Tag: South Korea

People best think twice before sharing any images or videos of ex-lovers while living in South Korea:

The government and the ruling Democratic Party of Korea will push ahead with legislation to toughen penalties on revenge porn.

If the National Assembly passes the new law, which it is very likely to, those who attempt to humiliate ex-lovers by sharing images online or videos of their naked bodies, won’t just be slapped on the wrist with a fine as many of them are currently. Instead, they may face up to five years in prison without the option of a fine.

Under the current law, such criminals face up to five years in prison or a maximum fine of 10 million won ($8,800), and most end up with the fine.

Hong Nam-ki, head of the Office of Government Policy Coordination, announced a package of measures Tuesday to better protect people from the crime, which has become a social issue in recent years.

Those who commercially use such images or videos could face up to seven years in prison.

The new law will also require offenders to pay the costs of removing the contents online.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Deployment of U.S. strategic assets to begin late this year: Moon's security advisor https://t.co/HZk4FtuTN1

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) September 27, 2017

Well-dressed dogs strut the catwalk during a pet fashion show at a park in the southeastern port city of Busan on Sept. 24, 2017. (Yonhap)

Paris Baguette is about to get hit with a huge fine if it doesn’t directly hire 5,400 bakers in 25 days:

Paris Baguette is facing its biggest crisis in its history as it has been ordered by the government to hire 5,400 patissiers directly, placing a heavier financial burden on Korea’s largest bakery franchise.

Currently, most patissiers working at Paris Baguette franchisees are dispatched by the firm’s 11 partner firms, but are trained and supervised by the bakery.

The Ministry of Labor and Employment is calling the practice illegal because patissiers are not one of 32 occupations allowed to be outsourced under the law, ordering the bakery to directly hire them.

The ministry said Paris Baguette opts to have its small business partners hire workers and send them to work for it, which costs less than directly hiring them as regular employees.

However, Paris Baguette said it shouldn’t be obliged to hire patissiers, adding they do not work for the franchise headquarters. The bakery said patissiers work at franchisees, stressing it trains and supervises them on behalf of franchised store owners.

The company said it is considering filing an administrative litigation against labor ministry’s order to directly hire bakers dispatched by its partner firms.

The ministry concluded Thursday that Paris Baguette has directly supervised bakers dispatched by its partner companies, violating the legal dispatch code of the labor law. The ministry ordered it to directly hire all of the 5,378 bakers who are working at its 3,396 franchise stores.

If Paris Baguette does not comply with the order within 25 days after receiving the official document, it would face a fine of up to 53 billion won ($46.5 million).  [Korea Times via reader link]

You can read more at the link, but I don’t see any evidence in the article of the bakers being mistreated by the franchisees that hired them.  I think there is probably more to this story than what is published in the article.

I feel so bad for the victim’s parents that this murderer was only sentenced to 20 years for this horrible crime:

The Incheon District Court on Friday sentenced the suspect who murdered an 8-year-old girl and dismembered her body to 20 years in prison, and doled out a life sentence for the accomplice. The court also said the two must wear ankle monitors for 30 years.

“Kim very carefully planned the crime,” the court said. “And Park was in a close relationship with Kim and she was her accomplice through the act.”

The suspect is a 17-year-old female student surnamed Kim. Her accomplice is an 18-year-old female student surnamed Park.

The Juvenile Act prevents anyone under 18 from receiving a life sentence or death penalty for murder or other serious crimes. The act says a minor convicted of murder can receive a sentence of up to 15 years. But Kim was sentenced to 20 years after the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes was applied to her case.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

The US embassy in South Korea cannot win.  First they get criticized for having unpaid internship positions and now they get criticized for getting rid of the internship program:

A college student, who requested to be identified as Park, was supposed to start an internship at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul this December.

After receiving a letter of acceptance July 21, she was preparing for the program — finding a residence in Seoul and buying work clothes — while dreaming of a future career after the internship.

On Sept. 6, however, she learned the program was suspended. She received an email from the embassy, which read “The U.S. Embassy will not be moving forward with our Winter Internship at this time.”

Explanations from the embassy frustrated her.

“The embassy staff simply repeated the answer that the decision was made due to personnel affairs in the organization,” Park told The Korea Times.

The cancellation of the internship program was more devastating for Park because the winter program was her last chance to work there before her graduation. “I even gave up a full-time paid job which gave me a final acceptance notification to do the internship, because the latter was only allowed for university students,” Park said.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but this is what happens when interns complain about not getting paid.

Gordon Ramsay appearing in Cass beer commercials-INSIDE Korea JoongAng Daily https://t.co/lWmCk1tGLU

— ZenKimchi (@ZenKimchi) September 17, 2017

Maybe Mike Honda can put a Vietnamese comfort women statue next to the Korean one that was put up in San Francisco:

But for a significant number of children fathered as a result of rape by South Korean soldiers, it was the start of a living hell.

Mr Nhat recalled: “Before April 1975, I had been treated well by the South Korean troops who lived on the base near my home in Phu Yen Province, central Vietnam. I was still too young to have any real sense of my identity and hadn’t yet questioned my mother about why I looked different to other Vietnamese children.

“But when the Communists declared victory, everything changed for me. Suddenly, I knew I was dangerously different.”

A period of painful bullying ensued in school. Mr Nhat said: “I was bullied repeatedly. The other children kept asking who my father was and called him a ‘dog’. I just kept suffering in silence.

“I was 18 when my mother finally sat me down and told me she had been raped by Korean soldiers – not once but three times. My two sisters are also mixed blood or Lai Dai Han as we are known in Vietnam.”  (…..)

South Korean troops were not alone in their exploitation of civilian women but their country has never acknowledged the allegations or taken steps to investigate.  (…..)

Mrs Ngai felt confused in the fog of war but now she is very clear about what she wants now. “I think the South Korean government should apologise for everything they did to women in Vietnam. [The Independent]

You can read more at the link.

It seems to me that every dollar South Korea spends on aid to North Korea is one more dollar that the Kim regime can divert towards its missile and nuclear programs:

President Moon Jae-in suggested Friday that South Korea could go ahead with humanitarian aid to North Korea in a thinly veiled rejection of a call for caution by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Abe asked Moon to consider the timing of the proposed aid during their phone conversation, but Moon said aid is an issue that should be dealt with regardless of political situations, an official said.

Moon said monitoring is a precondition to the aid in an apparent attempt to ensure that the aid reaches its intended beneficiaries in North Korea.

South Korea is set to decide next Thursday whether to approve the aid to infants and pregnant women in North Korea. If approved, it would mark the resumption of Seoul’s aid to North Korea via U.N. organizations, last carried out in December 2015.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

This photo from the city government of Chungju, North Chungcheong Province, on Sept. 13, 2017, shows a man-made island of water plants in the shape of a star. The island got its motif from a poem by writer Shin Kyung-rim, who was born in the city 147 kilometers southeast of Seoul. (Yonhap)