North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un and his wife Ri Sol-ju are surrounded by South Korean musicians after their joint concert at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater, Sunday. / Joint Press Corps [Korea Times]
I am always amazed how people keep falling for these scams:
A Malaysian man has been jailed for a year over a fake kidnapping phone scam.
The man, 37, was caught in January after making a phone call to a randomly selected person in Ulsan on Jan. 8. He told the receiver that he had kidnapped his daughter and demanded 27 million won ($25,399) ransom.
The father wired the money but soon realized he had been duped. He reported the incident to police, who caught the suspect days after.
The Malaysian was found to be a member of a domestic voice phishing syndicate. The suspect told police he took 500,000 won from the wired money and shared the rest with his colleagues. Police are looking for other people involved. [Korea Times]
Here is an interesting immigration story involving a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel and his adopted Korean daughter:
Retired Army Lt. Col. Patrick Schreiber is hoping his family — adopted daughter Hyebin and wife Soo Jin Schreiber — can stay in the country. Schreiber assumed he and his wife had time to adopt their Korean-immigrant niece, then 15, as their daughter. They didn’t realize that children brought into the country should be adopted before age 16 to be allowed access to U.S. citizenship.
A retired Army lieutenant colonel with six tours of duty, Patrick Schreiber says that his failure to gain an understanding of immigration law is “the greatest regret in my life.”
Because it now could mean having to move his family to South Korea next year so he, his wife and adopted daughter could stay together.
In 2013, just before he deployed to Afghanistan as a chief intelligence officer, Schreiber of Lansing, Mich. assumed he and his wife had time to adopt a Korean-immigrant niece, then 15, as their daughter. Having consulted with an adoption attorney, he thought the cut-off date to legally adopt would be her 18th birthday.
“I assumed wrong,” he says now, having adopted the girl when she was 17.
Too late, according to the government. A federal statute says that children brought into the country should be adopted before age 16 to be allowed access to U.S. citizenship.
As a result, deportation could await daughter Hyebin, a junior studying chemical engineering at the University of Kansas. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but it seems that US immigration laws need to have a process to apply for an exception to policy for unusual circumstances like this. With that said since she is studying chemical engineering I would be surprised if she isn’t able to get a work visa to stay in the US after graduating from college.
Hopefully this gets worked out, but even the worst case scenario of having to go back to South Korea is not that bad. It isn’t like she is going to some third world country and South Korea is where she has spent the vast majority of her life at. I have feeling this will work its self out, but I do find it interesting the difficulty this family is having trying to legally immigrate their adopted daughter to the US while the children of illegal immigrants continue to get special treatment under US immigration laws.
Kim Jong-un is continuing his charm offensive in the lead up to his summit with Present Moon Jae-in later this month:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (L) talks with South Korea’s culture minister Do Jong-whan during a performance by a South Korean art troupe in Pyongyang in this photo captured from a pool video on April 1, 2018. (Yonhap)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his wife attended a historic performance in Pyongyang by a South Korean art troupe on Sunday, the South Korean culture ministry said.
The couple was present for the concert by the 160-member South Korean art troupe at East Pyongyang Grand Theatre, a pool report said. The group included 11 Korean pop musicians such as Cho Yong-pil, Lee Sun-hee, Choi Jin-hee, Red Velvet and Seohyun of Girls’ Generation.
Kim became the first North Korean leader to attend a performance by a South Korean artistic group.
His appearance was somewhat expected as South Korean President Moon Jae-in attended the Seoul performance by a North Korean art troupe called “Samjiyon Orchestra” in February in celebration of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics in the South.
A pool report said the North Korean leader’s sister Kim Yo-jong and the country’s nominal head of state Kim Yong-nam attended the performance as well.
The North Korean leader also insisted that the two Koreas should hold cultural performances more often, suggesting that there should be another event in Seoul around fall. [Yonhap]
Via a reader tip comes this conviction against reporters who disclosed the affair of a USFK civilian worker:
South Korea’s top court on Tuesday confirmed the conviction of three weekly magazine reporters who were accused of publishing an extramarital affair story involving a Korean civilian worker at United States Forces Korea (USFK).
The Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling, fining them 3 million won ($2,800) each for defaming the worker.
The court rejected the reporters’ claim that their reporting was justifiable in light of people’s right to know and the freedom of press.
It said the disputed story dealt with a “sheer private affair” whose publication did nothing for public interest. The court said the story was published with personal details edited out, but not enough. [Korea Times]
Can you imagine if the US had South Korea’s defamation laws? The journalists in America would all be broke from lawsuits.
This may be a blueprint that we may see played again by North Korea in upcoming talks to meet their goal of separating the ROK from the US:
In the late 1980s, North Korea proposed creating a neutral state on the Korean Peninsula that could serve as a buffer zone in the region, declassified diplomatic documents showed Friday.
Then Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev delivered the North’s secret proposal to then U.S. President Ronald Reagan during their summit in Washington on Dec. 9, 1987, according to the documents disclosed by the foreign ministry.
Under the plan, the North wanted to create a federation-style republic consisting of two different governments representing the two Koreas and declare it as a neutral state that could serve as a regional buffer zone, the documents said.
The North also called for the two Koreas to sign a nonaggression treaty and replace the current armistice with a peace treaty, while suggesting the new entity would join the United Nations under a single name.
In addition, Pyongyang sought to scrap all agreements or treaties reached with third parties deemed to be running counter to their pursuit of reunification, a demand interpreted as a way to put pressure on Seoul to walk away from its mutual defense treaty with the U.S.
The North suggested the two Koreas reduce the number of their respective troops to fewer than 100,000 as a step toward building a peace mood and called for the withdrawal of any nuclear weapons and foreign troops from the peninsula, apparently targeting U.S. troops stationed in the South. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but this shows the Kim regime has long tried to separate the ROK from the US. Their nuclear weapons program is just the latest attempt to make this happen. Their nuclear weapons program that can threaten the US is being used as a bargaining chip to separate the US from South Korea and then seek a confederation on North Korean terms.
It is definitely yellow dust season again in South Korea:
Korea was blanketed with the worst toxic smog so far this year over the weekend, forcing many people to cancel outdoor activities.
“Without rain or winds, accumulated pollutants from outside and inside the country caused a high density of fine dust,” the Environment Ministry said.
As of 1 p.m. on Sunday, the concentration of ultrafine or PM2.5 dust particles was “very bad” at 101 ㎍/㎥ and higher in Seoul, Gyeonggi Province, and North Chungcheong Province. The fine dust density went even higher in most regions on Sunday.
The ministry decided to implement emergency measures for the Seoul metropolitan area for the fourth time this year as the fine dust density exceeded 50 ㎍/㎥ in Seoul, Incheon, and Gyeonggi as of 5 p.m. Sunday and is expected to surpass the level again on Monday.
Some 27,000 civil servants in the Seoul area are only allowed to drive cars with even number plates on Monday. [Chosun Ilbo]
I doubt the car restriction on the civil servants would do much of anything to the fine dust level. I am willing to bet that President Moon could declare a national holiday and keep everyone at home and it would do nothing to the yellow dust level since the source of the problem largely lies across the border in China. The ROK government can’t do anything about that, so restricting a few cars at least allows the government to look like it is “doing something”.
