Korea Thread: Liberal Moon Jae In Elected

[garbon]

Time for this thread to go back to: Lil' Kim scares Pentagon into blowing a ton of money on its ABM system

[jimmy olsen]

Yeah, things are not so good here. Looks like Trump is taking Soth Korea as a model though.

http://m.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2054467/impeaching-park-geun-hye-wont-rid-south-korea-its-crippling?utm_source&utm_medium&utm_campaign=SCMPSocialNewsfeed

Impeaching Park Geun-hye won't rid South Korea of its crippling corruption problems

John Power says the rot is so endemic at all levels of politics and business that, short of an overhaul, the people's power that brought down the president is only illusory

JOHN POWER

Watching the media coverage of South Korean President Park Geun-hye's impeachment, it would be easy to believe that a new epoch has dawned in the Land of the Morning Calm. Headlines have screamed that Park's suspension from power, weeks after prosecutors named her as a conspirator in a corruption and influence-peddling scandal involving a close confidante, is "historic". But if we are to associate that weighty term with change, there is reason to be cynical.

It's clear that Park is finished politically, regardless of whether the nine judges of the Constitutional Court ultimately confirm her impeachment, following allegations that her friend Choi Soon-sil effectively ran the presidency and shook down major businesses for tens of millions of dollars. But the truth is that South Korea is as fundamentally corrupt today as it was before the emphatic vote by lawmakers to strip Park of power. If a scalpel is not taken to the cancer of corruption, which permeates politics and business at all levels, the country won't be much different in a generation, either.

For all of its odds-defying successes in democratisation, economic development and pop culture, South Korea's political and business centres are rotten at their core, and have been for decades. Revelations of cronyism and graft are a weekly affair, often unfolding in storylines so cartoonish, with characters so brazen, venal and hapless, that they stretch the limits of belief.

Take the legislature, the National Assembly, which suspended Park from her office. While urging a vote for impeachment, Kim Kwan-young, a lawmaker with the liberal opposition People's Party, called on his fellow representatives to "stand honourably in front of history". A fine rhetorical flourish, if an unfortunate choice of phrase, given that Kim was standing with a man – his party's leader – who served time in prison over an illegal US$500 million pay-off to late North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il. Like most South Korean politicians convicted of serious crimes, Park Jie-won, an instrumental figure in Park's impeachment, was granted a presidential pardon in short order. Nor is this an isolated case. At the last National Assembly elections in April, an astonishing four candidates in every 10 had at least one criminal conviction, according to the National Election Commission.

In business, the picture is equally dour. South Korea's family-run conglomerates have been mills of embezzlement and tax evasion since their founding at the country's birth. Almost all the leaders of the country's top 10 chaebol, which generate around 80 per cent of the country's gross domestic product, are convicted criminals. And most have been given a free pass for their crimes. If the judge doesn't hand down a suspended sentence citing dubious health grounds or, comically, the crooked party's indispensable contribution to the national economy, the chaebol convict can invariably rely on being pardoned by the president.

While usually convicted of white-collar crimes, the chaebol heads aren't averse to more hands-on criminality, as famously demonstrated by Hanhwa Group chairman Kim Seung-youn. After his Yale-attending son was injured in a bar brawl, Kim had hired goons abduct the responsible parties to a building site, where he personally administered a beating with the help of a steel pipe. Kim was granted a presidential pardon not long after, freeing him up to commit more crimes – this time involving the fiddling of accounting books. Naturally, he controls Hanhwa, one of the country's most important companies, to this day.

By taking to the streets in their millions until their representatives were forced to act, South Koreans have brought down a powerful symbol of the corruption that blights their country. But without a root-and-branch examination of institutions and cultural norms, this moment of people power is likely to never become anything more than a symbol.

John Power is an Australia-based journalist who reported from South Korea between 2010 and March of this year

[jimmy olsen]

Drunk ajuishi thinks hr can do what ever he wants? Shocking!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/21/singer-richard-marx-restrain-man-flight-crew-korean-air

Singer Richard Marx 'helps restrain man' on flight and criticises crew

Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Wednesday 21 December 2016 10.35 GMT Last modified on
South Korea's biggest airline has defended its staff after the US pop singer Richard Marx said he had helped restrain a violent passenger during a flight and accused the crew of being "ill trained" to deal with incidents of air rage.

Marx, who had several hits in the 1980s and 90s, said he and his wife, the TV host Daisy Fuentes, were on a Korean Air flight from the Vietnamese capital Hanoi to Seoul on Tuesday when a male passenger assaulted the person sitting next to him.

After female cabin attendants spent four hours attempting to subdue the man, Marx, 53, and another male passenger stepped in and tied him up with a rope.

Photographs on Fuentes's Instagram page showed the passenger, a 34-year-old South Korean, grabbing a flight attendant's hair while another attendant pointed a Taser at him.

The business class passenger, who has not been named, reportedly became argumentative and then violent after drinking two and a half glasses of whisky with his meal.

"Passenger next to us attacked passengers and crew. Crew completely ill trained," Marx said on Twitter.

Fuentes wrote on Instagram that the flight attendants did not appear to know how to use a Taser or secure the passenger with a rope, and that they "never fully got control of him".

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"When he started pushing the female staff and pulling them by the hair, [Marx] was the first to help subdue him. This went on for four hours. I feel horrible for the abuse the staff had to endure but no one was prepared for this."

The passenger was arrested at Incheon airport near Seoul and charged with assault and breaking aviation security laws.

"My wife and I are safe but one crew member and two passengers were injured. The all-female crew was clueless and not trained as to how to restrain this psycho," Marx wrote on Facebook. "Korean Air should be sanctioned for not knowing how to handle a situation like this without passenger interference."

He said he and Fuentes had arrived home in Los Angeles after the "chaotic and dangerous event", adding that he wasn't a hero but "just did what I would hope anyone would do in the same situation".

A spokesman for Korean Air told the Korea Herald said that the Taser had not been used because of the risk it posed to nearby passengers. "The flight crew responded to the situation according to the proper protocol," he said.

The incident came two days before unionised Korean Air pilots begin a 10-day strike over failed salary negotiations. The walkout will cause the cancellation of more than 130 flights between 22-31 December, Yonhap news agency said.

[The Brain]

Ajuishi what? Doctor? Lawyer?

[Syt]

Drunk ajuishi thinks hr can do what ever he wants? Shocking!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/21/singer-richard-marx-restrain-man-flight-crew-korean-air

Richard Marx was right there waiting for him.

[CountDeMoney]

Richard Marx was right there waiting for him.

I know i never would've fucking expected it.  Been too busy looking over my shoulder for Corey Hart.  Fucker's like the Cong.  Viet Corey.

Rick Springfield Books Co-Bill Tour With Richard Marx
05:01 PM Thursday 12/22/16

Rick Springfield is teaming up with Richard Marx for a handful of acoustic co-bill gigs in early 2017. His routing also includes headline dates scheduled from coast to coast.
http://www.pollstar.com/news_article.aspx?ID=828650

So it was all just another goddamned celebrity promo hustle after all.   

[CountDeMoney]

Drunk ajuishi thinks hr can do what ever he wants? Shocking!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/21/singer-richard-marx-restrain-man-flight-crew-korean-air

Imagine that.  Somebody had white nylon braided rope on an Asian flight.  Go fig.

[Liep]

I'm so proud when we make the news:

South Korea scandal: Choi Soon-sil's daughter arrested in Denmark

[HVC]

I'm so proud when we make the news:

South Korea scandal: Choi Soon-sil's daughter arrested in Denmark

Reading that article confused me. all their names sound like dragon ball z power up shouts.

[jimmy olsen]

Choi Soon Sil is pronounced Chae Soon Shil

[HVC]

that makes it so much better

Besides, how do you know? you still don't speak Korean after like 7 years

[Eddie Teach]

Very impressive. You've learned to pronounce one name in Korean and it only took 10 years.   

[jimmy olsen]

Very impressive. You've learned to pronounce one name in Korean and it only took 10 years.   

I can pronounce all of them. 

[Eddie Teach]

BTW, have you seen the clips pf Conan when he went to Korea? Some funny stuff in there.

[The Brain]

The Riddle of Kimchi.