Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

I get it that this guy is a criminal, but how stupid are these soldiers for giving him the money for safekeeping in the first place?

WACO, Texas — A Texas man who faked being a Fort Hood soldier has been sentenced to two years in federal prison in a bank scam targeting new Army enlistees.
Daniel Lee Rosales of Killeen was sentenced Wednesday in Waco. The 21-year-old Rosales in September pleaded guilty to making a false statement on a loan or credit application.

Investigators say Rosales in 2013 posed as a sergeant to befriend new enlistees and encourage them to apply for signature loans at banks to build up their credit. Rosales instructed the enlistees to provide false residential and marital information to obtain bigger loans.

Prosecutors say the real soldiers, after getting the funds, turned over most of the money to Rosales for what he called “safekeeping.”
Rosales must repay the victims more than $28,000. (Army Times)

Kia unveils X-Men themed Sorento http://t.co/oYpQPzYiUp pic.twitter.com/mOMNXvcSQq

— KEI (@KoreaEconInst) November 21, 2014

The destroyer Uljimundeok fires a sea-to-air missile “Sea Sparrow” during a drill off South Korea’s west coast on Nov. 21, 2014. (Yonhap)

A group of prospective Harvard students has filed a lawsuit against the university for discriminating against one minority in favor of another:

The Supreme Court declined to draw a clear line on racial discrimination in university admissions in last year’s Fisher v. University of Texas decision. Now new lawsuits are moving to challenge how far colleges can go in using racial preferences.

A group called Students for Fair Admissions filed lawsuits Monday against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina in federal court. The suits argue that the schools use race preferences to reach a specific racial balance on campus and have failed to abide by the strict scrutiny of racial preferences required by the Supreme Court.

The Harvard challenge concerns what the lawsuit calls a de facto quota on the number of Asian students the school admits. The suit compares its current racial admissions to Harvard’s quotas limiting Jewish students in an earlier era. In both cases, Harvard kept out minorities who would have been admitted based on academic merit.

Over the last eight years Asian students have comprised between 17.6% and 20.7% of students admitted to Harvard. Though the number of Asians applying for admission has increased, the percentage of offers has barely budged. In 1992, 19.1% of Harvard’s admissions offers went to Asian applicants, compared to 25.2% who were admitted to the California Institute of Technology, a school that doesn’t use racial preferences. In 2013 Harvard made 18% of its offers to Asians, while CalTech admitted 42.5% Asian students.

Similar admissions percentages at Harvard have held steady for other racial groups with remarkably little variance. In other words, while schools like Harvard say the goal of racial preferences is to achieve a “critical mass” of minority students, the admissions evidence suggests that the school is reserving pre-rationed pie slices for racial groups.  [Wall Street Journal]

You can read more at the link, but people should be able to get ahead based on merit, but as we all know life is not fair and this situation with Harvard admissions is just another example of this.

I will be surprised if Korean authorities allow Uber to continue to operate over the long term considering how it will greatly affect the large number of taxi drivers in the country:

Uber, a U.S-based ride-sharing service app company, has proposed meetings with taxi drivers in Seoul who have been protesting its presence in Korea.

An official from the Seoul Taxi Association (STA) reacted negatively to the proposal, saying Uber will have to stop its service first.

“Uber remains open to meeting with the taxi associations to discuss how Uber can help improve the lives and economic opportunities for Seoul’s taxi drivers,” Uber Korea said in a statement released Tuesday.

The statement came after thousands of taxi drivers staged a rally in central Seoul, asking the city government to kick Uber out of the Korean market.

“Uber first must agree to stop their service. Then, we can talk,” a tax lobby official said.

Launched in August, Uber connects customers with Uber-registered drivers through a smartphone app.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but has anyone tried this yet in Korea?  I wonder how much cheaper this is compared to the already reasonable taxi fares?

It will be interesting to see if the Chinese military decide to crush this guy to make an example of him

BEIJING (Reuters) – One of China’s most senior former military officers hoarded more than a ton of cash and precious jade in his basement, a Hong Kong magazine reported on Thursday, the latest details to emerge from the high-profile case amid Beijing’s war on graft.

Military prosecutors have said that Xu Caihou, a former vice chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission, had confessed to taking “massive” bribes in exchange for help in promotions.

Officials say Xu, who retired as vice chairman last year and from the ruling Communist Party’s decision-making Politburo in 2012, will likely face a court martial now that an investigation has been finished.

In March, prosecutors searched Xu’s luxury home in Beijing and discovered stashed in the basement “more than a ton” of U.S. dollars, euros and Chinese yuan, reported Phoenix Weekly, a magazine run by Hong Kong broadcaster Phoenix Television. (Reuters)

You can read more at the link.

It looks like from the corporate side of the Sewol Ferry disaster the authorities are making the company’s president the fall guy:

The head of the operator of the South Korean Sewol ferry that sank in April killing more than 300 people has been sentenced to 10 years in jail.

The Gwangju district convicted Kim Han-sik, president of Chonghaejin Marine, of criminal negligence.
Investigators found the ferry had been overloaded with cargo which contributed to its sinking.
Last week, the court sentenced 15 crew members to between five and 36 years in prison. (BBC)

You can read more at the link.

China’s Selling the J-31, But Who’s Buying? http://t.co/ENP7oLxcVz

— The Diplomat (@Diplomat_APAC) November 19, 2014

Choe Ryong-hae (L), the Workers’ Party of (North) Korea secretary, departs Sunan International Airport in Pyongyang on Nov. 17, 2014. North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency reported that Choe flew to Moscow as the special envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. (Yonhap)