A train with the word “BLiND” graffitied on it at a subway station in the southeastern city of Daegu is shown in this photo provided on May 26, 2015, by the Daegu Suseong Police. The police said that the graffiti, which was discovered on May 10, was the work of two male foreigners who broke into the train station through an external vent. (Yonhap)
It is amazing how many people enjoy supporting the Kim regime with their money. I wonder how many of these same people would support apartheid South Africa with their money like they are the Kim regime:
Josh Thomas, a 28-year old American graphic designer, visited Pyongyang in 2013 on a beer tour. Thomas visited the Taedonggang Beer Brewery and Paradise Department Store and enjoyed the beer served at the Yanggakdo International Hotel. He said it is actually better than the beer made in South Korea.
“Going on a beer tour to North Korea, it was a longtime dream come true,” said Thomas.
The tour was organized by Young Pioneer Tours, a company founded by a group of expatriates in China that organizes tours to North Korea.
North Korea is usually in the headlines for its nuclear weapons program, missile launches, attacks on South Korea and miserable human rights record. Much less attention is paid to the growing number of foreign companies like Young Pioneer Tours with business in North Korea.
According to the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 351 foreign companies launched joint ventures with North Korean companies from 2004 through 2011. Of these, 75 percent were Chinese. From the 88 companies whose investment sizes could be determined, the total invested amount was estimated at $2.32 billion. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more about the companies doing business in North Korea at the link.
Here is something all you fans of beer in Korea may want to checkout this weekend:
The second Great Beer Festival Korea for the year will be held at the Museum Cafe in Yongsan on May 30-31.
The festival will feature 130 kinds of beers, along with some food pairings. There will also be fun events such as stencil tattoo and DJing, along with live music and nonverbal performances.
“The festival is sure to be an entertaining time for couples, friends and families.
Microbreweries and specialty beer establishments are popping up everywhere. With a growing number of people bored with mass-produced beer and aching for more variety on the menu, craft beer is becoming a major trend,” according to a press release.
“The biggest appeal of craft beer, beer fans agree, is that it lets them find the flavor that suits their mood, their taste and their personality.”
This festival will run from 5 to 10 p.m. on May 30, and from 3 to 8 p.m. on May 31. [Korea Times]
I can understand why these women feel unsafe but is following someone around in Korea considered a crime? If not it would explain the indifference shown by the police:
Concerned residents in the Haebangchon neighborhood, located next to Itaewon in Seoul, have formed a community awareness group in response to an increased amount of sexual harassment in the area.
People Unite against Street Harassment (PUSH) was established in March this year and held a fundraiser during the 10th anniversary of the HBC Festival last weekend.
Brittany Hayes and Alicia Trawick from Florida in the United States lead the group.
“Over the past year there have been different things happening, but it was kind of being brushed under the rug,” said Trawick. “The police were not doing anything, so we took it upon ourselves to do something.”
PUSH President Hayes believes the police response has left a lot to be desired.
“A lot of people have contacted the police about this issue but nothing has happened,” she said. “A girl wrote on the HBC forum on Facebook that she had been stalked by a guy and when she went to a police officer on the street he ignored her.”
Ashley Pifer, also from the U.S., said she had such an experience.
“I was with my friend in a mart along HBC road when an African man came in,” she said. “He said, ‘Hello, how are you?’ My friend responded and I just ignored him.”
“We walked down the road to CU Mart. I went inside and made a purchase and as we were leaving the same man walks in. He proceeded to rub my arm and say, ‘What’s this? I like.’ I moved away and walked out.
“I left my friend and walked further up the road to the pharmacy. When I came out the same man was standing across the street. I panicked and called my boyfriend and then the man ran away. To me it wasn’t coincidental that we were in three places in a row.”
As she later discovered, the incident was not isolated but part of a pattern.
“I wasn’t even going to report it until I saw a post on the HBC forum,” she said. “A guy said a similar man had followed his girlfriend home. So I decided to make a report because others came forward with similar stories,” said Pifer.
“My Korean boyfriend and I spent two hours being transported to three police stations. The whole time the police were trying to convince us not to make a report. One of the officers spoke to us in English and tried to help but after speaking with his superiors he came back and pretended he could not understand me. I eventually gave up. They didn’t believe me and it was pointless.” [Korea Times]
I did not realize how little of Samsung Electronics that the Lee family actually owned:
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Two key Samsung companies are merging in a step toward ensuring the son of the group’s ailing chairman inherits control of the theme parks to smartphones conglomerate.
Samsung said Tuesday that its defacto holding company Cheil Industries Inc. will acquire Samsung C&T Corp. by offering 0.35 new Cheil shares for every Samsung C&T share.
The move, to be completed by Sept. 1, requires shareholder approval, which is expected. The combined entity will be named Samsung C&T.
Analysts say the transaction will give Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong a big say in the conglomerate including its crown jewel Samsung Electronics Co.
“Samsung Electronics is at the core of this event,” said Park Ju-gun, president at CEOScore, a private corporate watchdog. “If Lee Jae-yong controls C&T, he can secure control over Samsung Electronics.”
The corporate maneuvering reflects that the Lee family’s influence over Samsung Electronics through a life insurance company was at risk as the South Korean parliament is set to pass a law that restricts finance companies from controlling non-finance companies.
Lee, his father Lee Kun-hee and other family members have a small direct stake in Samsung Electronics but have been able to exert influence through cross shareholdings in affiliated companies, the most significant of which was Samsung Life Insurance. Altogether, they control about 29 percent of Samsung Electronics shares, which is the largest voting bloc.
Lee Kun-hee, 73, who remains chairman at Samsung Electronics, has been hospitalized for more than a year after suffering a heart attack in May, 2014. Lee Jae-yong earlier this month took over his father’s roles in two Samsung charitable foundations.
The Lee family will likely take additional steps to enlarge C&T’s stake Samsung Electronics as a lynchpin of the cross shareholdings, said Park. It currently owns 4.1 percent of the electronics giant. [Associated Press]
This photo, taken on May 25, 2015, shows a body camera mounted on a police officer from a police station in the southwestern city of Gunsan. Body cameras are those mounted on the front of a uniform and set to record an officer’s law enforcement of crime scenes. The Gunsan police have deployed four body cameras for the first time in South Korea, as part of its efforts to apprehend criminals interfering with their execution of duties and procurement of assault and robbery evidence. (Yonhap)
Is it a violation of UN sanctions to carry out a photoshopped missile launch?
South Korea has referred North Korea to a U.N. sanctions committee over its recent test-firing of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), the foreign ministry said Tuesday.
On May 9, North Korea claimed it successfully carried out an SLBM test underwater, renewing tensions on the Korean Peninsula. If confirmed, the test would be a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban any launch by North Korea that uses ballistic missile technology.
South Korea has sent a letter to the U.N. Security Council’s North Korea Sanctions Committee to ask it to address the issue, according to ministry spokesman Noh Kwang-il.
“Therefore, I understand that there will be consultations within the Security Council’s sanctions committee,” he said during a press briefing. [Yonhap]
These workers at the Kaesong Industrial Complex only make $70 a month with most of it going to the Kim regime. I don’t know what to call this other than near slave labor:
South Korean firms in an inter-Korean factory park in North Korea plan to pay wages to their North Korean employees this week, a government official said Monday.
The move came days after Pyongyang accepted Seoul’s tentative offer of wage payments for North Korean workers at the factory park in North Korea’s border city of Kaesong at a previously agreed level until separate consultations are held.
The deal on Friday would allow South Korean firms to pay the wage based on the US$70.35 per month that was originally set. But it called for the 124 South Korean firms to provide retroactive pay based on the outcome of separate consultations.
The official said North Korea demanded that South Korean firms in Kaesong pay March and April wages by the end of this month. The official asked not to be identified, citing policy.
The sides have yet to produce a deal over the more sensitive issue of a wage cap, which has been set at 5 percent per year.
In February, North Korea unilaterally decided to hike the minimum wage by 5.18 percent to US$74 per month for about 53,000 North Korean workers in the factory park. [Yonhap]
Students clean the areas in between graves at the National Cemetery, where South Korean patriotic martyrs and war dead are laid to rest, in Seoul on May 26, 2015, ahead of Memorial Day, which falls on June 6. (Yonhap)
It looks like the Kim regime is intent to keep tensions high along the maritime DMZ:
North Korea is building military camps for shore batteries on a tensely guarded Yellow Sea border island, the South’s military authorities said Tuesday.
“Five bunker-shaped camps have been built on the island of Gal,” a military officer said, requesting anonymity, citing the North Korean island just above the de-facto inter-Korean western sea border of the Northern Limit Line (NLL).
“The North is expected to either deploy 122-millimeter multiple rocket launchers there or to use them as guard posts,” he said, adding the military is closely monitoring the movements there.
This file photo, dated May 28, 2009, shows a Chinese fishing vessel sailing past the island of Gal just above the de-facto inter-Korean western sea border of the Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea. South Korea`s military officials said on May 26, 2015. (YONHAP) (END)
The island is located just 4.5 kilometers away from South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island, where the communist country launched an artillery attack in November 2010, killing two Marines and two civilians, and wounding more than a dozen others. [Yonhap]
