South Korea - The Korea Times

Man sentenced for issuing false visa documents for Vietnamese jobseekers

People line up at an immigration gate in Incheon International Airport. / YonhapBy Lee Suh-yoonA Seoul court handed down an eight-month prison term suspended for two years to the owner of an interior design firm, Thursday, for issuing false job offer documents to more than 100 Vietnamese so they could get visas for entering the country.The 49-year-old man, surnamed Park, colluded with migration brokers in Vietnam to issue job offer invitations to 15 Vietnamese workers from June 2017 to March last year, even though they did not actually work for him once they arrived in Korea. The broker, whom Park met during his trips to the Southeastern country, offered $1,000 per worker once they were given a working visa or promised business contracts with new apartment complexes being built in Vietnam. As his firm could not offer the job-based invitations to more than two migrant workers every month, Park got 13 of his business partners involved to offer false visa-issuing documents to invite 99 more Vietnamese migrants. While Park was sentenced to the suspended jail term, his business partners w

Feb 7, 2019

Man sentenced for issuing false visa documents for Vietnamese jobseekers

YouTuber Yang Ye-won declares war on hate comments

YouTube star Yang Ye-won. YonhapBy Lee Min-youngYouTuber Yang Ye-won has declared war on malicious netizens.Yang's legal representative said Thursday that Yang has decided to bring a libel suit against 100 netizens who have made hateful comments on her blog and social media.Yang said the suit was not for compensation but a sincere apology.Yang also is involved in an ongoing sexual harassment case. The legal dispute between her and her online attackers started with a video she posted on YouTube last May, in which she made a tearful confession that she had been sexually harassed by several men during a private photo shoot. Yang said she was forced into posing for semi-nude photos surrounded by strangers in a locked room. She said some of the men even touched her intimately. The studio manager, who was also said to have been involved, killed himself in July while the police investigation was under way. Last month, a man whom she said spread her photos on a porn site and was one of those who molested her during the photo session was sentenced two years and six months in jail.

Feb 7, 2019By Lee Min-young

YouTuber Yang Ye-won declares war on hate comments

Former political star jailed in #MeToo case

An Hee-jung, former governor of South Chongcheong Province, is taken into custody at the Seoul High Court in southern Seoul, Friday, after being sentenced to 3.5 years in jail for raping and sexually harassing his personal secretary. Korea Times photo by Seo Jae-hoonBy Lee Suh-yoonA former governor of South Chungcheong Province was sentenced to three and a half years in prison in his appeals trial, Friday, after being found guilty of repeatedly raping and sexually harassing his former secretary. In a landmark victory for the country's ongoing #MeToo movement, the guilty verdict overturned a lower court's ruling that acquitted him last year due to insufficient evidence. Handing down the verdict saying he was guilty on nine counts of the 10 charges, the Seoul High Court ruled that his former secretary Kim Ji-eun's testimony was credible and consistent enough to be accepted as evidence this time. “The victim's accounts are consistent, detailed and specific to the extent where it could not come from anything but direct experience,” said Hong Dong-ki, the presiding judge.&ldqu

Feb 1, 2019

Former political star jailed in #MeToo case

Appeals court finds ex-governor guilty of sexual abuse

Former South Chungcheong Province Governor An Hee-jung enters the Seoul High Court in southern Seoul, Friday. YonhapAn appeals court on Friday found a former governor of South Chungcheong Province guilty of sexually abusing his then secretary, reversing the highly debated acquittal by a lower court in one of South Korea's high profile Me Too cases.The Seoul High Court ruled that An Hee-jung was guilty of nine counts of the 10 charges that include abuse of power and sexual molestation.The court took the 54-year-old into custody immediately after the ruling.An, once considered a potential presidential candidate of the liberal bloc, was indicted in April last year for allegedly forcing his former secretary to have sex with him and groping her multiple times between the middle of 2017 and early 2018.The lower court found him not guilty in August last year, citing insufficient evidence. (Yonhap)

Feb 1, 2019

Appeals court finds ex-governor guilty of sexual abuse

Top court chief urges ruling party to calm down

By Kang Seung-wooThe escalating attacks from the ruling party on a judge who handed South Gyeongsang Governor Kim Kyoung-soo a two-year jail sentence earlier this week are “inappropriate” Supreme Court Chief Justice Kim Myeong-su said, Friday.Supreme Court Chief Justice Kim Myeong-su“It is acceptable and desirable that the people are critical of verdicts, but considering the independence of the judiciary and rule of law, it is inappropriate to use excessive expressions to attack an individual judge, over dissatisfaction with a ruling,” Kim told reporters.His remarks came as the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) has vehemently criticized judge Seong Chang-ho, taking issue with his past career linked to former top court chief Yang Sung-tae, who was arrested recently on charges of power abuse. DPK spokesman Rep. Hong Ihk-pyo said, Wednesday, the ruling on the South Gyeongsang governor was an act of retaliation by the beneficiaries of the judiciary power abuse scandal.On Wednesday, Kim was found guilty of his involvement in a massive online opinion-rigging op

Feb 1, 2019By Kang Seung-woo

Top court chief urges ruling party to calm down

'Kindergarten body attempted to lobby lawmakers against tougher regulations'

Lee Deok-sun, head of the Korean Kindergarten Association, hands over a written opinion to an official at the Ministry of Education to request withdrawal of bills proposed by Rep. Park Yong-jin to make private kindergartens' use of government subsidies transparent at the ministry building in Sejong City on Jan. 23. / YonhapBy Kim Jae-heunAn interest group for private kindergartens attempted to lobby lawmakers into siding with them in opposing three bills aimed at strengthening regulations on their operations, the regional education office in Seoul said, Thursday.The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE) said it would ask the prosecution to investigate the Korea Kindergarten Association's (KKA) alleged violation of the Political Fund Law and other irregularities, after conducting a special inspection last month.Based on the prosecution's probe results, SMOE, which holds authority over the KKA, will decide whether to revoke its license.The SMOE said it will consider revoking the license of the KKA. “We will wait for the investigation results by the prosecution and decide

Jan 31, 2019By Kim Jae-heun

Police search CARE office in euthanasia allegation probe

Park So-youn, head of the animal rights group CARE, speaks at a press conference in southern Seoul, Jan. 19, over her alleged euthanasia of more than 250 dogs. Police searched CARE's office and animal shelters, Thursday, as part of their investigation into the allegation. / YonhapBy Kim RahnPolice searched the office and eight other locations of the Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth (CARE), Thursday, in their investigation into the animal rights group head's alleged euthanasia of hundreds of animals.Investigators from Jongno Police Station seized accounting books and other materials, and inspected animal shelters run by the group.The search comes about three weeks after a group staffer blew the whistle that CARE leader Park So-youn euthanized more than 250 animals rescued from dog farms without the knowledge of staff or donors.“After reviewing the seized materials, we'll decide who to summon, including CARE staff members,” a police officer said. “After questioning those people first, we'll summon Park.”The whistleblower claimed Park had put 250 dogs to sle

Jan 31, 2019By Kim Rahn

Police search CARE office in euthanasia allegation probe

VIDEO At 180 km/h: White-knuckle police car chase on expressway

Captured from dash cam footage provided by Gangnam Police StationBy Park Si-soo Police conducted a zigzagging white-knuckle pursuit of a suspected drunk driver in Seoul on Monday. Dash cam footage provided by Gangnam Police Station captured the car chase that began at 11:10 p.m. and lasted 30 minutes on a 60-kilometer section of a highway encircling the metropolitan city. Click to watch the footage: https://bit.ly/2Sf54nrThe driver was spotted by officers conducting field sobriety tests in Gangnam, southern Seoul. He suddenly veered his car out of the lane and sped forward. At one stage the driver accelerated to 180 km/h.The incident ended when the car hit police vehicles blocking its path and a concrete wall in Sanggye-dong, northwestern Seoul. The driver, 35, was handcuffed and gave a blood-alcohol reading of 0.185 percent, well above the threshold to revoke his license. He had been convicted of drunk driving four times, police said.

Jan 31, 2019

At 180 km/h: White-knuckle police car chase on expressway [VIDEO]

A promise kept

The late Park Geun-sik (1954-2009) is captured in this photo taken in December 1992 in front of Korean-Amerasians Association in Seoul. He was one of the first batch of biracial Koreans born to a Korean mother and a U.S. soldier. / Noonbit PublishingPhotographer chronicles biracial Koreans living as strangers in homelandBy Kang Hyun-kyungPark Geun-sik, a biracial farmer and human rights activist who died of stomach cancer in 2009, had a dream that remained unfulfilled until his death. Park, who was called Peter during his childhood for his half-Korean, half-Caucasian appearance, wanted his home country to remember people like him who were born to Korean mothers and American soldiers during and after the 1950-53 Korean War. They were called “GI babies” when they were young and later “Korean-Amerasians” after they became adults. They were depicted by opinion leaders here as the “tragic outcome” of the war. GI babies were the first batch of biracial Koreans who lived in this country, decades before the nation saw a surge of biracial children born to K

Jan 31, 2019By Kang Hyun-kyung

Governor Kim Kyoung-soo sentenced to 2 years for online opinion-rigging

South Gyeongsang Province Governor Kim Kyoung-soo is taken into custody at Seoul Central District Court, southern Seoul, Wednesday, after receiving a two-year jail term for conspiring with a blogger to manipulate online public opinion ahead of the 2017 snap presidential election. YonhapBy Lee Suh-yoonSouth Gyeongsang Province Governor Kim Kyoung-soo was sentenced to two years in jail Wednesday, in a court ruling that found President Moon Jae-in's longtime political ally guilty of online opinion-rigging operations ahead of the 2017 presidential election. Kim was taken into custody immediately after the verdict was read, as a shouting match erupted between conservative group members and the governor's supporters, many of whom broke down in tears. If the court verdict is confirmed by a high court and eventually the Supreme Court, he will be stripped of the governorship.The guilty verdict is also likely to tarnish the Moon administration which has called for the rooting out of corruption.“Maintaining his relationship with blogger Kim Dong-won for 18 months, Kim Kyoung-soo took part

Jan 30, 2019

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