Portal sites headlines

- Korea Art and Culture Organization, a profit –making company, is reported to misappropriate W150 million donations it received from a big company for organizing a cheering event during Korea and Togo football game. The company is reported to have used the money for paying the salary for its employees.

- Kim Kwang-hyun, who is believed to be involved in abducting Kim Young-nam and currently lives in Seoul, didn’t come to work on the day when Kim Young-nam met his mother. He goes to work today but strongly rejects an interview request.
He was picked as a special North Korean agent in 1965 and said to have abducted Kim Young-nam to the North. He said in an interview in April, “I only worked in a ship and the abduction was carried out by a special force. I don’t even know the face of Kim Young-nam. But anyway I helped the kidnapping operation so I feel really sorry for parents who lost their child.” He was arrested in 1980 by South Korean police during a secret infiltration mission off the west coast of Korea.

- If you have long-overdue, unpaid mobile phone bill, you will get penalized when you get a job or take a loan from a bank. Korean telecom companies are considering the introduction of a system under which telecom companies can report people with unpaid bills for more than 13 months to credit information institutions so that the person becomes registered as ‘Person on the Credit Black List.’

- The prosecution raided this morning into Korean Exchange Bank main office in Uljiro and seized documents related to the 2003 KEB sale to Lone Star. The CEO room of the bank and former KEB CEO’ Lee Kang-won’s house were also searched.
- Cheong Wa Dae will announce a new national tax commissioner as early as possible. Cheon Gun-pyo is likely to succeed Lee Ju-sung.

- From next January, the minimum wage is set to increase to W3,480 per hour and W27,840 per day, 12.3 per cent up from an existing wage.

Maeil Business Newspaper Headlines

-. Holding tax (property and real estate tax ) for the tourism and leisure industry doubled from a year ago. For example, Samsung Everland have to pay W10 bn in holding tax this year, which is two times a year ago. The industry demands to reduce holding tax if property or real estate is owned for business purposes.

- Despite serious food poisoning incidents mainly due to the lack of sanitary control of food catering companies, most schools still want to commission a private company for school meals. According to a survey on 93 schools which stopped running their cafeteria after the scandal, 59.2 per cent of respondents still prefer a private food catering company.

- Six female North Korean defectors form a singing group called Dalrae. Three for vocals, one for accordion player, and the remaining two are dancers.

- In part of a series of measures to deal with white crimes, Ministry of Justice will set up a special force within Supreme Prosecutor’s Office, which specializes in tax evasion crimes.

Chosun Ilbo Headlines

- Ministry of Justice proposes a ‘Golden Share’ bill under which a single share of stock can effectively block hostile attempts against management control such as hostile M&A. Ministry of Finance and Economy, however, opposes the plan, saying the protective measure does not in line with international standard and might erode companies’ competitiveness.

- Hyundai chairman Chung Mong-koo was released on bail of W1 bn yesterday, 61 days after his arrest on April 28. The court said the chairman acknowledged his responsibility for creating slush funds and prosecutors’ investigation into the company neared an end so there was little possibility for the suspect to run away or destroy evidence.

- “Mama, it’s me. I’m your youngest. Now I will take good care of you,” said Kim Young-nam who was abducted by the North 28 years ago when he was the first grader in high school. Kim will have a press conference this afternoon and talk about details on his abduction and his wife Megumi’s death.

Portal Sites Headlines

- SBS TV program ‘SOS 24’ broadcast a story about a man who was abducted 10 years ago when he was 23 and taken to a small island. He has been forced to work there for 14 hours a day without proper meals. Viewers bent their anger and over 1,300 people posted angry messages on the program bulletin board. He saved only W22,000 for 10 years. The viewing rate of the program was 20.1 per cent.

- Kim Yong-ik, social policy chief in Cheong Wa Dae, said the government could seriously review the petition submitted by the association of high schools of foreign language that the government should postpone its controversial plan until the year 2010. The government announced a plan to restrict student entry to foreign language high schools according to region, which means a student only can enter a high school of foreign language within his/her neighborhood.

- Samsung Driving Safety Culture Research Center gave out a report on how watching TV via DMB influences driving safety. The report concluded that watching TV while driving is more dangerous that driving under the influence.


- A video clip showing an elementary teacher slapping first graders in the face sent a shock wave throughout the country. In Korea, teachers’ physical punishment of student has been generously accepted in the name of love. But after a series of reported cases of harsh punishments, increasing voice are pointing to a new system under which teachers can effectively admonish students without physical punishments.

- Outgoing Seoul Mayor Lee Myoung-bak criticized yesterday Hyundai Labor Union for staging a work-out. He said he didn’t understand why such high-paid workers went on strike. “Local employees in Hyundai plants yearly earn $10,000 more than their counterparts in Alabama,” pointing that the workout is unjustifiable. On the possibility of a female president in the next election, he said it depends on the stability of a country. He took an example of US opinion polls that suggested a majority of people disapprove a female president, and cautiously hinted Korea is not ready for one.

Maeil Business Newspaper Headlines

- Despite strong opposition, the ruling party decides to push ahead with the revised bills that will allow constitutionally independent institutions to have discretionary power on budge spending. According to the Korean constitution, the government is responsible for the complication of the budge for those institutions.

- Foreign companies working in China will have to pay a 10 per cent increased income tax to the Chinese government from the year 2008 while income tax for Chinese companies will gradually decrease 8 per cent for the space of 5-7 years.

- US private equity fund Lone Star is reported to have been lobbying hard the US government to solve taxation issues with the Korean government. Lone Star signed a contract with two US lobbying companies.

Chosun Ilbo Headlines

- Amid massive food poisoning scandal sweeping the country, food catering service companies decided to stop their services for a time being, which results inconvenience for students and parents. Schools don’t want to directly run cafeteria because that means they have to take full responsibility for sanitary conditions of food they provide to students.

- Lee Ju-seong, governor of National Tax Service, unexpectedly stepped down yesterday. He was into 16 months of his service which will expire next February. He said “I decided to resign because I want to provide my junior officials with more opportunities. Also my health conditions deteriorated a lot due to heavy workload.” But one tax official said one of the reasons for his abrupt leave is that ruling party officials have blamed failed tax policies for the 5.31 election defeat.

- Samsung Electronics and Sony join hands to produce the 8th generation LCD. The two will invest about W3 trillion in plants and have a groundbreaking ceremony in Chungnam province after August.

- LG Electronics won Design Team of the Year given by German’s Reddot Design Award, the first Korean company, and the second Asian company to ever receive the award.

World's biggest philanthropists[what they said]

The man who caught the world by pleasant surprise this week can be said Warren Buffett, the world's second richest man after Bill Gates, who promised to donate more than 80 per cent of his fortunes in charity.

The news made me inevitably think of the haves in Korea. Samsung's chairman Lee Gun-hee and Hyundai's Chung Mong-koo revealed their respective plan to contribute to 'society' by dipping into their deep pockets, but they were forced to do so, or rather people understand they bought their way out of troubles. I am not saying the rich should follow the footsteps of those philanthropists, but I guess Mr. Buffett's action provides them with, at least, a moment to reflect on their past deeds.

The following is what world biggest philanthropists said.

ANDREW CARNEGIE

'Rich men have it in their power to busy themselves in organizing benefactions from which the masses of their fellows will derive lasting advantage, and thus dignify their own lives'

JOHN D ROCKEFELLER

'God gave me my money ... I believe it is my duty to make money and still more money and to use the money I make for the good of my fellow man'

BILL GATES

'We want everyone to have what we had (in our education): we were taught to read, shown how fascinating the world is, to have a sense of confidence'

WARREN BUFFET

'Life had dealt a terrible hand to literally billions of people around the world, and the Bill and Melinda are bent on reducing that inequity to the extent they possibly can'

350 applicants applied for an intern in Cheong Wa Dae

Amid harsh job market conditions, 350 job seekers submitted their applications to Cheong Wa Dae, the presidential office, which is set to hire five interns. The competition ratio is a whopping 70 to 1.


In an unprecedented move, Cheong Wa Dae announced on its website on June 16 that it would hire five temporary workers for six months with a salary of W1.1M(less than $1,100), aiming to encourage other government offices and companies to follow suit.

The national statistical office revealed on June 14 that the May unemployment rate stands at 3.2 per cent, down by 0.3 per cent from a year earlier.But the youth unemployment rate(aged 15-29) is still higher than the average with 7.1 per cent.

While more than 0.87M young people stay as "NEETs(not in education, employment, or training)," "FREETERS(who work part time in casual jobs with no training and little chance of acquiring marketable skills)," or somewhere between the two, employing five interns seem just too small to make any difference.

That's what it takes?

Becoming an IT powerhouse does not come on the cheap.

Though Korea is one of the most wired countries in the world, it is having a hard time to close up a hole in the levee of personal information.

Recently a lawmaker Ryu Keun-chan revealed that not only ordinary citizens, but also President Roh Moo-hyun and Prime Minister Han Myung-sook's personal IDs were leaked, which means you can buy their IDs on the net. It is reported that President Roh subscribed to 20 sites while the prime minister's name was registered in 12 web-sites, without their knowledge.

Who knows, you may encounter the president when you play on-line game 'Lineage.'

Rainy season prevents NK from launching its missile?

Amid speculations over North Korea's true intention, some experts say the regime is hesitating to fire its Daepodong 2 becuase of bad weather. The Korean peninsula is currently under annual rainy season which makes NK hard to predict the weather condition.

Today's headlines

1. When Hyundai Chairman Chung Mong-koo stood for his third trial on June 26, Hyundai plants came to a halt due to militant labor union’s strike. The labor union went on a partial strike in Ulsan, Asan, and Jeonju plants.

2. The financial authority comes up with drastic regulations to stabilize the property market with mixed results. In a bid to artificially lower house prices, authorities restrict bank’s mortgage loan for speculative purposes. But it turned out to lead to sluggish transactions of middle-sized apartments which have nothing to do with speculation.

3. Cyworld makes inroads into Germany. SK Communications revealed that it will join hands with German’s T-online company (t-online.de), a subsidiary of Deutche Telecom and an internet company with 14m members within the EU. Cyworld is currently up and running in China, Taiwan, and America.

4. Cheong Wa dae dismissed the speculation surrounding President Roh’s remark that the contents of a Korea-US FTA should not be compromised due to time constraints. His remark was interpreted by some as a willingness of the government that it would slow down the pace of FTA negotiation. The presidential office said the government, on the contrary, strongly forges ahead with the plan.

'Red Devils' want a rematch

Your correspondent received two text-messages on June 24 that the FIFA would allow the Korean national team to re-play against the Swiss team if 5 m people signed up for it on the FIFA homepage.

A reasonable person would have easily seen the message was just angry fans' expression of their frustration with, what Korean fans believed, chief referee's favorable treatment of the Swiss team, which, Koreans argue, led the Korean squad fail to make to the next round.

But guess what, your correspondent stupidly accessed to FIFA web-page to sign up.

I found out that the homepage had been crushed and later FIFA was reported to cut access from Korean IP address.

But as always, Koreans will get over it and move on.

Missing Flags

A total of 5650 'Tae Geuk Ki,' the Korean national flag, whcih were hoised along the street in a wish for the national team's astonishing performance, went missing. Police suspects 'red devils,' famous Korean soccer fanatics, to take off those flags after the street rooting for the team. Only if they love the national flag in normal time.