after “B” reported to police that she was raped.
“A” was found guilty at the first and second trials.
But last November the Supreme Court overturned the lower court’s decision, as “A” kept insisting he had loved “B.” It sent the case back to the lower court, which ruled on Oct. 16 that he is not guilty of rape. [Korea Times via the Marmot’s Hole]
I had to roll my eyes when the article describes a two hour drive as a “tough journey”:
K-Pop Group Red Velvet is popular with ROK Soldiers.
It was a tough journey. It took more than two hours for the eight-member girl group to reach the destination. The road was not well-paved, and some sections were full of twists and turns. Their performance was not broadcast on TV, and the girl group was also paid a lot less for the gig compared with other performances hosted by private event organizers.
To put it simply, it was one of the least attractive jobs out there for entertainment groups, but 9Muses could not turn down the offer.
“Many people think of 9Muses as guntongnyeong, and they have been much loved by soldiers for a long period of time,” a person who works for Star Empire Entertainment said. “Thus, we try not to say no when we get offers from the military.
“In addition, popularity among young soldiers helps expand their fandom among music fans in their 20s.”
Guntongnyeong is a compound word made up of the Korean word gun, which means military, and daetongnyeong, which means president.
The neologism is often used when describing girl groups that are popular among members of the military.
And the title of guntongnyeong is much coveted among girl groups because “popularity within the military is often used to measure one’s popularity,” according to another industry insider.
Because of this, many girl groups take time to perform at military bases, which are usually located in remote areas of the country.
Recently, the JoongAng Ilbo wanted to identify which girl group among all-female acts were the No. 1 choice among soldiers. The newspaper ran a survey of 466 soldiers who were on their way back to their posts after taking leave.
It turned out that the eight-member girl group AOA received the most number of votes among survey responses. The respondents who voted for AOA included soldiers of various ranks. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read the rest at the link, but you would think they would make more effort to appeal to US soldiers as well in an effort to make their image look more international.
