Tag: South Korea

This is a chilling statistic to see on the increase which appears to be influenced by the poor economy:

Kim Sung-kwan, 37, had a habit of telling lies. 

He told his wife and his in-laws that he was working at a well-known company and was about to inherit a fortune from his grandfather, but in reality, he was relying on money from his mother.

Unable to deal with her son any longer, Kim’s mother drew a line and told Kim that she could not give him any more money. Kim grew furious with her and his family. He created a plan with his wife to murder his mother, stepbrother and stepfather.

“We can buy time to get away by killing everyone in the family,” Kim said to his wife.

Kim went to his parent’s house in Yongin, Gyeonggi, on Oct. 21, 2017, and killed his mother and stepbrother. To confuse police, he sprayed flour over the bodies and covered the bodies with a blanket.

“Two down, one to go,” read Kim’s message to his wife.

Later that day, Kim killed his stepfather and took 120 million won ($102,625) from his mother’s bank account. He fled to New Zealand with his wife and two children. Kim was arrested by New Zealand police and was extradited to Korea 80 days later.

Kim was sentenced to life in prison by a Korean court.

The number of crimes toward family members is on the rise, as the number of people arrested for the murder of a family member increased from 60 in 2015 to 91 in 2018, according to data from the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office. From January to April, 32 people have been arrested for killing a family member and experts estimate this number will surpass 100 by the end of the year. The number of people arrested for domestic violence increased from 988 in 2014 to 2,414 in 2018, doubling in just four years. Criminal psychology experts said that there are many cases where people take out their stress and anger on their families.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

NYT revealed Mercedes imported to N.Korea via Busan to Vladivostok then to Pyongyang by the ships. Ships once reached Vladivostok, they bring Coal to S.Korea.S.Korea became the route for N.Korea sending Mecedes and take Coal. No wonder why JPN sanction us.https://t.co/W5hUNTKoxx

— Dong Yon Kim/김동연 기자 (@dongyonews) July 16, 2019

The trade dispute from South Korea and Japan may intensify by July 24th:

Trade tensions between South Korea and Japan are escalating as Tokyo seems to be preparing to expand the scope of its export controls beyond high-tech materials to a wide spectrum of areas, which could disrupt the global supply chain, industry watchers said Monday. 

Japan began applying stricter export rules on South Korea for three key materials needed for making chips and displays on July 4 over a wartime forced labor issue and is pushing to remove South Korea from a list of trusted buyers, which could affect the supply of other key materials needed for making smartphones, televisions, chemicals and other industrial materials.

Tokyo’s move to exclude Seoul from its “whitelist” of countries on national security grounds would require Korean companies to seek export licenses for a wider range of technologies, which could result in additional costs and time. 

South Korea is currently on the neighbor’s 27-nation whitelist, which includes the United States, Germany, Poland and Italy.

“If Japan removes South Korea from its whitelist, about 1,100 items are estimated to be affected by the new regulations,” a Seoul trade ministry official said, asking not to be named. “We are closely analyzing the potential impact from Japan’s move on the South Korean industry.”

The Japanese government is expected to announce the decision on July 24 after a review process, which goes into effect 21 days later. Seoul’s trade ministry proposed another meeting with its Japanese counterpart before the deadline to discuss the issue, after their first meeting Friday failed to mend the disputes.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but some observers believe the trade dispute will ease after upper house elections in Japan are complete on Sunday. The observers believe Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is using the trade dispute for political advantage in the election.

ROK Drop favorite Dr. Tara O has a good and very detailed article published about the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye. The crux of Park’s impeachment has always been the tablet PC which many people don’t even realize was likely a fraud and not even submitted as evidence during President Park’s criminal trial:

JTBC’s claims about the tablet have not been verified.  In fact, the government’s forensic report indicates many of the documents were put into the tablet after JTBC found the tablet.  The forensic report also showed that there were multiple users of the tablet, so it could not determine to whom the tablet belonged.  The forensic report did not surface until it was too late–a year later, which is a long time after Park was already impeached. Some continued to question the validity of JTBC and Sohn Suk-hee’s claims about the tablet, and the loudest were put in jail–journalists Byun Hee-jai, and later Hwang Ui-won, Byun’s journalist colleague at the same small media outlet called MediaWatch. 

Despite what the forensic report shows, the prosecutor for Byun Hee-jai maintains that the tablet belongs to Choi, and the judges have refused, thus far, to grant Byun’s request for further discovery of the truths behind the tablet–a violation of the principle of self-defense.  Many people do not even know that the tablet was not the “smoking gun” evidence for the impeachment that JTBC claimed it was. 

In fact, the court never even admitted the tablet as evidence for either Park Geun-hye’s impeachment trial or the criminal trials that followed.  JTBC later stated that “even if there was no such thing as the [insignificant] tablet PC…, [it wouldn’t have mattered]” after initially stating the tablet was the “smoking gun.”

East Asia Research Center

Here is the most suspicious part of Park’s impeachment, the rush to get rid of her:

The National Assembly impeached the nation’s president, Park Geun-hye, in a rush.  There was no hearing, no investigation, and the voting occurred only six days after the introduction of the impeachment bill.  This rushed and unreasonable, if not unconstitutional, impeachment process differs from the U.S. President Richard Nixon case, in which there existed two separate investigations totaling 1 year and 6 months.

I think it is arguable that the impeachment had to be rushed because a true investigation would have uncovered that the tablet PC was not the smoking gun the media made it out to be.

You can read much more about Park’s impeachment at the link.

South Korea and Japan cannot even get on the same page in regards to what happened during a working level meeting to resolve their trade dispute:

A row between Japan and South Korea escalated on Saturday, with contested accounts of a frosty meeting the day before that had failed to make progress on a dispute that could threaten global supplies of microchips and smartphone displays.

Tokyo lodged a protest against Seoul, saying it had broken an agreement on what the two sides would disclose from the Friday discussions on Japan’s curbs of exports to Korea of some materials used to make high-tech equipment, said Japanese trade ministry official Jun Iwamatsu.

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) also disputed a Korean official’s statement that Seoul had asked Japan on Friday to withdraw the restrictions.

But a Korean trade ministry official shot back that Seoul had “clearly demanded Japan withdraw its trade restrictions at yesterday’s meeting, and there should be no disagreement over that matter with Japan.”

He told Reuters the two sides had discussed what they would disclose but that there was no agreement. (……..)

In response, Iwamatsu, director of METI’s trade control policy division, told a hastily arranged news conference: “We’ve checked the record of the meeting … We found no clear comment asking for the withdrawal.”

Iwamatsu said the two sides had agreed on what they would disclose from the talks but that the Korean official went beyond the agreement. “We believe this is something that affects our relationship of trust,” he said.

Reuters

You can read more at the link, but the dispute about what was disputed is important because Japan wants the working level meeting to be characterized as one where they gave explanation to South Korea for the trade restrictions, not a consultation for problem solving like the ROK has declared it. By declaring it a consultation it expedites the ROK’s efforts to refer this issue to the World Trade Organization while Japan is trying to drag it out.

Notice the Kim regime is not making threats against President Trump, but continuously make attacks against the Moon administration:

North Korea slammed South Korea over its ongoing deployment of high-tech U.S. fighter jets, warning Thursday that it will respond by developing and testing unspecified special weapons of its own to “destroy” the aircraft.

The statement, which also urged South Korea to abandon its “preposterous illusions” for improved ties, comes as Seoul has expressed hopes that a recent summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will help revive dialogue between the Koreas.

Under its biggest-ever weapons purchase, South Korea is to buy 40 F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin by 2021. The first two arrived in March and two others are to be delivered in coming weeks, according to Seoul officials.

The project was announced in 2014 to cope with then rising military threats from North Korea, which was conducting an unusually large number of weapons tests. Animosities have gradually eased since last year when Pyongyang and Washington launched nuclear negotiations, but Seoul has been moving ahead with its already-approved F-35 procurement.

Associated Press

You can read more at the link, but it is arguable that the disrespect towards the Moon administration by the Kim regime is because they know they can get away with it. It is easy domestic propaganda for them with no risk of retaliation from the Moon administration.

This would seem to be in line with President Trump’s call for Japan to do more militarily in support of the US. However, this is not going to go over well in South Korea:

The defense ministry on Thursday voiced strong opposition to an alleged push by the U.S.-led United Nations Command (UNC) to include Japan as an official member, saying that, according to U.N. Security Council resolutions, Tokyo is not entitled to such status.

According to sources, the UNC is seeking to include Japan as one of the UNC’s “sending states,” a move likely to inflame public sentiment in South Korea amid renewed historical tensions with Tokyo.

Should Japan obtain the membership, it would pave the way for its military involvement in the event of an armed conflict on the peninsula — a scenario unthinkable for many Koreans who harbor grievances stemming from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule.

Except for South Korea and the United States, the UNC currently has 16 sending states that are to provide combat troops, equipment and other forms of support in case of a contingency on the peninsula.

The sending states include Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy and New Zealand. They have posted contingents at the UNC to support its operations centering on the observance and enforcement of the armistice that halted the 1950-53 Korean War.

“Japan did not participate in the Korean War, so it cannot serve a role as a sending state,” Col. Roh Jae-cheon, the deputy ministry spokesman told a regular briefing, citing U.N. Resolutions 83 and 84.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

South Korea just posted the longest streak of unemployment at 4% or above in almost 20 years. This raises worries higher unemployment may be a new normal for the country that is facing headwinds in exports worldwide. pic.twitter.com/u09oiYAuVe

— Sam Kim 김혜성 (@samkimasia) July 10, 2019

Just another example of what happens when tax rates get too high, the tax payers begin to leave:

Wealthy Koreans are migrating in increasing numbers to other countries because of the unstable economy and high tax rates at home. 

Countries like the United States and Singapore are especially popular as immigration destinations because of their stable economies, lower tax rates and good education.

A wide range of people, from families with children to people in their 70s, were paying close attention to a seminar on investor immigration visas for the United States at the JW Marriott in Seocho District, southern Seoul, on June 15.

The attendees had their eyes on the Immigrant Investor Program, where people would invest around $500,000 to create jobs in the United States and receive an EB-5 visa in return. To qualify for the visa, people will need to make an investment in a commercial enterprise in the United States and plan to create or preserve 10 permanent full-time jobs for qualified U.S. workers.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services administer the EB-5 Program. When issued an EB-5 visa through the program, entrepreneurs, their spouses as well as unmarried children under 21 are eligible to apply for a green card, which grants them permanent residence in the United States.

The number of Koreans issued an EB-5 visa in 2018 was 531, according to the U.S. Department of State. That is an increase of 336 people compared to 2017. Korea is in fourth place, following China, Vietnam and India, by the number of people receiving visas through the Immigrant Investor Program.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but this is what legal immigration looks like that Americans should support.