Tag: South Korea

Have you wondered how many illegal Korean immigrants there are in the United States? According to the Korea Times the number of Korean illegal immigrants has actually been declining in recent years and has dropped to 160,000 people:

Trump reaffirmed his plan to build a wall along the Mexican border.

“After the border is secure and after everything gets normalized, we’re going to make a determination on the people that you’re talking about who are terrific people, they’re terrific people, but we are going to make a determination on that,” he said.

Early this month, the Pew Research Center estimated that 160,000 Koreans were in the U.S illegally.

The center said the number of illegal Korean immigrants in the U.S. had risen steadily since 1990 to a peak of about 200,000 in 2010 before declining moderately to 190,000 in 2011 and 180,000 in 2012. [Korea Times]

U.S. ten-pin bowler Danielle McEwan delivers her shot at the 2016 Storm Cup Korea International Open Bowling Tournament in Anyang, south of Seoul, on Dec. 22, 2016. She won the tournament. (Yonhap)

Another American fast food restaurant chain is coming to South Korea.  It will be interesting to see if Dairy Queen puts a Korean twist on to any of their food offerings:

The U.S. fast food chain Dairy Queen has signed on to expand into South Korea, industry officials said Thursday.

M2G USA Investment said it has signed an agreement with International Dairy Queen Inc., which owns the franchise, to open 50 DQ Grill & Chill stores here over the next five years.

International Dairy Queen is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway led by famous investor Warren Buffet. Dairy Queen, commonly known as DQ, is a chain of fast food restaurants serving hamburgers, ice cream and other frozen products, with some 6,000 locations worldwide.

A Korean foodservice company Food and Treat will handle operations of the local DQ locations.  [Yonhap]

The more I read about the Choi Soon-sil scandal the more I realize that she can arguably be considered a well connected lobbyist taking money from corporations to influence presidential policy.  In the United States lobbying is a well respected profession where in South Korea it can be considered bribery:

Samsung Electronics, the country’s largest listed company, picked up the tab for a sojourn by Choi Soon-sil, the controversial friend of President Park Geun-hye, and her daughter to Germany last year, the JoongAng Ilbo learned Tuesday.

Choi, 60, is a prime suspect in the abuse of power scandal that led to the impeachment of Park earlier this month. The prosecution indicted Choi in November on charges of abuse of power, coercion, attempted coercion and attempted fraud, making clear that the president is a co-conspirator in all of her alleged crimes. Park was impeached on Dec. 9 for alleged violations of the constitution and criminal laws.

Samsung has been accused of generously sponsoring the 20-year-old daughter of Choi, Chung Yoo-ra. Chung was a gold medalist in dressage in the 2014 Incheon Asian Games, and suspicions were raised that the tech giant financed some of Chung’s activities as an equestrian athlete, such as buying a horse, Vitana V, reportedly worth 1 billion won ($838,574).  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

Here is what she may have been lobbying for to President Park in return for the money that Samsung was giving her sports foundation:

The independent counsel’s team is trying to find a link between Samsung’s generosity toward Choi and Chung and the National Pension Service’s approval of a controversial merger between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries last year. The $8 billion deal solidified heir apparent Lee Jae-yong’s grip on Samsung Electronics.

The prosecution investigated whether the Blue House strong-armed the state-run pension fund into backing the merger. It failed to prove the suspicion.

Determining the nature of the money Samsung gave to Choi and Chung — whether it was bribes for favors or not — is the top priority of investigators at the independent counsel, a source from the law enforcement authority told the JoongAng Ilbo.

You can read more at the link.

Two Koreas, same day.
In NK, soldiers bow to dead dictators.
In SK, citizens peacefully protest against their president.
Dec 17, 2016. pic.twitter.com/m97qAbZpF7

— Liberty in NK (@LibertyinNK) December 19, 2016

Woo Byung-woo a former Presidential Secretary for Civil Affairs under the Park administration has been hiding from questioning for 47 days which caused a nationwide effort by average Koreans to located him.  It appears the pressure to find him has worked because he recently testified to lawmakers about his role in the Choi Soon-sil scandal where he denies everything:

Facing a series of condemning questions and mockery from lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, Woo Byung-woo, former senior presidential secretary for civil affairs, denied Thursday any wrongdoing in the unprecedented abuse of power scandal that led to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye.

Woo made his first public appearance in 47 days to attend a hearing by the parliamentary special committee into the Choi Soon-sil scandal, and his presence generated high media and public interest, reflecting rampant suspicions that the former prosecutor colluded with Choi and her circle to allow her to pull strings from behind the scenes in state affairs.

Woo’s position as civil affairs senior secretary empowered him to monitor any legal or ethical breach by public officials. He refuted all allegations against him, a response that drew ridicule from lawmakers.

“I do not personally know Choi,” Woo testified. “I first heard about her when media reports came out on her husband Chung Yoon-hoi [in November 2014].”

When asked if he refuted media reports that he had let Choi interfere in state affairs and colluded with President Park’s three most trusted aides, nicknamed “the three doorknobs,” he said, “I do.”

Aside from allegations that Woo turned a blind eye to Choi’s interference, he is also accused of tax evasion and embezzlement from a real estate company run by his family. He is also suspected to have obstructed an investigation into the sinking of the Sewol ferry in 2014 that left 304 dead by ordering prosecutors to not raid offices of the Coast Guard in a probe of the botched rescue efforts.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but what I find surprising so far is the lack evidence presented.  If lawmakers are trying to prove that people like Woo were acting in concert with Choi you would think they would have emails to prove the connection?

It seems the Blue House wants to get the THAAD missile defense system in place before the race to replace impeached President Park begins to make it a non-campaign issue:

Acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn said Wednesday that an advanced U.S. anti-missile system has to be deployed to South Korea as soon as possible to counter North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threats.

Hwang made the remarks amid calls from opposition parties to delay the planned deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to the Korean Peninsula given the lack of public consensus and China’s vehement opposition to it.

Seoul hopes to install a THAAD battery in the southern county of Seongju, 296 kilometers southeast of Seoul, by May next year.

“For security, (we) have to deploy (THAAD),” he said during a parliamentary interpellation session. “As we cannot wait even for a moment to cope with North Korea’s nuclear provocations, we have to do what we can do first.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Does South Korea protest too much? https://t.co/TPVgwdbKyB via @WSJ

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) December 20, 2016

Instead of summoning this diplomat back to South Korea they should force this pedophile scumbag to face legal consequences back in Chile for his crimes:

A South Korean diplomat in Chile accused of sexually assaulting teenage girls was summoned home, Tuesday, to face questioning by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to diplomatic sources.

“The diplomat returned home early this morning in accordance with the ministry’s summons,” the source said on condition of anonymity.

The diplomat, named Park Jeong-hak, was in charge of promoting K-pop at the Korean Embassy to Chile. He was accused of making improper physical contact with a 14-year-old Chilean girl in September while teaching Korean.

Park’s inappropriate actions were made public after a Chilean broadcaster aired, Sunday (local time), film of him sexually abusing an actress disguised as a teenage girl captured by a hidden camera. The broadcaster planned the program, in which it had the actress deliberately lure him, after receiving a tip-off from the parents of a victim.

After the airing of the program called “En Su Propia Trampa” (In Your Own Trap), which sparked public fury in the Latin American country, Yoon Seo-ho, a Korean immigrant who has lived in Chile for 12 years, told a CBS radio program, Tuesday, that the diplomat had been notorious for his sexual offenses even before the program was aired.

The diplomat was also accused of raping a 12-year-old girl as well as sexually harassing the Chilean wife of a Korean immigrant, Yoon said. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

South Korean protests have a track record of causing crazy people to do stuff like this.  I don’t what this guy expected JTBC to do? The tablet with the files on it was legitimate news that they couldn’t simply ignore because it would lead to mass protests against the sitting President.  If this guy wants to be pissed off at anyone he should be upset with President Park and her friend behind this scandal Choi Soon-sil:

A truck driven by a South Korean man in his 40s slammed into the main gate of broadcasting channel JTBC on Monday, whose initial reports on President Park Geun-hye’s alleged documents leaks led to her impeachment earlier in the month.

The 45-year man surnamed Kim crashed his 1.5-ton truck into the main entrance of JTBC in Mapo in western Seoul at around 7:25 p.m. apparently in protest of the television channel’s reports on Park, according to the police.

Wearing the Marine Corps uniform, Kim tried to break into the gate by driving his truck back and forth some 10 times, but his vehicle was stuck between the doors before the police arrested him at the scene.

The incident left JTBC’s glass doors broken and the door frames warped, but caused no further damage, according to the firefighting authorities.

At the time of arrest, Kim was carrying a letter for JTBC’s president and a placard on his truck, which satirically recommended the JTBC head as the next South Korean president.

The police quoted Kim as saying that “The entire country is in a bind because of (JTBC’s) reports on a tablet PC.” The police said they will interrogate him to find out the exact motive.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link.