Category: Uncategorized

You have to be an idiot if you think the ROK Defense Minister’s prior Facebook posting in anyway supports Japan’s claim to Dokdo. However, there are parliamentary elections in April in South Korea so expect a lot of stupid stuff like this to get brought up:

Defense Minister Shin Won-sik is facing criticism for his past remarks describing the nation’s easternmost islets of Dokdo as “disputed territory,” which critics claim reflects a distorted view of history.

“It is true that there are ongoing historical disputes, and territorial disputes regarding sovereignty over Dokdo between Korea and Japan,” Shin wrote in a Facebook post dated March 23, 2023, when he was a ruling People Power Party (PPP) lawmaker.

This view contradicts the official stance of the Korean government that the nation has long maintained effective territorial control of Dokdo – which Japan claims is its own territory – and therefore, there is no territorial dispute over the islets.

Shin further criticized liberal politicians for fueling anti-Japanese sentiment based on “outdated animosity towards the long-gone Imperial Japanese militarism.”

The Facebook post is currently hidden following several media reports about it.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The fat Rocketman is ringing in the holidays the only way he knows how with missile tests:

President Yoon Suk Yeol on Monday asked his national security team for an “instant and overpowering response to any North Korean provocations” following the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile by Pyongyang earlier in the day.

The North’s fifth ICBM launch of the year was fired into the sea off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula on Monday morning, as previously predicted by a senior Seoul official last week.

In a National Security Council meeting called hours after the test-firing, the president said three-way cooperation with the US and Japan would be bolstered with the real-time North Korean missile data scheme to be activated soon.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the ICBM was fired eastward from Pyongyang at around 8:24 a.m. Monday and traveled some 1,000 kilometers before falling into the sea. The JCS said the ICBM used solid fuel. Less than half a day prior at around 10:38 p.m. Sunday, North Korea had also launched a short-range missile into the sea east of the peninsula. (…..)

Based on information from the JCS, Yang said the ICBM appeared to have reached an altitude of at least 6,000 kilometers, flying for more than an hour before landing in the sea. He noted that the last ICBM fired in July also flew as high as 6,000 km, far surpassing the maximum altitude of 3,000 km reached by the ICBM tested just before that in April.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but the belief is that North Korea is once againing signaling to the U.S. that it can hit the continental United States with their ICBMs.

Considering how the activists and politicians sensationalized the Fukushima waste water release, it is not surprising it became a dead issue when nothing bad happened after its release:

One reporter sits in the mostly empty briefing room as a government official speaks on issues regarding waste water release from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant at the government complex in Seoul, Nov. 10. Newsis

The discharge of treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant would “doom all fishing industries” in Korea, Lee Jae-myung, the opposition leader, said, vowing an “all-out effort” to stop it.

After the Japanese government proceeded with the plan on Aug. 24, the chief of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) went on a hunger strike a week later, urging President Yoon Suk Yeol to do more to protect the safety of the public. “It’s not too late yet,” he added.

But now, Lee and other DPK politicians barely raise the topic. The attention of the media and the public appears to have waned. Once crowded with journalists, the briefing room for issues relating to Fukushima’s wastewater release is almost empty these days.

“Usually, three to four reporters come for the regular briefing recently,” an official told The Korea Times on Monday.

Experts said that Fukushima wastewater, once seen as a major issue ahead of the general elections, slated for early next year, appears to be “dead.”

“To stay in the attention of the public, there should be new developments on the issue. But so far, there have been no safety problems found,” said Cho Jin-man, a professor of politics and international relations at Duksung Women’s University.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the science on this issue was always very clear that the waste water could be released with very minimal impacts to the environment. The opposition party and the protesters actually do not care about the saving the oceans, if they did they would be protesting the stopping of dumping of waste water from Korea’s nuclear plants as well. Better yet they need to protest hospitals that give out CT scans which is more dangerous than the waste water being released.  This was all about politics and sliming the Yoon administration over an issue they could really do nothing to stop anyway.

Considering President Yoon’s very low approval rating, being seen with the ousted former President Park Guen-hye probably won’t help:

President Yoon Suk Yeol on Thursday praised late President Park Chung-hee as he met with Park’s daughter at a memorial ceremony, a symbolic gesture amid calls for more unity among conservatives ahead of next year’s general elections.

It marked the first time that a sitting president attended the memorial ceremony for Park Chung-hee, whose legacy remains a subject of controversy in South Korea.

Yoon said that former President Park is recorded as promoting industrialization and rallying the nation under the slogan “it can be done.”

“He achieved a historic global accomplishment known as the miracle on the Han River,” Yoon said in his address at the ceremony at Seoul National Cemetery in southern Seoul, referring to South Korea’s economic rise from the ashes of the 1950-53 Korean War.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

According to the experts getting a CT scan is more dangerous than Japan’s plan to released filtered waste water into the nearby ocean:

Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, second left, arrives to inspect the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant in Futaba, northeastern Japan, on July 5, 2023. (Hiro Komae, Pool)

The contaminated water that had been stored will be treated to remove most of the radioactive materials except for tritium (more on that below).

The wastewater will be diluted to 1,500 becquerels – a unit of radioactivity – of tritium per liter of clean water. For comparison, Japan’s regulatory limit allows a maximum of 60,000 becquerels per liter, while the World Health Organization allows 10,000. That means the concentration of tritium will be “far below” international regulatory standards, according to the Japanese government.

The water will then be released through an underwater tunnel about 3,280 feet (one kilometer) from the coast of Japan, away from areas where fishing routinely takes place. The process is expected to take 30 years or longer.

What is tritium?

Tritium is a form of hydrogen with two extra neutrons and it emits low levels of radiation. Like hydrogen, it combines easily with oxygen to form water, or in this case “tritiated water,” which is difficult to distinguish from ordinary water.

We’re actually exposed to small amounts of tritium every day, because it exists in tap water, in the rain and in the air.

In fact, tritium is already being discharged into rivers and oceans from other nuclear facilities around the world at higher concentrations than the treated water that is set to be released from Fukushima, said Tony Irwin, nuclear energy expert and honorary associate professor at the Australian National University. Facilities in China, South Korea, Taiwan, France, the United States and elsewhere release treated water that contains tritium, within regulatory standards.

“We go and have a CT scan or something like that, and you get multiple times the radiation doses without any harm,” Irwin said. “Low levels are no problem. Very high levels are a problem. But the sort of levels we’re talking about with this discharge are negligible.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but are all the people protesting this waste water release going to start protesting against other nations like China that release far more waste water into the environment? Better yet are they going to start protesting hospitals for giving out CT scans with even more radiation?

Some U.S. classrooms could probably use this Korean teacher:

A teacher who was accused on charges of child abuse after scolding students has been ruled not guilty, according to news reports on Sunday, quoting the court’s ruling.

A homeroom teacher in his 40s, who works at an elementary school in Ulsan, was accused of child abuse for scolding some students.

The teacher scolded a student who talked during class by making him stand in front of the class and asked other students what the student had done wrong.

Additionally, when the student asked if he could leave school five minutes earlier than the end of the regular class, saying he would be late for a private class, the teacher made him clean the classroom alone as a punishment.

The teacher also scolded another student who got into a fight with other classmates, saying, “I want to hit you guys with a bat when you do not listen to me. Do (your parents) just let you misbehave like this?”

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Moon Chung-in the academic behind many of former President Moon Jae-in’s North Korea appeasement policies steps down from the think tank he has been leading due to embezzlement charges:

Moon Chung-in, chairman of the national policy think tank Sejong Institute under the Foreign Ministry, said he will step down from his position, after the recent audit by the ministry to inspect the institute on the case of alleged embezzlement of some 1 billion won ($757,000) every year.  
   
Moon served as the special advisor for unification, diplomacy and national security affairs for President Moon Jae-in.  
   
Moon expressed his intent to no longer serve his role at the institute on Monday, according to the Sejong Institute on Tuesday. It will soon open a board meeting to vote on Moon’s resignation. A source from the think tank said his resignation may be linked to the recent budget audit. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but critics are saying that Moon Chung-in is being targeted with the audit so the Yoon administration can have him replaced. Both things can be true, may he was targeted and maybe he was aware of the embezzlement going on.