South Korea

Welcome to Video – the Fight against Child Pornography in South Korea

In March 2018 a joint task force of law enforcement officers from the USA, UK and South Korea took down Welcome to Video, a South Korean-based child pornography website hosted on the darknet. The seizure of the site was the result of one of the largest operations against child pornography ever launched. According to the […]

“Return of the Killer Fishermen”: Two More Ghosts are Coming for Moon Jae-in

Hot on the heels of the scandal associated with a murder in the Yellow Sea and another unfolding in connection with it (also tied to the DPRK), the future looks even more unpleasant for Moon Jae-in and his circle. On November 2, 2019, two North Korean sailors in their twenties crossed the maritime border and […]

Republic of Korea and the Death of Shinzo Abe

The assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on July 8, 2022 is the first murder of a politician of this rank in the history of post-war Japan. Neither the assassination of Socialist Party leader Inejiro Asanuma, hacked to death by right-wing schoolboy Yamaguchi Otoya in 1960, nor the coup and subsequent suicide of Yukio […]

“President Moon, Where Were You for Six Hours?”

This author has previously written about the clouds gathering over the Moon Jae-in administration as they try to investigate the incident in the Yellow Sea. Recall that on June 16, the Coast Guard Service and the South Korean Ministry of Defense officially announced that there were actually no grounds for the previously advertised version of […]

Lee Jun-seok Under Attack

The author has followed the career of 36-year-old conservative party leader Lee Jun-seok with great attention, and not just to the uneasy relationship between him, the classical conservatives and supporters of Yoon Suk-yeol. Since his election as party leader, Lee Jun-seok has committed himself to pushing for a change in the norms of political culture, […]

Will Moon Jae-in be Successful in his Attempts to Reform the Public Prosecution Service?

On June 27, 2022, South Korea’s Ministry of Justice appealed to the Constitutional Court against the new laws aimed at reforming and, in time, ending the Prosecution Service’s authority to investigate crimes. The Ministry believes that these laws are unconstitutional. This is the latest round in a political struggle which reached its height at the […]

Truckers’ Strike in South Korea and Its Consequences

The first months of Yoon Suk-yeol’s rule were marked by an impressive action of workers. Starting from June 7, the Cargo Truckers Solidarity trade union declared a general strike demanding freight rate increase and other support measures to cope with the drastic fuel prices growth. Increasing oil prices due to the Ukrainian crisis entailed growing […]