Tag: South Korea

It's son vs son in a battle for control of South Korea's huge Lotte Group. http://t.co/mT2SBHAkv3 pic.twitter.com/dgmaZ76Abc

— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) August 6, 2015

https://twitter.com/SouthKoreaDaily/status/630435412230586368

You expect something wacky like creating your own timezone from the North Koreans, but the fact that politicians in South Korea want to inconvenience their own citizens just to stick it to Japan is even wackier in my opinion:

You can read more at the link.

Here is an interesting read in regards to the anti-Semitism accusations lobbied against South Korea in the battle over control of Samsung last month.  The article provides some context on why Samsung published the cartoons and maybe they were not so anti-Semitic after all:

The predominantly Jewish-owned and operated Elliot Associates has a wealth of self-interest in preventing the Lee family from consolidating its control over the Samsung conglomerate. As racial outsiders, however, Singer’s firm were forced into several tactical measures in their 52-day attempt to thwart the merger. First came lawsuits.  When those failed, Singer and his associates then postured themselves as defending Korean interests, starting a Korean language website and arguing that their position was really just in aid of helping domestic Korean shareholders. This variation on the familiar theme of Jewish crypsis was quite unsuccessful. The Lee family went on the offensive immediately and, unlike many Westerners, were not shy in drawing attention to the Jewish nature of Singer’s interference and the sordid and intensely parasitic nature of his fund’s other ventures.

The Lee offensive started with a series of cartoons posted on the Samsung website. Most singled out the manner in which Elliot Associates has enjoyed its remarkable growth by focussing on the purchase of national debts from struggling countries at a fraction of their worth, before using ruthless legal measures to sue those countries for values far exceeding the original debt. On its most basic level, the practice is really just the same as Jewish involvement in medieval tax farming. On the older practice, Salo Baron writes in Economic History of the Jews that Jewish speculators would pay a lump sum to the treasury before mercilessly turning on the peasantry to obtain “considerable surpluses … if need be, by ruthless methods.”[2] The activities of Elliot Associates are really the same speculation in debt, except here the trade in usury is practiced on a global scale with the feudal peasants of old now replaced with whole nations. The above cartoon refers to the specific activities of Elliot Associates in Congo where it originally bought $32.6 million in sovereign debt incurred by that country for the knockdown price of under $20 million. In 2002 and 2003, a British court (tactically chosen) forced the Congolese government to settle for an estimated $90 million, which included that all-important interest and fees. Elliot Associates rapidly became known as the quintessential “Vulture Fund.”   (…………..)

n the end, the Lee strategy, based on drawing attention to the alien and exploitative nature of Elliot Associates, was overwhelmingly effective. Before a crucial shareholder vote on the Lee’s planned merger, Samsung Securities CEO Yoon Yong-am, said: “We should score a victory by a big margin in the first battle in order take the upper hand in a looming war against Elliott, and keep other speculative hedge funds from taking short-term gains in the domestic market.” When the vote finally took place a few days ago, a conclusive 69.5% of Samsung shareholders voted in favor of the Lee proposal, leaving Elliot licking its wounds and complaining about the ‘patriotic marketing’ of those behind the merger.

Jewish difficulties in penetrating close-knit Far Eastern monopolies, many of which are open in their belief that Jews are capable and ruthless opponents in business, thus persist. East Asians are seemingly aware that giving Jewish businessmen an inch will normally lead to non-Jews losing a mile. It is this honest grappling with the facts that kept Daniel Loeb off the board at Sony, and prevented Elliot Associates from making even slight gains at Samsung.  [The Occidental Observer]

You can read more at the link.

This is just common sense that the Japanese Self Defense Force wouldn’t just land in South Korea without governmental permission, but due to the massive misinformation in Korea, this fact has to actually be socialized publicly in the media:

Japan reaffirmed Wednesday it would not send its troops to the Korean Peninsula without a request or prior consent from South Korea even though the country is expanding the role of its self-defense forces, the Defense Ministry in Seoul said.

Earlier, Japan stressed that Tokyo would never send troops to the Peninsula even for a contingency without permission from the Seoul government.

“Japan’s defense minister is explaining to its assembly on its position that (Japanese self-defense forces) will not enter the territory of South Korea if there’s no consent from the country,” a defense ministry official quoted a group of Japanese officials as saying during a working-level defense policy meeting.

“The Japanese side has reasserted this is the Japanese government’s basic stance.”

Earlier in the day, the neighbors held the 21st round of the working-level defense policy meetings in Seoul, resuming the director-level defense dialogue channel after over two years.

Since the last round held in Tokyo in March 2013, the annual meeting was suspended last year due to worsening diplomatic ties over unresolved history-related feuds.

The South Korean side was headed by Yoon Soon-ku, the ministry’s director general on international policy, while the Japanese delegation was led by his counterpart, Atsuo Suzuki.

The Japanese side has also suggested the signing of two military agreements — the General Security of Military Information Agreement and the Cross-Servicing Agreement — during the session, but the Korean side was cautious, the defense official said on condition of anonymity.

“Forging these agreements requires the understanding and support from the public,” he said, referring to public anxieties over military intelligence with the former colonial ruler. “It should be reviewed carefully.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

I guess we will see how strictly enforced these new measures are on South Korean teachers:

Teachers found guilty of committing sex offenses will be deprived of their teacher’s license, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE) said, Thursday.

The office said it will take a zero-tolerance approach to sex offenses by teachers.

The measure came after a group of male teachers at a public high school in Seoul were recently accused of sexually harassing female teachers and students for more than a year.

“Schools should be the safest social fence for students,” Superintendent Cho Hee-yeon said at a press conference at the SMOE building in central Seoul.

“We’ll take stern legal action against teachers found to have committed sex offenses. For a single offence, we’ll not only kick out such teachers convicted of sexual molestation but also disclose their names,” he said.

If a teacher’s sexual misconduct is reported, the SMOE will launch a special inspection immediately and will have the teacher removed from his or her post even before the police investigation is concluded or prosecution’s indictment is issued.  [Korea Times]

Here is what civic groups have to say about the new measures:

Civic groups, however, said that the SMOE’s measure would not be an ultimate solution because most of the abusers have been punished softly and returned to schools after one or two years of probation.

“Of a total of 240 teachers disciplined for their sexual abuse in the last five years, 115 teachers, or 47.9 percent, still remain in school,” said a parent group official.

You can read more at the link.

It looks like President Park’s sister is quite the headache for her, but I would be in more agreement with her if she criticized her sister for not doing more for the modern day Korean comfort women in China:

Just as President Park Geun-hye struggles to improve the country’s relations with Japan, an unlikely figure has catapulted herself to the center of controversy by criticizing Seoul for dragging out the sex slavery rows: her younger sister, Geun-ryeong.

In an interview with Japan’s video-sharing website Niconico, the 61-year-old Park Geun-ryeong said she was sorry that in most news reports South Korea blames Japan for the ongoing toil of the so-called comfort women “without itself taking greater care” of them.

Citing previous statements including the regret expressed by Emperor Hirohito to then-President Chun Doo-hwan in 1984, she said it is “inappropriate” to demand an apology every time a new premier takes office.

Park also defended the Japanese prime minister’s globally criticized visit to the controversial Yasukuni war shrine in December 2013, calling Seoul’s opposition an “interference” in another country’s internal affairs.

“I believe if anyone thinks that the prime minister would worship at the Yasukuni with an ambition for another war in mind, he or she is an abnormal person,” Park said. “How would blood-related descendants not pay respect to their ancestors?”

Her remarks are likely to have little impact on the bilateral diplomatic relations or the ongoing talks aimed at resolving the sex slavery dispute, but they instantly sparked public uproar given her position in the presidential family.  [Korea Herald]

You can read more at the link.

Should Korean students study abroad? http://t.co/M8HUUgSKhB pic.twitter.com/v9yf5cdM2I

— KEI (@KoreaEconInst) August 3, 2015

It is amazing the quality of Kodachrome photos from back in th day.  This image of an apple market in 1952 during the Korean War looks like it could have been taken with a modern digital camera.  Image link via Reddit Korea.

Is South Korea's Intelligence Agency Spying on Its Own Citizens? http://t.co/zPOIX8zCCi pic.twitter.com/kBa9fyUOJY

— The Diplomat (@Diplomat_APAC) August 3, 2015