Lee Jae-myung is just surrounded by scandal. If he had won the Presidency in 2022 I wonder if these bribes would have ever been investigated?:
The leader of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) apologized Monday over snowballing allegations that cash envelopes were distributed to lawmakers and party members as bribes ahead of a 2021 national convention held to elect a new party leader.
Prosecutors are investigating suspicions that envelopes containing cash totaling 94 million won (US$71,700) were handed out to members of the then ruling DP to help then lawmaker Song Yong-gil be elected as the party chair ahead of the party convention in May 2021.
Song eventually won the election.
“As party leader, I deeply apologize for causing people concern over this issue,” Rep. Lee Jae-myung, chairman of the DP, said during a party meeting at the National Assembly.
Prosecutors have raided the homes and offices of Reps. Youn Kwan-suk and Lee Sung-man for their alleged involvement in distributing the money collected from regional businesspeople. Youn and Lee served in Song’s campaign ahead of the national convention.
You can read more at the link, but this has to make people wonder if Lee Jae-myung was handing out cash envelopes when he was elected the Democratic Party leader in 2022?
It looks like these Korean corporations will need to determine if having restrictions in the U.S. market is worth partnering with these Chinese firms:
Legal experts in Korea have begun to sound the alarm regarding LG Chem, SK on and POSCO Group, warning them that their joint ventures, established here in Korea with Chinese firms, could be designated as foreign entities of concern under the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
If their warnings turn out to be true, the products of their joint ventures may lose ground in the U.S. market, as they will not be able to enjoy benefits from the country’s subsidy rules.
Last Friday, law firm Kim & Chang said that joint ventures with Chinese companies are likely to be regarded as foreign entities of concern, as the U.S. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act defined the term as any foreign entities owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction of North Korea, China, Russia and Iran.
“The U.S. will not allow its taxpayers’ money to flow into China,” lawyer Shin Jung-hoon of the nation’s largest law firm said during a conference on countermeasures against the IRA.
South Korea just reported their first locally transmitted case of the monkeypox:
Health authorities reported the nation’s first locally transmitted case of monkeypox Saturday, bringing the total number of infections to six.
The South Korean national, who has no recent overseas travel history, tested positive for the disease the previous day, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
The person visited a hospital with a skin rash Monday and was reported to health authorities as a suspected monkeypox case Thursday.
Having remote launchers in theory will further increase the already large area that the THAAD battery in Seongju can defend against North Korean ballistic missile attack:
The U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) said Friday it has conducted the first training on the deployment of a “remote” launcher of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system in South Korea.
The U.S. military made public a set of photos of Sunday’s training, hours after the North’s state media reported the country had carried out drills involving an underwater nuclear attack drone and cruise missile launches earlier this week.
“The training of our THAAD forces enhanced the units’ combat readiness, combined defense posture within the alliance, demonstrates the ironclad commitment to support and defend the ROK and further strengthens the security and stability on the Korean Peninsula,” the USFK said in a press release. ROK stands for South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea.
The drills took place in conjunction with the regular South Korea-U.S. Freedom Shield (FS) exercise that concluded its 11-day run Thursday.
The employment of the remote launcher came in line with the U.S. military’s upgrade program designed to streamline and integrate its THAAD and Patriot missile defense systems into a single program for enhanced and more flexible security operations.
President Yoon is absolutely correct in his comments:
President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday refuted domestic criticism against his efforts to mend ties with Japan despite Tokyo’s reluctance to issue an additional apology for its past wartime wrongdoings, saying that neglecting the frayed relationship with the neighboring country for political interest is tantamount to dereliction of the president’s duty.
“The previous government left the troubled relationship between South Korea and Japan untouched and this resulted in the people of both countries and ethnic South Koreans living in Japan suffering, and the security and economies of both countries falling into a deep abyss,” Yoon said during his 25-minute opening speech at a Cabinet meeting.
“I also could have chosen an easy path for immediate political gains and left the worst-ever South Korea-Japan relations unaddressed. However, I believed that neglecting grave international circumstances and exploiting the hostile nationalism and anti-Japan sentiment for domestic politics are nothing more than abandoning my duties as the president.”
Yoon’s unscheduled speech came amid his faltering job approval ratings after last week’s summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
Fueling anti-Japan sentiment among South Koreans is the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) that has been harshly criticizing the president for having “paid tribute to Japan” with his “abysmal summit.” (………)
“In our society, there are groups which are seeking political gains by evoking exclusive nationalism and anti-Japan sentiment,” Yoon said, referring to the DPK’s criticism. “Japan has expressed its remorse and apologies over the history issue tens of times.”
Yoon cited past apologies released by the Japanese government, including the 1998 joint declaration announced by then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi. In the declaration, Obuchi expressed his deep remorse and apology for the “tremendous damage and suffering” the South Korean people experienced during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial occupation.
You can read more at the link from President Yoon’s speech. The political opposition continues to call the Yoon administration “traitors” and vows to launch investigations against them for improving ties with Tokyo.
Like I have said before, but it is hard to take the political opposition seriously when they supported the North Korea policies of the prior Korean President Moon Jae-in. Kim Jong-un is in charge of a North Korean regime that has killed far more Koreans than Imperial Japan could ever dream of. Additionally Kim Jong-un is in charge of a regime that continues to regularly threaten South Korea with annihilation and enslaves a large amount of Koreans in labor camps among other human rights violations. Why isn’t the political opposition demanding constant apologies from the Kim regime?
Instead the political opposition is more concerned about stopping cooperation with a country that actually wants to help South Korea defend itself from annihilation from North Korea. When the opponents of President Yoon start making demands for apologies and compensation from North Korea then maybe I will take their claims against Japan seriously.
It is official now that the GSOMIA has now been restored between Tokyo and Seoul:
President Yoon Suk Yeol (L) shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the end of their joint news conference after their summit in Tokyo on March 16, 2023. (Yonhap)
South Korea on Tuesday fully restored its military intelligence-sharing pact with Tokyo, the foreign ministry said, as part of efforts to thaw long-frozen ties following a recent bilateral summit.
South Korea sent an official letter to Japan earlier in the day via diplomatic channels informing of its decision to fully restore the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) between the neighbors, the ministry said.
Signed in 2016, GSOMIA was seen as a rare symbol of security cooperation between Seoul and Tokyo before the former administration of President Moon Jae-in decided to terminate it in 2019 in protest of Japan’s export restrictions against South Korea.
The decision to suspend the pact was later put on hold, but the amount of information sharing between the neighboring countries is thought to have been limited, as their relations remained strained over disputes stemming from Japan’s colonial rule.
This should come as no surprise that Koreans want to work less hours, who wouldn’t want less hours if it meant the same pay? I would like to read what the results of this survey would be if the employees were told they would make less money if working the lesser hours. I think the results would be very different:
While the government has been pushing to extend a mandatory 52-hour cap on the country’s 40-hour basic workweek, a recent survey showed that people actually wish to work less than 40 hours per week.
The Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA) unveiled the results of its survey on work-life balance, Sunday, after interviewing 22,000 people aged between 19 and 59 from Sept. 20 to Oct. 7 last year.
The results showed that people wished to work 36.7 hours a week on average: regular employees wished to work 37.63 hours a week, while temporary and daily employed workers wished to work 32.36 hours a week.
This survey was done in response to the government’s proposal to add flexibility to the current 52 hour work week cap:
Billing the plan as offering flexibility beyond the mandatory 52-hour cap on the workweek, introduced by the previous Moon Jae-in administration, the ministry said it is seeking to extend the maximum weekly work hours to 69 during times of heavy workload.
The ministry noted that workers will be granted longer vacations in return for overtime worked. But many labor and civic groups have raised doubts about this.
To me this seems like big business trying to get government to help them avoid paying overtime wages during periods of heavy workload. The companies are offering extra vacation days in exchange that the article explains many Korean workers are not allowed to take the vacation days they already have off.
The usual suspects out protesting increasingly cooperation between South Korea and Japan:
Lee Jae-myung (C, front), leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, and other participants chant slogans during a rally in Seoul on March 18, 2023, denouncing President Yoon Suk Yeol’s March 16 summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. (Yonhap)
Political strife escalated Saturday over the recent South Korea-Japan summit, as the liberal opposition took to the streets blasting President Yoon Suk Yeol for cozying up to Tokyo and looking past historical disputes on wartime forced labor.
Yoon held a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo on Thursday to mend ties strained by historical disputes stemming from Japan’s colonization of the Korean Peninsula from 1910-45.
Earlier this month, South Korea announced its plan to compensate the victims of wartime forced labor through a foundation with donations from domestic companies and not the accused Japanese firms, a move opposed by the victims, opposition parties and activists.
You can read more at the link, but where were these activists and protesters when the last Korean president Moon Jae-in was cozying up to Kim Jong-un? He is in charge of regime that has killed far more Koreans than Imperial Japan could ever dream of. Additionally Kim Jong-un is in charge of regime that continues to regularly threaten South Korea with annihilation and enslaves a large amount of Koreans in labor camps among other human rights violations.
Yet these activists are more concerned about stopping cooperation with a country that actually wants to help South Korea defend itself from annihilation from North Korea. This is despite Japan’s transgressions happening 75+ years ago that they have repeatedly apologized and made compensation for. Where is North Korea’s apologies and compensation for all the destruction and deaths they have committed against South Korea in the 75+ years since World War II?
When the Korean left starts making demands for apologies and compensation from North Korea then maybe I will take their claims against Japan seriously.
