Tag: South Korea

Last week North Korea was struck with an artificial earthquake due to their nuclear test and this week South Korea has been struck by a real earthquake:

A record magnitude-5.8 earthquake jolted most of South Korea, the country’s meteorological agency said Monday.

The quake detected at 8:32 p.m. was the strongest tremor reported on the Korean Peninsula to date, being noticeably stronger than the magnitude-5.3 tremor that rocked the eastern Pyongan region in North Korea in January 1980, the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) said. It added that the epicenter was near the Naenam-myeon region some 8 kilometers south of the historic city of Gyeongju.

The quake was preceded by a 5.1-magnitude tremor detected at 7:44 p.m. which was centered about 9 kilometers south of Gyeongju. The second quake was felt in most parts of the country that generally does not have a lot of tremors. Gyeongju is the old capital of the Shilla Kingdom (57 B.C.-935 A.D) and is located 371 kilometers southeast of Seoul.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but a major earthquake striking South Korea I hope is something I never see happen.

https://twitter.com/geoffrey_cain/status/772958590965456896

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— Haps Magazine (@hapsmagazine) September 7, 2016

An official checks radiation levels at a checking facility of the state-run Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety in Gangneung on South Korea’s east coast on Sept. 9, 2016, to see if the area has been contaminated by radioactive material. Earlier in the day, North Korea confirmed its fifth nuclear test, which Seoul blasted as an “intolerable provocation.” (Yonhap)

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— 10 Magazine Korea (@10_Magazine) September 5, 2016

I wonder how much this has to do with election year politics in anticipation of next year’s ROK Presidential campaign season?:

South Korea shied away from forging a military intelligence sharing pact with Japan during talks between the leaders of the two countries in Laos, the foreign ministry said Thursday.

The long protracted issue of signing the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) was discussed during the summit meeting between President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Vientiane, on Wednesday, Cho Jung-hyuck, spokesman of the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs, said during a regular briefing.

“(But) Securing the sufficient understanding and cooperation from the National Assembly and the public is necessary,” Cho quoted the South Korean side as having told the Japanese side.

Park and Abe are in the Southeast Asian country to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting and the East Asia Summit.

The remarks suggest Park may have rejected Abe’s offer for the agreement’s signing.

South Korea and Japan came close to forging the GSOMIA in 2012, but the final signing was aborted amid public protests in South Korea. Protestors then accused the South Korean government of attempting to sign the militarily sensitive deal with the former colonial ruler in a clandestine manner.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

The most obvious question in regards to this idea is what will the bribe amount be to secure a summit?  Kim Jong-un is not going to show up to an Inter-Korean summit without a bribe.  Secondly what will they talk about?  How Kim Jong-un’s grandpa was responsible for the killing of President Park’s mother?  North Korea is not going to give up their nuclear or missile programs so it is a waste of time to talk about that.  From their perspective why would they give them up?:

Rep. Park Jie-won, the interim leader of the country’s second-largest opposition party, called on President Park Geun-hye, Wednesday, to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to break the deadlock in inter-Korean relations.

He also asked President Park to push for a constitutional revision during the remainder of her term that ends in February 2018.

“The most important things that Park should do during her remaining year-and-a-half in office are to push for an inter-Korean summit and a constitutional revision at the earliest possible date,” Park of the People’s Party said in a speech at the National Assembly.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but Rep. Park may also be calling for reforming the Presidential system to change it to two four year terms like we have in the US.  It seems to me the five year term has been working well for South Korea so why the need to change it?

This article makes me wonder how many “white envelopes” are being passed to teachers in South Korea? Is this just the tip of the iceberg?:

A case involving the principal and two teachers of a private girls’ high school in Gwangju was sent to prosecutors on charges of fabricating the school records of 25 students in order to help them gain admission to good colleges, police said Wednesday.

The three educators are suspected to have either raised the test scores of 12 students in the 11th grade and 13 students in the 12th grade or lied about their extracurricular activities.

Authorities did not say exactly how many students were aware of the plot, but hinted that “several” must have known because they were called into the teacher’s office and specifically asked what details the teachers could add to their documents to make them look better.

Some parents were said to have paid each teacher about 2 million won ($1,828) for the service, said police.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but I am a bit surprised by how cheap the bribe was.

I think this article makes a good point that the more the Chinese government complains, the more it creates a selling point for Lockheed Martin to other potential customers about how effective the THAAD system is:

According to The Wall Street Journal, 74% of South Koreans supported the installation of the THAAD missile shield, but there is opposition primarily focussed on strained relations with China, the South’s largest economic partner.

Other opposition is coming from areas where the THAAD system will be deployed and environmentalists concerned about health hazards and other environmental impacts.

Lockheed, however, may eventually benefit from North Korea’s latest launches if the South increases the size of its order or even if it can parlay China’s fears about the system into a selling point to other customers.  [24/7 Wall Street]

You can read more at the link.

Guess which police number is for emergencies in Korea. pic.twitter.com/7bw2cAkx4Z

— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) September 3, 2016