Tag: South Korea

This image provided by Seo Kyoung-duk, professor of Sungshin Women’s University, on Aug. 14, 2018, promotes a video clip on YouTube (https://youtu.be/5isUH0g_YEU) that he made to criticize Japan for its attempts to distort the history of its wartime sexual slavery. South Korea has designated Aug. 14 as national day for the former sex slaves, also known as comfort women. (Yonhap)

It is pretty sad when politicians can’t even agree on what day their country was founded:

Rival parties clashed over a long-running controversy over the founding day of the Republic of Korea Wednesday as the country marked the 73rd anniversary of its liberation from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule.

Conservatives have long claimed that the country was founded on Aug. 15, 1948, when the South Korean government was launched after Korea was liberated from Japan’s control in 1945 and then divided into the capitalist South and the communist North.

But the liberal bloc says that April 13, 1919, when the Korean government-in-exile was established in Shanghai, should be regarded as the day of the republic’s founding.

The ruling Democratic Party (DP) said that the conservatives’ claim is an outdated idea based on ideological division. But the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) insisted that to deny the country’s founding in 1948 is to disavow South Korea’s legitimacy.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

I think the Moon administration may be trying to create a precedent of sanctions exemptions at the Kaesong Industrial Complex with this request.  If this gets approved down the road they could request even more small exemptions and pretty soon they have a working industrial park again:

South Korea’s foreign ministry said Wednesday it was talking with the United States to possibly obtain sanctions relief for North Korea, though the ministry didn’t specify when the relief would happen.

“The ministry is in discussions with the United States to get the go-ahead for partial sanctions relief, which will be helpful for South Korea to push forward the country’s business projects, most of which are non-commercial, with North Korea. But the South has no plans to violate U.N. sanctions now being imposed on the North,” said a ministry official.

The official added the U.N. Security Council’s actions would support and conform to the efforts of diplomatic talks toward denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.

At the Singapore summit in June between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Trump said economic sanctions will be maintained until Pyongyang’s nuclear program is “no longer a problem.”

The remarks came after Seoul began supplying power to the liaison office located inside the joint industrial park in Gaeseong, North Korea. Seoul’s unification ministry said South Korea seeks to run the office within this month in consultation with the U.S. and the allies.

It also said the power supply will be limited to the joint liaison office, not the entire Gaeseong Industrial Complex (GIC), and that its measure should not be seen as a sign of easing the U.S.-led international sanctions on Pyongyang.

The measure however, raised suspicions whether South Korea will be walking a tightrope between abiding by the sanctions and seeking exemptions from the sanctions to help the impoverished Pyongyang regime.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but the Trump administration should tell them to have North Korea provide the power themselves.

Here is what President Moon had to say during his Liberation Day speech:

President Moon Jae-in on Wednesday used his Liberation Day address to pitch his Korea peace drive, calling for railway, energy and economic cooperation with the North as a cornerstone for Northeast Asian peace and prosperity.

Speaking at a ceremony marking Korea’s independence from the 1910-45 Japanese colonial rule 73 years ago on the day, he renewed his commitment to end the division of the Koreas, saying “true liberation” can only be achieved when the two countries establish a lasting peace and economic community.

“We must overcome such a division for our survival and development. Even though a political unification may be a long way from here, establishing peace between the South and the North and freely visiting each other, and forming a joint economic community is true liberation to us,” Moon added in a nationally televised speech that also marked the foundation of the South Korean government 70 years ago on Wednesday.

Moon insisted the two Koreas were already moving toward peace, noting the countries have halted their hostile acts under an agreement reached at his first-ever summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un held April 27.  (………)

To this end, South Korea will seek to physically connect its roads and railways with those of North Korea before the year’s end, the president said.

Noting the European Union began with a simple bloc for coal and steel, the South Korean president proposed the two Koreas, together with the United States and four other Asian countries, form what he called a “Northeast Asian railroad community.”

The presidential office Cheong Wa Dae later explained the four Asian countries were China, Japan, Russia and Mongolia.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

This photo provided by the local police station in Pyeongchang, some 180 km east of Seoul, shows red peppers and other crops being dried in its parking lot. The station has opened the space to farmers since 2004. (Yonhap)

I wonder if this proposed ban to save children from so called “harmful” information will include websites that push anti-Japanese viewpoints?:

The government is seeking to prevent children’s access to online communities that advocate hate and discriminatory speech against selective groups of people. The move aims to counter a social rift triggered and widened by extremist, gender-divided online communities _ the far-right troll website Ilbe, frequented almost exclusively by men, and the extreme feminist website WOMAD.

According to a report submitted by the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) to Rep. Noh Woong-rae of the Democratic Party of Korea, the commission seeks to revise relevant laws to designate such websites that foster hatred and discrimination as “harmful” to children.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the elderly people of South Korea might be the ones making the sacrifice to pay off Kim Jong-un:

Anchor: The government is reportedly mulling a set of reform measures to ensure the sustainable operation of the National Pension Fund, which is expected to run out of money around three years earlier than predicted. The reported measures are, however, drawing strong public criticism as they’re likely to increase the burden for subscribers.
Our Lee Bo-kyung has more.

Report: The Moon Jae-in administration is floating the idea of pension reform as the pension fund for salaried workers and the self-employed is expected to bottom out in 2057, about three years earlier than previously estimated.

An advisory panel on the national pension is set to release its reform proposals on Friday. The proposals reportedly include a move to extend the subscription period to the age of 65 from the current 60.

The committee also recommends the government increase premiums gradually from the current nine percent of a subscriber’s monthly income. Another step could be pushing back the payout age to 68.

After the plans were leaked in media reports last Friday, people began voicing outrage about the possible changes, posting over one thousand online petitions on the Web site of the presidential office.  [KBS World Radio]

You can read more at the link.

The date? Likely early Sept, so Moon can celebrate #NorthKorea's 70th anniversary on 9/9 in Pyongyang, but he has denied #SouthKorea's birthdate of 1948/8/15. Why does SK's own prez deny SK's birthdate, but want to celebrate north's, helping north's claim over the peninsula? https://t.co/sdLqVbtDXO

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) August 12, 2018

The Moon administration has agreed to conduct their third inter-Korean summit this year, but this one will be held in Pyongyang:

South and North Korea agreed Monday to hold a summit meeting between their leaders in Pyongyang in September.

The agreement was made during high-level talks on the northern side of Panmunjom that separates the two Koreas. They, however, did not unveil the date of the meeting.

“We agreed to hold an inter-Korean summit within September in Pyongyang” the two Koreas said in a joint press statement issued after the meeting.

North Korea’s chief delegate, Ri Son-gwon, hinted after the meeting that the two sides agreed on a date but decided not to announce it, only to emphasize that the summit will take place “within September.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the number topic I would guess they are going to talk about is how to get around the UN sanctions since the Kim regime is not going to denuclearize and the Trump administration is refusing to drop sanctions until they do.  If such talks are being conducted, hold the summit in Pyongyang makes sense because there is less possibility of intelligence gathering there to determine what their joint strategy is going to be.

Considering how Koreans tend to keep embarrassing things like this quiet, I am not surprised how sexual abuse like this was allowed to go on for so long:

When Kim Eun-hee was 10 years old, a primary school child with dreams of tennis stardom, her coach raped her for the first time. Then he did it again. And again. And again.

The South Korean was too young to even know what sex was. But she knew she dreaded the repeated orders to come to his room at their training camp, and the pain and humiliation.

“It took me years to realize that it was rape,” Kim said. “He kept raping me for two years. … He told me it was a secret to be kept between him and me.”

Now 27, Kim has spoken to international media about her experiences for the first time, and revealed how female athletes in South Korea have silently suffered sexual abuse by their coaches.  (……..)

In a highly competitive society where winning is everything, many young athletes forgo schooling or live away from families to train with their peers and coaches full time, living in a dorm-like environment for years.

The training camp system — akin to models used by communist sporting machines such as China — is credited with helping the South punch well above its weight on the global sporting stage.

But it has proven to be the setting for abuse in several sports — especially of underage athletes whose existence is controlled by their trainers.

“The coach was the king of my world, dictating everything about my daily life from how to exercise to when to sleep and what to eat,” said Kim, adding that he beat her repeatedly as part of “training.”

The coach was eventually dismissed after some parents complained of his “suspicious behavior,” but he was simply moved to another school with no criminal inquiry. Many victims are forced into silence in a world where going public often means the end of any aspirations to stardom.

“This is a community where those who speak out are ostracized and bullied as ‘traitors’ who brought shame to the sport,” said Chung Yong-chul, a sports psychology professor at Sogang University in Seoul.

A 2014 survey commissioned by the Korean Sports & Olympic Committee showed that around 1 in 7 female athletes had experienced sexual abuse in the previous year, but 70 percent of them did not seek help of any kind.  [Japan Times]

You can read much more at the link.