Korea Thread: Liberal Moon Jae In Elected

[jimmy olsen]

the whole thing reeks of one allegation by the opposition or general rumor after another

Tons of leaked documents have come out proving undue influence. Members of her own party have called on her to resign.

Cal the thread title is Korea Thread.  That will not change.

[Monoriu]

This is bizarre

[Tonitrus]

Tim will be safe!

http://www.stripes.com/news/report-trump-tells-s-korean-leader-us-will-maintain-security-pact-1.438657

SEOUL, South Korea — U.S. President-elect Donald Trump reportedly promised to maintain Washington's security commitment to South Korea in a phone call Thursday with President Park Geun-hye.

Many South Koreans have expressed concern about the Republican billionaire's victory because he made several statements during the campaign that suggested he might pull back from the longstanding alliance between the two countries.

But Trump told Park in a 10-minute phone call that the United States will preserve a "firm, strong" defense posture to protect the South, according to the Yonhap news agency. He also was quoted as saying that Washington will work with Seoul "until the end" for the security of the U.S. and South Korea.

[jimmy olsen]

This could totally change tomorrow given Trump's personality. However it's better than nothing.

I'm currently watching a huge protest on tv against president Park. 850,000 strong. A look into Trump's future perhaps.

[jimmy olsen]

This surprises no one.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/world/asia/park-geun-hye-south-korea-extortion-accomplice-prosecutors.html?_r=0&referer=https://m.facebook.com/

Park Geun-hye Was Accomplice in Extortion, South Korean Prosecutors Say

By CHOE SANG-HUN
NOVEMBER 20, 2016
SEOUL, South Korea — President Park Geun-hye acted as a criminal accomplice for her longtime friend in extorting tens of millions of dollars from businesses, prosecutors said on Sunday, dealing another blow to the South Korean leader, who faced a nationwide call to step down.

Under the country's Constitution, prosecutors cannot indict the president on criminal charges until after she leaves office. But their findings further weakened Ms. Park's authority, and prompted opposition leaders, as well as some members of Ms. Park's governing party, to demand on Sunday that Parliament start a legal process to impeach her. On Saturday, huge crowds protested in Seoul and other major cities for the fourth straight weekend, demanding that she resign or face impeachment.

Prosecutors identified Ms. Park as an accomplice and a "criminal suspect" on Sunday while indicting her friend, Choi Soon-sil, on criminal charges including extortion and abuse of official power.

A former presidential aide to Ms. Park was also indicted on Sunday, on the same charges, as prosecutors accused him of helping Ms. Choi with the extortion. Another former presidential aide was indicted on charges of leaking confidential government documents to Ms. Choi. Although she had no experience in government or policy making, Ms. Choi was accused of meddling in a wide range of state affairs, like editing Ms. Park's speeches and helping her appoint key officials.

"We have determined that President Park was an accomplice in many of the criminal acts" of Ms. Choi and the two former aides, Lee Yeong-ryeol, a senior prosecutor, said during a nationally televised news briefing.


Mr. Lee said prosecutors had based their determination partly on information they collected from the two former aides' notebooks, diaries and cellphones, which contained instructions from Ms. Park.

Ms. Park is the first sitting president of South Korea to be accused by prosecutors of a criminal conspiracy.

Later Sunday, her office accused prosecutors of losing their political neutrality.

"The investigators' announcement today was completely untrue," said Jung Youn-kok, Ms. Park's spokesman. "It was nothing but a house of cards that ignored objective evidence."

Ms. Choi, the president's friend, was accused of forcing Samsung, Hyundai and 51 other major businesses to donate a total of $65 million to two foundations she controlled. The businesses feared tax inquiries and other governmental retaliation if they did not donate, Mr. Lee said.

Ms. Choi was also accused of forcing businesses to give contracts amounting to $12 million to companies controlled by her or her associates. They also tried in vain to wrest control of a lucrative public relations agency through blackmailing, Mr. Lee said. And they forced Lotte, a South Korean conglomerate, to donate $5.9 million for sports facilities under Ms. Choi's control, he said. (The money was later returned.)

Ms. Choi is a daughter of a religious figure who befriended Ms. Park in the 1970s, when Ms. Park's father, the military dictator Park Chung-hee, was in power. Ms. Choi's father, Choi Tae-min, was accused of using his influence with Ms. Park to collect bribes from businesses.

South Koreans have expressed outrage that Ms. Park has maintained questionable links to the Choi family for 40 years.

A key question that was not addressed by prosecutors on Sunday was whether Ms. Park and her office had tried to cover up the scandal. Officials who tried to raise alarms have been demoted, fired and even imprisoned.

According to recent opinion polls, Ms. Park has become the least popular leader since South Korea moved toward democracy in the late 1980s. All the major South Korean daily newspapers, as well as all opposition parties and even some members of Ms. Park's party, have called on her to resign.

But Ms. Park has refused to do so. Instead, she has reasserted her presidential role in the past week by appointing new ambassadors and senior government officials. She also instructed her Justice Ministry to investigate a separate corruption scandal involving a real estate developer.

Ms. Park has refused to face questioning by prosecutors, although they repeatedly said they needed to interrogate her in person. Her lawyer, Yoo Yeong-ha, has said Ms. Park needs more time to prepare. She also preferred to be questioned in writing, he said.


On Sunday, Ms. Park's lawyer said that she would not allow prosecutors to question her. Ms. Park's office also indicated that she would rather wait to see if the National Assembly impeached her.

The embattled loyalists of Ms. Park have begun fighting back in the past week, accusing the protesters of trying her in a "people's court." A former prime minister for Ms. Park accused her enemies of a "witch hunt." On Saturday, conservatives held a rally in support of Ms. Park, although it was much smaller than the antigovernment protests.

Ms. Park's attitude sets the stage for a prolonged political drama.

Her five-year term is scheduled to end in February 2018. But impeaching Ms. Park could be a political risk for the opposition parties. They need approval from two-thirds of the 300-seat National Assembly to pass an impeachment bill. Ms. Park's party controls 129 seats, enough to block the bill, although some of its members said they would support her impeachment. By law, the parliamentary impeachment must also be approved by two-thirds of the nine-judge Constitutional Court.

The process would take months and could prove divisive.

Prosecutors said they would continue to investigate the scandal. The National Assembly has passed a bill to begin a separate investigation this month by an independent counsel. Ms. Park's office said she would cooperate with the counsel.

[jimmy olsen]

A 6th grade girl just stunned me with her English. If a guy has great English you almost always know, but the girls are less likely to speak up, so sometimes they can surprise you and was I ever surprised today.

The seats had been changed. I walked by one table with three girls and a boy. I joked, "one man and three ladies, must be a popular man."

Three of them didn't get it, but one girl was absolutely appalled and shouted. "He's not popular, he's poor. If he's popular, then I'm a God!" Slamming her hand to her chest in a rhetorical flourish.

Woah.

[HisMajestyBOB]

 
That's great.

[Eddie Teach]

The seats had been changed. I walked by one table with three girls and a boy. I joked, "one man and three ladies, must be a popular man."

That's pretty cringe-worthy coming from a teacher. 

[jimmy olsen]

Protests keep get bigger every weekend

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/26/asia/south-korea-mass-protests/index.html

[jimmy olsen]

And she's done.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/world/asia/park-geun-hye-south-korea-resign.html?referer=https://www.google.co.kr/

Park Geun-hye, Embattled South Korean President, Says She's Willing to Resign

On Tuesday, Ms. Park admitted no legal wrongdoing and did not give a date for her resignation, saying she would let the National Assembly decide. "If the governing and opposition parties inform me of the way to minimize the confusion and vacuum in state affairs and ensure a stable transfer of power," she said, "I will step down as president according to their schedule and legal procedures."


Opposition lawmakers said the offer was an attempt to buy time, in hopes that those who have supported impeachment would bicker over when she should step down and on whether impeachment should proceed.

"This is nothing but a sly trick to avoid impeachment," said Youn Kwan-suk, a spokesman for the main opposition Democratic Party. "What the people wanted was her immediate resignation."

Before her speech, it had looked almost certain that the president would be impeached on Friday. Enough lawmakers from her party were expected to join the opposition for such a measure to pass. But after the address, Hwang Young-cheul, a spokesman for those lawmakers, said the rival parties must be given a chance to negotiate a road map for Ms. Park's resignation before trying to impeach her. It was not too late to push an impeachment vote to Dec. 9, he said.

Civic groups that have helped organize large recent protests against Ms. Park issued statements denouncing her Tuesday speech as a delaying tactic. They vowed to hold rallies until she resigned.

"The only thing she confirmed today was that she still didn't realize what she had done wrong," one of the groups said.

Before Ms. Park's televised address, even staunch allies in her party, Saenuri, had begun appealing to her to choose an "honorable retreat," as opposition lawmakers have put it. After the speech, some of those people embraced her initiative, calling on lawmakers to discuss the offer rather than try to impeach her.

One of them, an eight-term lawmaker, Suh Chung-won, said, "Now that the president said she would step down, the opposition's argument that she should be impeached because she refused to resign has lost ground."

Ms. Park's five-year term is set to end in February 2018. If she resigned, she would be the first South Korean president to do so since 1960, when Syngman Rhee, the country's founding president, fled into exile in Hawaii during popular uprisings against his corrupt, authoritarian government.

Ms. Park's statement followed mounting pressure from ordinary South Koreans, who have taken to the streets in large numbers for five straight Saturdays to demand that she resign or be impeached and arrested.

The scandal engulfing Ms. Park's government involves a longtime friend and secretive adviser, Choi Soon-sil, who has been charged with extorting the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars from South Korean businesses. Prosecutors have said that Ms. Park helped her to do so.

Ms. Park cannot be indicted while in office, but she has been officially identified as a criminal suspect, a first for a president. Ms. Park has also been accused of helping Ms. Choi illegally gain access to confidential documents.

Those who called for Ms. Park's resignation have said it would spare the country the political uncertainty that an impeachment would entail. If the National Assembly voted to impeach her, the deeply unpopular Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, who is not an elected official, would serve as acting president while the Constitutional Court took up to six months to decide whether to ratify the impeachment vote.


During her speech Tuesday, Ms. Park said she had "agonized over countless nights" over what was best for the country. Before Tuesday, Ms. Park, speaking through her spokesman and her lawyer, had contended that the scandal did not justify cutting short her term. On Tuesday, she insisted that she did not profit from Ms. Choi's alleged influence-peddling.

"Park is basically saying that it's not her fault, but that others like Choi are at fault," said Duyeon Kim, a research fellow for the Institute of Diplomacy at Georgetown University who lives in Seoul. "There's a gap between public perception and her claims."

In the past several days, Ms. Park has come under increasingly vocal pressure to step down. Her approval ratings have plunged to the low single digits.

Last week, her justice minister resigned, citing his inability to serve her during the scandal. On Sunday, 20 former parliamentary speakers, former prime ministers and religious leaders asked her to step down by April so the country could prepare for the presidential election. By law, if the president resigns, the country must hold an election in 60 days.

On Tuesday, before her speech, 25 first-term lawmakers from her party made the same appeal.

[jimmy olsen]

Lol, parliament told her to fuck off and eat shit. They rejected her negotiated resignation offer and are pressing on with impeachment. They may begin as soon as tomorrow.

Also, love this tidbit.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/south-korean-president-park-geun-hye-brink-amid-scandal-n690556

Only 9 percent of people aged over 60 said Park was doing well, according to the Gallup Korea survey.

Her support is lowest amongst young people. Ninety-nine percent of 19-29 year-olds and 98 percent of people in their 30s disapproved of Park, according to Gallup Korea.

[Duque de Bragança]

Also, love this tidbit.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/south-korean-president-park-geun-hye-brink-amid-scandal-n690556

Only 9 percent of people aged over 60 said Park was doing well, according to the Gallup Korea survey.

Her support is lowest amongst young people. Ninety-nine percent of 19-29 year-olds and 98 percent of people in their 30s disapproved of Park, according to Gallup Korea.

That's even lower than Hollande. 

[garbon]

Also, love this tidbit.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/south-korean-president-park-geun-hye-brink-amid-scandal-n690556

Only 9 percent of people aged over 60 said Park was doing well, according to the Gallup Korea survey.

Her support is lowest amongst young people. Ninety-nine percent of 19-29 year-olds and 98 percent of people in their 30s disapproved of Park, according to Gallup Korea.

That's even lower than Hollande. 

I guess when you whip people up into a frenzy...

[jimmy olsen]

The impeachment vote was 234-56

http://time.com/4596318/south-korea-president-impeachment-park-geun-hye-corruption-choi-soon-sil-protests/

[Eddie Teach]

Sounds like it's time to change the thread title. I suggest "Korea Thread: Ruled by Seolhyun since 2016".