Samsung expands microfinance

Samsung Group, Korea’s top conglomerate, on Tuesday said it has doubled its target for microcredit loans to 60 billion won ($51.2 million) this year, in a bid to invigorate the state-led program for the poor. 

The announcement comes as big businesses are under mounting calls to help the working class and smaller firms, make investments and create jobs. 

Samsung targets 60 billion in microcredit loans this year, from its previously planned 30 billion won, by frontloading its planned spending for next year. The conglomerate earlier said that six of its affiliates including Samsung Electronics and Samsung Life, plan to commit 30 billion won every year over the next 10 years for the microcredit program.

“Samsung plans to push for measures to invigorate Smile microfinance and to expand loans for the working class,” Lee Soon-dong, president of Samsung Smile Microcredit Bank, said at a press briefing on Tuesday. 

Korean-American teen eco-activist to visit N.K.

A teenage Korean-American environmentalist will visit North Korea soon to convey his proposal for a peace zone in the inter-Korean border to Kim Jong-il.

Thirteen-year-old Jonathan Lee left Seoul on Tuesday to deliver to Chinese President Hu Jintao his suggested “children’s peace forest” in the truce village of Panmunjeom.

He will then make a trip to North Korea.

Though the North Korean regime may not acknowledge his suggestion right away, he finds it meaningful to visit the communist state and make the issue official, Lee said before his departure from Seoul.

The teenager earlier sent similar letters to President Lee Myung-bak and U.S. President Barack Obama, requesting that all countries cooperate on the peace zone.

The “children’s peace forest” is, he explained, a theme park where the long-separated Korean children may meet and communicate freely.

It is also to act as a symbol of peace in the Korean Peninsula, he said.

The young environmentalist was recognized publicly when the media shined a light on his cartoon “Go GreenMan,” an online series which has been published since 2007.

He was also known for his green campaign for children, suggesting that every child plant one tree per year.

Lee is presently leading an environmental group for youth around the world, called the International Cooperation of Environmental Youth.

Lee took an interest in inter-Korean issues in 2007 upon hearing the speech by former President Kim Dae-jung at the annual celebration of the June 15 Joint Declaration, which was adopted in 2000.

Kim, who had initiated an engagement policy toward North Korea inspired the young activist to graft the idea of inter-Korean peace onto his passion for the environment, he said.

Last Aug. 15 last year, when Korea marked its 64th Liberation Day, he was also invited by the current president to participate in the opening of the Green Growth Museum for Korea.

Agency sues “Elf Girl” for going AWOL

An entertainment agency in Korea said it has filed a lawsuit against Han Jang-hee, also known as “Elf Girl,” for her absence-without-leave just before the 2010 World Cup in June when the company needed her most.

MC Entertainment is seeking 500 million won ($430,000) in compensation for Han’s “unfair” termination of activities as a member of a female duo Foxy, and for the fabrication of her “Elf Girl” photo without notifying the agency, company officials said.

Lee urges Tokyo to put apology into action

President Lee Myung-bak called on Tokyo to act up to Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s apology Tuesday for Japan’s colonial rule of Korea.

Kan expressed “deep remorse and a heartfelt apology once again for the great damage and pain caused by Japan’s colonial rule” in a statement endorsed by the Japanese Cabinet, but did not mention the forced treaty that put Korea under Japan’s control a century ago.

President Lee appraised the sincerity of Tokyo’s statement and said it was important how Japan acts up to its words during a phone call made by Kan after issuing the statement, Lee’s spokesperson said.

There was no mention, however, of the claim by intellectuals from both countries that the 1910 Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty was invalid from the outset, presidential spokesperson Kim Hee-jeong said. Over 1,000 scholars, writers and lawyers from Korea and Japan have urged Tokyo to declare the forced treaty null and void.

Kan asked Lee to visit Tokyo in the near future before the G20 summit in Seoul or APEC summit in Yokohama. Lee suggested sincere and wise cooperation on pending bilateral issues, according to Kim.

In Tuesday’s statement, Kan vowed to quickly return Korean cultural relics such as the Joseon Dynasty documents on royal protocol which Japan took away after it gained control of the country. The prime minister also pledged to continue humanitarian efforts to return the remains of Koreans who died in Japan during colonial times.

Kan’s apology did not go much beyond that of former prime minister Tomiichi Murayama in 1995, but unlike Murayama’s statement that was addressed to “Asian nations,” Kan‘s apology was made specifically for Korea.

Downpours kill 3 in Seoul as powerful typhoon approaches

A powerful typhoon quickly approached the Korean Peninsula Tuesday night, with downpours already killing three citizens in Seoul, meteorological and municipal officials said. One person went missing.

It is the first time in nine years that torrential rain-related deaths have been reported in Seoul