It looks like the Moon administration is about to scrap an agreement made with the Japanese to settle the comfort women issue:
The Seoul office of the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation (Yonhap)
The South Korean government is expected to announce a decision this week to dismantle a controversial foundation related to Japan’s wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women, an official said Tuesday.
The planned shutdown of the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation, funded by Japan, is seen as Seoul’s move to effectively discard a 2015 accord between the neighboring countries on the “comfort women” issue.
Many Korean women were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II. Some historians put the number at as many as 200,000. Korea was under Japan’s brutal colonization from 1910-45.
In late 2015, the then-Park Geun-hye administration signed the agreement to resolve the history issue. They launched the foundation, intended to help the victims and their families, the following year. Japan offered 1 billion yen (US$8.9 million). [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but as usual the South Korean is more than willing to scrap agreements and demonize the Japanese who have been nothing but great neighbors to the ROK since Imperial Japan’s destruction during World War II.
Meanwhile the Korean left continues to suck up to the Kim regime in North Korea that nearly destroyed the ROK during the Korean War and has launched numerous deadly attacks and provocations since then.
Here is another one of these incidents where there is likely more to the story and both sides at fault, but radicals from each side will manipulate facts to push their agendas:
A recent assault case involving three men and two women at a bar near Isu Subway Station in Seoul — better known as the “Isu Station assault” case — has triggered an unexpected gender war online, after the women said they were attacked by men for their feminist choices, while others accused them of fabricating the account.
More than 350,000 Koreans signed an online petition asking for the presidential office to punish the three men after one of the two women claimed online that she and her sister were physically attacked for “not wearing makeup” and “having short hair.”
The woman, who is in her early 20s, said she deliberately chose the look — no makeup with short hair — as part of the “escape the corset” movement, a Korean feminist movement that rejects makeup and the rigid standards of beauty imposed particularly on young women in Korean society. [Korea Herald]
It seems pretty creepy for someone to wear the jacket of someone that was just killed and then continue to wear it even while being investigated and arrested:
One of four middle-school students arrested in the death of a classmate wearing the victim’s jacket, Oct. 16, 2018 (Yonhap)
The police said on Saturday that one of four middle-school students arrested in the death of a classmate Friday had worn the victim’s jacket at the time of the arrest and throughout the police investigation.
Four teenagers were booked on charges of causing death from bodily injuries after the other boy fell from the roof of a 15-story apartment building on Tuesday afternoon.
The Incheon Yeonsu Police Station confirmed that the jacket one of the suspects wore to court on Friday belonged to the victim. “The boy was wearing the jacket when we arrested him, and he has not been able to change as he has been under detention since then,” the police said. [Korea Herald]
Three South Korean companies have agreed to plead guilty and pay some $236 million in criminal and civil penalties for a “decade-long bid rigging conspiracy” involving contracts to supply fuel to U.S. military bases on the peninsula, the Justice Department said.
The companies — SK Energy Co. Ltd., GS Caltex Corp., and Hanjin Transportation Co. Ltd. — also agreed to pay a total of about $154 million to the United States for antitrust and false claims violations in separate civil claims, according to a statement.
The Justice Department said the criminal charges were the first to be announced in the investigation, which involved allegations that the petroleum and refinery companies and their agents conspired “to suppress and eliminate competition” during the bidding process for contracts from 2005 to 2016.
“Such a conspiracy is no less illegal for being hatched in South Korea, and as this case shows, federal law enforcement authorities can bridge the distance,” said Benjamin Glassman, U.S. attorney of the southern district of Ohio. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but does anyone think this is the only big rigging going on for USFK contracts?
It is amazing how the fine dust particles from China has now become a year around problem for South Korea:
Fine dust blankets central Seoul in this photo taken Monday morning. (Yonhap)
Anti-pollution masks are strongly advised as fine dust levels across the country are expected to hit “bad” levels Monday, induced by industrial particles blown from China’s east coast.
The National Institute of Environmental Research said the capital area of the peninsula, northeastern province of Gangwon, central province of Chungcheong, southwestern province of Jeolla, southeastern province of Gyeongsang will all suffer “bad” levels of PM 2.5 dust, which range at around 35 micrograms of fine dust particles per cubic meter. [Korea Herald]
This report shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that regularly reads the ROK Drop:
China isn’t as committed to North Korea’s denuclearization as Washington or Seoul and aims to weaken the South Korea-U.S. alliance, according to an annual report on the U.S.-China economic and security relationship submitted to the U.S. Congress on Wednesday.
Beijing also appears to have already relaxed its enforcement of sanctions on North Korea, “undermining the U.S. ‘maximum pressure’ campaign,” according to the extensive report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
The report, which also outlined China’s North Korea strategy, stressed that the “timeline for cutting sanctions is perhaps the most prominent process issue.” It added that “harmonizing the timeline and sequencing for implementing a comprehensive agreement” will be a priority for negotiators.
U.S. officials prefer “speedy steps toward ending North Korea’s nuclear and long-range missile programs, with the bulk of actions from Pyongyang coming up front before sanctions relief” and have some “potential for flexibility,” according to the report. In turn, China has pushed for a “phased and synchronous” approach, with reciprocal actions from each side. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but what this report has wrong is that I believe it is arguable whether South Korea is committed to North Korea’s denuclearization as well. The fact that the Moon administration has been pushing for the dropping of sanctions for little to nothing in return from North Korea is evidence of this.
When in history has "the right side of history" denied overwhelming evidence of concentration camps that hold 80,000 to 120,000 men, women & children? Or defended, in the name of feminism, a state that gives impunity to its officials who rape? This profanes history and peace. https://t.co/2ig4hR5Rrm
Police officers model for New Year’s calendar
This photo, released by GP Korea on Nov. 16, 2018, shows the December section of a New Year’s calendar that contains images of 20 muscular police officers posing for photos. The calendar features Park Sung-yong, a police officer at a police station in Bucheon, west of Seoul, and his 19 colleagues. It will be available for sale through pre-orders starting Nov. 19, with the proceeds generated by the sales to be used to help children victimized by child abuse. (Yonhap)
That is the question a KBS World Radio host asked random foreigners recently in Itaewon:
For military personnel, what I recommend is to get to know the KATUSA personnel in your unit. This will often lead to invites to go out or even visits their homes on the weekend.
Anyone have any tips on making Korean friends to share?
The police have determined that a disputed Twitter account that spread false election rumors belongs to the wife of Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myung.
The cyber unit at Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said Saturday that it will ask prosecutors early next week to indict Kim Hye-gyeong on charges of violating the Public Official Election Act.
A police official said details will not be disclosed to the media as Kim denies the charges and a legal battle is expected.
False information was posted on the Twitter account in question in April during the ruling Democratic Party’s primary race for the Gyeonggi governorship. The claim was damaging to her husband’s rival candidate.
The account also falsely claimed in late 2016 that then presidential hopeful Moon Jae-in’s son received employment favors.
The police analyzed some 40-thousand Tweets to identify the account’s owner and concluded that it belongs to the governor’s wife. [KBS World Radio]
