Effective today, the legal blood alcohol content limit in South Korea is .03 percent. The new law states drunk drivers can be imprisoned for 2-5 years and fined 10 million won ($8,950) to 20 million won if caught more than twice.
— U.S. Forces Korea (@USForcesKorea) June 24, 2019
Here we go again with another example in South Korea of a criminal getting away with a sex crime by claiming the victim did not resist enough, and this time it was a 10 year old girl:
Criticism is mounting over a recent high court ruling that commuted a prison term for a child rapist.
The court said the 10-year-old victim’s testimony was insufficient to prove there was “enough threat and physical assault” that made the victim unable to defend herself ― which would constitute a rape charge.
In the June 13 ruling, the Seoul High Court handed down a three-year jail term to the offender, a cram school teacher surnamed Lee, 35. The sentence was reduced drastically from an earlier term of eight years given by a local court.
Lee met the victim through a chatting app in April last year. He brought her to his home and had her drink two glasses of soju to get her drunk. He then sexually assaulted her by holding her hands and pressing against her body so she could not move.
Lee denied the allegations, claiming he did not know that the girl, who was 160 centimeters tall, was 10 years old at the time, and that he had sex with her with her consent.
Although the local court acknowledged Lee used threats and physical assaults to the point where she was unable to defend herself, the high court did not ― it said the girl’s statement was the only evidence regarding the threat and assault and that it was insufficient.
Korea Times
You can read more at the link, but this case shows that in South Korea you can get a 10 year old drunk with soju, hold her down, and rape her and not be convicted for forcible rape. At least they up held the statutory rape conviction on him which will keep him in jail for 3 years.
This issue is nothing new ROK Heads may remember the rapist of a U.S. soldier who was set free by this same Seoul High Court because she could not prove that she resisted enough.
It seems to me that having a lower minimum wage for foreign workers will increase unemployment because small business owners will look for foreigners to hire instead of Koreans:
Korea’s opposition party leader has vowed to introduce a “different” minimum wage system for foreign workers.
Hwang Kyo-ahn, chairman of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP), said Wednesday he will press ahead with revising related laws to lighten small business owners’ financial burden. He made the pledge at a meeting with employers in Busan.
Given “the different degrees of their contribution to Korea,” he said, it is “not fair” to set the same minimum wage for Korean and foreign workers.
“Koreans contribute more to the country, for example, by paying more in taxes,” Hwang said. “Our party will revise related laws to improve the situation (for employers).”
His remarks come amid complaints that steep minimum wage hikes over the past two years have pushed many small businesses to the edge.
But Article 6 of the Labor Standards Act stipulates that an employer cannot discriminate against workers on the basis of gender, nationality, religion and social status.
Korea Times
You can read more at the link.
It is pretty clear that improving the human rights for North Koreans is not a concern for the Moon Jae-in administration:
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is likely to have asked for Ojea Quintana, the United Nations’ special investigator on human rights in North Korea, to take a “toned-down” approach in handling North Korea’s human rights abuses.
Quintana is on a five-day trip to Seoul from Monday as he plans to meet with ranking ministerial officials including Second Vice Foreign Minister Lee Tae-ho and Vice Unification Minister Suh Ho.
“His visit is intended to gather relevant data on the status quo of the North’s human rights situation before the United Nations General Assembly convenes on the condition of North Korea’s human rights situation in October,” a foreign ministry official said.
Korea Times
You can read more at the link.
This is a good point, I wonder how infiltrated South Korea’s military is by compromised Huawei hardware?:
Washington may refrain from sharing sensitive intelligence with South Korea unless it stops using telecom equipment from the Chinese communications giant Huawei, according to the U.S. State Department on Thursday.
The statement came in response to the JoongAng Ilbo’s question to the State Department on comments made by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on a radio show on Wednesday. Pompeo told conservative pundit Mark Levin on the show that the level of alertness shown by Washington’s allies in Asia to the national security risk presented by China “varies.”
When the JoongAng Ilbo asked whether Pompeo’s remarks reflected the U.S. government’s official stance that it wants Seoul to stop buying communications equipment from Huawei, a State Department spokesperson answered through a written response that the United States would have to review whether to share sensitive information with an allied country if that country’s communications network included equipment obtained from an untrusted vendor.
Joong Ang Ilbo
You can read more at the link.
What this will lead to is small business owners hiring foreigners instead of Koreans that will ultimately create higher unemployment:
Small business owners want the government to introduce a lower minimum wage for foreign workers in Korea.
At Monday’s public hearing on next year’s minimum wage in Gwangju, South Jeolla Province, representatives of employers said “steep” minimum wage hikes over the past two years have pushed many small businesses to the edge and that the government should help them by adopting a “different” wage system for foreign workers.
Song Young-soo, a small business owner in Gwangju, was among participants who reportedlyvoiced the need for a lower minimum wage for foreign employees, who they say show lower labor productivity than Korean workers mainly because of communication problems.
According to a Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business survey early this year, the productivity of an average foreign worker (E-9 visa holder) was 87.5 percent of a Korean worker.
Korea Times
You can read more at the link.
Here is an interesting article about a Kunsan Airbase NCO who has a side gig as a professional wrestler in South Korea:
Over the past year, Tech. Sgt. Gregory Gauntt has established an alter ego as one of the most despised characters in South Korea.
Stars & Stripes
That’s Ryan Oshun, the persona that Gauntt, 33, adopts when he steps into the ring as the Pro Wrestling Society heavyweight champion. The noncommissioned officer in charge of fuels knowledge for Kunsan’s 8th Logistics Readiness Squadron calls Oshun “the guy you wouldn’t want to ever bring home to your mother, but the guy you want to be around because it would be super cool.”
Before Gauntt started his yearlong stint in South Korea, he contacted Korea-based Pro Wrestling Society promoters and worked his way into their shows. He hopes the momentum he’s built establishing fans and enemies in Korea will continue when he returns to the States next month.
“I hope wrestling in Korea will boost my résumé because I am now an international champion,” he said. “Maybe the stock behind my name is more, and I have more credibility now that I have traveled outside the U.S.”
You can read more at the link.
It took two weeks but finally the sunken tour boat in Hungary has been lifted:
The Hungarian sightseeing boat carrying Korean tourists that tragically sank in the Danube River in Budapest nearly two weeks ago was salvaged Tuesday, leading to the immediate discovery of four more missing bodies.
Joong Ang Ilbo
The Hableany, which sank near Margaret Bridge in the Danube River in Budapest, was lifted by a large floating crane, the Clark Adam, after operations to fasten four cables to the hull of the vessel were completed the previous day.
Hungarian authorities began lifting the wreck around 6:40 a.m. local time. The wheelhouse of the boat could be seen above the surface of the water within half an hour and the deck and cabins were in view within two hours.
The Hableany, or Mermaid, carrying 33 Korean tourists and two Hungarian crew capsized on the evening of May 29 after it was struck by a larger Swiss ship, the Viking Sigyn, helmed by a Ukrainian captain. Seven survivors were rescued immediately after the sinking and seven bodies recovered.
You can read more at the link.
Kim Won-bong is basically the Benedict Arnold of South Korea. I think it is okay to record his military contributions as part of the historical record, but his treason should be part of the historical record as well instead of just receiving praise for his anti-Japanese activities:
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The Ministry of National Defense said Monday it was reviewing a request from its research arm to include details of Kim Won-bong’s fight for Korea’s independence in the historical records of the Korean military on its official website.
Korea Times
Kim was the leader of a secret society fighting for independence. He and his associates became undercover operatives for the Korean provisional government in China from the late 1930s to early 1940s. But Kim later went to North Korea, where he earned commendations from Pyongyang for his efforts in the Korean War.
“The ministry understands there is a need to record the late Kim Won-bong’s activities if they turn out to be based on historical facts,” ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo told reporters in a briefing at the ministry’s headquarters in Yongsan-gu, Seoul.
A request was made last year by the Institute for Military History for the current history on the ministry website to be revised to include some facts about Kim’s activities including his creation of the anti-Japanese Korean Volunteer Corps in 1938 in Wuhan, China. Kim was later appointed deputy commander of the Korean Liberation Army in 1942 and served until 1945.
Currently, the ministry’s records only state certain facts such as those on the late independence activist Ahn Jung-geun and his assassination of then-Japanese Resident-General Hirobumi Ito in 1909, or the foundation of the provisional government in 1919, in the history before the 1945 liberation of Korea from colonial rule.
The historical assessment on Kim, however, remains controversial as he became a North Korean military commander in 1948 and fought against South Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War. He was said to have helped strengthen Kim Il-sung’s regime in North Korea before being purged in 1958.
Controversy surrounding Kim has recently resurfaced following President Moon Jae-in’s June 6 Memorial Day speech at Seoul National Cemetery, where he gave credit to him for his activities.
You can read more at the link.
I wonder what the U.S. government’s definition of a “certain limit” is compared to the Moon administration’s?:
South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said her country and the United States determined that North Korea’s short-range missile launches in May did not “deserve” suspending talks with the regime.
Yonhap
Speaking Friday at a security forum in Bratislava, Slovakia, Kang said South Korea and the U.S. analyzed the launches in early May and “decided to take a cool headed approach about this.”
“We said this doesn’t deserve breaking the momentum for dialogue,” she told the forum in English, according to an AP transcript. “But if it reaches, the provocation reaches a certain limit and that cannot be tolerated, clearly it goes back to more pressure.”
You can read more at the link.
