Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: Who was the first president of the new South Korea?
Syngman Rhee (Korean: 리승만, pronounced[i.sɯŋ.man]; Lunisolar calendar March 26 , 1875 – July 19, 1965) was a South Korean politician, the first and the last Head of State of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, and President of South Korea from 1948 to 1960. His three-term presidency of South Korea (August 1948 to April 1960) was strongly affected by Cold War tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
The Third Republic of South Korea was the government of South Korea from 1963 to 1972. It was presented as a return to civilian rule after a period of rule by the military junta known as the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction which in 1961 had overthrown the Second Republic of South Korea. However, throughout this period the presidency was held by Park Chung-hee, who is the father of Park Geun-hye (who was president of South Korea between February 2013 and March 2017), who had also been an influential member of the junta. He left his military post in order to run as a civilian in the presidential election.
Orders of Merit () and Medals of Honor () are given by the president of South Korea to people who "rendered distinguished services" to the country. The first honor, the Grand Order of Mugunghwa, was established in 1949.
Commendations () are given to people by the president of South Korea, prime minister of South Korea, or various government ministries in recognition of acts of public service or excellence in certain fields.
Kim Jung-sook (; born November 15, 1954) is a South Korean classical singer who is the current First Lady of the Republic of Korea and spouse of Moon Jae-in, the 12th President of South Korea.
South Korea made a failed attempt to have rugby union at the Olympic Games readmitted, when they hosted the games in Seoul. Roh Tae-woo, who was South Korean president at the time, had been a player.
South Korea have emerged as an important rugby nation in Asia, since they won the Asian Championship in 1990. 
Notable players include-
Expatriate rugby was first played in Korea in 1972. An expat team called the Seoul Wanderers were formed to give opposition to both the local university teams and stationed army teams. This team was made up of players from the UK, New Zealand, and Australia. The team was disbanded in 1976. 
However, the void caused by a lack of rugby was soon to be filled. In late 1977 Billy Cornett and Brad Handley got together and decided to form a new expat club - the Seoul Survivors. The club is still around today.
On October 26, 1979, the former president of South Korea of the time, Park Chung-hee, was assassinated by the leader of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA). Following the death of the former president, South Korea entered a state of transition. Times prior to the death of Park Chung-hee, was void of democracy and South Korea was an autocratic state. After the assassination, a revision to change South Korea into a nation of democracy was attempted to be implemented. Choi Kyu-hah, who was the prime minister of the time, became the successor of Park Chung-hee and was appointed the role of acting president. With Choi Kyu-ha in power, restricting regulations of the rule of Park Chung-hee were repealed and opposition leaders and activists, such as Kim Dae-jung, were freed from restraint. Choi Kyu-ha later became the official president of South Korea on December 6, 1979. Despite the attempt to change South Korea from an autocratic state to a democratic nation, the already established ideals stemming from the Yushin Constitution, such as martial law and dictatorial rule, was failed to be abolished and an authoritarian rule of the military remained.
The First Lady of the Republic of Korea, commonly known as the First Lady of South Korea, is the wife of the President of South Korea. 
Park Geun-hye (; ; born 2 February 1952) is a former South Korean politician who served as the 18th President of South Korea from 2013 to 2017. Park was the first woman to be President of South Korea and also the first female president popularly elected as head of state in East Asia. She was also the first South Korean president to be born after the country's founding; her predecessors were either born during Japanese rule or during the post-World War II transitional period.
North Korea–South Korea relations is very special with high conflicts. Originally a single nation, the two nations have been divided since the Korean War in 1953. North Korea is an one-party state run by Kim's regime. South Korea was formerly govern by one-party military dictatorships until 1987 when it held direct elections till now. Both nations claim to represent Korea. Both nations joined the United Nations in 1991 and recognized by most of the member states in the United Nations. Since 1970s, both nations start informal diplomatic dialogues in order to reduce military tensions. Since North Korea develops nuclear weapons, which raise concern by the international communities. In 2000, President of South Korea Kim Dae-jung became the first president to visit North Korea, after 55 years of North-South divisions in the peninsula.
After the Surrender of Japan on August 15, 1945, figures such as Kim Gu returned. On August 15, 1948, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea was dissolved. Rhee, who was the first president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, became the first President of the Republic of Korea in 1948. The Constitution of South Korea, which was amended in 1987, stated that the Korean people inherited the rule of the KPG.
On August 10, 2012, the President of South Korea, Lee Myung-Bak, visited the Liancourt Rocks, which made him the first South Korean president to do so. Japan temporarily withdrew its ambassador to South Korea, Masatoshi Muto, and Minister for Foreign Affairs Kōichirō Gemba summoned the South Korean ambassador to file a complaint and threatened to lodge a case with the International Court of Justice, (ICJ) which was rejected by South Korea. It could do so because both countries party to a dispute must agree to such ICJ cases. It was the first time for Japan to make such a move in 47 years, since Japan and South Korea officially re-established relations in 1965.
Fen began to play a role in relations between South Korea and Uzbekistan as early as 1992, soon after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when he set up the first of twelve meetings he would ultimately organise between the president of South Korea and the president of Uzbekistan. He first came to South Korea in 1995 to take up a new position as "chargé d'affaires" of the Uzbekistani embassy in Seoul, and was promoted to ambassador in 1999. By 2007, with the departure of El Salvadorean ambassador Alfredo Ungo, Fen became the dean of the diplomatic corps in South Korea. He departed from South Korea in August 2013, leaving the position of dean of the diplomatic corps to Harun Ismail of Brunei.
The first party president was Roh Hoe-chan, who was elected at the 2004 Parliamentary election as a member of the Democratic Labor Party.
In 1971, South Korea and Singapore established consular relations by renaming the Korea Trade Centre to a consulate-general. The two countries established formal diplomatic relations in 1975. In 1979, Lee Kuan Yew became the first Prime Minister of Singapore visiting South Korea. The two countries started regular ministerial meetings in the same year. In 1981, Chun Doo-hwan, the President of South Korea paid a state visit to Singapore, making him the first President of South Korea to do so. In 2002, S. R. Nathan became the first President of Singapore visiting South Korea.
Recently, the South Korean public has become increasingly critical of Protestant churches and leaders attacking Buddhist institutions and carrying out aggressive missionary tactics, with many Protestants leaving their churches and converting to Buddhism. The growing discontent with Protestant Christianity in South Korea has contributed to a spiritual and cultural revival of Buddhism in South Korea, with the number of followers increasing in recent years. The new presidency of Park Geun-hye aims to help contribute to the suppression of Protestant attacks against Buddhists and Catholics in South Korea, with increasing calls for religious cooperation in the country under the administration. During the first year of the Park administration, a national message was delivered for the celebration of Buddha's Birthday, a contrast from the former Lee Myung-bak presidency which tried to suppress Buddhist influence in South Korea.
In 2010, there was an escalation in attacks by North Korea. In March 2010 the South Korean warship ROKS Cheonan was sunk with the loss of 46 South Korean sailors, allegedly by a North Korean submarine. In November 2010 Yeonpyeong island was attacked by a significant North Korean artillery barrage, with 4 people losing their lives. The lack of a strong response to these attacks from both South Korea and the international community (the official UN report declined to explicitly name North Korea as the perpetrator for the Cheonan sinking) caused significant anger with the South Korean public. South Korea saw another milestone in 2012 with the first ever female president Park Geun-hye elected and assuming office. Daughter of another former president, Park Chung-hee, she carried on a conservative brand of politics. President Park Geun-hye's administration was formally accused of corruption, bribery, and influence-peddling for the involvement of close friend Choi Soon-sil in state affairs. There followed a series of massive public demonstrations from November 2016 and she was removed from office. After the fallout of President Park's impeachment and dismissal, new elections were held and Moon Jae-in of the Democratic party won the presidency, assuming office on 10 May 2017. His tenure so far has seen an improving political relationship with North Korea, some increasing divergence in the military alliance with the United States, and the successful hosting of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
On July 20, 1948, Rhee was elected president of the Republic of Korea[4][5][18] in the South Korean presidential election, 1948 with 92.3% of the vote; the second candidate, Kim Gu, received 6.7% of the vote.[19] On August 15, the Republic of Korea was formally established in South Korea[18] and Rhee was inaugurated as the first President of the Republic of Korea.[2][7] The next month, on September 9, the north also proclaimed statehood as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Rhee himself had been an independence activist, and his relations with the chinilpa Korean elites who had collaborated with the Japanese were, in the words of the South Korean historian Kyung Moon Hwang, often "contentious," but in the end an understanding was reached in which, in exchange for their support, Rhee would not purge the elites.[20] In particular, the Koreans who had served in the colonial-era National Police, whom the Americans had retained after August 1945, were promised by Rhee that their jobs would not be threatened by him. Upon independence in 1948, 53% of South Korean police officers were men who had served in the National Police during the Japanese occupation.[21]
The Unification movement has had a complex relationship with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). After the defeat of Japan (in the Second World War) in 1945, Korea was divided between Soviet and American occupation forces. In 1948 the Republic of Korea was established in the south and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north, usually referred to as South Korea and North Korea. The government of North Korea followed Stalinist policies and sought to discourage free religious activities.
In 1946, Moon was living in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. Pyongyang was the center of Christian activity in Korea until 1945. From the late forties 166 priests and other religious figures were killed or disappeared in concentration camps, including Francis Hong Yong-ho, bishop of Pyongyang and all monks of Tokwon abbey. No Catholic priest survived the persecution, all churches were destroyed and the government never allowed any foreign priest to set up in North Korea. Moon was arrested by the North Korean authorities on allegations of spying for South Korea and given a five-year sentence to the Hŭngnam labor camp. In 1950, during the Korean War, he escaped and fled to Pusan, South Korea.
Moon's teachings were strongly anti-communist and viewed the Cold War between democracy and communism as the final conflict between God and Satan, with divided Korea as its primary front line. Soon after its founding the Unification movement began supporting anti-communist organizations, including the World League for Freedom and Democracy founded in 1966 in Taipei, Republic of China (Taiwan), by Chiang Kai-shek, and the Korean Culture and Freedom Foundation, an international public diplomacy organization which also sponsored Radio Free Asia. In 1975 Moon spoke at a government sponsored rally against potential North Korean military aggression on Yeouido Island in Seoul to an audience of around 1 million.
In the late 1980s, when the Soviet Union was embarking on political and economic reform, it began demanding payment from North Korea for past and current aid—amounts North Korea could not repay. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, trade between the two countries ceased altogether and the North Korean economy collapsed. Without Soviet aid, the flow of inputs to the North Korea agricultural sector ended, and the government proved too inflexible to respond. As a result, food production decreased precipitously. By 1994, the North Korean famine was underway. Estimates of the death toll vary widely. Out of a total population of approximately 22 million, somewhere between 240,000 and 3,500,000 people died from starvation or hunger-related illnesses, with the deaths peaking in 1997. Initial assistance to North Korea started as early as 1990, with small-scale support from religious groups in South Korea and assistance from UNICEF. In August 1995, North Korea made an official request for humanitarian aid and the international community responded accordingly, including South Korea, the United States, Japan, and China.
In 1991, Moon met with Kim Il-sung, the North Korean President, to discuss ways to achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula, as well as on international relations, tourism, and other topics. In 1994, Moon was officially invited to the funeral of Kim Il-sung, in spite of the absence of diplomatic relations between North Korea and South Korea. In 1992, Kim gave his first and only interview with the Western news media to "Washington Times" reporter Josette Sheeran (who later became Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme). In 1994, Moon was officially invited to Kim's funeral, in spite of the absence of diplomatic relations between North Korea and South Korea.
In 1998, Unification movement-related businesses launched operations in North Korea with the approval of the government of South Korea, which had prohibited business relationships between North and South before. In 2000, the church-associated business group Tongil Group founded Pyeonghwa Motors in the North Korean port of Nampo, in cooperation with the North Korean government. It was the first automobile factory in North Korea.
During the presidency of George W. Bush, Dong Moon Joo, a Unification movement member and then president of "The Washington Times", undertook unofficial diplomatic missions to North Korea in an effort to improve its relationship with the United States. Joo was born in North Korea and is a citizen of the United States.
In 2003, Korean Unification movement members started a political party in South Korea. It was named "The Party for God, Peace, Unification and Home". In its inauguration declaration, the new party said it would focus on preparing for Korean reunification by educating the public about God and peace. Moon was a member of the Honorary Committee of the Unification Ministry of the Republic of Korea. Church member Jae-jung Lee was a Unification Minister of the Republic of Korea.
In 2010, in Pyongyang, to mark the 20th anniversary of Moon's visit to Kim Il-sung, "de jure" President Kim Yong-nam hosted Moon's son Hyung Jin Moon, then the president of the Unification Church, in his official residence. At that time, Hyung Jin Moon donated 600 tons of flour to the children of Jeongju, the birthplace of Sun Myung Moon.
In 2012, Moon was posthumously awarded North Korea's National Reunification Prize. On the first anniversary of Moon's death, North Korean president Kim Jong-un expressed condolences to Han and the family, saying: "Kim Jong-un prayed for the repose of Moon, who worked hard for national concord, prosperity and reunification and world peace." In 2017, the Unification Church sponsored the International Association of Parliamentarians for Peace (IAPP) – headed by former Prime Minister of Nepal Madhav Kumar Nepal and former Minister of Peace and Reconstruction Ek Nath Dhakal –, visited Pyongyang and had constructive talks with the Korean Workers' Party.
One of Carter's first acts was to order the withdrawal of troops from South Korea, which had hosted a large number of U.S. military personnel since the end of the Korean War. Carter believed that the soldiers could be put to better use in Western Europe, but opponents of the withdrawal feared that North Korea would invade South Korea in the aftermath of the withdrawal. South Korea and Japan both protested the move, as did many members of Congress, the military, and the State Department. After a strong backlash, Carter delayed the withdrawal, and ultimately only a fraction of the U.S. forces left South Korea. Carter's attempt to remove U.S. forces from South Korea weakened the government of South Korean President Park Chung-hee, who was assassinated in 1979.
Carter gave priority to the improvement of relations with sub-Sahara Africa. The chief policy person was Andrew Young, a leader in the black Atlanta community who became Ambassador to the United Nations. Young opened up friendly relationships with key leaders, especially in Nigeria. A highly controversial issue was independence of Namibia from Union of South Africa. Young began United Nations discussions which went nowhere. Only after the Cold War ended in 1990 did Namibia become independent. Vice President Mondale condemned the South African system of apartheid. Young advocated strong sanctions after the murder by South African police of Steve Biko in 1977. Carter refused and only imposed a limited arms embargo and South Africa ignored the protests.
Since the establishment of the Government of the Republic of Korea which is commonly known as South Korea in 1948, twelve people have served nineteen terms as President of South Korea. Under the Constitution of South Korea, the president is the country's head of state as well as its head of government. The president is also the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces.
The Second Republic operated under a parliamentary system. This was the first and the only instance South Korea turned to a cabinet system instead of a presidential system. The legislature was bicameral, with the National Assembly as the lower house and the House of Councilors as the upper house. The president was elected by both houses of the legislature and served as head of state. Due to the numerous abuses of power by South Korea's first president, Syngman Rhee, the president's role was greatly reduced by the new constitution, to a point almost entirely ceremonial. Real power rested with the prime minister and cabinet, who were elected by the National Assembly. Yun Po Sun was elected as the President on 13 August 1960. The prime minister and head of government was Chang Myon.
The CJA was founded following a meeting held at the 1983 World Judo Championships in Seoul, South Korea. Mr. Owen Clarke (Scotland) was the first President, and Mr. Harry O’Rourke (New Zealand) the first Chairman. Mr. Owen was succeeded by Mr. O'Rourke, who combines the role of Chairman with that of Executive President. Mr. John Sullivan is current President. The CJA organises the biennial Commonwealth Judo Championships.
The Prime Minister is the principal executive assistant to the President, who is the actual head of government, not the prime minister. The Prime Minister holds the second position after the President in the State Council of South Korea, which is the cabinet. The Prime Minister assists the President by supervising ministries, make recommendations for ministers, and is the Vice-Chairman of the Cabinet. The Prime Minister is the first in the order of succession to discharge the duties of the office of the President as the Acting President should the president be unable to discharge her or his office. The most recent person to have served as Acting President was Hwang Kyo-ahn, during the impeachment of Park Geun-hye in 2016.
The First Republic of Korea () was South Korea's first independent government, ruling the country from 1948 to 1960. It succeeded USAMGIK, the United States military government, which ruled the area from 1945 to 1948. The Philippines recognized South Korea on 15 August 1948. The First Republic was established on August 15, 1948, with Syngman Rhee as the first president. Like subsequent governments, it claimed sovereignty over the entire Korean Peninsula, although it only had power over the area south of the 38th parallel. The investiture of the Rhee government followed the general election of May 10, 1948. The country's first constitution had been promulgated by the first National Assembly on July 17. It established a system with a strong president, who was elected indirectly by the National Assembly. The April Revolution in 1960 led to the resignation of Syngman Rhee and the transition to the Second Republic of South Korea.
Fred Couples was a captain's assistant for the U.S. team, and K. J. Choi was a vice-captain for the International team.Anirban Lahiri (India) and Thongchai Jaidee (Thailand) became the first representatives of their respective countries to play in the Presidents Cup. Phil Mickelson has appeared in all eleven Presidents Cups. Host country South Korea was represented with vice captain K. J. Choi, Danny Lee (who plays as a New Zealander, but was born in South Korea), and Bae Sang-moon in his last competition before his military obligation.