International
South Korea arrests former top officials over 2020 killing
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s former defense minister and coast guard chief were arrested Saturday over their alleged involvement in covering up facts and distorting the circumstances surrounding North Korea’s killing of a South Korean fisheries official in 2020 near the rivals’ tense sea border.
The arrests came as the government of conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol expands investigations into the 2020 killing and another border incident the year before that prompted criticism that Seoul’s previous liberal administration improperly appeased the North to improve ties.
The Seoul Central District Court said it granted prosecutors’ requests for arrest warrants on former Defense Minister Suh Wook and former Coast Guard Commissioner General Kim Hong-hee because it saw them as threats to destroy evidence or flee.
The opposition liberal Democratic Party, which claims the investigations are being driven by Yoon’s political vendetta against his predecessor Moon Jae-in, accused prosecutors of “manipulating the truth” to support Yoon’s “political crackdown.”
The party also criticized the separate arrest on Saturday of Kim Yong, a close confidante of current party leader Lee Jae-myung, over suspicions that he raised illegal campaign funds to help finance Lee’s presidential bid before his loss to Yoon in the vote in March.
“Since it’s a court decision, we respect it. But warrants aren’t the final judgement. The final truth will be revealed during the court trials,” Democratic Party spokesperson Kim Eui-kyum said in a statement. He insisted that the investigations will eventually target Moon and Lee.
The Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office had been investigating Suh and Kim Hong-hee for suspected abuse of power and falsifying documents related to the 2020 case. It said Suh faces an additional allegation of destroying records.
Last week, South Korea’s Board of Audit and Inspection demanded that prosecutors investigate 20 people, including Suh and Kim, for allegedly covering up key facts related to the 2020 case.
The agency said its investigation into the Moon government’s handling of the killing revealed that officials made no meaningful attempt to rescue the 47-year-old fisheries official, Lee Dae-jun, after learning that he was drifting in waters near the Koreas’ disputed western sea boundary.
After confirming that Lee had been fatally shot by North Korean troops, officials publicly played up the possibility that he had tried to defect to North Korea, citing his gambling debts and family issues, while withholding evidence suggesting he had no such intention, the agency said.
According to the agency’s report, Suh, under the direction of Moon’s national security office, instructed an official to delete about 60 military intelligence reports related to the incident as the government delayed a public announcement of Lee’s death while debating how to explain it to the public. The agency also said the coast guard under Kim had manipulated the results of simulations of Lee’s drifting to buttress the claim that he tried to defect.
Suh and Kim didn’t answer reporters’ questions about the allegations earlier on Friday as they appeared at the court hours apart for reviews on the prosecution’s warrant requests. Lee Rae-jin, the brother of the late Lee, protested in front of the court calling for Suh and Kim’s arrests. He was held back by the court’s security staff when he tried to approach Suh as he arrived for the review.
In June, weeks after Yoon took office, the Defense Ministry and coast guard under the Yoon government reversed the Moon government’s description of the incident, saying there was no evidence that Lee had tried to defect.
In July, the National Intelligence Service filed charges against two of its former directors during Moon’s government over similar allegations, including abuse of power, destruction of public records and falsification of documents.
Yoon’s government is also investigating the 2019 forced repatriation of two North Korean fishermen despite their reported wish to resettle in South Korea.
Critics say Moon’s government never provided a clear explanation of why it sent back the two escapees back to the North to face possible execution. Kim Yeon-chul, Moon’s point person on North Korea, described the men as “atrocious criminals” who confessed to murder, and questioned the sincerity of their wish to defect.
Dozens of international organizations, including Human Rights Watch, issued a joint statement accusing Moon’s government of failing to provide due process and “protect anyone who would be at substantial risk of torture or other serious human rights violations after repatriation.”
Business
John Deere ends support of ‘social or cultural awareness’ events, distances from inclusion efforts
NEW YORK (AP) — Farm equipment maker John Deere says it will no longer sponsor “social or cultural awareness” events, becoming the latest major U.S. company to distance itself from diversity and inclusion measures after being targeted by conservative backlash.
In a statement posted Tuesday to social media platform X, John Deere also said it would audit all training materials “to ensure the absence of socially-motivated messages” in compliance with federal and local laws. It did not specify what those messages would include.
Moline, Illinois-based John Deere added “the existence of diversity quotas and pronoun identification have never been and are not company policy.” But it noted that it would still continue to “track and advance” the diversity of the company, without providing further details.
The move from the company known on Wall Street as Deere & Co. arrives just weeks after rural retailer Tractor Supply ended an array of its corporate diversity and climate efforts. Both announcements came after backlash piled up online from conservative activists opposed to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, sponsorship of LGBTQ+ Pride events and climate advocacy.
Conservative political commentator and filmmaker Robby Starbuck appeared to lead the criticism of both companies on X.
Starbuck posted that John Deere’s announcement marked “another huge win in our war on wokeness,” but said that it still wasn’t enough, calling on the company to completely eliminate its DEI policies and no longer participate in Corporate Equality Index scoring from the Human Rights Campaign, the largest advocacy group for LGBTQ+ rights in the U.S.
Starbuck, a 35-year-old Cuban American, told The Associated Press that “it’s not lost on me my kids would benefit from this stuff,” but he opposes hiring decisions that factor in race, as well as DEI initiatives, employee resource groups that promote non-professional activities and any policies that in his view allow social issues and politics to become part of a company culture.
“People should go to work without having to feel like they have to behave a certain way in order to be acceptable to their employer,” he said.
Starbuck and other conservative activists celebrated Brentwood, Tennessee-based Tractor Supply for taking a more aggressive approach than John Deere last month by pledging to eliminate all of its DEI roles while retiring current DEI goals and stop submitting data to the Human Rights Campaign.
But the move also sparked outrage from critics of the new position, who have argued that Tractor Supply is giving in to hate.
John Deere’s move has faced similar pushback. Eric Bloem, vice president of programs and corporate advocacy at the Human Rights Campaign, called the announcement “disappointing” and “a direct result of a coordinated attack by far-right extremists on American business.”
National Black Farmers Association President John Boyd Jr. called for the resignation of Deere & Co CEO John C. May and a boycott of the company on Wednesday.
The organization said that Deere “continues to move in the wrong direction” in regards to DEI and has “failed to show its support” for Black farmers since NBFA’s founding. It also noted Tuesday’s announcement arrives one month after the company agreed to pay $1.1 million in back wages and interest to 277 Black and Hispanic job applicants after the Labor Department alleged hiring discrimination.
The conservative backlash against DEI has extended to companies across industries, including previous boycott campaigns against Bud Light and Target over their LGBTQ+ marketing. Starbuck said he has a list of companies he is thinking of posting content about, starting with ones that have traditionally conservative customer bases. He declined to name his next target.
The ensuing changes to policy and corporate commitments aren’t just coming from company boardrooms. Leading HR organization Society for Human Resource Management last week announced that the 340,000-member lobbying and advocacy group will drop “equity” from its diversity and inclusion approach, although it said it remains committed to advancing it.
“Effective immediately, SHRM will be adopting the acronym ‘I&D’ instead of ‘IE&D,” the group said in a statement posted on LinkedIn. “By emphasizing Inclusion-first, we aim to address the current shortcomings of DE&I programs, which have led to societal backlash and increasing polarization.”
The move, in turn, triggered a backlash among LinkedIn users, some calling it “backward” and “shameful.” Others replied that they were planning to cancel their SHRM memberships.
Still others stress that prioritizing equity is critical for leveling the playing field, saying this kind of omission signals a shift in messaging that could have chilling consequences on efforts toward workplace equality.
In an interview with The AP on Wednesday, SHRM’s president and CEO Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. said the organization’s focus groups found general consensus around prioritizing diversity and inclusion, but “the E triggered like all sorts of emotions and responses.”
“You either loved it, you hated it,” he said. “If it’s so polarizing that people just abandon it, then we all lost.”
Legal attacks against companies’ diversity, equity and inclusion efforts have also drawn more attention following the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling to end affirmative action in college admissions. Many conservative and anti-DEI activists have been seeking to set a similar precedent in the working world.
“The blowback and the potential vulnerabilities are real,” said Jen Stark, co-director of the Center for Business and Social Justice at BSR, a consulting network of more than 300 companies.
A vast majority of companies are “not taking the bait” and keeping policies in place “because it makes good business sense and it’s also the right thing to do,” she said. Still, she added, external pressures are building up.
The U.S. is also in a fraught presidential election year, with bubbling conversations about the prospect of Project 2025 — a term for the Heritage Foundation’s nearly 1,000-page handbook for the next Republican administration, which has become a cudgel Democrats are wielding against former President Donald Trump.
Stark noted that companies across industries are bracing for the prospects of potential changes in terms of their federal contracts, for example, which have historically been a powerful way to promote equity in workplaces.
That doesn’t mean companies will stop their DEI efforts entirely, she added, but they may have to change language or find new workarounds.
“All these flash points that companies are, sort of, limping between is the new normal,” she said.
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AP Business Writer Lisa Leff in London contributed to this report.
___ Savage is a reporter on the women in the workforce team. The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Business
U.S hits Mexican accountants and firms with sanctions for timeshare scams that support drug cartel
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. on Tuesday imposed sanctions on a group of Mexican accountants and firms allegedly linked to a timeshare fraud ring run by the Jalisco New Generation drug cartel.
Three accountants were hit with sanctions, along with four Mexican real estate and accounting firms. In addition, Treasury and the FBI issued a notice to banks with a reminder to be vigilant in detecting and reporting timeshare fraud perpetrated by Mexico-based transnational criminal organizations.
Time share fraud targeting Americans results in tens of millions of dollars in losses annually. In 2022, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received over 600 complaints with losses of roughly $39.6 million from victims contacted by scammers regarding timeshares owned in Mexico.
The new sanctions come after the U.S. in April 2023 sanctioned members or associates of the Jalisco New Generation drug cartel for timeshare fraud that allegedly targeted elderly Americans.
“Cartel fraudsters run sophisticated teams of professionals who seem perfectly normal on paper or on the phone – but in reality, they’re money launderers expertly trained in scamming U.S. citizens,” said Treasury Undersecretary Brian Nelson. “Unsolicited calls and emails may seem legitimate, but they’re actually made by cartel-supported criminals. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
The FBI shares tips on how to avoid timeshare fraud: Be cautious of uninvited calls, texts, or emails from anyone interested in a timeshare. Be wary of high-pressure and time-sensitive offers that require an immediate response, research everyone you are in contact with, and contact offices independently to confirm that you’re talking with a real company representative, and hire a real estate agent or lawyer you trust.
LONDON (AP) — Amazon won’t have to pay about 250 million euros ($273 million) in back taxes after European Union judges ruled in favor of the U.S. e-commerce giant Thursday, dealing a defeat to the 27-nation bloc in its efforts to tackle corporate tax avoidance.
The ruling by the EU’s top court is final, ending the long-running legal battle over tax arrangements between Amazon and Luxembourg’s government and marking a further setback for a crackdown by antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager.
The Court of Justice backed a 2021 decision by judges in a lower court who sided with Amazon, saying the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, had not proved its case that Amazon received illegal state support.
“The Court of Justice confirms that the Commission has not established that the tax ruling given to Amazon by Luxembourg was a State aid that was incompatible with the internal market” of the EU, the court said in a press release.
Amazon welcomed the ruling, saying it confirms that the company “followed all applicable laws and received no special treatment.”
“We look forward to continuing to focus on delivering for our customers across Europe,” the company said in a statement.
The commission said it “will carefully study the judgment and assess its implications.”
The case dates back to 2017, when Vestager charged Amazon with unfairly profiting from special low tax conditions since 2003 in tiny Luxembourg, where its European headquarters are based. As a result, almost three-quarters of Amazon’s profits in the EU were not taxed, she said.
The EU has taken aim at deals between individual countries and companies used to lure foreign multinationals in search of a place to establish their EU headquarters. The practice led to EU states competing with each other and multinationals playing them off one another.
