Justice Minister Park Sang-ki gives a certificate of Korean nationality to 6-year-old girl Diana, a granddaughter of the late Korean independence fighter Kim Man-Kyom (1886-1938), at the justice ministry in Gwacheon, south of Seoul, on Aug. 11, 2017. (Yonhap)
I don’t think long time Korea watcher are surprised by this kind of media collusion with Samsung:
“Dear respected Mr. Chang Choong-ki! …. I have finally mustered the courage to send you this text message, after hesitating again and again. My son XXX applied to the XXX department of Samsung Electronics…. His application number is 1XXXXXXX, and he graduated from XXX University with a degree in electrical engineering….”
The sender of the text is an anonymous journalist from CBS, a major Christian broadcaster in South Korea. He is essentially asking one of the most powerful men in Samsung Group to help his son get a job.
“I am always grateful to you,” the journalist wrote.
Chang Choong-ki is the former vice head of Samsung Group’s now-defunct Future Strategy Office, a central but opaque organ in the Samsung machine that sponsored media, dealt with government relations, and oversaw key business decisions across the conglomerate’s 70+ affiliates. Chang is also one of the key figures in the country’s biggest political scandal in recent memory, the so-called “Park Geun-hye/Choi Soon-sil Gate.”
The CBS journalist’s text message is one of many recovered from Chang Choong-ki’s phone by SisaIN, a South Korean magazine. This week, SisaIN released an exclusive by Joo Jin-woo, an investigative reporter well-known for tackling sensitive topics (even taboo, in some outlets) like Samsung and heads of state.
According to Joo, Chang had corresponded with a wide network of authorities in different sectors: officials in the presidential Blue House, the National Intelligence Service (South Korea’s spy agency), prosecutors, journalists, and more.
In one text, Im Chae-jin, a former head of South Korea’s Prosecution Service, mentioned his son-in-law, an employee at a Samsung factory in Suwon: “Can you help my [son-in-law] XXX be dispatched to India?” Im emphasized that his daughter also wanted the transfer.
In another, an anonymous journalist from major daily Munhwa Ilbo asked Chang to increase the amount of sponsorship for the newspaper. “We’ll reward you with good articles,” the anonymous reporter wrote. [Korea Expose]
I recommend reading the whole thing at the link, but media collusion with not only industry, but political parties is something that is not only a problem in South Korea, but as the last election cycle showed, in the United States as well.
From my perspective the McDonald’s in South Korea always seem cleaner and more professionally run than most I see back in the US:
An inspector of the Korea Consumer Agency leaves a McDonald’s restaurant in Gangnam, Seoul, carrying an ordinary paper bag without an airtight sterilization container./ Courtesy of McDonald’s Korea
McDonald’s Korea has filed a court injunction against the disclosure of the results of the Korea Consumer Agency’s sanitary inspection, the U.S.-based fast food chain said Wednesday.
The agency recently investigated 38 hamburgers marketed by six fast food franchises and five convenience store chains, following lawsuits over alleged undercooked McDonald’s patties.
Five Korean consumers have sued the company so far, claiming their children suffered hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS), or the so-called “hamburger disease,” after eating McDonald’s hamburgers.
Although none of the products contained the controversial E. coli bacteria, which is known to cause HUS, the agency found that one McDonald’s hamburger contained staphylococcus aureus above the standard level. The bacterium is a common cause of food poisoning.
The agency initially planned to unveil its findings Tuesday, but scrapped the plan following McDonald’s Korea’s complaint that was applied a day earlier.
McDonald’s Korea criticized the agency for neglecting the required procedures.
“Food hygiene tests should be conducted by trained inspectors who should not hide their identity. A sample should be contained in an airtight sterilization container as well,” a spokeswoman of McDonald’s Korea said.
“However, an inspector, who visited our Gangnam store, pretended to be an ordinary customer. He also carried the sample in a paper bag, not immediately putting it into an airtight sterilization container.” [Korea Times]
You can read the rest at the link, but I can understand McDonald’s beef (pun intended) if the inspectors are not conducting inspections by agreed upon standards.
Here is a good article in the Joong Ang Ilbo about the difficulties Korean adoptees are having tracking down their birth parents in South Korea:
Left: Lida Bouts returned to Korea in February 2016 as an exchange student at Sungkyunkwan University, 22 years after she was adopted by a Dutch couple. Her search for her family failed as there was no response to letters sent by her adoption agency to her birth parents. Middle left: Bouts’ adoption document drawn up in 1993. Middle right: Megan Green as a 2-year-old before an adoption that sent her to the U.S. state of Nebraska in 1986. Right: Green’s adoption document drawn up in 1986. [LIDA BOUTS, MEGAN GREEN]Korea Adoptions Services collects all family search requests from private adoption agencies. It reports that in 2016, there were 1,940 requests from Korean adoptees trying to find their birth parents. Only 102 of them, or 5 percent, ended up meeting their biological parents. The year before, the figure was 91 out of 2,012 requests, or 4.5 percent.
And such reunions are getting harder with time. Parents who gave their babies up after the Korean War were poor and had no choice – and were more likely to agree to meet them two or three decades later.
But adoptions processed in the 1980s and later often involved single mothers, who were afraid of the social stigma attached to unwed mothers. “They have probably found someone to marry after sending children away for adoption, and now have a family,” said Kim. “They are much more reluctant to be reunited.”
In 2016, 880 children were put up for adoption both domestically and internationally. Of the total, 808, or 91.8 percent, were born to unmarried couples.
“While it is important for an adoptee to trace his or her family roots, it is equally important for parents to keep their privacy,” said an official at the adoption bureau at the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
“We have many single mothers in the country, and a large number of birth parents who wish to hide their adoption records. Many have moved on and have families on their own,” the official continued.
Bouts is frustrated because she has a lot of information about her birth family from the time of her adoption, but can’t do anything with it. “I know full names of everyone, birth dates and even the region they lived in,” she said. “I’m not angry at my birth parents for anything. I can even accept that my parents wouldn’t want to know or meet me. I would just really want to meet my sister.”
Bouts’ adoption document mentions a sister seven years older than her.
“I think it would make me more complete if I would meet them,” she said. “I would like to tell them that they made the right choice and that I’m living a very happy and blessed life.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Here is the latest on the Yongsan Garrison ground water pollution issue:
The Seoul city government conducted its own survey on soil and water near the U.S. base in the central part of the capital for possible contamination with toxic chemicals on Wednesday, amid growing calls for the disclosure of pollution levels in the area.
Officials from the Seoul Metropolitan Government visited the outer areas of the U.S. military base in Yongsan to examine the soil and groundwater, according to the city government.
They selected six spots outside the fenced-off military camps to extract soil and water from as deep as 10 meters down, it said, adding that it will take about a month to analyze it and reach a conclusion.
It is the first time that the city government has carried out a test of its own to analyze the level of contamination near the U.S. army base in Seoul. It had surveyed water near a subway station closest to the base, from which it claimed to have detected benzene 587 times the permissible level. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but this pollution issue has long been one that South Korean leftists have used to stoke anti-US sentiment and the Korean government uses to get additional money out of USFK for clean up expenses after the expected closure of Yongsan Garrison which according to the SOFA they don’t have to pay.
A project to set up the donated statue of Korean independence fighter Ahn Jung-geun is underway at a park in Euijeongbu, north of Seoul, on Aug. 8, 2017. The Charhar Institute, a Chinese civic think tank, donated the statue to the city to promote friendship between the two countries. The Korean national hero shot and killed Hirobumi Ito, the first Japanese governor-general of the Korean Peninsula, at a railway station in the Chinese city of Harbin in 1909. The statue depicts Ahn pulling out a gun to shoot the governor while running toward him. (Yonhap)
It seems to me that Japanese geographers would not include Dokdo on their maps in the 1800’s because no one cared about two worthless rocks in the Sea of Japan at the time. The two rocks only gained value in modern times when national borders and thus exclusive economic zones could be tied to them. Using the logic this Korean researcher is using does he support Japan’s claim to the Kuril Islands based on this map?:
On the map of Asia from Okamura’s textbook compiled in 1886, a red line is drawn to mark Japan’s territory. Dokdo is not included on the map. / Yonhap
A scholar recently unveiled maps of a government-approved Japanese textbook which show that Japan did not perceive Dokdo as its territory in the 19th century.
The findings will give weight to Korea’s ownership of the islets off the country’s east coast, which Japan claims as its own, referring to them as Takeshima Islands.
Prof. Han Cheol-ho of Dongguk University’s history education department displayed maps of a geography textbook compiled by Okamura Matsutaro in 1886 in a presentation at a conference held at the Northeast Asian History Foundation’s Institute of Dokdo Research last week.
The textbook’s map of Asia does not mark Dokdo as its territory. On the map is a red line marking Japanese territory, but not only is Dokdo not included in the area inside the red line, Dokdo is not marked on the map at all.
The border lines are marked the same way in textbooks compiled by geologist Manziro Yamagami in 1902 and 1903.
“The textbook’s map of Asia has the Oki Islands marked, but not Ulleungdo and Dokdo,” Yonhap News Agency quoted Han as saying.
“If Japan perceived Dokdo as its territory it would have drawn the islets on the map and stretched the line to include Dokdo.” [Korea Times]
The majority of Americans may support defending South Korea if attacked, but currently only a minority of 40% support any preemptive military action:
More than 60 percent of Americans are in favor of sending troops to defend South Korea in the event of an attack by North Korea, a survey showed Monday, indicating a strengthened commitment toward the Asian ally.
The survey, conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs with support from the Korea Foundation, found 62 percent of Americans favored the use of U.S. troops if North Korea invaded South Korea, the first time there was a majority since the first survey in 1990.
The council attributed the spike to the public’s sense of a heightened threat from North Korea.
The survey was conducted on a weighted national sample of 2,020 adults living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia between June 27 and July 19. Some of the respondents are presumed to have been aware of North Korea’s first test of an intercontinental ballistic missile on July 4.
The ICBM had the range to strike Alaska or Hawaii, according to experts.
According to the survey, 75 percent of the respondents viewed North Korea’s nuclear program as a critical threat, up 15 percentage points from last year and 20 points from 2015.
The council said it was the largest on-year increase for a potential threat mentioned in this year’s survey.
North Korea’s nuclear program ranked among the top threats facing the country, it added.
On the policy options to stop the North’s nuclear weapons program, imposing tighter economic sanctions on the country won the most support with 76 percent, followed by imposing sanctions on Chinese companies doing business with North Korea at 68 percent.
The other options were conducting airstrikes on nuclear production facilities (40 percent), sending U.S. troops to destroy nuclear facilities (28 percent), accepting that North Korea will possess nuclear weapons in exchange for producing no more (21 percent), and accepting that North Korea will produce more nuclear weapons (11 percent). [Yonhap]
Steph Curry just got to experience what it feels like to be on a Korean variety show:
Steph Curry is a man of many talents—he’s arguably the best shooter in NBA history, he’s a two-time World Champion and he’s a damn good golfer.
Brother Seth isn’t too shabby of a player himself, but even the mighty Curry brothers are no match for giant inflatables. Particularly not when the basket the Currys are shooting on is literally spinning, while the other side gets a hoop that’s more than twice regulation size.
The Currys faced these monumental odds on a Korean variety show, where they played against a team of Korean comedians. [Sports Illustrated via a reader tip]
You can read more at the link and see the videos from the show below:
I agree that the National Intelligence Service should not be organizing people to leave comments in support of a political party, but I doubt this had much if any effect on the election:
A newly formed investigative team in the National Intelligence Service (NIS) announced Thursday that the former intelligence chief, Won Sei-hoon, who served in the conservative Lee Myung-bak administration, orchestrated a smear campaign to help former President Park Geun-hye get elected.
Park ultimately won out against current President Moon Jae-in by a small margin, though it is unclear how much impact the NIS had on public opinion at the time.
The team, which launched their probe last month after Moon became president in a snap election in May, has yet to mention whether it will hand over their evidence to prosecutors or formally ask them to dig deeper, which would likely affect the prosecution’s own trial with Won.
Last week, prosecutors requested a local court hand down a four-year jail term. A verdict is expected to come later this month.
The NIS team said Thursday that Won was found to have led a group of civilians from 2009 to 2012, who were ordered to post online comments slandering liberal politicians and presidential candidates. The group, according to the NIS, was funded through state coffers.
The so-called “commentary troop,” a term coined by the local media, gathered members from all over the country, said the NIS team, from office workers and CEOs to students and housekeepers.
The troop grew over the years, peaking at nearly 3,500 members in 2012 by the time Korea held its presidential election.
Their tasks ranged from tracking North Korea’s espionage attacks on the country’s most popular search engines to leaving right-leaning comments on online posts. Some 200 million won ($177,800) was collectively paid to troop members every month, according to the internal probe. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
