Here is the latest of the North Korea restaurant worker defector case:
Attorneys from the Lawyers for a Democratic Society hold a press conference outside the Seoul Central District Court on Tuesday. [SHIN IN-SEOP]A Seoul court held a hearing Tuesday after a group of lawyers challenged the legitimacy of the South Korean government holding a group of North Korean restaurant workers who defected in April in a state protection facility.
Last month, the Lawyers for a Democratic Society, also referred to as Minbyun, filed a petition with the Seoul Central District Court questioning whether the defectors came to the South out of their own free will, after the country’s top spy agency denied an interview with the defectors.
The defectors themselves did not attend the first hearing at the Seoul Central District Court on Tuesday afternoon, but their legal representatives did. On the same day, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) decided that the 13 North Korean restaurant workers would not be sent to a defector resettlement facility but rather be kept in a protection facility that it operates.
The group of 12 female workers and their male manager who worked at Ryugyong in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, one of Pyongyang’s many overseas restaurants in China, defected to the South in early April. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read the rest at the link, but I am still suspicious of these progressive lawyers who seem like they are more about representing North Korean interests than the best interests of these defectors.
A mob of about 20 Turkish nationals attacked a Korean-operated cafe in Istanbul because alcohol was being consumed at fan meeting there.
The store owner was taken to hospital with minor injuries after being beaten at the meeting, which was held to mark the release of rock band Radiohead’s new album.
The fans were drinking beer while enjoying music.
“You should be ashamed for drinking during Ramadan,” said one attacker.
During Ramadan, Muslims worldwide fast for a month during daylight hours to commemorate the first revelation of the Koran to Mohammed.
None of the attackers has been arrested. [Korea Times]
I never understood the need to build another brand new airport outside of Busan considering how many “ghost airports” South Korea already has:
Amid fierce rivalry growing over a new airport in the nation’s southeast region, the government dropped the multitrillion won project on Tuesday and said it would extend the facilities of Gimhae Airport in Busan instead.
After conducting a feasibility study on candidate cities in South Gyeongsang Province, the government has reached a conclusion that extension of the existing Gimhae Airport is “the optimal choice,” rather than choosing to build a new airport on Gadeokdo Island or in Miryang, South Gyeongsang Province. [Korea Herald]
Children play with water guns at the “Summer Splash” festival arranged by Everland, South Korea’s No. 1 amusement park, in Yongin, south of Seoul, on June 19, 2016. [Yonhap]
It looks like ISIS wants to spread their war against the West all the way over to South Korea now:
The Islamic State jihadist group has designated U.S. Air Force installations here and South Korean citizens as targets for attacks, Seoul’s state spy agency said Sunday.
In a press release, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said that the group incited terrorist attacks against them through Telegram, a messaging service, and revealed location data of 77 Air Force installations of the United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and of individuals in 21 countries.
The extremist group, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), obtained the location data from its own hacking group, named the “United Cyber Caliphate,” the spy agency explained.
“While disseminating the location data of the installations and information on the individuals, (the group) incited (its sympathizers around the world) to retaliate for the benefit of Muslims,” the NIS said.
Through the messaging program, the IS unveiled the locations of U.S. Air Force units in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, and Gunsan, North Jeolla Province, and of one employee of a South Korean welfare organization. [Yonhap]
You can read the rest at the link, but ISIS is a bunch of fools if they think the location of US military bases in South Korea is secret information.
Should South Korean society be more accepting of obesity? That is what some advocates are saying:
Alina Shamsutdinova, a 22-year-old Kazakhstani student in Seoul, says she doesn’t want others to pity her because of the body shaming she went through during her years in South Korea. “I want to show people ‘I am who I am, and I think I’m beautiful,’” she says. (Photo credit: Alina Shamsutdinova)
Alina Shamsutdinova thinks she can’t dress up to her potential in South Korea. The 23-year-old Kazakhstani arrived in Seoul in 2011, as an international student, in hopes to learn about the country of her ethnic origin. Born to third-generation ethnic Koreans in Kazakhstan, she grew up thinking she was beautiful, feeling confident and comfortable in her skin.
Yet things started to change when she realized some people in Korea didn’t see her the way she saw herself. “Among the things I heard was ‘It’s okay to be ugly, but being fat is unforgivable,’” she said in an interview with The Korea Herald.
“Another was ‘You’re really lucky that you have a pretty face. Otherwise you would never be able to have a boyfriend.’”
While she has always considered herself a confident person, Shamsutdinova said a part of her struggled with her self-image during her stay in Korea. She was often told by Koreans that she should lose weight. Most local clothing stores didn’t have any items available in her size. [Korea Herald]
The LA Times has a good article on how the illegal Chinese fishing boats are not only destroying the local economy of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island, but also destroying the entire ecosystem that supports the blue crab population:
Chinese fishing boats operate off the northern coast of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island on June 12, 2016. (Steven Borowiec / For The Times)
The Chinese vessels have been driven to the South Korean fishing grounds by declining stocks in their home waters. The result has been a dramatic drop-off in blue crab catches, leading local fishermen to fear for their futures. (……….)
Park said the fishermen are working longer hours and coming home with less. “Pretty soon, there will be nothing left,” said Park, 56, dressed in a salt-stained black tracksuit and chain-smoking cigarettes. (………..)
Park worries that the Chinese boats are doing permanent damage to the ecosystem he relies on, saying they use a method called bull trawling, which is illegal in South Korea. Bull trawling entails dredging up everything in the ship’s path and damages the seabed. “They take everything,” Park said. “Even the babies.” [LA Times]
You can read the rest of the article at the link, but it is clear the ROK authorities need to do more to stop these illegal Chinese fishing boats. I am also wonder where are the Green Peace and Sea Shepherd activists at? Illegal Chinese fishing boats destroying an entire ecosystem seems like something they would be protesting.
This is a horrible case of rape and forced prostitution in Gwangju:
Police requested arrest warrants for two men who locked up a runaway teenager and allegedly forced her into prostitution, Wednesday.
The Gwangju Dong-bu Police said the men, aged 20 and 18, had invited a 17-year-old runaway they befriended via a chatting app to live with them, then turned violent once she moved in.
The victim stayed with them for 12 days.
Police requested arrest warrants for two men who locked up a runaway teenager and allegedly forced her into prostitution, Wednesday.
The Gwangju Dong-bu Police said the men, aged 20 and 18, had invited a 17-year-old runaway they befriended via a chatting app to live with them, then turned violent once she moved in.
The victim stayed with them for 12 days. [Korea Herald]
South Korea’s oldest jujube tree, shown in this photo provided by Boeun County of North Chungcheong Province, has found a new home in the county on June 15, 2016. The county purchased the tree from Namyangju, a city just north of Seoul, hoping to reclaim the county’s fame as the producer of top quality jujubes that in the past were served to kings. The county has lost most of its aged jujube trees to plant diseases. (Yonhap)
Yonhap is reporting that the deployment of THAAD to South Korea was not a major issue discussed during recent diplomatic meetings with Russia:
South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se (L) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sign an agreement in Moscow on June 13, 2016, on the exchanges between their agencies for 2016-2017. In their bilateral talks, the two diplomats agreed to cooperate for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, Seoul officials said. (Yonhap)
The top diplomats of South Korea and Russia barely discussed the controversial issue of deploying an advanced U.S. missile defense system on Korean soil during their talks earlier this week, a Seoul official said.
The senior official told South Korean reporters during a luncheon in St. Petersburg on Tuesday that the topic of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system was raised in the meeting between South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, but only in passing.
“(The Russian side) mentioned a confrontational structure in Asia but barely talked about it,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “This showed (Moscow’s) will to focus more on bilateral relations and the North Korean nuclear issue.”
Russia and China have strongly opposed the possible deployment of a THAAD battery to South Korea, claiming it would undermine the strategic balance in the region. Seoul and Washington insist the missile defense system, if placed in the South, would be purely defensive in the face of North Korea’s evolving nuclear and missile threats. [Yonhap]
You can read the rest at the link, but in the past the Russian ambassador to North Korea complained that THAAD could potentially be used to shoot down Russian missiles fired at South Korea.
