Tag: South Korea

This photo belatedly released by the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae on Oct. 2, 2018, shows South Korean magician Choi Hyun-woo (L) performing with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during an inter-Korean summit dinner at the North’s state banquet hall in Pyongyang on Sept. 18. (Yonhap)

The South Korean left’s war on conservative media continues, but credit to the New York Times for taking notice of what is going on in South Korea:

South Korea announced a sweeping crackdown on “fake news” on Tuesday, calling it “a destroyer of democracy.” Conservative critics of the government, however, cried foul, accusing it of trying to impede freedom of speech.

Speaking at a cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon said that fake news had spread so widely in South Korea that it was stymying not only citizens’ privacy but also the country’s national security and foreign policies, including its relations with North Korea.

Mr. Lee did not offer examples. But he was furious last week after he visited Vietnam for the state funeral for its president, Tran Dai Quang. While in Hanoi, he visited the stilt house of Ho Chi Minh and wrote in the visitors’ book at the compound that he felt “humble” before the “great” Vietnamese leader. South Korea fought against his Communist forces alongside the Americans during the Vietnam War.

When the photograph of Mr. Lee’s tribute was reported in South Korea, conservative critics called him a “commie” on social media.  [New York Times]

So of course the Prime Minister has declared war on fake news and wants a new law to regulate the news:

Mr. Lee encouraged government agencies to report fake news to the law enforcement authorities for investigation. He also called for a new law regulating such information, which some lawmakers in his Democratic Party had already been advocating.

Opposition lawmakers denounced the government’s move as an attempt to silence criticism, especially YouTube videos used by conservative critics to attack the progressive government of President Moon Jae-in, whom they often call a North Korean stooge. Progressives have long criticized those channels as a main source of inaccurate and unfair information.

“They can already punish distribution of false information under the existing laws,” Park Dae-chul, a legislator affiliated with the conservative opposition Liberty Korea Party, said in a statement. “I cannot help suspecting that this is an attempt to crack down on right-wing podcasts. They want to shut down the voices the government doesn’t want to hear.”

ROK Drop readers may recall how the Korean left has already taken over control of most of the mainstream media in the country through union violence and those they don’t control they have threatened with legal action.  They have even had conservative journalists arrested for libel.

The Moon administration is taking these actions because they need to change the South Korean public’s opinion of North Korea and Kim Jong-un.  Conservative critics who keep bringing up North Korea’s poor human rights record, past atrocities, terrorism, and other inconvenient truths have to be silenced to continue to shape pro-North public messaging.

The Moon administration’s ultimate goal is a confederation with North Korea and he can’t realize that without the support of the South Korean public.

It looks like the Russian cargo ship suspected of sanctions violations was able to drop off its cargo somewhere before being investigated or this was all one big misunderstanding:

South Korea on Tuesday lifted a ban on the departure of a blacklisted Russian ship that it seized last week in the southern port city of Busan, following an investigation, Seoul’s foreign ministry said.

The Sevastopol was barred from leaving the country on Sept. 28 under a U.N. sanctions resolution after entering the country’s biggest port for repairs on Aug. 13, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“We have lifted the ban on the vessel as in our probe we didn’t found any violations committed by the ship. The cargo ship is now allowed to leave (South Korea) any time,” ministry spokesman Noh Kyu-duk said over the phone.

The ministry said that “putting on hold” the ship’s departure is different from its detainment, which is a measure taken in cases where a vessel is confirmed to have engaged in illicit activities, such as any violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

I would not be surprised if US authorities walked ROK authorities down to the dock to force them to take action:

South Korean authorities have seized a Russian-flagged ship and its crew in Busan on suspicion they are violating U.S. sanctions on North Korea, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

The seizure came after concern about the Seoul’s lax enforcement of international economic sanctions on North Korea amid improving inter-Korean relations.

It is still uncertain whether the seizure was an independent decision by South Korea or a request from the U.S.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link.

I may not be a nurse, but this sure seems inappropriate to pressure someone to have an enema:

A human rights violation controversy has emerged after it was found that some nursing schools here force students to act as guinea pigs by receiving an enema in front of classmates.

Act Now Nurse, a group advocating nurses’ human rights, said it plans to file a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission of Korea against seven schools for human rights infringement.

The practice became known after a student accused one school of randomly picking one student each from four- to five-member groups to become the “patient of the day” for the enema training.

“One student in each group is picked by drawing lots, and it is the atmosphere that the selected student cannot say no. Having to show my anus to others because of bad luck in the lots… I think this is an issue of human rights, and I wonder if other schools do this too,” the student said anonymously in an online community of nurses, Sept. 18.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Courtesy of the Japanese Navy, the Moon administration has a nice distraction to rally all Koreans around:

The Navy said Sunday it remains in opposition to a Japanese warship carrying a controversial imperialistic flag to an international naval event in South Korea next month.

The southern island of Jeju will stage the International Fleet Review from Oct. 10-14, and the Navy said warships from 15 nations, including Japan, the United States and China, will participate in the first such event in South Korea since 2008.

The Japanese vessel is expected to display the Rising Sun Flag, viewed as an emblem of the country’s wartime aggression in South Korea, where historical animosity over the wrongdoings of the country’s former colonizer still runs deep. Japan colonized the peninsula from 1910-45.

South Korea earlier informed participating nations that they should raise their national flag and the flag of the host country. One South Korean Navy official said the stance hasn’t changed.

“We’ll continue to speak with Japan regarding this matter,” the official said. “Our Navy has a separate communication channel with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, and we’ll continue to let them know where we stand.”

Another South Korean military source said he expected Japan to carry the flag into Jeju waters and then take it down during the actual review.  [Yonhap]

It looks like the Moon administration continues to work around the sanctions on the North Koreans:

South Korea will seek to launch joint on-site inspections of cross-border railways with North Korea next month as part of efforts to reconnect the railways, as called for in last week’s inter-Korean summit agreement, the presidential spokesman said Friday.

The decision was made at a meeting of the committee formed to discuss measures to carry out the Pyongyang Declaration reached in the third summit between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang last week.

The agreement calls for breaking ground before the end of the year toward reconnecting two sets of cross-border roads and railways. One of them, called the Seohae Line, runs through the western section of the border and the other, called the Donghae Line, runs through the eastern section. [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I wonder if the United Nations Command has blessed off on this yet?  Despite all the concessions the Moon administration has made to the Kim regime, I have yet to read or see any report that the North Koreans have removed one piece of artillery or troop formation away from the DMZ.

Here is a reminder to all my readers in South Korea, seatbelts are now mandatory to wear:

Starting tomorrow, all car passengers will have to buckle up.

The National Police Agency said Thursday that a new enforcement ordinance requiring all car passengers to wear seatbelts on Korea’s roads will come into force on Friday.

A driver will be fined 30,000 won ($27) if any passenger violates the rule. The fine will be 60,000 won if the passenger is 13 or younger.

Police said they are planning to start cracking down on seatbelt violations in December, after a two-month awareness campaign.  [Korea Times]

Here is another study that shows the high quality of life the people in South Korea enjoy:

South Korea has improved its quality of life to become the world’s 18th best this year, a survey by a U.S. non-profit organization showed Thursday.

According to the survey conducted by the Social Progress Imperative, South Korea earned an overall score of 87.13 out of 100 in its “social progress index” survey for 2018, making it 18th of 146 nations surveyed across the globe. Last year, the Northeast Asian nation ranked 26th.

The index aggregates 51 social and environmental indicators that track three aspects of social progress: basic human needs, foundations of well-being and opportunity. The organization began compiling such data in 2013.

“South Korea earned relatively high scores in its solid education and IT infrastructure among others, but needs more efforts to improve environmental quality and to promote social inclusiveness for minorities,” said Cho Yong-ho, an official of international consultancy Deloitte Anjin which works with the non-profit group for the study.

Norway topped the list this year with 90.26 points, followed by Iceland, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Japan, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Germany and New Zealand. (Yonhap)

Interestingly according to the study South Korea has a higher quality of life than the United States.  Also notice that they did not even include North Korea on the list.  Here is the full list where South Korea’s arch rival Japan ranks 6th in the world in:

Here is what unquestioning belief in any sexual harassment allegation has brought:

A growing number of Korean men fear being wrongfully accused of sexual harassment in crowded public places due to the new zero-tolerance policy for such offenses.

One woman posted an appeal on the Cheong Wa Dae website last Thursday claiming that her husband had been wrongfully accused of groping a woman in a busy restaurant and sentenced to six months behind bars.

Huh Yoon, an attorney, said, “In cases where the account of the victim is the only piece of evidence, courts have no choice but to take it into account.”

Last Saturday a group of men created a website seeking to help other men who have been wrongfully accused of sexual harassment. The website attracted more than 1,000 members in just four days. Some men said they make sure to put their hands in full view of others when they ride a crowded subway, while others keep their smartphones in their pockets so that they will not be suspected of taking upskirt pictures.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.