New South Korean military officers salute during the joint commission ceremony of 6,478 new military officers of the army, navy, air force and marines at the military headquarters in Gyeryong, south of Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, March 12, 2015.
South Korea has developed smartphone apps to help bring down its high student suicide rate by warning parents when their children might be at risk.
The government-developed apps, which education ministry officials hope to introduce this year, are programmed to detect ‘suicide-related’ words used by children on social networks or in messages or internet searches on their phones.
This would then trigger an alert which would be sent to the parents on their smartphones.
‘Student suicide has become a social problem requiring systematic and comprehensive steps to prevent it,’ the ministry said in a statement issued on Friday.
South Korea’s suicide rate ranks among the highest of the 34 member nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. [Sky News]
Shown is a file photo of North Korea’s SA-5 ground-to-air missile at a military parade in Pyongyang on April 15, 2012. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on March 13, 2015 that North Korea had test-fired seven ground-to-air missiles into the East Sea the previous day in an apparent saber-rattling against the South Korean-U.S. joint military exercises, Key Resolve, which Pyongyang denounces as a rehearsal for invasion. (Yonhap)
It is going to be interesting to see what other dirt the ROK government digs up on Kim Ki-jong:
Kim Cheol-jun, lead investigator from the National Police Agency, gives a briefing on March 13, 2015, on the probe into Kim Ki-jong, the man who is suspected of attacking the top U.S. envoy last week. (Yonhap)
The suspected attacker of the top U.S. envoy in Seoul contacted a South Korean man previously convicted of spying for North Korea before carrying out the attack, police said Friday.
Kim Ki-jong was arrested last week on charges of slashing U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert on his face and wrist with a knife during a breakfast function in downtown Seoul. The attack left Lippert with wounds that required 80 stitches.
The 55-year-old faces charges of attempted murder, violence against a foreign envoy and business obstruction. Police said they are planning to ask the prosecutors to take over the case later in the day.
Kim has said he was acting alone. But a special task force investigating the case said the 55-year-old contacted more than 30 people — including a former spy for North Korea and a key member of a pro-North Korea organization here — in the run-up to the incident.
Kim Cheol-jun, the lead investigator from the National Police Agency, said authorities are delving further into Kim’s phone and bank transaction records to find out whether any of them had been involved. (……….)
Police said they also believe the attack was premeditated. Kim’s Internet browsing history shows that he had looked up Lippert’s blog, his height and South Korea’s criminal law a day before the incident, according to authorities.
He also appeared to have had an intent to kill, police said. He reportedly said he brought a knife because his previous attempt to harm a Japanese ambassador to Seoul years ago failed. He also slashed Lippert at least twice, leaving deep gashes on his face and arm that required more than 80 stitches. [Yonhap]
According to the Korean media here are the three sites that have been chosen as candidates to host the THAAD missile defense system if it ever does get deployed on the peninsula:
The United States has yet to make a decision on the deployment of its advanced missile-defense system in South Korea, though it has carried out surveys on candidate sites, the U.S. forces here said Thursday.
Washington has hinted at the deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery on Korean soil, which is home to about 28,500 American troops, to better cope with Pyongyang’s growing nuclear and missile threats.
“There are possible site locations in Korea for this system … Informal surveys have been conducted to find suitable sites in the event of a possible future deployment,” United States Forces Korea (USFK) said in a statement.
The statement came after the vernacular daily Munhwan Ilbo reported Thursday that Washington has picked three candidate sites — the city of Pyeongtaek, just south of Seoul, the southern port city of Busan and the border town of Wonju.
Without elaborating, the USFK said, “No decisions have been made either to deploy a system or determine where such a system might go … No procedures for discussions with South Korea have taken place.”
Stressing that the U.S. will be “in full consultation” with South Korea if it were to station a THAAD unit on its soil, the USFK said the battery “would provide benefits” to the defense” of the host country “against the North Korean missile threat by augmenting the Korean Air and Missile Defense (KAMD) system and U.S. Patriot systems in Korea. [Yonhap]
This makes me wonder if this is the wave of the future where hackers will extort companies for money in return for not releasing sensitive information to rivals or other countries?:
A hacker who had posted inside information on South Korea’s nuclear power plants made a fresh threat Thursday, demanding money in exchange for not handing over sensitive information to third countries.
Using an account under the name of the president of an anti-nuclear group in Hawaii, the hacker posted additional files on Twitter, which reportedly included documents concerning the country’s indigenous advanced power reactor 1400.
“Need money. Only need to meet some demands… Many countries from Northern Europe, Southeast Asia and South America are saying they will buy nuclear reactor information. Fear selling the entire information will undermine President Park (Geun-hye)’s efforts to export nuclear reactors,” the posting said.
The hacker did not say how much money he wanted but warned that South Korea will end up losing much more if it tries to save a few hundreds of millions of dollars.
Officials from the Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. (KHNP) said the documents released Thursday did not include any sensitive information and that they may have been obtained before the company boosted its security measures early last year that included completely cutting off its internal servers used to operate nuclear reactors from all outside access.
They earlier said they were not able to determine the nature or sensitivity of the released documents as safety protocol was blocking the downloading or opening of the files. [Yonhap]
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