Tag: Korea

So if South Korea does increase their birthrate then where are all these people going to go in such a small country?

President Park Geun-hye called Friday for measures to address South Korea’s low birthrate and aging population, which experts say could undermine the vitality of Asia’s fourth-largest economy.

South Korea’s birthrate stood at 1.19 in 2013, the lowest among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of 34 mostly rich nations.

South Korea has tried in vain to boost a falling birthrate as the rising cost of raising a child and job shortages have discouraged women from having more children.

Park said the next five year is the golden time in handling the country’s population crisis marked by the low birthrate and rapidly aging population.

“We can transform a crisis into an opportunity and create a sustainable growth engine only when we properly cope with” the population crisis, Park said in a meeting meant to address both issues at the presidential office.

By 2018, South Korea is expected to become an “aged society,” in which 14 percent of the population is 65 or older.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link, but basically the problem becomes that there are less workers supporting a large number of aged people.  So it sounds like the government is admitting to a ponzi scheme that is unsupportable without more people signing up for it.

Why you should celebrate your child's first lie: great ideas from Korean novelist Kim Young-ha http://t.co/qO44jZC8aA pic.twitter.com/C0T692YZc6

— Boing Boing (@BoingBoing) February 5, 2015

Here is a horrible story of a honeymoon gone wrong for a Korean couple who traveled to Guam:

Meanwhile PNC spoke to one of the witnesses of the Ritidian drownings. Ben “Guelo” Rosario says the victims were Korean tourists, a husband and wife who were on Guam celebrating their honeymoon. Rosario is a member of the nonprofit organization called Tasa and he said one of the rescuers who pulled the victims from the waters was one of the younger members of the organization Jerome Laguana. “He’s sixteen years old and he actually helped the two couples. The lady he said was too close to the reef and the wave came and pulled her out and the husband came and tried to help her and the husband got pounded by the second wave,” said Rosario.

Rosario says Laguana and his cousin battled rough currents to pull the couple in to shore. “After they brought them up some of the Koreans ran up there and started [doing] CPR and it tires you so you know I asked them to have me do it.” So Rosario jumped in and began to help administer CPR while they waited for Guam Fire Department crews to arrive. “How long until rescue units arrived?” asked PNC. Rosario replied saying, “After we started probably about another twenty minutes. Yeah it’s a far place you know.” Also, the road to Ritidian is riddled with potholes which no doubt made it more difficult for GFD units to get there. “Anybody that goes up to Ritidian please take care. The water is not cooperating up there all the time so be careful when you’re up there,” said Rosario.  [Pacific News Center]

An underground water pipe measuring 1,000 milimeters in diameter bursts in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, on Jan. 31, 2015, flooding the area for hours. (Yonhap)

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” lang=”en”><p>Video: Visiting the Mr.Toilet Museum in Suwon Korea <a href=”http://t.co/hcOjGJkQud”>http://t.co/hcOjGJkQud</a></p>&mdash; Christine Kaaloa (@grrrltraveler) <a href=”https://twitter.com/grrrltraveler/status/562132051587907584″>February 2, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

Models pose with Korean melons at a Lotte Mart store in downtown Seoul on Feb. 2, 2015. (Yonhap)

Hyundai is thinking big with the construction of what they hope will be a landmark building in Korea:

Hyundai Motor Group began negotiations with the Seoul city government over the construction of a 115-story headquarters at the Samseong-dong plot in Gangnam it purchased from Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco) for 10.55 trillion won ($9.6 billion) last September.

According to the city government Sunday, Hyundai Motor has submitted a plan to build the highest building in the country at 571 meters (1,873 feet), 16 meters higher than the Lotte World Tower.

Currently, the country’s highest skyscraper is the North East Asia Trade Tower in Songdo, Incheon, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

That building, which was finished last July, has 68 floors and is 305-meters high. Offices occupy the first 35 floors, and the remaining floors are used as a hotel and for restaurants.

The world’s fifth-largest automaker said it wants to build a landmark dubbed the Global Business Center at the Kepco site in Gangnam when it purchased the land last year.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.

It looks like the squid industry on Ullengdo is on the verge of collapse due to overfishing by Chinese boats:

Once abundant squid stocks in the East Sea have now almost been depleted by Chinese fishermen who operate in North Korean waters. This has caused tremendous hardship among fishermen on Ulleung Island, Korea’s most famous squid fishing point.

“Only five years ago the market was brimming with boxes of fresh squid every morning, but now we can no longer talk about it with any pride,” said 59-year-old trawler captain Lee Ju-hyuk.

The Jeodong market near the pier, where all the catch is gathered and traded, was one-third empty around 6:30 a.m. on Monday. But at this hour five years ago the catch was so abundant that people had to put spare boxes in nearby buildings.

Bright squid-lure lamps lit up the horizon off the island all night. When the boats arrived at dawn, workers cleaned the squid and middlemen bought and loaded them on their trucks.

But on Monday only about 30 middlemen and workers hovered around the fish collection point, and most of them had to turn back empty-handed. Around this time of year, squid used to be dried everywhere — on the seawall, in front of the door and on the tin roof of every household. Now that is history.

People here put the blame squarely on Chinese fishermen, who started fishing in northern waters in 2010.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Australia beats South Korea in extra time to win its first Asian Cup http://t.co/nQCJjZeP1E

— South Korea Daily (@SouthKoreaDaily) February 2, 2015

Indictments have now been released for Homeplus executives involved in the customer data selling scandal:

Homeplus Co., the South Korean unit of British retail giant Tesco PLC, has been indicted on charges of illegally selling customer data to insurance firms in exchange for money, a government investigation team said Sunday.

Homeplus is accused of gathering more than 24 million pieces of customer data, including birth dates, number of children and other personal information, and selling them to a number of insurance firms for a total of 23.17 billion won (US$21.14 million), the investigation team said. Most of the information were collected under the guise of conducting a lottery for free gifts.

Homeplus chief Do Sung-hwan, five other former and current company executives and staff, and two officials from the insurance companies have also been indicted over their involvement in the case, according to the team.

Do and the other Homeplus staff are accused of requiring customers to submit personal information in order to enter draws for the gifts.

Most customers who entered the draws were unaware that their personal information would be sold to insurance companies as such details were provided in barely visible print on the coupons. Some of the customers were not even contacted upon winning a prize, the investigation team said.  [Yonhap]

Isn’t this though pretty much what Facebook does every day?