President Moon is heading to the U.S. for what is believed to be a summit with President Trump that will lead to revived talks with North Korea:
President Moon Jae-in and first lady Kim Jung-sook wave before leaving for New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly, from Seoul Airport in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, Sunday. Yonhap
President Moon Jae-in flew to New York, Sunday, to attend this year’s United Nations General Assembly amid renewed hopes for a restart of dialogue aimed at ending Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.
Cheong Wa Dae said the President planned to use his visit to the U.N. to highlight South Korea’s efforts to bring lasting peace to the Korean Peninsula. More importantly, Moon is widely expected to suggest to the international community that a step-by-step approach be taken toward denuclearizing the North. Moon arrived at JFK International Airport, Monday morning (KST).
The top story in Korea that is headlining all its news outlets is the announcement that the Hwaseong Serial Killer has been identified after all these years:
This file photo shows a wanted leaflet containing a composite sketch of the suspect for a serial murder case that took place in Hwaseong, south of Seoul, in the 1980s. (Yonhap)
Police may have solved one of the Korea’s most mysterious cold cases: the serial rapes and murders of nine women in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi, in the late 1980s.
According to Ban Ki-soo, a chief investigator at the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency on Thursday, newly analyzed DNA evidence from three of the nine cases matched the DNA of a 56-year-old convict surnamed Lee currently serving a life sentence in Busan for a different murder he committed in 1994.
This discovery could very well bring a resolution to one of the most notorious serial rape and murder sprees in Korean criminal history, which terrified Korea from 1986 to 1991 and remained unsolved for three decades.
Yet the suspect, who was in his 20s at the time of the killings, can no longer be charged for any of those crimes since the statute of limitations for the last of the murders expired in April 2006. He has denied responsibility for all nine murders, police said.
Lee is serving a life sentence in the Busan Penitentiary for raping and murdering his wife’s sister, aged 20 at his home in Cheongju, North Chungcheong, in January 1994. According to press reports, he is a model prisoner with a taciturn personality who is eligible for parole.
A 10-victim rape and murder spree of the late 1980s and early 1990s terrified the nation — particularly due to the authorities’ inability to find a culprit — and was compared to the so-called Zodiac killings in California in the late 1960s. The killings gave rise to copycat crimes and inspired one of the most iconic blockbusters of Korean cinema, “Memories of Murder.”
You can read more at the link, but here is a video report of the announcement from Arirang News:
The suspect could have likely been identified sooner if the investigators back when the crimes happened did not discard so much evidence such as cigarette butts found at the scene that would have much DNA evidence. Instead modern day forensic scientists using new technology were able to extract DNA from the victim’s clothes that were saved as evidence to make this DNA match.
For those that haven’t I highly recommend watching the Korean movie, Memories of Murder which uses a dramatized account of the investigation to show how incompetent it was and the killer’s impact on Korean society back then.
What I have not been able to find out is if the identified killer was even a suspect during the time of the killings? The police back then had many suspects that they were trying to pin the murder on, so it would be interesting to see if this guy was even on the police’s radar back then.
The South Korean government really wants people to get used to shopping with reusable bags:
Environment Minister Cho Myung-rae (3rd from L) poses with major retailer executives after they signed an agreement on reducing platic waste and encouraging reusable bag usage on Aug. 29, 2019. (Yonhap)
Plastic waste is a nagging headache for Asia’s fourth-largest economy. After banning plastic cups and bags, the government is now moving to ban paper boxes and packaging tapes.
Starting November, supermarkets will stop providing paper boxes and tape that shoppers can use to carry their groceries home, a move meant to encourage shoppers to use reusable shopping bags and reduce the plastic tape and string used for packing boxes, according to the environment ministry.
You can read more at the link, but the supermarkets must love the fact they can increase profits by selling the reusable bags all the while claiming they care about the environment.
Another infectious disease has come into South Korea likely from North Korea:
South Korea was on alert Tuesday to prevent the spread of African swine fever after the first case of the animal disease was confirmed near the border with North Korea.
The agriculture ministry announced the beginning of operations to slaughter some 4,000 pigs as a precautionary step.
Kim Hyeon-soo, minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs, said quarantine officials are set to complete the culling of the pigs at three farms, including the one where the disease was detected, in Paju, just south of the inter-Korean border, by Tuesday.
Japan did not ask South Korea to share information on two unidentified projectiles launched by North Korea Sept. 10. The North has said the launch was a “test-fire of a newly developed super-large multiple rocket launcher.”/ Yonhap
Japan did not ask South Korea for intelligence on North Korea’s recent launch of two “unidentified projectiles” after Seoul ended its military information sharing pact with Tokyo.
Political analysts in Seoul said Sunday the key motivation behind the silence was because it did not want to be viewed as seeking help to acquire classified information after the termination of the pact, commonly known as GSOMIA, Aug. 22.
However Tokyo seems fully capable of monitoring North Korea’s military activities in cooperation with the United States and does not need to work with South Korea, they added.
Seoul’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) and Joint Chief of Staff (JCS) have yet to finalize their assessment of the projectiles’ maximum altitude and speed ― two key pieces of information when analyzing the specifications of North Korean missiles or projectiles.
“I think Japan is curious to know about North Korean projectiles last week but does not want to appear to be begging for help from the South,” Shin In-kyun, president of the Korea Defense Network said. “This is why Japan has not asked for related information on the projectiles. It is as simple as that.”
You can read more at the link, but maybe the Japanese are not bother to ask the ROK because they already received their intelligence information from the United States?
Via a reader tip comes this article about South Korea’s growing drag queen culture:
Hurricane Kimchi takes the stage at an underground bar in Seoul, dancing agilely to Wonder Girls’ 2008 K-pop hit “Nobody.”
Dressed in high heels, a fluffy white wig and a tight gold sequin dress — an homage to the song’s video — he commands a fervent crowd that cheers, sings along and throws money at his feet. At one point, an audience member runs up to shove a 10,000-won bill (around $9) inside his belt.
Drag queens remain a rare sight in South Korea. But Hurricane Kimchi’s alter-ego, LGBTQ activist Heezy Yang, is out to change perceptions in a country with traditionally conservative views on gender and sexuality.
The activist’s work ranges from writing a novel about his experience of coming out, to taking part in a mock gay wedding ceremony in Seoul’s metro. He is also the founder of the Seoul Drag Parade, an annual event that hopes to “encourage both queer and non-queer people to use drag to find their identity (and) express their true feelings, thoughts and style,” according to its website.
Then there are the weekday drag shows he organizes in Itaewon, a diverse international neighborhood that has become the capital’s main gay district and is known as “homo hill” to the LGBTQ community and locals.
You can read more at the link, but I can remember many years ago when the transgender folks used to hang out up in the TDC Ville trying to hook up with drunk soldiers.
It will be interesting to see how the IOC rules on the “Rising Sun” flag at next year’s Olympics:
South Korean protesters hold Japanese rising sun flags during a rally to mark the South Korean Liberation Day from Japanese colonial rule, in Seoul, South Korea, on Aug. 15, 2019.
South Korea has formally asked the International Olympic Committee to ban the Japanese “rising sun” flag at next year’s Tokyo Games, calling it a symbol of Japan’s brutal wartime past and comparing it with the Nazi swastika.
South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on Wednesday said it sent a letter to IOC President Thomas Bach expressing “deep disappointment and concern” over Japanese plans to allow the flag in stadiums and other facilities during the 2020 Olympics.
South Korean Olympic officials last month urged the local organizing committee to ban the flag, but Tokyo organizers responded by saying it was widely used in Japan, was not considered a political statement and “it is not viewed as a prohibited item.”
The flag, portraying a red sun with 16 rays extending outward, is resented by many South Koreans, who still harbor animosity over Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
Anyone surprised that these workers were killed because they did not have proper safety equipment?:
Rescue workers carry out relief work inside an underground tank at a fishery products processing factory in Yeongdeok, North Gyeongsang Province, on Sept. 10, 2019, in this photo provided by the North Gyeongsang Province Fire Service Headquarters.
Three migrant workers were found dead, and another one is in a coma, following an accident inside an underground tank at a fishery products processing factory in the eastern county of Yeongdeok on Tuesday, local fire authorities said.
The four — three Thais and one Vietnamese — were found at the bottom of the tank at 2:30 p.m., according to the North Gyeongsang Province Fire Service Headquarters.
The workers, whose names have yet to be made public, are believed to have suffocated while doing maintenance work inside the tank at the factory in Chuksan Port in Yeongdeok, some 250 kilometers southeast of Seoul.
The 42-year-old and 28-year-old Thai workers and the 53-year-old Vietnamese person died in the accident, and the other victim, a 34-year-old Thai, is currently in a coma, the fire headquarters said.
The tank stores byproducts from the processing of fish and shellfish, it added.
The rescue authorities said the workers appeared to have entered the tank without safety equipments even though there was a high risk of inhaling toxic gas from decomposed fishery products.
Today is the 18th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. This is usually a day of solemn memorials, but in South Korea back in 2005 it was used as day to bash Americans. Leftist protesters took to the streets of Incheon and battled with riot police in their attempt to topple the statue of General MacArthur at Jayu Park. As bad as the anti-Americanism of some of these leftists groups may be today in South Korea, we fortunately have not seen anything yet like we saw in the 2002-2006 period in South Korea. Hopefully it stays that way.
