The Korea Times

Moon Jae-in syndrome

South Korea's President Moon Jae-in, center, leaves after delivering an annual budget address at the National Assembly in Seoul Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2019. AP-YonhapBy Oh Young-jin Three leaders are in trouble for by and large a common “sin” ― assuming they know better than the people about what they want. Call it an attempt at direct democracy or elected dictatorship (or the beginning of it), but so far the outcome is the political equivalent to a third-degree burn.The three are President Moon Jae-in, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and, of course, U.S. President Donald Trump. The trio is just sampled from the much greater pot of leaders trying their version, meaning it is a virtually universal phenomenon. Moon pushed for the appointment of Cho Kuk, a “limousine liberal,” who has attacked the vices of conservatives despite his well-to-do background, as justice minister. A flood of accusations of wrongdoing involving him and his family followed, upsetting both conservatives and progressives. What triggered the universal resentment was that the accusations wer

Oct 25, 2019By Oh Young-jin

UK's Johnson seeks Dec. 12 election to break Brexit impasse

Politics

EXCLUSIVE Mahindra-Ford-SsangYong alliance emerging

Mahindra & Mahindra Managing Director Pawan Goenka, who concurrently serves as chairman of the SsangYong Motor board, speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at Mahindra's office in Seoul, Thursday. This photo was taken from a videotape recorded by Han Su-jin, Korea Times intern.By Oh Young-jin Mahindra & Mahindra, the Indian multinational automaker, seeks to have SsangYong Motor, in which it has a major stake, join a three-way alliance with Ford Motor, its joint venture partner, in developing products ― including electric vehicles ― platform sharing and global marketing, a senior Mahindra official says. “SsangYong products are very much similar to products Mahindra and Ford are developing,” Pawan Goenka, Mahindra's managing director and chairman of the SsangYong board, said in an exclusive interview Thursday at his office in Seoul. ”SsangYong can also participate in product development, which will help reduce costs substantially ― cost sharing among three parties rather than two.”“Ford is very well aware of our SsangYong ownership and th

Oct 21, 2019By Oh Young-jin

[EXCLUSIVE] Mahindra-Ford-SsangYong alliance emerging

Opinion

Red card to Kim Jong-un

Players of South and North Korea in their 2022 World Cup qualifying match at the empty Kim Il-sung Stadium in Pyongyang, Oct. 15.By Oh Young-jin The world should stop pampering North Korea. The latest lesson in point is the 2022 Qatar World Cup football qualifying match in the North's capital, Pyongyang, Oct. 15. The North blocked a live TV broadcast, allowed no international media and had the game played in a literally empty stadium that can seat 50,000. On returning home, South Korea captain Son Heung-min said his team was lucky to suffer few injuries because the North Koreans played rough and used plenty of expletives. South Korea's general manager Choi Young-il said the North played like it was waging war. In response, FIFA, football's governing body, took the situation with amusement but without a sense of urgency. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ride horseback at Mt. Baekdu in a recently released photo by the state media.Its president Gianni Infantino expressed disappointment about the empty Kim Il-sung Stadium. “I was looking forward to seeing a full stadium for such a h

Oct 18, 2019By Oh Young-jin

Opinion

You don't represent us

Conservative “taegukgi” forces led by the main opposition Liberty Korea Party rally in Gwangwhamun Boulevard, downtown Seoul, Thursday, to demand the scandal-ridden Justice Minister Cho Kuk be arrested and President Moon Jae-in resign. The massive protests came on the heels of a candlelight rally in Moon's support days earlier in the legal town of Seocho, southern Seoul (photo below). The two camps are engaged in a numbers contest to show who represents the bigger slice of the nation, but in a country of more than 50 million, their combined number accounts for a maximum one tenth, immediately casting doubt on claims that they stand for the public's will. Korea Times By Oh Young-jin We need a political party to represent you and me, who are sitting out big demonstrations irrespective of flavors: conservative taegukki or progressive candlelight. (The name of the national flag is used because those in the category often carry the flags during the rallies, but I adopt t

Oct 4, 2019By Oh Young-jin

Opinion

Moon's conflict of interest

President Moon Jae-in waits to speak at the United Nations General Assembly during his recent trip to New York. YonhapBy Oh Young-jin President Moon Jae-in used an interesting phrase that captured his political conviction, as well as the dilemma it causes, on a Facebook posting when he returned from his recent trip to the United Nations General Assembly in New York.In English the phrase translates literally and roughly into “the nation worth (befitting) the nation.” A little literary parsing is required to understand its nuanced meaning: the second nation in it means the goal: one that is upstanding, respectable and prosperous, among other things, while the first represents the state in which such goals are attained. The complete sentence has it, “We have not attained the state of the nation befitting the nation.” It could be rephrased: “Korea still has some way to go before becoming an advanced country.” His inner feelings would be more in more plain sight and the context better understood when read together with the immediately following sentence

Sep 27, 2019By Oh Young-jin

Opinion

Would IOC let Nazi flags fly in Berlin?

South Korean protesters hold Japanese rising sun flags during a rally to mark the Aug. 15 Liberation Day from Japanese colonial rule, in downtown Seoul. Korea asked the International Olympic Committee to ban the Japanese “rising sun” flag at 2020 Tokyo Games, calling it a symbol of Japan's brutal wartime past. APBy Oh Young-jinWhy is the International Olympic Committee (IOC) so tolerant of Japan's use of the Rising Sun flag, the symbol of the country's imperial adventurism?South Korea and China, victim countries of imperial Japan, requested a ban of its use at 2020 Tokyo Olympics venues but the IOC said no.Would the IOC or its leader Thomas Bach of Germany allow Nazi swastika flags or “hakenkreuz" if Berlin or Munich hosted the quadrennial games, the sports festival of the world? Definitely no.Conscientious Germans, who oppose the rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right, ultra-nationalist political party, would not allow its use. If Germany failed to act, France, Poland, Belgium and other victim nations in the Second World War triggered by Nazi leader

Sep 20, 2019By Oh Young-jin

Society

Mystery deaths: Mom, son found dead in fridge in burnt apartment

Firefighters move inside the apartment after putting out the fire. They found two bodies inside a refrigerator that had tumbled on its side in the middle of the living room in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province. YonhapBy Oh Young-jin Firefighters found the bodies of a man and his mother in a refrigerator after extinguishing a fire in a fifth-floor apartment in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, Wednesday.The mother, 62, and the son, 35, lived together. There were no signs of injury on their bodies.The fire started at 5:22 a.m. and it took firefighters 40 minutes to extinguish it.According to firefighters, there was a refrigerator charred by the fire that fell on its side in the middle of the living room. They found the bodies in it. Firefighters also found a container of flammable liquid in the apartment that they believe was used to start the fire. The fire gutted the inside of the apartment. YonhapThe estranged father had long been living separately, while the deceased woman had another son who she was not on speaking terms with. Police said the door was locked and the chain on.

Sep 11, 2019By Oh Young-jin

Mystery deaths: Mom, son found dead in fridge in burnt apartment

Music

Rapper NO:EL pays hefty sum to victim of his drunk driving

Rapper NO:EL, left, has allegedly driven drunk and attempted to have his friend take the fall. His father and lawmaker Rep. Chang Je-won, from the conservative Liberty Korea Party, is at right. He is under pressure to quit over his son's behavior. Korea TimesBy Oh Young-jinNO:EL, a rapper whose name is Chang Yong-jun, gave 35 million won ($29,000) to a motorcyclist that he hit with his Mercedes while allegedly driving it drunk, the vernacular Dong-A newspaper reported Wednesday. The son of Rep. Chang Je-won of the conservative opposition Liberty Korea Party asked the injured rider to submit a leniency plea to police on his behalf, a legal measure that is quite often resorted to in traffic accidents."The amount is a bit larger than usual but Chang decided to pay it to help end speculative reports," the rapper's lawyer was quoted as saying.This settlement, however, is not supposed to affect police investigations into allegations of his drunk driving and attempt to "hire" somebody to take the fall for him. He is also suspected of hit and run. Chang had a friend pretend he was driving th

Sep 11, 2019By Oh Young-jin

Rapper NO:EL pays hefty sum to victim of his drunk driving

Society

Tank tragedy: Dead foreigners had no legal work permits

Rescue personnel try to resuscitate foreign workers who fell unconscious while cleaning a tank at fish processing company in Yeongdeok, North Gyeongsang Province, Tuesday. Courtesy of North Gyeongsang Fire StationBy Oh Young-jinFour foreign workers who died of apparent gas poisoning in Yeongdeok, North Gyeongsang Province, Tuesday, did not have legal work permits.According to online NoCut News Wednesday, the dead were three Thais and one Vietnamese. They entered Korea on tourist visas and stayed on to work.Police are investigating whether their Korean employer violated regulations ― checking the toxicity of air in the tank the four were sent to clean or giving them protective gear. If he failed to abide by the safety rules, he could face manslaughter charges.Three of the workers died at the scene. A fourth, a Thai, died in hospital Wednesday. Police said the incident happened about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday. One of the workers entered the tank and became unconscious. The three others followed and suffered the same fate.The tank was at a fish processing company and it had not been cleaned for

Sep 11, 2019By Oh Young-jin

Tank tragedy: Dead foreigners had no legal work permits

Opinion

Japanese foreign minister's lame excuse

Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha, right, and her Japanese counterpart Taro Kono part their ways at a meeting. /YonhapBy Oh Young-jin Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono's view on the ongoing dispute with Korea is disappointing because his view lacks universal respect for basic human rights and is worrisome because it may recommit Japan to its past mistakes.The Kono claim, recently posted on Bloomberg news agency, provides grounds for reflection regarding what is the best way to prevent an aggressor country from waging war again: the Treaty of Versailles or the San Francisco Treaty. First, Kono's contribution portrays Korea as untrustworthy because it is demanding compensation for Japan's colonial occupation from near the turn of the 20th century to 1945, saying the issue was settled once and for all by the 1965 treaty, under which Japan gave Korea $500 million ― more than Korea's annual budget then. Kono sounds transactional, as if he thinks what his country did to Korea was a mere fender bender that he can write a check for and forget all about. But he is wrong. Japan systematically

Sep 6, 2019By Oh Young-jin

Oh Young-jin

Read more

Moon Jae-in syndrome

EXCLUSIVE Mahindra-Ford-SsangYong alliance emerging

Red card to Kim Jong-un

You don't represent us

Moon's conflict of interest

Would IOC let Nazi flags fly in Berlin?

Mystery deaths: Mom, son found dead in fridge in burnt apartment

Rapper NO:EL pays hefty sum to victim of his drunk driving

Tank tragedy: Dead foreigners had no legal work permits

Japanese foreign minister's lame excuse

Top 5 stories