Tag: Korea

This is a start at least to these two countries learning to play nice with each other:

South Korea, the U.S. and Japan will sign a trilateral information-sharing arrangement on Monday to better handle the evolving nuclear and missile threats from North Korea, Seoul’s Defense Ministry said Friday.

The arrangement is expected to strengthen the three-way security cooperation that has been lackluster due to historical and territorial feuds between Seoul and Tokyo, and Seoul’s push for a deepened strategic partnership with Beijing.

South Korea’s Vice Defense Minister Baek Seung-joo, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work and Japan’s Vice Defense Minister Masanori Nishi will sign the arrangement separately in their respective countries on Monday.

Under the deal, South Korea and Japan will not directly share their military information, but they will share it via the U.S. upon their consent, Seoul officials explained. Such an indirect method has been devised apparently in consideration of the public sentiment in the South against any military collaboration with its onetime colonizer.

“If South Korea offers information to the U.S., the U.S. would provide it to Japan upon South Korea’s consent. On the other hand, if Japan offers information to the U.S., the U.S. would give it to the South upon Japan’s consent,” a senior official at the Defense Ministry told reporters, declining to be named.

“The sharing will be limited to information about North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats. The country that has produced a particular piece of information will determine to what extent it will share its information.”  [Korea Herald]

You can read more at the link, but an example of how this would work is if the Japanese received intelligence of an imminent nuclear test they would give that intelligence to the US to give to South Korea instead of directly.  The whole setup seems juvenile, but President Park remembers what happened to President Lee Myung-bak when he tried to pass this deal a few years ago and it caused a public outcry and he had to cancel the deal.  It was so bad he had to fly to Dokdo to prove he was not a Japanese traitor.  Park is being smarter about this intelligence sharing deal with this indirect approach and noticed when she is having the deal signed; right in the middle of the holidays when few people are paying attention.

South Koreans Support Ban on Party: Poll http://t.co/Txlb7FdPTz

— South Korea Daily (@SouthKoreaDaily) December 22, 2014

Back due to popular demand is Chickenhead’s hilarious carol “Christmas on the DMZ”:

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the DMZ,

the darkness was stirred by a lone Christmas tree.

Love gifts were hung from the balloons with care,

in hopes they’d pass north through the cold winter air.

The soldiers were nestled all snug in their bunks,

while visions of peaceful reunification gave them goose bumps.

With a ho in her hooker boots, and I in the buff,

I had just bent her over to treat her ass good and rough.

When out on the lawn arose loud banging and clicking,

I sprang from my bed to see whose ass needed kicking.

Away to the window I flew all in fear,

knocked over my soju and two bottles of beer.

The moon on the snow and the flares in the sky,

gave the luster of mid-day so I could not deny.

When, what to my wondering eyes should I see,

but a horde of Nork soldiers, tanks and artillery.

With pictures of Dear Leader and muzzle flashes aglow,

I wished for more combat training instead of briefings from EO.

They yelled threats and commands, I knew I was funked.

My Tagalog was great but my Korean skills sucked.

“Now, Kim! Now, Lee! Now, Park and Gong!

On, Choi! On Kwak! On, Nam and Song!

To the top of the hill! To the top of the wall!

Now kill the white devils, kill them all!”

And they hit the main gate the first time they tried,

where napping KATUSAs with empty guns died.

They attacked the wall of the BX and opened a chasm,

and looted the place, a black market orgasm.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard down the hall,

shooting and stabbing and harsh Han Gook Mal.

As I searched for a weapon and looked all around,

an evil Nork soldier came in with a bound.

He was dressed all in rags, from his head to his foot,

and his sockless toes could be seen through his boot.

A smoking AK he had flung on his back,

and I picked up my XBox to give him a whack.

His eyes – how they twinkled! Narrow and scarry!

But he looked like a teen who still had his cherry!

His droll little mouth was drawn up in rage,

and though I hadn’t saved my game, I had to engage.

A rusty old knife, he held in his teeth,

as with hunger abound, he’d likely eaten the sheath.

He had a big square head and lacked any belly,

while I only passed my tape test on a diet of petroleum jelly.

I put down my XBox and said, “Here’s the deal.”

“If you don’t kill me, I’ll cook you a meal.”

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,

soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his plate,

and gobbled Hamburger Helper like a trailer park date.

To get him to leave, I thought of more ploys,

“Why don’t you take my hot juicy back to your boys?”

He sprang out the door with my juicy in tow,

and the last that I saw, they’d formed a line in the snow.

I hid under my bed with my XBox on,

And played Medal of Honor ’till the airstrike got here from Guam.

Via the Marmot’s Hole it appears that the Uber’s days are number in Korea once Daum-Kakao releases their app that is endorsed by t

South Korea’s leading free messenger service operator Daum Kakao said Wednesday it will launch a taxi service app by the first half of next year as it initiates a new platform of connecting online and offline businesses.

Daum Kakao signed a memorandum of understanding with the Seoul Taxi Association and Korea Smart Card Co. for the service that would link customers with the closest cab through a mobile app. The taxi association has some 255 Seoul-based cab operators as members, and Korea Smart Card is the country’s top transportation payment system provider.

“Daum Kakao has established important grounds for the operation of Kakao Taxi, and we plan to expand cooperation with other taxi operators throughout the country in the future,” the company said in its release.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the Seoul city government passed an ordinance offering rewards of up to a Million Won to people who report Uber taxis which will set the stage for the Daum-Kakao app to take over this market.

Bad news for native English teachers in Korea if this comes into law because it would reduce the number of English teaching jobs available in Korea:

Some 100 owners of private English institutes across Korea gathered in Seoul, Tuesday, to protest the government’s plan to ban native teachers from working at so-called English language kindergartens.

This comes after the Ministry of Education announced the plan last week as part of its efforts to help households reduce spending on private education.

Such institutes for children are often called English kindergartens, although they are not registered as under the law. With intensive English programs, they usually charge about double the cost of other kindergartens.

The ministry is now collecting opinions about the plan before making a final decision.

Members of the Korea Association of Hagwon said that the new policy not only hurts children’s ability to improve their English, but also violates parents’ right to choose the way they educate their children.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but the plan to ban native English teachers is supposed to reduce the costs of sending children to English hagwons.

The Samsung heir apparent has cracked Bloomberg’s Top 200 of the world’s richest people:

Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman of South Korean tech firm Samsung Electronics Co., made the list of the world’s top 200 richest people for the first time as Samsung Group’s heir apparent raked in big fortunes from successful initial public offerings of its two affiliates, the Bloomberg Billionaire Index showed Tuesday.

The 46-year-old Lee’s listed stock value was estimated at US$7.2 billion to rank 183rd worldwide in the latest Bloomberg index, making him the second-wealthiest person in South Korea after his father, Lee Kun-hee.

The senior Lee, who is recuperating from a heart attack he suffered in May, ranked No. 77, with his listed assets worth $13.1 billion as of early Tuesday, the index showed.

Formerly among the world’s 400 richest people in September, the junior Lee has made a big leap forward as the nation’s most powerful conglomerate listed two of its affiliates — Samsung SDS Co. and Cheil Industries Inc. — in just over a month, in a move seen as preparing for management succession. [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Lee Jung-hee, the head of the minor opposition Unified Progressive Party (UPP), speaks to reporters in front of the Constitutional Court in Seoul on Dec. 19, 2014, after the court ordered the disbandment of the party, which holds five seats in the 300-member parliament. Several UPP members, including Rep. Lee Seok-ki, have been convicted of plotting to overthrow the government in the event of a war with North Korea. (Yonhap)

If these former prostitutes win this lawsuit it seems this would open up the flood gates for lawsuits against the government for all prostitutes that every worked in Korea since the government turned a blind eye to this activity for so long:

Attorneys for a group of former prostitutes who serviced U.S. troops decades ago argued Friday they should receive compensation because the South Korean government encouraged them to “work for their country.”

The 122 women are suing the government for $1.2 million and asking for an official apology and an investigation into a system of open prostitution that operated in the military camp towns surrounding U.S. bases for several decades after the Korean War. The women claim their human rights were violated. Their attorneys say documents show the national government, including a ministry overseeing health and social affairs, was directing local health centers to manage the women’s health care.

“The plaintiffs were not aware at the time that prostitution was illegal,” Ui Eun-jin, one of several attorneys for the women, said during the first hearing in the case. “They were being educated that this was work for their country and an act of patriotism.”

Ha Ju-hee, another attorney for the women, said the national government had designated specific areas for the women to practice prostitution, forced them to register with health clinics, get regular health checkups and then treatment if they were found to have sexually transmitted diseases.

“The state caused the plaintiffs pain, so the state has a duty to compensate them,” she said, adding that the national government also praised the women for earning U.S. dollars. South Korea was desperately poor after the Korean War, and American currency was seen as a way to build up its struggling economy.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but the club system many of these women found themselves locked into all those years ago has been well documented in books such as this one.  Here is an example of the boards that were put up warning GIs back then of girls with STDs:

So it was pretty clear that the Korean government in cooperation with the US military back then regulated the prostitution industry outside of the US military bases.  With that said the prostitutes in the camptowns are just a tiny fraction of the total number of prostitutes in Korea over the years that the government also turned a blind eye to.  What is especially reprehensible about this is that many of these women were sold into the club system by their parents who were looking for money to support their families during Korea’s era of poverty before today’s economic miracle.  There is a lot of blame to go around in regards to all the prostitution in Korea, not just outside the US military bases.

Shown is the military headquarters of the Korean exiled government in the western Chinese city of Chongqing during the Japanese colonial rule of Korea in the early part of the 20th century. The Chinese government said on Dec. 19, 2014, it had decided to preserve the building as a historic site. (Yonhap)

This has been a long time coming, but the

The U.S. government has approved the sale of four RQ-4 Global Hawk surveillance drones to South Korea.

The foreign military sale is included in a list of contracts announced on the Defense Department’s website Monday.

Northrop Grumman Systems Corp.“has been awarded a $657,400,000 hybrid contract … for aircraft for the Republic of Korea,” the announcement stated.

The contract includes four RQ-4B Block 30 Global Hawk aircraft, two spare engines and ground control equipment. The first Global Hawk is to be delivered in 2018, the San Diego, Calif.-based company said in a statement. Each aircraft will contain an “Enhanced Integrated Sensor Suite,” the DOD announcement said.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but this sale has been in the works for many years because of the delays caused by concerns that technology and information would be leaked to North Korea.  Now with the US wanting the ROK to take on more of their defense responsibilities enough confidence in the South Koreans to protect this technology must have been built up to approve this sale.