Tag: South Korea

If it seems like that there is many more Chinese visiting South Korea it is because there are:

South Korea was ranked the most popular overseas destination for Chinese people during their weeklong national holiday that started this week, a Chinese government survey showed Wednesday.

About 5.19 million Chinese are expected to travel abroad for the Lunar New Year holiday season, up 10 percent from the same period last year, and 15.6 percent of them are predicted to visit South Korea, according to the survey by China’s National Tourism Administration.

Also in the top five were Thailand (13.9 percent), Japan (8.7 percent), Australia (4.4 percent) and Singapore (3.6 percent).

“This year, the number of tourists continues to grow, due to an easier visa application process for Chinese passport holders, and the depreciation of foreign currency against the yuan,” it said.

Fueled by a growing popularity of Korean pop music and TV dramas and a gradual appreciation of the Chinese currency, the number of Chinese visitors to South Korea soared 46 percent from a year ago to 6.33 million people in 2014, according to South Korean government data.  [Yonhap]

Palestine seeks diplomatic mission in Seoul http://t.co/acuYf9bc48 #ForeignPolicy #Palestine pic.twitter.com/F8sXDXTT86

— 코리아헤럴드 Korea Herald (@TheKoreaHerald) February 14, 2015

It seems to me that it is pretty clear that the ROK wants THAAD in Korea, but the trick for them is figuring out how to deploy it without pissing off the Chinese:

With growing controversy in Northeast Asia surrounding U.S. ambitions to deploy an advanced antiballistic missile defense system on the Korean Peninsula, the Pentagon has reversed its earlier position that Seoul and Washington were discussing the issue.

In the latest media briefing, the Pentagon’s press secretary made clear the United States and South Korea are not having official discussions on possible deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, better known as Thaad.

“There are no formal consultations or discussions about Thaad with our Republic of Korea counterparts, no formal consultations about Thaad. And we want to be very clear about that,” said Navy Rear Admiral John Kirby on Friday in Washington. “We do discuss a full range of military capabilities with our allies in South Korea, of course, and some of those do include missile defense. But there are no consultations with respect to Thaad.”

Kirby said it is for the South Korean government and its people to decide what is of strategic value to their country.

The Pentagon’s verification came as Seoul, Washington, Beijing and Moscow have been engaged in an intensifying diplomatic tug-of-war in recent weeks over possible Thaad deployment. Throughout this month, defense officials in Beijing and Washington took turns nudging Seoul to make up its mind.

Thaad is a U.S. defense system designed to shoot down missiles using a hit-to-kill approach. Because it is equipped with a radar system that can cover more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles), deployment of a Thaad battery in Korea has been a sensitive issue. Both China and Russia see it as a threat to their security interests that could be used for surveillance.

Beijing and Moscow appeared to be particularly sensitive to the Thaad system because of the AN/TPY-2 – a high-resolution, rapidly deployable X-Band radar designed to detect, track and identify ballistic missiles at long distances and very high altitudes.

During a press conference Feb. 10, Kirby said South Korea and the United States were discussing possible deployment of Thaad.

“I think we all recognize the importance of the capability,” Kirby said about the Thaad system in Washington. “There are constant discussions, and certainly with our South Korean allies about that.”

While offering no details, Kirby said, “It’s an important capability. It’s one that we talk to them about. That’s really as far as I can go today.”

Another U.S. government official, Lt. Col. Jeff Pool, a Pentagon press officer, supported Kirby’s earlier comments, saying officials in Washington and Seoul often talked informally about Thaad, although there never was an official discussion.

“It would be untruthful to say we haven’t informally discussed [it] because we already had a site survey in the ROK [South Korea] and Gen. [Curtis] Scaparrotti said he wanted it,” Pool told Korean correspondents in Washington, referring to earlier statements by senior U.S. defense officials.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

It is going to be interesting to see if this law gets passed:

Resentment has mounted so much in South Korea against what has come to be known as “gabjil”, high-handedness by the rich and powerful, that parliamentarians are proposing legislation to punish some of the worst abuses.

A bill to be presented in the national assembly this month is formally called the “Conglomerates Ethical Management Special Law” but has been nick-named the Cho Hyun-ah law.

Cho, also known as Heather Cho, is the daughter of the chairman of Korean Air Lines and was sentenced last week to a year in prison for an outburst on a Korean Air plane while on the ground in New York. It was considered a severe sentence by some legal experts.

The bill proposes to ban members of the powerful business families known as chaebol from working at their companies for at least five years if convicted of a crime. In earlier cases, some high-profile offenders were pardoned, serving little or no jail time, although recently-convicted chaebol executives have found it harder to avoid prison.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link, but I wonder if it is even Constitutional in Korea to make special laws that focus on particular individual families?

What a horrible way to die in what was a preventable accident:

An incident Thursday in which a zookeeper was mauled to death by two lions has led to growing calls for increased safety measures.

The 52-year-old zookeeper surnamed Kim was found fatally bleeding in the wild cats’ enclosure at Seoul Children’s Grand Park in Gwangjin District, northern Seoul.

Both lions, which were supposed to be locked up, were discovered wandering around the body, said another zoo worker surnamed Lee, who first came upon the scene at the enclosure, which measures 374 square meters, about 4,000 square feet.

In CCTV footage examined by the police, Kim appeared on screen alone after taking part in the zoo’s wild animal action development program, which is conducted two or three times a month to help exercise animals’ natural instincts.

During those exercises, workers typically throw raw meat or toys to the animals in their natural enclosures.

Police said Kim was working by himself and remained in the enclosure to clean it without realizing the lion cage was unlocked.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

The Future of South Korea’s Welfare System http://t.co/Q7ybRZryT9

— The Diplomat (@Diplomat_APAC) February 10, 2015

A huge pileup due to foggy weather on the bridge leading from Incheon International Airport to Seoul has killed two people and injured dozens more:

Two people were killed and more than 60 others were injured on Wednesday as more than 100 vehicles piled up on a bridge near Incheon International Airport in foggy weather, police said.

The collision took place at 9:34 a.m. on the Seoul-bound side of the bridge linking the western port city with an island where the airport, South Korea’s main gateway, is located.

A total of 63 people were injured and taken to nearby hospitals. Ten of them were in serious condition, while two were in critical condition, authorities said.

Of the injured, seven were Chinese, three Thai, two Vietnamese and two Filipino. The other four foreign nationals were Japanese, Russian, Bangladeshi and Swiss, respectively.

One of the two Vietnamese victims was in serious condition, firefighters said.

The bodies of the two victims have been moved to hospitals in Goyang, a northern Seoul suburb, and western Incheon, respectively, police said. They were identified only as a 51-year-old surnamed Kim and a 46-year-old surnamed Lim.

Police said a taxi in the first lane bumped another taxi in front of it into the second lane. An airport limousine bus ran into the second taxi, causing a mass collision of cars behind it.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

I own a Roomba and I love what it does maintaining the cleanliness of the floors.  However, don’t blame the robot vacuum cleaner when when you are stupid enough to do this:

Not the first time modern technology has clashed with age-old traditions, perhaps, but a South Korean woman was lucky to escape relatively unscathed after her household gadget tried to devour her mane.

Mrs. Ryu set her automatic robotic vacuum cleaner to diligently do its job last week, but was rudely awoken when the machine mistook her hair for some filth left laying around on the floor.

Ryu, 52, from Changwon City, southeast of Seoul, made the mistake of laying down for a nap on the floor – common practice in many parts of Asia – while simultaneously employing the help of her vacuu-bot.

Then the basketball-sized machine came across the ends of Ryu’s hair, it quickly started diligently sucking it up.  [CBS News]

You can read more at the link, but I don’t know what is sillier, the fact her hair got caught in the vacuum or she had to call emergency services to get her hair out of it.

I understand how these families members are upset, but the sinking of the fishing boat off the coast of Russia that resulted in 53 people dead or missing is not going to get much attention in Korea because the vast majority of the people who died were foreigners.  Plus it happened so far out at sea where there was no news cameras compared to the Sewol ferry boat tragedy:

On a cold afternoon last month, a handful of demonstrators carried signs along a road in downtown Seoul, attracting little attention.

The lack of interest was troubling for the small group, whose loved ones disappeared on Dec. 1 when the Korean-owned trawler Oryong 501 sank in the Bering Sea off the coast of Russia.

Six Koreans were confirmed dead in the sinking of the 1,753-ton vessel; five others remain unaccounted for. In all, 27 men, including Filipinos and Indonesians, have been confirmed dead and 26 are listed as missing.

Some of the Korean family members want the owner of the ship, Sajo Group, held accountable, saying the company sent out a non-seaworthy boat and is evading its responsibilities. They also want the government to apologize for what they believe was lax monitoring of the firm.

“We demand that Sajo Group be punished for letting a malfunctioning fishing boat go out to sea; for an apology from the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries; and a pledge that the ministry will properly supervise future ocean operations,” said Ko Jang-un, a representative for the families, whose brother has been confirmed dead.

Ma Sun-sook, who also lost her brother, said, “You can’t call it an accident if the sinking of the vessel was predictable.”  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but the boat took on water during a bad storm and a bad water pump resulted in the boat not being able to extract the water and it sunk.  It had been known for months that the boat had a bad pump.  It seems to me the company is to blame more so than government regulators.

Is this really the best that the ruling Korean government can provide for a Prime Minister nominee?  A guy who is accused of intimidating journalists, avoiding active military service, and plagiarizing his thesis?

President Park Geun-hye’s pick for prime minister came under fire from opposition lawmakers Tuesday as they accused him of controlling the freedom of the press and lying in order to avoid active military service.

Lee Wan-koo, a former floor leader of Park’s ruling Saenuri Party, has been under pressure to withdraw his name from consideration for the country’s No. 2 political job following allegations he exerted influence on the media to stop them from carrying negative reports about him.

He also allegedly suggested at a recent lunch with reporters that he could influence personnel reshuffles at media companies.

His reported comments have sparked national outrage in a country where people fought past military-backed governments to gain press freedom.

“I apologize a hundred times,” Lee said during a confirmation hearing at the National Assembly. “I apologize once again to the relevant members of the press and the press in general for my inappropriate behavior, and I am deeply remorseful.”

Rep. Kim Gyeong-hyeop of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) raised fresh allegations that Lee threatened to make a phone call to editors if a reporter published negative articles about him.  (…………………)

During the hearing, Rep. Jin Sun-mee of NPAD accused the nominee of lying in order to avoid active military service.

Lee completed his mandatory military service in reservist duty after being diagnosed with a syndrome that can lead to flat feet.

Rep. Jin claimed, however, that Lee was deemed fit for active service following his first physical exam in 1971 and only later reclassified according to the results of an additional physical exam he took in 1975.

She also raised suspicions that the nominee could have used his power to alter the results of the latter exam after having passed the prestigious state civil service exam a year earlier.

Lee held up several X-ray photos which he said showed the condition of his leg in 1964, 1975 and as recently as 2009. He declined, however, to comment on the first physical exam he took in 1971.

The nominee is also accused of speculating in real estate, plagiarizing his doctoral thesis and intentionally omitting parts of his annual wealth report.

He acknowledged that his thesis did not meet the strict ethical standards of today when it comes to citations, but argued that he still wrote the paper independently using his own data and analytical methods.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but President Park must view this guy as a real loyalist to put him up as a nominee despite all the baggage he brings.