group conference
The 13th Korea Germany Colloquium

The 13th Korea-German Group Conference hosted by Sogang University and sponsored by the Hanns Seidel Foundation was held at Sogang University in Seoul. On the first day of the meeting, the vice-bishop of the Archdiocese of Seoul explained how important it is for mankind to save the environment and gave a speech citing the Bible on the need to protect the environment. He also presented other ways to encourage many established Korean Catholic organizations and believers around the world to become more involved in environmental protection, as noted by the current Pope Francis. In addition, business ideas for environmental protection were presented and discussed.

On the second day, Dr. Seliger, head of the Hanns Seidel Foundation, gave an in-depth discussion about the crisis in North Korea and the world. Dr. Seliger's lectures dealt with the plastic crisis, the environmental crisis, the humanitarian crisis, the military development crisis, and the triple sanctions crisis in North Korea. In particular, he pointed out the problem of food shortages due to the wrong and unbalanced food planner and limited food supply for self-sufficiency despite the efforts under the Kim Jong-un regime. In the environmental sector, examples include rapid deforestation due to large-scale agriculture, the lack of firefighters and equipment to rehabilitate damaged areas, and forest fires by natural disasters such as typhoons caused by climate change. With the absence of trees, floods and landslides swept through villages, and rice harvests failed due to lack of water in summer and extreme cold in winter, he criticized that the regime only continues to invest in developing new weapons.