It appears that the South Koreans are giving into the unilateral wage hikes the North Koreans having been demanding to provide so called “Social Security” to their workers at the Kaesong Industrial Complex:
As the North has rejected formal talks, the South is seeking a resolution through the Kaesong Industrial District Management Committee, a quasi-government organization, according to a senior unification ministry official.
“We are positively considering consultations between the committee and the (North’s) Central Special Development Guidance Bureau,” he told reporters on background.
The committee is ostensibly a North Korean organ but headed by South Korean government officials. Kim Nam-sik, South Korea’s former vice unification minister, chairs the committee.
The ministry official said it’s urgent to resolve the wage problem as 124 South Korean firms there will begin to pay March’s wages to around 53,000 North Korean employees on April 10.
“Once the wage issue is resolved, we can discuss the problem of the general labor rules,” he said.
His comments suggested the possibility of the South accepting the North’s decision on the 5.18-percent wage hike in a bid to buy time for dialogue on how to operate the Kaesong zone, which is susceptible to Pyongyang’s unpredictable measures. [Yonhap]
This looks like a good idea since the kindergartens are focusing on teaching mixed race children the Korean language and culture:
The Ministry of Education said Tuesday that it will run 30 kindergartens nationwide specifically for children from multiracial families.
The ministry will select six kindergartens each from Gyeonggi, South Chungcheong, South Jeolla, South Gyeongsang Provinces and Seoul – which will receive 7 million won ($6,200) this year for making programs dedicated to multiracial children.
The selected kindergartens won’t be required to teach multiracial children only, but they have to develop and run additional programs that can help them develop their Korean language skills and social identity. [Korea Times]
Ryu So-yeon (R) poses after winning the team event for pairs representing South Korea at the World Ladies Championship title at Mission Hills Haikou in Hainan, China, on March 15. At left is her teammate Park In-bee. (Yonhap)
This probably does not come as much of a surprise to most Korea watchers that Korean students are very stressed out in regards to their studies:
Korean kids are the most stressed about their studies in the world, a study reveals.
A whopping 50.3 percent of Korean kids are stressed about their studies, the highest proportion among 30 countries surveyed, according to an analysis by Kim Mi-sook of the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs.
Relatively high stress was also recorded in Spain (49.4 percent), Slovenia (48.9 percent), and Portugal (47.2 percent). The least stressed kids were in the Netherlands (16.8 percent), Hungary (18.4 percent), Slovakia (19.1 percent), Austria (20 percent), and France (20.8 percent).
Only 18.5 percent of kids in Korea said they are “very happy” at school. Korea comes fifth from the bottom after Estonia (9.2 percent), Italy (14.8 percent), Finland (15.3 percent), and Czech Republic (17.3 percent). [Chosun Ilbo]
Interesting analysis over at Popular Gusts in regards to the below Joong Ang Ilbo article which a Korean lawmaker is complaining about how Japanese textbooks depict the March 1st Korean independence movement back in 1919:
History textbooks in Korea and Japan are still riddled with inaccuracies in their descriptions of Korea’s March 1 Independence Movement 96 years ago, the catalysis of Korea’s fight against Japan’s colonial rule (1910-1945).
Rep. Han Sun-kyo, a lawmaker of the ruling Saenuri Party, told the JoongAng Ilbo on Thursday that he analyzed Korean and Japanese history textbooks he received from the Seoul-based think tank Northeast Asian History Foundation and Korea’s Ministry of Education and found the results troubling.
He said a “considerable number of Japanese history textbooks are distorting the facts or minimizing the significance of the March 1 Independence Movement.”
March 1, 1919, remains a touchstone of Korean nationalism as the day when activists declared Korea’s independence and triggered large-scale peaceful demonstrations against Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945).
One Japanese middle school history textbook published by Jiyusa says the March 1 independence movement in Seoul “initially was planned as a non-violent rally but gradually became a large-scale movement,” and that “the army was mobilized and because of a clash on both sides, there were many casualties.” (……)
Korea has been alarmed by Japanese right-wingers’ historical revisionism, which glosses over or denies wartime aggressions and trivializes the victims of its colonial rule over Korea. (……)
But Han added that Korean history textbooks also have inaccuracies, and there are many cases where they “describe the non-violent March 1 movement as violent” or do not mention key events or figures such as Yoo Gwan-soon’s martyrdom [Joong Ang Ilbo]
However, there is only one problem with the lawmakers complaints, the March 1st movement was violent. Popular Gusts provides the analysis:
The problem is, the textbooks describing the independence movement as being “violent” are being accurate. While some of the Japanese dispatches during the Samil Uprising reported in the New York Times described violence on the part of demonstrators, I didn’t realize just how violent the protests were until I read Frank Baldwin’s “Participatory Anti-Imperalism:The 1919 Independence Movement” (Journal of Korean Studies, Volume 1, 1979, pp. 123-162). One assumes this contains some of the material in his dissertation, “The March First Movement: Korean Challenge, Japanese Response” (Columbia University, 1969). In his article, he notes that between March 1 and April 10, 1919, there were “approximately 667 peaceful demonstrations” as compared with “approximately 460 violent incidents.” (…….)
The tale of “peaceful Samil demonstrations” serves the cause of depicting Koreans as a peaceful people beset upon by marauding outsiders; that is to say, victims with no responsibility for their actions. [Popular Gusts]
You can read much more act the link in regards to much of the South Korean myth making in regards to the March 1st Independence Movement. I always appreciate well documented historical analysis like this that cuts through the historical revisionism so prevalent in Korea today.
It sounds like China is trying to develop an alternative to the western led International Monetary Fund (IMF) and is trying to rope South Korea into being part of it:
A policy coordination meeting among members of the ruling party, the administration and the Blue House was held Sunday at the prime minister’s residence in Seoul. Thaad and AIIB were expected to be discussed.[NEWSIS]Seoul is caught up in a messy diplomatic tangle with the United States and China as it deliberates sensitive issues that can alienate one ally or the other.
Korea is especially conflicted over the issues of whether to deploy a Washington-led Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) missile defense system in Korea, which Beijing is opposed to, or to join the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which Washington doesn’t like.
Both issues are on front burners as high-ranking officials from Washington and Beijing will be in Seoul this week.
Liu Jianchao, Chinese assistant minister of foreign affairs, kicked off a four-day visit Sunday, according to the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, his first trip to Seoul since he took the post in 2013. Liu heads to Tokyo afterwards.
Daniel Russel, U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, visits on Monday for two days. Russel is expected to check on Ambassador Mark Lippert, who is recovering from a knife attack by a radical nationalist in Seoul earlier this month. His visit is expected to be an opportunity to emphasize the Korea-U.S. bilateral alliance.
Both envoys will meet with Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Lee Kyung-soo and Vice Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yong. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
It is too bad these idiots won’t face punishment in South Korea for this. The Korean government says they are not going to request extradition because property crimes don’t warrant it. Regardless what a disgrace:
On Feb. 2, four Australians in baseball caps and hoodies appeared around Wangsimni Station, eastern Seoul, at three in the morning. They carefully scoped out the area and then stopped in front of a ventilation window behind a bus stop. They cut the bars of the window and swung down to a temporary garage where a car for the Line No. 5 subway was idle.
Using spraypaint, they covered the car with graffiti art and then moved on.
Two days later, they penetrated Anam Station, northeastern Seoul, and left graffiti that read “FEDUP” in giant letters on a subway train. The following day, the four men did the same thing at the Sinnonhyeon Station on Feb. 5, leaving the declaration “ERROR” on a Line No. 9 train.
It was only after they flew back to their home country on Feb. 7 that the police identified the four Australians with security camera footage. They matched their faces on security footage from the airport and then checked immigration records.
The four men were found to have spent 10 days in Korea – dedicating at least three of those nights to spraypainting Seoul subway cars.
“We don’t understand how foreigners who never traveled to Korea before knew so expertly the subway stations’ structures,” said Shim Mun-sik, chief of a crime investigation department of the Seongdong Police Precinct. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
