Headlines, May 30, 2019

The Korean daily media headlines and humor

Thursday, May 30, 2019

Round-up of important news from major Korean dailies and from international media today

The Korea Post media (www.koreapost.com) in English, (www.koreapost.co.kr) in Korean.

7 South Koreans killed, 19 missing in Hungary cruise sinking: foreign ministry

Seven South Koreans were killed and 19 others went missing after a tourist boat sank in Hungary's Danube River, the foreign ministry here said Thursday. A total of 33 Koreans and two Hungarian crew members were aboard the cruise when it collided with another vessel and sank in the river in Budapest at around 9 p.m. on Wednesday (local time), the ministry said. A search is under way for the 19 missing people, the ministry said.

Pentagon chief says N.K. launches violated U.N. resolutions

Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said Wednesday that North Korea's missile launches this month were a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, adding to the confusion over the U.S. views. North Korea launched short-range missiles on May 9 in apparent protest over stalled negotiations with the U.S. While U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton condemned them as a breach of UNSC resolutions, which ban the North's use of ballistic missile technology, President Donald Trump said he views them "differently" and referred to the missiles as "small weapons."

U.S. envoy for N.K. to give public speech amid stalled talks

U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun plans to give a speech at a public forum next week amid a protracted stalemate in nuclear negotiations with Pyongyang. Biegun is slated to deliver a luncheon speech titled "Security and Unification Issues on the Korean Peninsula" during a forum hosted by the Korea Economic Institute of America on Tuesday, according to the think tank.

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KBS (http://world.kbs.co.kr/english/news/)

Moon Orders Full Mobilization of Resources to Aid Search and Rescue Efforts for Sunken Boat

President Moon Jae-in instructed the government to mobilize all available resources to aid search and rescue efforts for those missing after a boat carrying 33 South Koreans sank in the Danube River in Budapest. The presidential office said that Moon issued the instruction on Thursday morning after receiving a briefing on the incident from Chung Eui-yong, head of the National Security Office. The president also ordered the formation of a government-level response team, headed by the foreign minister, and instructed it to share all available information with the families of the victims.

Sankei: Japan to Enhance Inspection Procedures of S. Korean Fishery Imports

Japan will reportedly expand inspection protocols of some fishery products imported from South Korea from next month. Japan's Sankei Shimbun daily reported on Thursday that the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare will make a related announcement on Thursday. The report said it's very unusual for Tokyo to enhance inspection of fishery imports from a certain country, suggesting the move is a response to Seoul's import ban on some fishery products from Japan.

Nuke Envoys of US, S. Korea, Japan to Meet in Singapore

U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun will travel to Singapore this week to attend a regional security forum and meet with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts. The State Department said on Wednesday in a statement that Biegun will attend the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore from Friday through Sunday and meet with Lee Do-hoon, Seoul's Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs, as well as their Japanese counterpart, Kenji Kanasugi.

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Yonhap (http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr)

LG Electronics completes its first U.S. washing machine plant

LG Electronics Inc. said Thursday it has completed the construction of a new washing machine plant in the United States, which will produce high-end products for the world's largest home appliance market. A ribbon-cutting was held at the US$360 million facility in Clarksville, Tennessee, with U.S. politicians and senior company officials, the South Korean electronics maker said. About 600 employees will work on the two main assembly lines for top-load and front-load models to churn out 1.2 million washers a year, LG said.

Pharma market cap tumbles on gene therapy drug scandal

The market value of pharmaceuticals traded on South Korea's minor bourse has plunged over the past two months due to a gene therapy drug scandal, data showed Thursday. The pharmaceutical industry index of the KOSDAQ market closed at 8,558.65 Wednesday, down 11.8 percent from two months earlier when the row over the gene therapy drug Invossa erupted, according to the data from the Korea Exchange. It is more than double the 5.2 percent drop in the overall KOSDAQ index over the cited period.

S. Korea hopes ILO conventions ratification will support trade ties with EU

South Korea expects its push to ratify core international labor conventions will help "fundamentally" resolve possible trade disputes with the European Union (EU) and support trade ties with the economic bloc, the vice labor minister said Thursday. The government has recently unveiled a plan to submit a motion to seek parliamentary ratification of three of the four key International Labor Organization (ILO) conventions, along with efforts to revise the relevant laws.

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The Korea Herald (http://www.koreaherald.com)

7 South Koreans killed, 19 missing in Hungary cruise sinking: foreign ministry

Seven South Koreans died and 19 others went missing after a tourist boat carrying them capsized in a river in the capital of Hungary late Wednesday (local time). A total of 33 Koreans and two Hungarian crew members were on the sightseeing cruise amid heavy rain, when their boat collided with another vessel and sank in the river in downtown Budapest at around 9 p.m., the foreign ministry in Seoul said. Seven people have been rescued and a search is under way for 19 missing people, it added.

US cites one-name policy after Trump mentions Sea of Japan

The US State Department said Wednesday it is longstanding US policy to use only one name for international waters, after President Donald Trump referred to the body of water between Korea and Japan as the Sea of Japan. South Korea has long campaigned for dual usage of the name East Sea, arguing Sea of Japan is a legacy of Tokyo's imperialist past, including its 1910-45 colonization of the Korean Peninsula.

No sign of a break in the impasse between Seoul, Tokyo over forced labor

Relations between South Korea and Japan have deteriorated to what is arguably their worst point to date as they dispute every inch of ground over Tokyo’s responsibility to compensate the Korean victims of forced labor during World War II. Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha’s meeting with her Japanese counterpart, Taro Kono, in Paris on Friday thwarted hopes that those strained ties would mend anytime soon. The two top envoys wrapped up their meeting having only escalated the tension, reaffirming their differing stances on a series of rulings by Seoul’s Supreme Court in 2018, ordering Japanese companies to compensate Korean plaintiffs who were forced to work at factories and mines during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

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The Korea Times (http://www.koreatimes.co.kr)

7 Koreans dead in Hungary cruise sinking: foreign ministry

At least seven South Koreans died after a sightseeing boat collided with another vessel and sank Wednesday night (local time) in the Danube River in downtown Budapest, Hungary, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "A group of South Korean tourists were on the cruise. We're trying to figure out details," a ministry official said. AFP said seven people were confirmed dead and another seven have been taken to hospital in a stable condition. According to AP, the boat, identified as the ''Hableany'' (Mermaid), was carrying 32 passengers and two crew members when the accident happened at 10 p.m. (local time).

Korea should brace for US-China currency war

Korea should prepare for the possibility of the ongoing China-U.S. trade dispute developing into a full-fledged currency war, experts said Tuesday. They believe Korea needs to come up with a contingency plan as it is one of the countries that stands to lose the most amid the power struggle between the world's two largest economies. "The possibility is always there," said Sung Tae-yoon, an economist at Yonsei University.

Moon slams LKP for defending info leak

President Moon Jae-in criticized the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP), Wednesday, for defending people involved in the leaking of the content of his telephone conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump. Moon lamented the LKP's "irrational" behavior, saying confidentiality is an integral part of diplomacy, and the LKP should know this. "I am very sorry to see the LKP labeling the leak of a phone conversation between heads of state as the people's right to know and attempting to defend the persons involved. Because telephone conversations between heads of state include sensitive details on diplomatic matters, this can't be a source of political strife," Moon said at the start of a weekly Cabinet meeting.

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Chosun Ilbo (http://english.chosun.com)

Korea to Take Delivery of 2 More Stealth Fighters

Two more F-35A stealth fighter jets will be delivered in July, four months after the first batch of two arrived, a military spokesman here said Wednesday. Another four are expected in August and three in October. The first batch of F-35As were delivered from the Lockheed Martin plant in the U.S. to an air base in Cheongju in March, but the military did not make the schedule for more deliveries public at the time, apparently to avoid agitating North Korea. Plans to deploy new jets warfare-ready in the first half of this year could also be delayed until October.

Lotte Shifts Overseas Business from China to Southeast Asia

Lotte has shifted the focus of its overseas business operations from China to Southeast Asia after a boycott in the world's most populous country dealt it a devastating blow. The Korean-Japanese conglomerate's sales totaled W84 trillion last year, and 10.6 percent was generated by overseas businesses, up 7.6 percent from the year before when the boycott struck (US$1=W1,190). Now Malaysia ranked at the top and accounted for 30.3 percent of overseas revenues, followed by Indonesia (13.5 percent), the U.S. (nine percent) and China (7.9 percent).

Korea's Power to Generate Jobs Plummets by Half

The capacity of Korean businesses for creating jobs has fallen by half over the last decade. According to the Bank of Korea on Tuesday, the employment inducement coefficient that gauges the number of people it takes to manufacture W1 billion worth of a product fell from 20.3 workers in 2005 to just 11.8 in 2015 (US$1=W1,190). But the bank said that simply reflects improved productivity and automation resulting from economic growth, and there is little change in the total number of employed people.

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HanKyoReh Shinmun (http://english.hani.co.kr)

Trump and Abe upgrade US-Japan relationship into “global military alliance”

Standing side by side aboard the JS Kaga, which will serve as Japan’s first carrier since World War II, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US President Donald Trump declared to their domestic and international audiences that the Japan-US relationship had been upgraded to a “global military alliance.” The two leaders’ confirmation of a plan for the Japan Self-Defense Force (JSDF) to operate alongside the US military in a wide arena, ranging from the West Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean, and the specific ways of achieving that marked the effective end of Japan’s exclusively defense-oriented military policy (the principle that military force can only be used for defending Japan), which has been guarded by Japan’s so-called “peace constitution” for more than seven decades.

Samsung moves to exploit sanctions on Huawei by launching Galaxy Fold

The Galaxy Fold appears set for a launch no later than mid-June. While market observers had predicted the launch was unlikely to happen in the near future, Samsung Electronics and South Korea’s telecoms look to be hustling to take advantage of the current situation surrounding Huawei. Meeting with the Hankyoreh after attending a May 28 debate organized by the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), telecom officials said Galaxy Fold network linkage testing were proceeding without issues, while manufacturers were preparing for a target launch date in mid-June. Predicting that the market would be in for another big shakeup once new form factors (designs) are released, the officials said the telecoms’ app content was being optimized to appear suitably on the Galaxy Fold’s three screens, with discussions also under way with game companies.

Value of Cheil Industries stock severely inflated during merger with Samsung C&T

With prosecutors investigating the 1-to-0.35 merger ratio equating the value of one Cheil Industries share to three Samsung C&T shares at the time of the two companies’ 2015 merger, new calculations indicate a suitable merger ratio if the two companies’ value had been assessed normally at the time would have fallen in the range of 1-to-0.7 to 1-to-1.18. The calculations suggest that Cheil Industries share values were severely inflated from their actual level. Prosecutors investigating accounting fraud by Samsung BioLogics (Samsung Bio) are now looking once again into allegations that Samsung deliberately reduced Samsung C&T share values by reducing performance numbers and selling off shares ahead of the merger.

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The Dong-A Ilbo (http://english.donga.com/)

S. Korea remains on U.S. watchlist for currency practices

The U.S. Department of the Treasury released on Tuesday a list of countries to monitor for currency practices that still includes South Korea. Treasury, however, indicated that South Korea will be removed from the watchlist if the country maintains its current state until October. The Semiannual Report on International Economic and Exchange Rate Policies of the Treasury Department for the first half of 2019 named nine countries, including South Korea, China, Japan, and Germany, as countries requiring close attention. India and Switzerland, which were included in the list released in October 2018, were removed while Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam were newly added. The U.S. government views countries on the monitoring list as potential currency manipulators and is scrutinizing the possibility of their currency manipulation.

Hyundai Motor unveils electric double-decker bus

Hyundai Motor Company announced on Wednesday the reveal of its electric double-decker bus at the Land, Infrastructure, and Transport Technology Fair held at the Korea International Exhibition Center, Goyang, Gyeonggi Province. The newly unveiled bus was the result of Hyundai Motor’s 18-month project, which began in December 2017, to develop an electric double-decker bus with large capacity supported by the South Korean Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs.

MacKenzie Bezos pledges to donate half her fortune

MacKenzie Bezos, who has finalized her divorce agreement with Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, pledged to give more than half of her 37-billion-dollar fortune to charity. According to Forbes’ world’s billionaires list in March, Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world with a net worth of 112 billion dollars. MacKenzie recently joined Warren Buffett's Giving Pledge, a charitable campaign that encourages billionaires to give away more than half of their fortune, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday (local time).

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The KyungHyang Shinmun (http://english.khan.co.kr/)

Trump Should Present Incentives Instead of Talking about Talks with North Korea

U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly mentioned his confidence in North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and expressed his willingness to talk with the North during his trip to Japan. In a joint press conference after the summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on May 27, President Trump squarely refuted the words of the Japanese prime minister, who claimed that the North Korean missile launch was a violation of a UN resolution. The day before, Trump tweeted, "North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me. I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me" and also overturned the comment by National Security Advisor John Bolton. Despite the two recent missile launches by North Korea, he has maintained his appeasement toward North Korea.

The Invossa Conspiracy: South Korea’s Biotech Industry Takes a Blow

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced on May 28 that Kolon Life Science, the manufacturer of Invossa submitted documents with false information to receive government approval. Kolon was aware of the fact that an ingredient of the drug had changed while over 3,700 patients received treatment. A leading chaebol manipulated documents to receive approval for a new drug and sold the drug made with an unlabeled ingredient regardless of whether or not people suffered. Invossa was the world's first gene therapy drug for osteoarthritis. It consists of two fluids that are injected into the patient, and both fluids must be based on cartilage cells.

“Plotted” Escape from North Korea under Park Geun-hye Government: International Investigation Team to Visit North Korea

An international investigation team of foreign lawyers will visit Pyongyang in September and investigate the escape of North Korean workers at an overseas restaurant in 2016. Allegations have been raised that the escape of the North Korean employees was not voluntary, but planned and organized by the Park Geun-hye government. The National Human Rights Commission of Korea is also investigating the case at present. The results of the investigation are expected to affect inter-Korean relations.

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Maeil Business News Korea ( http://www.pulsenews.co.kr/)

U.S. keeps Korea on FX watch list but hints of removal in H2

South Korea remained on the U.S. foreign exchange monitoring list on trade partners under a tougher set of guidelines with the risk of facing countervailing duties for any subsidized foreign exchange practices, but was informed its name could be excluded from the October list if it keeps up laissez-faire policy. The U.S Treasury Department in its semi-annual report, released Tuesday (local time), on assessing currency practices of 21 major trading partners named nine countries - China, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam – targeted for “close attention.” No nation was labeled as a manipulator. The assessment widened to 21 from 12 by including economies whose annual trade with the U.S. exceeding $40 billion.

Shinhan Financial assigned with A rating, stable outlook by S&P

Global credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) awarded South Korea’s Shinhan Financial Group an A credit rating with a stable outlook, citing its capacity to manage foreign currency funding and liquidity risk despite increasing market volatilities. According to Shinhan Financial Group on Wednesday, S&P has assigned an A long-term and A-1 short-term issuer credit ratings to the financial group, less than a year after Moody’s Investors Service affirmed an A1 long-term foreign currency issuer rating in September last year. Shinhan Financial Group has become the first among Korean financial groups to receive multi ratings from global credit rating agencies.

Naver steps up prepping work to launch web-only Line Bank in Japan by 2020

South Korea’s internet giant Naver Corp. is accelerating its efforts to launch an online-only bank in Japan by next year in cooperation with Japan’s Mizuho Financial Group. Line Corp., Naver’s mobile messenger subsidiary in Japan, established Line Bank Preparatory Corp. on Tuesday, a joint venture in which its fintech unit Line Financial holds a 51 percent stake and Japan’s Mizuho Bank 49 percent. They plan to complete the corporate registration process by next month.

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Lee Kyung-sik edt@koreapost.com