SEOUL – South Koreans went to the polls Tuesday to choose a new president after Park Geun-Hye was ousted and indicted for corruption, against a backdrop of high tensions with the nuclear-armed North.

Voters have been galvanised by anger over the sprawling bribery and abuse-of-power scandal that brought down Park, which catalysed frustrations over jobs and slowing growth.

Left-leaning Moon Jae-In, a former human rights lawyer, has held a commanding lead in opinion polls for months. The final Gallup Korea survey of the campaign gave him 38 per cent support, followed by former tech mogul Ahn Cheol-Soo on 20 per cent.

“I feel the people’s strong will to change the government… we can make it a reality only when we vote,” Moon said after casting his ballot with his wife in western Seoul.

Hong Joon-Pyo of Park’s Liberty Korea party, who according to the last poll languished in third place in the 13-strong field on 16 per cent, urged voters to support him and branded Moon a “pro-Pyongyang leftist”.

A record turnout was expected, and 63.7 per cent of voters had cast their ballots four hours before the polls closed compared with 59.3 per cent at the same point five years ago.

Kim Sun-Chul, 59, said he voted for Moon because “this country needs to restore democracy which has been so undermined by the Park government”.

National elections are public holidays in South Korea and nearly 14,000 voting stations opened at 6 am (0500 SGT Monday).

Exit poll results will be available immediately after voting closes at 8 p.m.

The campaign has focused largely on the economy, with North Korea less prominent, but after a decade of conservative rule a Moon victory could mean a sea change in Seoul’s approach towards both Pyongyang and key ally Washington.

The 64-year-old – accused by his critics of being soft on the North – has advocated dialogue to ease tensions and to bring it to negotiations. He is seen as favouring more independence in relations with the US, Seoul’s security guarantor with 28,500 troops in the country.

Their presence, he told reporters during the campaign, was “important not only to our own security but also to the global strategy of the US”.

The North has carried out two nuclear tests and a series of missile launches since the start of last year in its quest to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the US mainland.

Washington has said military action is an option, sending fears of conflict spiralling.

More recently US President Donald Trump has softened his message, saying he would be “honoured” to meet the North’s leader, Kim Jong-Un.

Moon also says he would be willing to visit Pyongyang to meet Kim and advocates resumption of some of the inter-Korean projects shuttered by his predecessors, including the Kaesong joint industrial zone.

In Seoul’s prosperous Seocho district, 72-year-old doctor Chung Tae-Wan backed Moon’s conservative opponent Hong, telling AFP he did so because “security is the most important thing”.

Acute division  

But for many South Korean voters, corruption, slowing growth, unemployment and even air pollution from China top the list of concerns.

South Korea’s rapid growth from the 1970s to 1990s pulled a war-ravaged nation out of poverty but slowed as the economy matured, and unemployment among under-30s is now at a record 10 per cent.

Frustration over widening inequality in wealth and opportunities fuelled anger over Park’s scandal, which exposed the cosy and corrupt ties between regulators and powerful family-oriented conglomerates, known as chaebols, that have endured for decades.

Park is awaiting trial over corruption for offering governmental favours to top businessmen – including Samsung heir Lee Jae-Yong – who allegedly bribed her secret confidante, Choi Soon-Sil.

Moon, Ahn and other candidates have promised to reform the chaebols, which dominate the economy and have long been criticised for operating with little scrutiny.

Another issue is relations with top teading partner Beijing, which imposed a series of measures seen as economic retaliation over the deployment of a US anti-missile system, THAAD, in the South.

In an election day editorial, the JoongAng daily said South Korea had been left “adrift” by the “acute division and lack of national leadership” stemming from the corruption scandal and Park’s impeachment.

The vote, it said, was a “great opportunity to put the troubled nation back on track”.

A Hong Kong woman found out too late that it was a bad idea to chase a snatch thief who had grabbed her iPhone on Sunday morning (May 7)

The 22-year-old student managed to catch up with the thief after giving chase for about 100 metres but ended up being reportedly raped by him, according to Apple Daily.

Not only that, he forced her to reveal her bank passwords while holding her hostage for four hours at a hidden spot under an overhead bridge in east Kowloon.

The victim, who worked part-time, was walking home past midnight after finishing work, when she was attacked.

The suspect, who wore sunglasses, tied her up using her mobile phone cable and even used water to wash away the ‘evidence’ of his crime, reported Apple Daily.

After warning her that he had a knife, he even chatted with her till nearly 5am, before escaping with her phone and two bank cards.

The tearful student told her family what happened when she arrived home an hour later.

Hong Kong police are now looking for the suspect.

According to the description given by the victim, he is around 30 years old, 1.67m tall with a medium build, and has short black hair. He was wearing dark square-framed glasses during the incident. 

chenj@sph.com.sg

Staff at Bangkok’s Ramathibodi Hospital have completed the first robotically assisted brain surgery ever performed in Asia.

It was successfully conducted on a 77-year-old man with a two-centimetre-diameter brain tumour, the hospital announced on Monday.

“It is a success for the field of medicine in Thailand as well as Asia that the team was able to apply robotic technology in the surgery on a brain cancer patient to improve safety during the procedure and reduce the risk of complications afterward,” Dr Piyamitr Sritara, dean of medicine at Mahidol University’s Ramathibodi Hospital, said at a press conference.

He cautioned, though, that such advanced technology is costly – adding about Bt100,000 to the usual cost of brain surgery – and is not yet covered in any Thai healthcare scheme since it requires close scrutiny by the medical team.

The technology and equipment cost Bt40 million and Thailand and Vietnam are the only countries in Southeast Asia to have the capability.

Surgery Department chief Dr Wachira Kochakarn said the technology minimises injury and recovery time since the robot-guided incision is so much smaller.

If the costly procedure was deemed necessary for a patient who couldn’t afford it, he said, the hospital foundation would consider helping cover the cost.

Neurosurgery specialist Dr Sorayouth Chumnanvej said robotically assisted brain surgery allows for greater precision in procedures on patients with brain tumours, aneurysms and Parkinson’s disease.

He said the incision in the skull is less than three centimetres in diameter and in the scalp just one centimetre.

Whereas such surgery typically allows for an area of error of 3-5 millimetres, robotic assistance reduces that to less than one millimetre.

It also reduced the duration of surgery in this case to about half an hour and the patient regained consciousness in about 24 hours, Sorayouth said.

The Korea Herald is introducing Korean singers, musicians and actors poised to join the next wave of top stars in a twice monthly series.

While preparing to portray a homeless girl in the 2014 indie film “Wild Flower,” actress Jeong Ha-dam spent several days ambling around whichever odd Seoul neighborhoods her feet would take her.

Park Suk-young, the director of “Wild Flower” and two more films spotlighting Jeong, had asked the actress to put on a face that seemed “young, but weathered by wind.”

So the budding performer wrapped herself in a jacket several sizes too large, strapped on a pair of chunky boots, slung a huge backpack over her shoulders and began walking — and began to notice how people’s attitudes toward her shifted.

“I felt like there was a bad smell coming off of me,” Jeong told The Korea Herald in an interview last month.

“People wouldn’t even hand me leaflets on the street. When I went inside makeup shops, no one would offer to help with a lipstick colour or anything.”

In the 2015 film “Steel Flower,” Jeong reprises the role of the young homeless wanderer, also named Ha-dam.

“There’s no particular reason behind the name,” she said.

“(Director Park) just felt that the name suited the character. And he also thought it would help bring a bit more exposure to an unknown actress.”

The 23-year-old may not quite have reached stardom yet, but she has been causing a stir in Korea’s indie film scene.

For “Steel Flower,” she won best actress at the Wildflower Film Awards, which recognises the achievement of Korean independent and low-budget films, in April.

The film dives into the everyday of a drifter who rolls her suitcase containing all her earthly possessions from one place to another, looking for a paying job.

She eavesdrops on tap dancing lessons at a studio she stumbles upon, and begins tapping away on her own in the city’s gray alleyways.

“Why is she here and what is she doing?” director Park said in an interview last year.

The film offers no history or context for Ha-dam’s predicament.

“Just as we don’t want to be judged by our past or our memories, I hoped she would be a character who won’t be judged by such things.”

The character Ha-dam leads a solitary existence, but one that is charged with strength, Jeong said.

“She bathes everyday. … She’s someone who wants to make an honest living without resorting to illegal activities. She has no thoughts of taking her own life.”

Jeong received praise for her portrayal as the film attracted international attention. Director Francis Ford Coppola lauded the film’s “reliance on pure sound and image to expose the feelings of its beautiful protagonist” while awarding it the jury prize at the Marrakech International Film Festival in 2015.

Since then, Jeong has made a number of small appearances in larger-scale films, including Park Chan-wook’s “The Handmaiden” last year. But she had not thought herself “actress material” at first.

“I thought acting was only for people that seem like they shine,” she said. “I was not the type of person at the centre of everyone’s attention.”

The soft-spoken artist’s initial goal was to become a novelist.

After several stabs at writing, and unsatisfied with her work, Jeong decided to try embodying, rather than creating, characters.

In high school, she tentatively joined the theatre club and felt that the process of putting up a play was something unique, “the combination of both an active and still energy — perfect for me.”

Jeong reprises the role of Ha-dam in “Ash Flower,” set to hit local theatres this June.

In the film, Ha-dam has now settled in a small farming commune. A young girl, much like herself, comes to the village in search for her father.

The third and last installation in director Park’s “flower trilogy,” the film traces Ha-dam’s connection to other people.

This egg fried rice is flavored with lots of scallions.

It’s a quick and easy way to whip up a light meal and use up leftover rice and eggs.

The key to this recipe is the oil flavored with scallions that’s used to cook the eggs and fry the rice.

It gives this simple dish a nice flavor.

To keep the eggs soft, first make scrambled eggs that are a bit runny, remove from the pan, fry the rice, and then add the eggs back to the pan to combine with the rice at the end. The eggs remain nice and fluffy this way.

If you want to add any other protein such as shrimp, chicken, beef, etc. to the fried rice, separately cook them and combine with the rice and eggs at the end.

You can also fry frozen peas or finely chopped carrots with the rice. I added some shrimp in the photo above.

Use day old rice. If the rice is a bit too hard after being in the fridge, heat it up in the microwave to soften it a little.

If you need to make fresh rice for it, make it slightly drier by using a little less water than usual, fluff it up, and then leave it out to cool and dry out a bit.

The scallion scrambled eggs are also great on their own as breakfast or as a quick side dish to any Korean meal.

Ingredients:

• 2 servings of rice (about 3 cups cooked rice)
• 3 large eggs
• 3 to 4 scallions, finely chopped (about 1 cup)
• vegetable or canola oil for frying
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon sesame seeds

Finely chop the scallions.

Crack and beat the eggs in a bowl with chopsticks or a fork.

Heat a large skillet over medium high heat with 2 tablespoons of oil.

Add 2/3 of the scallions, and stir fry until the scallions turn soft and fragrant.

Reduce the heat to medium low and add the eggs, and gently stir to scramble until the eggs are set but still a bit runny.

Transfer to a plate.

Turn the heat up to medium high.

Add 2 tablespoons of oil, and stir in the remaining scallions until the scallions turn soft and fragrant.

Stir in the soy sauce.

Add the rice, and fry the rice, stirring well and breaking up the clumped up rice.

Return the eggs to the pan and mix well with the rice.

Add salt and pepper to taste, sesame oil, and sesame seeds.