Tag: South Korea

For anyone looking to make some easy money in Korea, get yourself some egg laying chickens that don’t have the bird flu virus because the price of eggs is skyrocketing:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Friday it is discussing with Korea ways for American egg producers to tap into the Korean market that is suffering from an egg shortage as a result of a massive outbreak of avian influenza.

Amid the rising egg prices due to the outbreak of bird flu that was detected in November, the department spokesperson said that the U.S. and Korea are “engaged in technical discussions to provide access for U.S. egg producers to the Korean liquid egg market.

“Imports from the U.S. could help limit escalating production costs for processed food manufacturers in Korea and shield consumers from soaring egg prices,” the official added.

He did not mention when the U.S. will start exporting eggs to Korea.

Starting Saturday, the Korean discount store chain Homeplus raised the retail price of 30 eggs by 9.6 percent to 7,990 won ($6.67) at its 142 stores. Homeplus has increased its egg prices five times in a month and retail prices have jumped 31.4 percent over the month.

The latest price hike by Homeplus came a day after its rival Emart increased the price of 30 eggs by 8.6 percent to 7,580 won.

Officials of the companies expect egg prices to go up again ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday later this month. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but the Korean government has even dropped import tariffs against US eggs until June 30th.

The Japanese government has responded to the installation of a comfort woman statue in front of their consulate in Busan:

South Korea expressed “strong regret” over steps taken by Japan on Friday, including recalling its ambassador, in protest against a statue recently set up in front of its consulate office to shed light on its wartime atrocities of forcing women into sexual slavery.

“We express our strong regret over the action taken by Japan with regard to the statue,” the foreign ministry said in a comment issued in the name of its spokesman.

“The government wants to make it clear again that both countries should keep advancing their bilateral ties based on trust regardless of any challenging issues,” it added.

Earlier, Japan decided to temporarily call in Yasumasa Nagamine, its ambassador to South Korea, in protest against the statue installed at the end of last year by a civic group in front of its Consulate General building in the southern port city of Busan. He will likely return to Japan next week.

Tokyo also announced a halt to the ongoing negotiation on a currency swap agreement between the two countries — an emergeny channel of and the postponement of a high-level economic cooperation meeting.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link, but I am still waiting for the installation of a statue in front of the Chinese embassy in protest of all the modern day Korean comfort women in that country that these activist groups don’t care about.

Most former Korean 'comfort women' accepted 2015 apology & compensation from Japan. Activists did not. https://t.co/GXeKleLuP3

— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) January 6, 2017

An elk dashes ahead of a car on a road in Hamyang in South Korea’s southeast province of South Gyeongsang on Jan. 5, 2017, as the amount of roadkill has been increasing, in this photo released by the Hamyang municipality. The road leads to Mount Jiri, South Korea’s second tallest mountain located in the southern region in the country. (Yonhap)

Kim Bok-dong (L), a victim of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery, approaches a statue of her during the 1,264th “Wednesday rally” in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on Jan. 4, 2017, a weekly protest which victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery and activists have held since 1992. (Yonhap)

This is not a course of action I would recommend at this point considering the other options that have yet to be fully used to pressure the Kim regime and China:

Talk is growing in the United States of the possibility of using military strikes to take out North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities after the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, threatened he’s close to testing a long-range missile apparently capable of hitting the U.S.

Kim said in his New Year’s Day address that the communist nation has reached the final stage of preparations to test-launch an intercontinental ballistic missile. The remark was seen as a thinly veiled threat that Pyongyang is close to developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of striking the continental U.S.

The threat appears to have stoked genuine fears of security among Americans, with reporters bombarding the Defense Department with questions of what the U.S. is going to do about the North’s missile, including whether it’s going to shoot it down or even launch a preemptive strike before it’s fired.

It also prompted President-elect Donald Trump to send a tweet: “North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won’t happen!”

On Wednesday, a private intelligence analysis firm, Stratfor, even laid out a list of potential targets in North Korea, including the Yongbyon nuclear complex, home to the North’s plutonium-producing reactor and reprocessing facility.

“When considering an attack on North Korea, there are two broad categories of strikes to deliberate. The first is a minimalist strike, specifically focused on dismantling the North’s nuclear weapons program. In this scenario, the United States would engage North Korean nuclear objectives only,” Stratfor said in an analysis piece carried by MarketWatch and, titled, “How the U.S. could derail North Korea’s nuclear program by force.”

“By not launching strikes on other North Korean targets, Washington leaves the door open, if only slightly, for de-escalation if Pyongyang can be convinced that the strike is not part of a regime change operation. What benefits Pentagon planners in this scenario is that a limited strike requires less resources and preparation, enhancing the element of surprise,”

Potential targets in the minimalist strike include the Yongbyon complex, including the 5-megawatt nuclear reactor and the reprocessing plant, as well as the Pyongsan uranium mine that provides fuel for the reactor, and the Pyongsong nuclear research and development facility, known as the North’s “Silicon Valley,” Stratfor said.

“These facilities form the heart of North Korean nuclear production infrastructure. If they were destroyed or disabled, the North Korean nuclear production network would be crippled, set back years at least,” it said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but what anyone thinking of advocating for a limited strike on North Korea needs to answer is what is the response then when the Kim regime retaliates and launches a limited artillery strike on Seoul?  Can you imagine what the reaction will be from the Korean public will be especially if a left-wing President is elected this year?

I think we can agree the fertility map released by the Korean government was pretty stupid because I am not sure what they expected to accomplish by it?  Did they expect males to rush to these so called more fertile cities to find women to make babies with?:

On Dec. 30, a person dressed as a red “Baby Vending Machine” walked back and forth in front of the Ministry of the Interior’s building in Gwanghwamun, central Seoul. When a passerby pressed a button on the box, a paper was released which read: “I’m sorry. I’m not a baby-making machine. I’m a human being.”

The 20-something woman inside the box, a member of BWave, a coalition of feminist groups online, said that the group decided to create the box to criticize how this country sees women as mere baby-making machines.

What troubled them was the “Birth Map” created on Dec. 29 by the Ministry of the Interior. The website, using shades of pink, included information on starting a family, giving birth and raising children. It all seemed helpful for the public, but the problem was that amongst the information, it also ranked towns and cities across the country by the number of women who are of childbearing age – or more bluntly, fertile.

According to the ministry, the map was created to “show what kind of services and benefits are available in 243 different local government zones across the country, to induce competition between local governments, and to inform the public with statistics regarding marriage and pregnancy.” It was a part of the government’s plan to tackle Korea’s low fertility rate.

However, they went too far.

“The country that’s always been so discrete went overboard this time and disclosed too much information,” said Kang Seung-ji, 30, who said she was furious upon seeing the map that “just shows you how this male-dominant country sees women as merely baby-making machines.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but the real question the Korean people need to ask themselves is if they really do need a higher birthrate in a country already overpopulated?

It looks like some high school students in South Korea will have the opportunity to vote in the next South Korean presidential election:

The voting age is likely to be lowered to 18 for the 2017 presidential election.

The New Conservative Party for Reform (NCPR), created by lawmakers who left the Saenuri Party, said Wednesday that it will seek to lower the voting age from 19 to 18 and apply it to the next election.

With all three opposition parties supporting an increase in the number of eligible voters, there is a high possibility that the Election Lw could be revised during an extraordinary session of the National Assembly in January.

If revised, those who are 18, currently high school students, will be able to vote in the presidential election, which could take place earlier than scheduled. [Korea Times]

I am still waiting to see what evidence the ROK authorities have on Chung Yoo-ra to implicate her for corruption at Ewha Women’s University much less the ROK Presidential corruption scandal.  According to this interview she gave she wanted to drop out of the Ewha and her mom would not let her:

Chung Yoo-ra, daughter of Choi Soon-sil, told reporters in Denmark that she has nothing to do with the corruption charges against her and that any controversy involving her was the result of her mother’s scheming.“All I did was sign certain documents, whose contents were covered up by Post-its,” Chung told a group of Korean reporters during a break in a detention hearing at a local court in Aalborg, a northern city of Denmark, on Monday. “I don’t know a thing about what’s been going on in my mother’s business, as it was run by her and her aides.”Chung, 21, is accused of receiving unjust admission to and preferential treatment at Ewha Womans University. She is central to a probe into a corruption scandal involving the Korea Equestrian Federation and Samsung Electronics. Samsung pledged 22 billion won ($18.3 million) for Chung’s equestrian training. It was also the largest benefactor of two nonprofit foundations that Choi practically controlled, contributing 20.4 billion won.

“I thought I was going to be expelled [from Ewha Womans University],” Chung said. “But my mother and I met with then-President Choi Kyung-hee and professor Ryu Chul-kyun. I left the meeting before my mother did and then I found out later that I got the academic credits.

“I even told my mother that I wanted to drop out,” she added, “but it didn’t work out.”

Chung also denied knowledge of how Samsung came to finance her training.

“My mother told me that Samsung decided to sponsor six equestrian athletes,” Chung said. “I was just one of the six who were sponsored.

“I don’t know how much funding I received or from where,” she added. “Only my mother and my training coach would know.”

Chung denied having close ties with President Park Geun-hye.

“The last time I met her was when my father was still working [for Park],” she said. Chung Yoon-hoi, ex-husband to Choi, was chief of staff to Park from 1998 to 2004. “I think I was an elementary school student then.”

She also denied knowledge of what the president may have done during a mysterious seven-hour absence on the day of the Sewol ferry’s sinking in 2014, in which 304 passengers died after a delayed government response.

“I was pregnant at the time, and my mother and I had fallen out because of it,” she said. “I was living in Sillim-dong and my mother in Gangnam District [of southern Seoul], and we had no contact. So I have no knowledge of what might have happened in the government at the time.”

Chung was arrested by authorities in Denmark’s northern city of Aalborg on Sunday on the charge of illegally staying in the country. She was arrested with four other people, including her 19-month-old son.

The court in Aalborg on Monday extended Chung’s detention to Jan. 30, even after she told it, “There is no one to look after my 19-month-old son if I am detained.” Chung’s lawyer in Denmark is reportedly planning to file an appeal. [Joong Ang Ilbo]

It seems like ROK authorities can very easily have Chung return to Korea whenever they want if they allow her to have some kind of home detention with her baby:

Chung said after her arrest that she will not try to avoid extradition to Korea and will cooperate with an independent counsel’s probe of the allegations surrounding her and her mother – as long as she can be investigated without being detained.

Chung told the reporters in Aalborg that she would return to Korea in a heartbeat as long as she can stay with her son.

“It doesn’t matter if the child needs to stay at a nursery [when I’m being investigated], or with a social welfare group, or at a hospital,” she said. “I just miss my baby.”

If Chung returns to Korea, she will be separated from her son after she is arrested.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Here we go again with netizen conspiracy theories:

The deadly sinking of the Sewol ferry two years ago was an accident, which left 295 dead and nine missing, not caused by the ship colliding with a submarine, the Navy said Tuesday.

The response comes after an online commenter named “Zaro — Netizens’ investigation team” argued that the ferry sinking was the result of the the passenger ship hitting a submarine in a nearly nine-hour-long documentary released Monday via YouTube.

But the Navy flatly denied the documentary as being based on “groundless” suspicions, saying there was no submarine in operation or conducting drills in the nearby waters on April 16, 2014, when the accident took place.

“The waters are 37 meters deep on average and not suitable for submarine action due to rapid currents and heavy commercial shipping and fishing boat traffic,” the Navy said in a statement.

In the documentary, the commenter pointed out that the route taken by the ill-fated ferry didn’t match conventional routes and external factors such as a submarine collision can explain the disaster. [The Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I see no way that the ROK Navy could keep something like this quiet considering the amount of people that would have known about it.