Tag: South Korea

Here is a horrible story of murderous firefighter in Anseong:

A 50-year-old firefighter was arrested on Wednesday after attempting to rob a house to pay back his gambling debts, only to be caught by the two homeowners, who he then murdered before burning their house to cover his tracks.

According to the police in Anseong, Gyeonggi, the firefighter broke into a two-story house located around Dangwang-dong, Anseong, at around 3 p.m. on Aug. 1, where a 64-year-old man and his 57-year-old wife were living.

The firefighter was not listed as a usual suspect by police at the time, but his crimes were revealed when he attempted to commit suicide by drinking herbicide and throwing himself off from the rooftop of an apartment at around 4:50 p.m on Wednesday.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

I saw this video from LG-U posted over at Reddit that describes the struggles multicultural families have in Korea:

I am willing to bet some of the struggles the woman in the video has, a lot of other people can relate to as well.

This has to be considered a disappointing Olympics for Korean soccer fans I would think considering they were knocked out by non-traditional soccer power like Honduras:

South Korea were knocked out of the Olympic men’s football quarterfinals Saturday with a 1-0 loss to Honduras.

Alberth Elis scored the game’s lone goal near the hour mark at Mineirao in Belo Horizonte, some 340 kilometers north of Rio de Janeiro.

South Korea won the bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics. It remains the country’s only Olympic football medal. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

This would be just one more step to Japan and Korea putting the past behind them and hopefully moving forward to a more cooperative future:

Japan’s foreign minister pledged Friday to “swiftly” transfer funds to assist South Korean victims of the country’s colonial-era sexual enslavement, the foreign ministry here said, as the two neighbors ironed out the final details of a deal aimed at ending the decades-old feud over this painful issue.

Seoul’s top diplomat Yun Byung-se and his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida held telephone talks earlier in the day before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the Japanese decision.

“Foreign Minister Kishida remarked that the Japanese government has decided to disburse the 1 billion yen (US$9.9 million) fund that will come from its government budget as soon as domestic procedures following the deal in December are finalized,” the foreign ministry here said in a statement.

The latest development came amid a delay in Japan’s transfer of the billion yen fund which the country committed to pay in a landmark deal reached with South Korea on Dec. 28 to put an end to the diplomatic feud over the so-called comfort women issue.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

One of the most important images ever taken in or of Korea. So much can be read from this single… https://t.co/lDaYxuacGY

— Dr. Michael Hurt (@metropolitician) August 13, 2016

Via a reader tip comes an opinion piece from ROK Drop favorite Andrei Lankov in regards to why China is so vehemently opposed to the deployment of the THAAD battery to South Korea:

However, such a hard blow is unlikely to ever be delivered by China. This is because extreme pressure is more likely to bring about regime collapse than denuclearization, and regime collapse is not what the Chinese leaders want to see (an anarchy in a nuclear state nearby is not their idea of stability and success). And at any rate, the Chinese losses from such a scenario will be greater than the problems created by THAAD deployment. Minor pressure, however, is not going to solve the nuclear problem and hence it will not lead to THAAD re-deployment elsewhere.

In this context, China therefore acts reasonably: it does not increase its pressure on North Korea, but rather penalizes South Korea for THAAD deployment. Obviously, it is being done in expectation that a sufficiently persistent form of pressure will eventually make the South Korean government – well, perhaps, next one – re-consider its position on THAAD.

After all, being a democracy, South Korea is relatively susceptible to outside pressures. China looms large in the South Korean economy, so informal sanctions – which  are very easy to introduce for the Chinese leaders – will have a noticeable impact on the lives of the common South Koreans who, unlike their northern brethren, can vote and who also have many other means to push the government in the direction they (rightly or wrongly) see as conducive to their interests.  [NK News]

I recommend reading the whole thing at the link.  Mr. Lankov is right about what he covers in his analysis.  However, I think he did miss one thing.  In my opinion the Chinese know very well that THAAD is not a risk to their strategic missile deterrent. Instead they see this an opportunity to create a wedge between the US and the ROK.  A weakened US-ROK alliance is in China’s national interest which the reversing of course on THAAD has the potential of creating.

A British DJ has been arrested for drug smuggling in Korea:

A Grammy-nominated British DJ was arrested in Korea for alleged drug smuggling, police said Thursday.

Video footage shows him at a customs checkpoint at Incheon International Airport with a 1.5-liter bottle filled with an alleged illegal drug, they said.

Sources said he was Mark Lewis. Lewis, 52, was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2005 in the category of Best Electronic/Dance Album for “I Found U” that he produced.

Sources said Lewis allegedly smuggled 3.78 liters of gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB), also known as the date rape drug, into Korea four times from January to June. The value is estimated at 370 million won ($340,000) and the quantity enough to dose 1,000 people. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

This is a horrible story out of Wonju:

A 75-year-old woman in Wonju, Gangwon, was arrested for allegedly killing her husband of 56 years with a hammer.

The suspect admitted the crime, according to police, saying she couldn’t stand her husband’s verbal and physical abuse any longer.

Wonju police filed a pre-trial detention warrant for the suspect. A local court will review it as early as today.

The alleged murder took place around 6 a.m. Wednesday, police said, after the 74-year-old victim fell off a chair while changing a lightbulb in a bathroom in the couple’s house.

The suspect heard a loud thump and went to check on her husband, and he allegedly berated her, saying, “It’s all because of you!” The woman told police during questioning that her husband’s head was bleeding and his eyes had rolled back.

The wife said she feared he would have to be hospitalized for a long period, which might prove expensive. She said she didn’t want to have to be his caregiver.

“I’ve put up with him all my life,” she said according to police. “I have even had to go to the hospital several times after he hit me.”

She left the bathroom, found a hammer and returned to finish him off. Autopsy results indicated she had hit him in about 20 different areas all over his body, including his face and neck. The direct cause of the victim’s death was “multiple injuries.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Seoul Selection has a good article about some of the great hiking sites around the Gapyeong area to include Bonghodong Waterfall.

This is pretty significant if the South Korean government moves forward with this suggestion:

North Korea provocations are making Seoul reconsider intelligence sharing strategies with Tokyo.

Seoul’s defense ministry spokesman Moon Sang-kyun told reporters Thursday the radar information from the U.S. anti-missile defense system THAAD could be shared with Japan, local news service Newsis reported.

That response was a departure from a previous statement issued July 19, when Defense Minister Han Min-koo told parliamentarians the information from the THAAD radar would not be shared with Japan.  [UPI]

You can read more at the link, but keep in mind that the South Koreans do not need THAAD to share data with Japan.  That is because the ROK already has their Israeli bought Green Pine radars installed with coverage of North Korea that could also share the data with Japan if the ROK wanted to.