The Korea Times

Objective sentencing to be implemented

By Lee Kyung-minThe court aims to be more objective by standardizing sentencing for violent crimes.  The court will let legal counsels to fully argue about the specifics in the court: the type of the crime, reasons for aggravating/extenuating punishment, and whether to suspend the sentence or not. Lack of this process has long been the main criticism of the judicial branch.The move comes after a nationwide criticism when those convicted of sexual crimes were slapped only with a couple of years in jail.Individual judges decided on each punishment of the crimes of similar sorts, such as sexual assault or murder, and the inconsistency in their sentencing led many people to question the integrity of the justice system, according to a summary of a recent forum of the detectives in Busan. “After the hearing, the sentencing process is not deliberated in the court. So when the judge delivers the ruling without explanation, many people have a hard time making sense of the result. "Sometimes the disparity between what people feel and the sentencing further stokes distrust among

Apr 15, 2013By Lee Kyung-min

South Korea

New law increases foster child lessens adoption

 Adoption of abandoned babies won’t be as easy as it has been. An amended law dictates that without the registration of the biological mother, the court’s grant, or the family background, the child cannot be adopted. It has been in effect since August last year. Left with no choice, financially challenged single moms have turned to the church’s Babybox instead. The number of abandoned newborns in a Babybox in front of JooSarang church in the Gwanak district in southwestern Seoul has been increasing for three years, the church said Sunday. The figure was four in 2010, 37 in 2011 and 79 in 2012, according to the Seoul city government. Obviously the change in the law led the rise in number, said a church official and a city official. The babies in the Babybox have been put up for adoption through domestic adoption agencies, the city official said. But the new law made it illegal to do so.Single moms have nowhere to turn to but the church, the church official explained. “Most single mothers wrote in letters that because of the new law, they had no choice

Apr 14, 2013By Lee Kyung-min

New law increases foster child lessens adoption

Tech & Science

Researchers find unprecedented cache of 200 dinosaur eggs

Dinosaurs grew in the egg in a similar fashion to modern birds, a study suggests.Scientists made the discovery after examining a cache of more than 200 fossilized bones from embryonic dinosaurs.They were found strewn among fragments of eggshell and are all believed to belong to the same species, the 26-foot long-necked sauropod lufengosaurus. Crucially, the embryos were at different stages of growth, providing scientists with a rare opportunity to study how lufengosaurus developed before hatching.Focusing on the femur, or thigh bone, they found evidence of rapid growth within the egg. Before hatching, the bones doubled in length from 12 to 24 millimeters, indicating a short incubation time.Analysis of the bones' anatomy and internal structure showed that, as in birds, muscles became active inside the egg and helped shape the skeleton. “This suggests that dinosaurs, like modern birds, moved around inside their eggs,” said lead scientist Robert Reisz, from the University of Toronto in Canada. “It represents the first evidence of such movement in a

Apr 11, 2013By Lee Kyung-min

Researchers find unprecedented cache of 200 dinosaur eggs

World

4-year-old boy shoots to death 6-year-old in US

A 6-year-old New Jersey boy has died after being shot in the head by a 4-year-old playmate as their parents stood in the yard nearby, a local police chief said.Brandon Holt was pronounced dead at 5 p.m. Tuesday at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, according to Toms River police Chief Michael Mastronardy.It was the second incident in the United States in recent days involving young children accidentally shooting others.Brandon was playing in and around the 4-year-old's Toms River home on Monday evening when the younger child left the yard and went inside, police explained."The 4-year-old ... retrieved a rifle within the house, a .22-caliber rifle, came outside," Mastronardy told reporters earlier Tuesday. "... A shot went out and the 6-year-old was struck in the head." Daniel Watkins, uncle of the 6-year-old boy, told CNN affiliate WCBS that the two children were friends."It's really difficult to deal with," Watkins said. "This is something that shouldn't have happened. It's horrible."A family friend, Lynne Boccadoro, told CNN affiliate WABC that Brandon and his famil

Apr 11, 2013By Lee Kyung-min

South Korea

Boys up for more overseas adoption

 Korean parents prefer girls over boys for adoption, according to Holt Children's Services April 11.The parents chose only 130 boys out of the 405 adopted children, accounting for just 32 percent. The percentage of boys being adopted has been dropping; 37 percent in both 2007 and 2008; 35 percent in 2010 and 32 percent in 2011.It marks a drastic contrast to that of the 1970s when the percentage of girls being adopted was only 37, half of that of the boys’ 63. In less than half a century the numbers have reversed.The boys not chosen by the Korean parents, then, have been sent to the foreign countries, according to the statistics from the Ministry of Health and Welfare.Although the total number of overseas adoption plunged by half to 629 cases in 2011 compared to 1,364 in 2001, the percentage of boys being adopted jumped from 60 percent in 2001 to 69 percent in 2011.An official from the Ministry of Health and Welfare said, “Most Korean parents want girls, but we persuade them to adopt boys. That’s why at least 30 percent of the adopted are boys.” He ad

Apr 11, 2013By Lee Kyung-min

South Korea

Only 1 in 8 women thinks marriage is a must

One out of eight women thinks marriage is a must, the recent survey conducted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare released April 10 showed. Only 13 percent of women said women should get married.Men with the same opinion took up about twice the portion, 26 percent, according to the survey “The survey of the nationwide state of marriage and birthrate.”Three years ago, the gap between the opinion of men and women was only about six percent, but the gap has been widening. Women turned out to be more disagreeing to the conventional thought. While the figure of men agreeing dropped by three percent from 70 percent to 67 percent, women’s did by seven percent from 63 percent to 56 percent.The main reasons for avoiding the marriage were job insecurity and being short of money, according to the survey. Eighty-seven percent of men and 86 percent of women said so.Also, women were getting more open to divorcing. To the questionnaire “Divorce is okay if problems arise,” women saying “yes” increased gradually, 18 percent in 2003 to 13 percent in 200

Apr 10, 2013By Lee Kyung-min

South Korea

Police busted organized criminals in insurance fraud

The police in the northern Seoul district of Seongbuk arrested, on April 10, 40 people who conspired with Korean organized criminal gangs for insurance fraud . Eight of them were members of organized criminal groups, and others were wannabes, their acquaintances, and friends from school.Their scheme was to bump into other cars and get themselves hospitalized to claim a total of 400 million won ($360,000) from four different insurance companies on 45 occasions, the police found through their investigation. They occurred from March 2006 until August 2012 around Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, according to the police. They allegedly fabricated facts in their accidents, disguising healthy people into those with injuries. They allegedly threatened the insurance company workers into giving them certain amount of money. To harden their stance, they showed their tattoos, and said, “I will report this case to Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) that you delayed the insurance compensation process.” They did file a complaint, which in turn made the FSS call the insurance company t

Apr 10, 2013By Lee Kyung-min

Police busted organized criminals in insurance fraud

South Korea

Illegal Sports Toto websites busted

The Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency on April 9 busted 1,865 gamblers and five gambling websites which illegally ran Sports Toto. Sports Toto is like a horse-racing except that the horses are each sports team. This is the largest number of people caught, according to the police. Lee and three other men were arrested on charges of running the illegal online gambling website. The police are to arrest technical engineers who managed the website. Thirteen of them are now under arrest, but another 10 suspects are believed to have fled the country.The Gyeonggi police now have asked the Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization, _www.interpol.int_ for cooperation. The suspects allegedly opened 200 websites since January until June 2011. And they made the servers track them back to China. On sports broadcasting websites, they put up ad banners, which linked them back to the websites. The suspects included all walks of life, the police said. “College students, Soldiers, Office workers, housewife… Practically everyone was involved in this case,&rdquo

Apr 9, 2013By Lee Kyung-min

South Korea

Family Court will ask for criminal record for adoption

The Family Court will toughen the law for child adoption to make sure that only qualified parents can take custody of children.The presidential office of Cheong Wa Dae will organize a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday with President Park Geun-hye presiding to deliberate and send the Family Litigation Act to the National Assembly for approval. It is to make sure when the court grants an adoption, it takes all of biological- and step- parents’ opinions into account. The Family Court can ask for criminal records and medical history of the step parents. Anybody who leaks that information during the adoption trial will be punished by criminal law if the legislation is adopted by the House. If the law goes into effect, anyone who tries to change his name will have to submit his criminal records to the court for background check.

Apr 9, 2013By Lee Kyung-min

North Korea

NK missile targets Seoul

The most well-known hardliner in the Chinese Military made a remark which emphasized the seriousness of the North Korean threat against the South, according to an April 8 report by the United Daily News in Taiwan, citing Chinese state media report.Major Gen. Ruh Wian of People’s Liberation Army, and the deputy of the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs argued, “Seoul’s security will be the crucial factor to maintain the peace on the entire peninsula.”He said that Seoul is capital of South Korea, the center for politics, economy, science, and culture responsible for a fifth of the GDP in the country. He also emphasized that Seoul is within the target range of the scud missile since it is only 40km far from the DMZ (demilitarized zone).He explained that 80 percent of the North Korean military force are deployed within 100km range from the DMZ. Taiwanese press said that North Korea sees Seoul as the South’s weakness and takes it as a hostage to threaten South, according to the Maeil Kyungje report.Ruh is a staunch radical who said that the coun

Apr 8, 2013By Lee Kyung-min

Lee Kyung-min

Read more

Objective sentencing to be implemented

New law increases foster child lessens adoption

Researchers find unprecedented cache of 200 dinosaur eggs

4-year-old boy shoots to death 6-year-old in US

Boys up for more overseas adoption

Only 1 in 8 women thinks marriage is a must

Police busted organized criminals in insurance fraud

Illegal Sports Toto websites busted

Family Court will ask for criminal record for adoption

NK missile targets Seoul

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