Korean students near Gachang Bridge use their summer vacation to the best of their leaping abilities.

The results of the rainy season are helping make for a fine rafting season in Gyeongbuk province and the rest of Korea. Daegu Rafting will be holding regular rafting camps, an hour and a half north of the city in Bonghwa-gun. Bookings can be made by calling their Daegu office at 053-783-5565.

The Prosecutors’ office created a stir when an investigation of a local police executive, under suspicion of running an illegal video gambling room, expanded to include other police staff.

Daegu’s Prosecutors’ Drugs and Special Crimes Division is investigating a police chief officer and other staff who are under suspicion of protecting a superintendent (referred to as Manager A) of a police station in Daegu. Manager A was arrested for allegedly running a video gambling room.

The other staff members are being investigated for possibly trading money with Manager A by using bank accounts with false names. Judiciary proceedings will occur this week to continue the investigation. Recent findings by the Prosecutors’ office show that hundreds of millions of Won were transferred between the two staff members and Manager A between 2003 and 2006. The prosecutor believes that this money could have been used for bribery. Further investigation is needed to discover the extent of the money’s uses.

Prosecutors have found that one staff member has received tens of millions in payment from the arrested Manager A. There is a high possibility that at the same police station where the superintendent worked, the administration division took unlawful payments while Manager A was in active service.

Another aspect of the investigation involves a relative of a retired chief police officer. The relative has allegedly had an affair with Manager A. The Prosecutors’ office has asked for the retired chief police officer’s disciplinary records from Daegu District Police Office on this matter. The prosecutors are concerned that the police administration did not submit the retired chief police officer’s records from their office into the National Police Department.

Source article: Kuki News
Translated by 김진희
Proofread and edited by Sarah Emory

Not enough screws, but it’s a start:

Seoul, July 22 (Yonhap) – South Korea’s communications regulatory body said Tuesday it plans to widen the range of Internet Web sites that require user identification prior to posting responses on news and other online content.

The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) said it plans to compel Web sites with daily traffic of more than 100,000 visitors to implement the system as part of a comprehensive scheme aimed at strengthening protection of private information.

Currently, news-related Web sites with more than 200,000 visitors per day and general portals such as Naver.com with over 300,000 daily visitors have introduced the system to prevent users from posting defamatory comments on blogs and news content.

The measure, which the KCC plans to implement by the end of the year following legal and administrative procedures, will effectively enforce online gaming sites and other entertainment-related pages to follow suit with more popular news and general portal operators, such as Naver and Daum, that are currently complying with the system.

It also plans to amend related laws to require peer-to-peer file- sharing Web site operators to closely monitor illegal trading of copyrighted material and punish portal operators that do not immediately respond to reported victims of defamation through online comments.

“The measure is part of a plan to foster a sound online environment for netizens,” Lim Cha-shik, head of KCC’s user network divisions, said.

Early this year Korea’s National Tax Service began offering English assistance to guide foreign taxpayers through the filing procedures. The move is part of a broader government plan aimed at better accommodating foreign residents in the country. The NTS began the project with 10 pilot centers in February and added 20 more this month due to rising demand.

The number of foreign residents who have finalized their taxes through the year-end tax settlement increased almost 170 percent from 2001 to 287,000 last year. Those who have also had to declare foreign income on their returns increased nearly 330 percent over the same period to more than 13,000.

In addition to the new booths, the NTS published a guide that answers frequently-asked questions. The guide’s entire content is also up on its English-language website. Those who don’t want to go to the office or visit the website also have the option of calling the NTS English Assistance Hotline.

Although it’s a little soon to conclude the additions are successful, the responses so far have been positive. The American Chamber of Commerce in Korea sent a letter to the NTS, saying they welcome and fully support the initiative. But others still wonder whether the demand will be high enough as many foreign entrepreneurs often hire accountants.

Once the English service has been tested over time and shown to be stable, the agency plans to broaden the services to other languages like Chinese and Vietnamese.

We are starting to work at a good clip now with translations. The way it’s working is that everyday I go and scour the Korean net for blog-worthy articles, pass them off to translators, then they send back to me, I proofread and post them. The problem that we are having is that I don’t have enough time to scour, organize, delegate, and proofread, in addition to trying to tend with hiccups on other Galbijim projects and sites. So, I suppose what’s needed at this point are proofreaders who can take the translated articles up a notch. I’m going to send out a bulk email on Facebook to find interested parties, but barring that, we’re going to need to squeak along at 1 article a day or so, as I’m also bogged down with my summer job, while doing wedding planning. But if we had even just a handful of reliable proofreaders who may want to help evolve this into a productive online magazine about Daegu, we could have something really special and be the envy of other pretty much any other Engish web presence dedicated to a specific region or city.

I’m also going to spend the next day working with adding plugins and working out kinks in the Koreabeat blog, as that’s long past due. Everything is going on the shelf this summer, except for Daegu-related projects and general upkeep of sites.

Singer Lee Hyo-lee is again at the center of controversy. Critics charge that the music video for the track “U-GO-Girl” from her third album plagiarizes Christina Aguilera’s video for “Candyman.” And some say the nurse that Lee portrays in the video is too provocative, with Netizens taking issue with the nurse costume’s plunging neckline.

One netizen has opened a link on a portal demanding the music video be edited and has begun a signature drive. “Nurses study and work very hard but they’re exposed to sexual innuendo and harassment at work,” another Netizen wrote. “They are belittled in society because they’re portrayed in this kind of image.” Another said, “I’m joining the signature drive and regret that my heart thumped at the sight of a nurse uniform. My bad.”

And yet the controversy has succeeded in generating more buzz for the video, which has become popular on YouTube and other sites. It’s not the first time a distorted image of nurses has generated debate. Park Mi-kyung played a racy scene in a nurse outfit in her 2004 music video for “Hot Stuff”, drawing protests from the Korean Nurses Association.

Source: Chosun Ilbo

By Park Hyong-ki
Staff Reporter

The salary gap between men and women working in the financial industry is still wide, further posing a problem related to remuneration for female employees.

According to financial statements submitted to the Financial Supervisory Service in 2007 by local banks, securities and insurance companies, women received an annual salary of 40 million won on average, less than 50 percent of that of men.
Click here to read the entire post

Korea has had a notorious reputation for doing a lousy job of properly promoting itself to foreigners (ie, Arirang, VANK, etc…). More often than not, the marketing is done through the eyes and mind of Koreans, as if knowing how to promote to Koreans equates that the same strategy should be applied to promoting to foreigners (ie., Arirang, VANK, etc..). Lord knows that we are tired of hearing the same old conversation from Korean strangers who when we first meet, utter such things as ‘Have you tried kimchi???’, ‘Do you know that Korea has 4 distinct seasons???’, ‘Oh, you know kimbap?!’

It’s almost become expected to hear a pop and fizzle after Korea announces that they are going to release a ‘revolutionary’ English site or travel guide or some other kind of tourism media catered to foreigners. But something truly magical has happened. I don’t know if heads came together and said ‘Guys, we absolutely suck at trying to understand how to connect with foreigners and foreign tourism’, and perhaps they brought in a US marketing firm to pull this off, but their new promo video for Korea tourism is stunningly perfect in the way that it hits the target audience that has oft eluded them:

HT to Marmot.

SEOUL — An 18th Medical Logistics Battalion soldier was recognized Wednesday for actions that might have saved the life of a Korean truck driver. Staff Sgt. Mitchell Calhoun was driving from Waegwon to Daegu on Sunday when he saw 31-year-old Lee Young-han thrown from his truck after it spun out of control on rain-soaked Highway 4.

Calhoun, who had recently completed expert field medical badge training, stopped his car to help.

Seeing Lee had a head injury, Calhoun went to his car to get an emergency trauma dressing. When he got back with the dressing, Lee had stopped breathing, and he no longer had a pulse.

Calhoun’s training kicked in.

“About the second set of chest compressions he started gasping for breath real hard and started breathing,” Calhoun said.

Calhoun stayed with Lee until an ambulance arrived, briefed rescuers on the extent of Lee’s injuries, then helped police direct traffic until the wreckage could be moved.

A laboratory technician, Calhoun said he helped with trauma care at a clinic in Iraq, but never expected to render emergency care outside of a combat situation. “This is different for me because it was so unexpected,” he said. “[In Iraq] we knew what to expect and we had facilities and equipment set up.”

Police presented Calhoun with a watch and a certificate during Wednesday’s ceremony at the Chilgok police station.

Heo Won-seok, a senior police officer with the Chilgok Police Department, said Calhoun’s actions were not only selfless, but also uncommon. “Other Korean drivers are busy going on their way after seeing the accidents, some are even cursing the injured because they would further add to the traffic congestions.”

After the ceremony Calhoun met with Lee’s sister, who thanked him for saving her brother’s life.

“That was pretty emotional,” Calhoun said. “Everybody in the room had a hard time holding back tears.”

According to Heo, Lee is in critical condition at Daegu Catholic Hospital. He is breathing on his own and speaking with family members, but doctors cannot guarantee he will live. He is also paralyzed from the chest down.

“He would have been dead instantly at the accident scene without the perfect emergency treatment the American soldier gave to him,” Heo said. “The soldier bought him a chance to fight for his life.”