Hyung-Jin Kim

Associated Press

Today in Manufacturing Podcast

Today in Manufacturing Podcast

Today in Manufacturing has a new podcast brought to you by the editors of Industrial Media. In each episode, we discuss the five biggest stories in manufacturing, and the implications they have on the industry moving forward.

In this July 15 2019, photo, South Korean small and medium-sized business owners pour beers and drinking waters from Japanese brands into a trash can during a rally calling for a boycott of Japanese products in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, South Korea, The signs read: 'Our supermarket does not sell Japanese products.' A widespread anti-Japanese boycott has gained ground in South Korea since Tokyo tightened its exports of materials used to manufacture semiconductors and display screens, key export items for South Korea.

Koreans Boycott Japan

South Koreans are ditching Japanese products as a trade war begins to bubble up.

In this Nov. 29, 2018, file photo, victims of Japan's forced labor and their family members arrive at the Supreme Court in Seoul, South Korea. Colonial-era Korean laborers on Tuesday, July 16, 2019, are seeking a court's approval for the sales of local assets of their former Japanese employer after it refused to comply with a court order to compensate them for forced labor decades ago. The sign reads 'Mitsubishi Heavy Industries should compensate and apologize to victims of forced labor.'

Ex-Mitsubishi Workers Push for Compensation

The Koreans who were forced to work for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries during Japan's 1910-45 occupation of Korea are dying of old age as they wait to be compensated.

Kim Sung-joo, bottom center, a victim of Japan's forced labor, arrives at the Supreme Court's in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2018. South Korea's top court ordered a Japanese company to compensate 10 Koreans for forced labor during Tokyo's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

Firm to Compensate Forced Laborers

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono said that the ruling was "extremely regrettable and absolutely unacceptable."

In this Sept. 4, 2017, photo, workers at a seafood processing plant where North Korean workers are distinguished from the Chinese workers by blue overalls wash up after work in the city of Hunchun, in northeastern China's Jilin province. At a time when North Korea faces sanctions on many exports, it sends of tens of thousands of workers worldwide bringing in revenue estimated at anywhere from $200 million to $500 million. That could account for a sizable portion of its nuclear weapons and missile programs, which South Korea says has cost well over $1 billion.

Americans May Be Buying N. Korea-Produced Seafood

Workers have no access to telephones or email. And they are paid a fraction of their salaries, while the rest — as much as 70 percent — is taken by North Korea's government.

In this June 1, 2016 photo, scientist Lee T.B. who fled North Korea to South Korea, looks at packs of mushrooms at his newly-built laboratory in Hwaseong, South Korea. Lee has studied the fungi for decades and has created products with them that he believes may fight diseases including cancer, which killed his wife more than 25 years ago. He felt his work was constrained by, and ultimately even in some danger from, the North Korean government, so he fled to South Korea in 2005.

Mushrooms Fuel a Scientist's Flight

At one point he had to trade his mushroom products for groceries. Now, a company that is starting to mass-produce and sell his products.