Friday, November 6, 2020

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

The Korea Post (http://www.koreapost.com/)
Amb. Alnuaimi of UAE delivers lecture on ROK-UAE strategic partnership
As part of his public diplomacy activities, Ambassador Abdulla Saif Alnuaimi of the United Arab Emirates in Seoul, delivered a lecture to students at the prestigious George Mason University in Songdo, Incheon on Nov. 3, 2020.
According to the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Seoul, Ambassador Alnuaimi gave a general introductory about his country, in terms of its foundation, its culture and tourist attraction as well as the UAE's Special Strategic Partnership with the ROK.
Special focus in the lecture was given to the UAE's efforts in the area of youth empowerment. The Ambassador highlighted the decision adopted by his country in June 2019 to include young Emiratis on the boards of directors of government entities, institutions and companies. He also underlined the UAE's appointment of the first youngest Minister of State for Youth Affairs in the UAE in 2016 (aged 26) and the launch of several career supporting programs to empower the youth.
(http://www.koreapost.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=21770)

Ambassador Alnuaimi of the UAE (sixth from left, front row) poses with other ambassadors and leaders of George Mason University in Incheon. Ambassador Doul Jesus Enrique Matute Meja of Peru is seen on the right of Ambassador Alnuaimi.
Ambassador Alnuaimi of the UAE (sixth from left, front row) poses with other ambassadors and leaders of George Mason University in Incheon. Ambassador Doul Jesus Enrique Matute Meja of Peru is seen on the right of Ambassador Alnuaimi.

McDonald's headquarters probed over alleged 'hamburger disease’ case
Prosecutors raided the headquarters of McDonald's Korea in downtown Seoul over the alleged "hamburger disease (hemolytic uremic syndrome)" case.
In response to a civic group's accusation against the company, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office has executed a search and seizure warrant for the office of McDonald's Korea in Jongno-gu, Seoul, it said on Nov. 3.
It was carried out following the allegations that McDonald's sold hamburgers with undercooked meat patties, resulting in the so-called "hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS)" victims, which was sued by the victims in July 2017.

LG Chem joins hands with Neste of Finland to produce eco-friendly resin
LG Chem has signed a strategic partnership (MOU) with Finland's bio-diesel company Neste to expand its bio-based eco-friendly business, the company said on Nov. 5.
Neste is a leading bio-diesel company with its own process technology, and 80% of the company's operating profit is generated from bio-materials and eco-friendly products that utilize them.
Under the MOU, the two companies will actively cooperate in developing new products by seeking commercialization of eco-friendly products based on bio-materials and sharing information on global markets such as Asia and Europe.

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KBS (http://world.kbs.co.kr/english/news/)
Biden: We Have 'No Doubt' We will be Declared the Winners
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said on Thursday that he and his running mate Kamala Harris have "no doubt" that they will be declared winners after all the remaining votes are counted.
Biden said in a statement in Delaware that he and his campaign continue to "feel very good” about the outcome of the presidential election.
The former vice president also told his supporters to "stay calm" as votes continue to be counted in several key states.

Foreign Investment Banks Raise 2020 Growth Outlook for S. Korea
Major foreign investment banks(IB) have raised this year's growth outlook for South Korea on growing expectations of an economic recovery.
According to the Korea Center for International Finance on Friday, as of late October, nine major IBs, including Barclays and Goldman Sachs, forecast the South Korean economy to shrink an average of one-point-two percent this year.
That is point-two percentage points larger compared to a one-point-four percent contraction forecast a month earlier.

ASEAN Summit, Meetings to be Held via Video Conference Next Week
The 37th Summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN) and related meetings will be held via video conference next week. 
A Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesperson announced on Thursday in a regular press briefing that Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan will preside over the ASEAN Summit and related meetings scheduled to be held from next Thursday to Sunday. 
The planned meetings include the ASEAN Plus Three, a summit between South Korea and five Southeast Asian countries sharing the Mekong River, and the East Asia Summit that involves 18 countries, including ten ASEAN members.

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Yonhap (http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr)
Biden inches closer to possible victory amid slow vote counting
The United States -- and the rest of the world -- continued to wait Thursday for the outcome of the presidential election as vote counting progressed at a snail's pace two days after the polls closed, with Democratic candidate Joe Biden holding razor-thin leads in key states.
Both Biden and President Donald Trump still had a chance to win, but the former vice president was nearing a surprise victory in at least three of the six key battleground states that were all won by Trump in the 2016 election.
As of 3 p.m., Biden was projected to have secured 253 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House against Trump's 213. Both numbers remain unchanged since late Wednesday.

New virus cases above 100 for 2nd day, cluster infections weigh virus fight
South Korea's new coronavirus infections rose by triple digits for a second consecutive day Thursday, as sporadic infections continued in the greater Seoul area.
The country added 125 more COVID-19 cases, including 108 local infections, raising the total caseload to 27,050, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
The number of domestically transmitted people rose to the highest level since Oct. 23, when 138 new cases were reported.

N.K. adopts anti-smoking law at rare meeting of Supreme People's Assembly
North Korea has held a rare meeting of the Supreme People's Assembly to adopt an anti-smoking law, state media reported Thursday, amid questions whether leader Kim Jong-un, known as a heavy smoker, would kick the habit.
The plenary meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA), held Wednesday, adopted the Tobacco-Prohibition Law and Revising and Supplementing the Law on Enterprises, the official Korean Central News Agency reported.
The tobacco-prohibition law "stipulates the rules which all the institutions, organizations and citizens must follow in protecting the lives and health of the people and providing more cultured and hygienic living environments by tightening the legal and social controls on the production and sale of cigarettes and on smoking as required by the state tobacco-prohibition policy," the KCNA said.

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The Korea Herald (http://www.koreaherald.com)
Biden inches closer to possible victory amid slow vote counting
The United States -- and the rest of the world -- continued to wait Thursday for the outcome of the presidential election as vote counting progressed at a snail's pace two days after the polls closed, with Democratic candidate Joe Biden holding razor-thin leads in key states.
Both Biden and President Donald Trump still had a chance to win, but the former vice president was nearing a surprise victory in at least three of the six key battleground states that were all won by Trump in the 2016 election.
As of 3 p.m., Biden was projected to have secured 253 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House against Trump's 213. Both numbers remain unchanged since late Wednesday.

Seoul says it’s ready for all eventualities in US election
The South Korean government on Thursday reiterated that it is prepared for all possible outcomes of the US presidential election.
“The government will continue to cooperate with the US to maintain and further advance the Korea-US alliance regardless of the US presidential election’s outcome,” Cheong Wa Dae spokesperson Kang Min-seok said Thursday.
“The government will cooperate with the new (US) administration to achieve denuclearization and establishment of peace on the Korean Peninsula, and continue to communicate closely following the tradition of cooperation between Korea and the US.”

Major foreign IBs revise up S. Korea's growth outlook on recovery hopes
Major foreign investment banks (IBs) have upgraded their forecasts for South Korea's economic growth for 2020 on growing expectations for an economic recovery, a report showed Friday.
As of end-October, nine major global IBs, including Barclays and Goldman Sachs, projected Asia's fourth-largest economy to shrink 1.2 percent this year, compared with their median outlook of a 1.4 percent contraction offered a month earlier, according to the report by the Korea Center for International Finance.
The upgrade comes amid rising hopes for an economic rebound in Asia. Those IBs have also hiked the growth outlook for six other Asian economies.

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The Korea Times (http://www.koreatimes.co.kr)
Trump, without evidence, says election is being rigged, stolen
U.S. President Donald Trump said without evidence on Thursday that if "legal" votes are counted he would win the presidential election, in a signal he is in no mood to concede to Democrat Joe Biden.
"If you count the legal votes I easily win," Trump said in an appearance in the White House briefing room, complaining that ballots still being counted suggest to him that the election is being rigged and stolen from him. (Reuters)

US formally quits Paris agreement but Biden pledges return
The United States left the Paris accord on Wednesday, becoming the first country to ever withdraw from an international climate change pact, but Joe Biden vowed he would immediately return as president.
With election results pointing to a likely defeat for Donald Trump in Tuesday's election, Biden took on the tone of a president-elect and made clear that climate was a top priority.
"Today, the Trump Administration officially left the Paris Climate Agreement. And in exactly 77 days, a Biden Administration will rejoin it," tweeted Biden, who would take the presidential oath on January 20.

Korea bracing for post US-election diplomacy
The government is closely watching developments in the U.S. presidential election and crafting corresponding responses, according to Cheong Wa Dae and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Thursday.
The presidential office held a National Security Council meeting in the afternoon to discuss the results of the election. As of 4: 30 p.m., former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump with 264 to 214 in the electoral college tally, according to unofficial figures cited by U.S. media outlets.
"We will cooperate with the incoming administration on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and establishing peace," presidential spokesman Kang Min-seok said in a briefing at Cheong Wa Dae. "We have a tradition of communicating with all U.S. administrations and we will keep this up."

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HanKyoReh Shinmun (http://english.hani.co.kr)
When will Moon make his next visit to the US?
As votes continue to be tallied in this year’s US presidential election — described by some as the election of a century, an election on which the planet’s fate may rest — people around the world are waiting anxiously for the results. Once the election results are confirmed, the big question for Koreans is when President Moon Jae-in will visit the US for a South Korea-US summit.
Whoever wins the election, opinions will need to be coordinated between the two sides in terms of the US administration’s North Korea and China policies, which will have a decisive impact on the fate of the Korean Peninsula.
Since the election results have not yet been finalized, the timeline for a potential US visit by Moon has to be considered in terms of a scenario where President Donald Trump is reelected and one where Democratic candidate Joseph Biden is elected.

Unification minister proposes “three small steps” for thawing inter-Korean relations
Tours to Panmunjom, in the DMZ between South and North Korea, have resumed.
In a speech on Nov. 4, South Korean Unification Minister Lee In-young called on South and North Koreans to build a “new time for peace” between the two sides.
“I propose three small steps toward peace here at Panmunjom with the hope that this will lead to a thaw in inter-Korean relations,” Lee said during a speech for the opening of the Panmunjom Tourist Support Center on Wednesday morning, which was scheduled to coincide with the resumption of tours.

Political figures on alert after reporter that attended Lee Kun-hee’s funeral tests positive for COVID-19
Political figures are growing increasingly alarmed amid reports on Nov. 4 that an individual subsequently diagnosed with COVID-19 was present at Samsung Medical Center in Seoul during the funeral of former Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee.
On Nov. 4, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) issued an emergency alert requesting that “reports and visitors who were present in the first-floor lobby and outside the entrance of the Samsung Medical Center funeral parlor in Seoul’s Gangnam District on Oct. 26 should visit a nearby screening center for testing.”
The reason had to do with a reporter covering Lee’s wake who subsequently tested positive for COVID-19. This effectively means that political and government figures who answered questions from reporters at the time have been classified as “close contacts” with the reporter in question.

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Chosun Ilbo (http://english.chosun.com)
Sales of Imported Cars Soar Thanks to New Release
Some 24,257 foreign cars were sold in Korea last month, an increase of 9.8 percent on-year.
Despite the coronavirus epidemic, tax breaks for new vehicle buyers and the roll-out of new models propelled sales.
Mercedes-Benz came in first, followed by BMW, but Audi and Volkswagen's sales also grew markedly. Sales of the four German automakers in Korea had been impacted by a diesel-emission-rigging scandal in 2015.

Military Loses Track of N.Korean Defector in DMZ
A North Korean man in civilian clothes scaled barbed wire and roamed the South Korean side of the demilitarized zone for 14 hours on Tuesday night.
He was spotted on a thermal observation device by South Korean border guards, but they did lost him until they picked him up 1.5 km south of the military demarcation line on Wednesday morning.
"The border guards spotted the unidentified man around 7:25 p.m. Tuesday, launched search operations and took him into custody around 9:56 a.m. Wednesday," a military spokesman said.

More Koreans Drink at Home Alone
Drinking alone at home has become more common in lockdown, while binge drinking is on the wane, a straw poll suggests.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs polled 300 adults nationwide in April and found that 43.7 percent of respondents had been drinking less alcohol since the coronavirus epidemic began.
Two-thirds of respondents said they changed their drinking locations, 87.3 percent to their own home. Some 62 percent said they drank more often either with family members or alone. Before the epidemic, friends of the same sex were the most popular drinking companions, followed by colleagues.

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The Dong-A Ilbo (http://english.donga.com/)
KT builds Seoul’s biggest data center in Yongsan
KT opened its largest Internet data center (IDC) in Seoul’s Yongsan district on Thursday. The South Korean telecommunications company announced Thursday that it has completed the construction of its 13th IDC, “KT DX IDC Yongsan,” and has begun the operation.
The Yongsan IDC is a seven-story building with six basement levels that spans 48,000 m². Equipped with eight server rooms that can accommodate more than 100,000 servers, it is the biggest data center in the metropolitan area. “100,000 servers can store 30,000 times the information the National Library of Korea has,” said a source from KT.
The new IDC boasts the fastest data processing speed of 100 Gbps by using its own network and a single line. KT has also connected data centers in Yongsan, Mok-dong, Gangnam and Bundang, allowing data to pass through a data center in close proximity to the one with a sudden surge in data traffic.

Denmark to cull 17 million minks amid coronavirus fears
Seventeen million minks will be culled in Denmark, the world’s biggest producer of mink fur amid fears that a mutated version of the coronavirus found in minks could make the current vaccines under development ineffective.
According to BBC, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Wednesday at a news conference on Tuesday that five cases of the new virus strain were found on mink farms and 12 people had become infected.

Who wins U.S. presidential election depends on Rust Belt states
U.S. President Donald Trump is closing in on Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden by pulling off an Election Day comeback. The president is almost certain to win or is leading in crucial swing states, but Mr. Biden still has a shot at winning. The election result will likely to come down to Rust Belt states (Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania), which are slow-counting states.
As of at 2 a.m. Wednesday local time, President Trump had lead in key swing states, including Florida (29), Texas (38), Wisconsin (10), Michigan (16), Pennsylvania (20), and North Carolina (15). He won Florida and Texas. Trump has held a narrow lead over Biden in North Carolina but Biden has a slim chance of turning the table as 95 percent of votes have been counted.

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The KyungHyang Shinmun (http://english.khan.co.kr/)
1,769 Civil Servants Quit in Their First Year: Why Did They Throw Out Their “Iron Rice Bowl”?
37.2:1 and 10.4:1. This was the competition when people took the civil service examination for grade-9 central and local government positions in 2020. Every year, only those that rise above this competition of over 200,000 participants become civil servants. But recently in a parliamentary inspection, data from the Government Employees Pension Service was released indicating that the number of civil servants who resigned in their first five years increased significantly in 2019 (6,664) compared with 2018 (5,670) and 2017 (5,181). Among those that left government jobs, 26.5% (1,769) quit in their first year as a civil servant.
Why did these people quit after spending years preparing for an exam to become a government employee? On November 4, the Kyunghyang Shinmun asked three former civil servants in local governments who quit in their second to fourth year.

Police Capture 93 Members of a Vishing Ring that Led to the Death of a 20-Something
The police caught a vishing (voice phishing, phone fraud) ring that impersonated “prosecutor Gim Min-su” and drove a man in his twenties to suicide.
An investigation unit at the Busan Metropolitan Police Agency announced on November 4 that they caught 93 members of a criminal organization engaging in phone fraud for violating the Electronic Financial Transactions Act and the Telecommunications Business Act and arrested 26 of them.
The voice phishing ring opened offices in eight locations including Suzhou, China and from August 2015 until this September seized nearly 10 billion won from victims in South Korea. Pretending to be officials in the Prosecution Service or financial institutions, they told their victims that they were involved in a criminal case or advised them to switch to a low-interest loan and pay off existing loans.

National Intelligence Service Expects North Korea to Promote Kim Jong-un to Grand Marshal
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) predicted that North Korea would promote Kim Jong-un, chairman of the State Affairs Commission, from the current marshal to grand marshal in the military at the 8th congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea next January. The intelligence service also expected Chairman Kim’s younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, first deputy director of the Workers’ Party of Korea to be promoted to a higher position from the current alternate member of the Politburo.
On November 3, the National Intelligence Service reported movements among the leaders of North Korea including these details in a parliamentary inspection by the Intelligence Committee, held at the NIS head office in Naegok-dong, Seoul. In a briefing, the ruling and opposition party secretaries of the Intelligence Committee, Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kim Byung-kee and People Power Party lawmaker Ha Tae-kyeung said, “Chairman Kim is currently a marshal, but we heard there’s a possibility that he could be promoted to grand marshal, which would put him on par with Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung,” and also said, “The NIS is keeping an eye on the North, for Pyongyang could announce a restructuring of its power structure to strengthen the status of Kim Jong-un as well as new domestic and international strategies at the 8th party congress.”

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Maeil Business News Korea (http://www.pulsenews.co.kr/)
LG Uplus Q3 earnings up on strong mobile, internet businesses
LG Uplus Corp., South Korea’s No. 3 mobile carrier, reported solid earnings in the third quarter thanks to strong mobile and smart home businesses.
In a regulatory filing on Thursday, LG Uplus said it raised 251.2 billion won ($223 million) in operating profit in the July-September period on a consolidated basis, up 4.8 percent on quarter and 60.6 percent on year. Revenue came at 3.3 trillion won, up 2.1 percent from the previous quarter and 5.9 percent from the same period a year earlier, while net profit surged by nearly three-fold on quarter and nearly four-fold on year to 403.4 billion won.

Kakao reports best quarter in Q3 as platform-based biz gains steam
Kakao Corp. delivered the best three-month earnings in the third quarter as its business sprawled lucratively from banking to e-commerce and mobility based on the chat platform almost all Koreans use during the pandemic-themed environment.
The company in a regulatory filing on Thursday said its consolidated operating income for the third quarter ended September hit 120.2 billion won ($106.5 million), exceeding 100 billion won for the first time since its inception and keeping a hot profit streak for the seventh quarter.

SKT enjoys solid Q3 results as non-telco businesses gain momentum
South Korea’s leading mobile carrier SK Telecom Co. raised solid growth in the third quarter as its software services gained momentum on 5G network and social distancing environment under Covid-19 risk.
The company disclosed Thursday that operating profit on a consolidated basis for the third quarter ended September came to 361.5 billion won ($320 million), up 0.6 percent from the previous three months and 19.7 percent from the same period a year ago. Revenue grew 2.8 percent on quarter and 3.7 percent on year to 4.7 trillion won.
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What’s ticking around the world at this second? 
See what the world media around the world have to report:

USA Today  www.usatoday.com aallman@gannett.com
The New York Times  www.nytimes.com inytletters@nytimes.com 
Wall Street Journal  www.wsj.com  support@wsj.com,  service@wsj-asia.com 
Financial Times  www.ft.com ean@ft.com 
The Times  www.thetimes.co.uk help@timesplus.co.uk 
The Sun  www.thesun.co.uk talkback@the-sun.co.uk 
Chinese People's Daily  www.people.com.cn kf@people.cn 
China Daily  www.chinadaily.com.cn circulation@chinadaily.com.cn 
GwangmyeongDaily  www.gmw.cn webmaster@gmw.cn 
Japan's Yomiuri  www.yomiuri.co.jp japannews@yomiuri.com 
Asahi  www.asahi.com customer-support@asahi.com 
Mainichi  www.mainichi.jp
Le Monde  www.ilemonde.com
Italy LaRepubblica  www.quotidiano.repubblica.it vittorio.zucconi@gmail.com 
Germany Frankfurter AllgemeineZeitung  www.faz.net anzeigen.ausland@faz.de 
SüddeutscheZeitung  www.sueddeutsche.de forum@sueddeutsche.de 
Australia Brisbane Times  www.brisbanetimes.com.au syndication@fairfaxmedia.com.au 
Sydney Morning Herald  www.smh.com.au
Colombia Reports  www.colombiareports.com
Bogota Free Planet  www.bogotafreeplanet.com,bfp@bogotafreeplanet.com
El Universal  www.eluniversal.com.mx/english  
Andes  www.redaktionstest.net/andes-info-ec/ 
Ecuador Times  www.ecuadortimes.net/  
The Jordan Times  www.jordantimes.com/ 
LSM.lv  www.lsm.lv/
The Baltic Times www.baltictimes.com lithuania@baltictimes.com, estonia@baltictimes.com, editor@baltictimes.com
El Pais  https://english.elpais.com/ 
Philippine Daily Inquirer  www.inquirer.net/ 
Daily News Hungary  https://dailynewshungary.com/ 
Budapest Times  www.budapesttimes.hu/
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The Korea Post is running video clips from the different embassies.
Azerbaijan:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR8CBpcQ4WM 
Sri Lanka: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hByX92Y2aGY&t=22s
Morocco: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfFmp2sVvSE
And many other countries.
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