On the morning of the 4th, the forest bath park water play area in Sangsodong, Dong-gu, Daejeon, where a record-breaking heatwave approaching 40 degrees Celsius continues day after day. As one enters under the dense shade created by lush trees that have withstood decades, the scorching heat that bakes the asphalt disappears as if by magic. /Shin Hyun-jong

The reason the land hasn’t been handed over is equally the fault of the Korean government. Negotiations on where to put the Combined Forces Command Headquarters and the U.S. embassy housing are still ongoing. Additionally, all the complaining from the environmental groups still has portions of the projected parkland going through environmental mitigation before being turned into a park:

During the briefing session, Lee also zeroed in on delays in reclaiming land that previously housed United States Forces Korea (USFK) facilities, even after U.S. troops relocated to Pyeongtaek, some 60 kilometers south of Seoul.

“We spent more than 10 trillion won (US$7 billion) to build the Pyeongtaek base,” the president said.

“It is a real problem that (land used for former U.S. military bases) is not being returned for one reason or another, and that even after it is returned, it is effectively unusable because of various restrictions,” he said. 

Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back said the USFK has been passive on the issue and that Seoul is urging it to make progress.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I wonder how many times these cops have pulled off successfully this tactic without getting caught?:

A police inspector standing trial over an alleged unlawful arrest was found to have lured a suspect who had voluntarily arrived at a police station to a nearby subway station, arrested him there and falsely claimed in official documents that he had been “found by chance.” The suspect was held in illegal detention for more than 10 days. Prosecutors on July 14 indicted the 40-year-old inspector, identified by his surname Woo, from the Seoul Yeongdeungpo Police Station without detention on charges including abuse of authority through an unlawful arrest and falsifying arrest records.

According to the indictment, a suspect in a special theft case contacted Inspector Woo at about 1:16 p.m. on May 22, saying he had arrived at the first floor of the Yeongdeungpo Police Station’s main building. The suspect had called Woo the previous day at around 5 p.m. and told him he would appear by 1 p.m. But Woo and two junior officers from his team had already been waiting near a subway station for about an hour, starting around 12:30 p.m., to carry out an emergency arrest.

After receiving the message that the suspect had arrived at the police station, Woo instructed him to walk toward a nearby subway station. The suspect followed the instruction and encountered police officers on the way. He was arrested at a nearby cafe at around 1:30 p.m., just 14 minutes after arriving at the police station. Prosecutors said Woo’s instruction was intended to create a false account of events suggesting that the suspect had been unexpectedly encountered in public.

Donga Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

I doubt anyone in the media will call out President Lee on this claim, but the only reason he is in office is because the ROK Army would not comply with former President Yoon’s martial law attempt. If the Army had sided with Yoon, Lee would probably be in jail right now. So it seems pretty disingenuous of him to attack the Army leadership now in his attempt to justify combining the military academies:

President Lee Jae Myung said Wednesday the Army academy has been behind all military coups in South Korea, while remaining largely unaccountable, calling for the swift integration of military academies to reduce the risk of another coup.

The president made the remarks while receiving policy briefings from the foreign, unification and defense ministries, as the government seeks to unify the academies of the Army, Navy and Air Force into a single institution.

Lee pointed out that graduates from the Korea Military Academy had been behind all of the country’s military coups, but that the academy had not been held to account so far.

The president, in particular, noted the risk of another coup by Army elites, saying, “Can’t they do it again in the future?”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Apparently this decision was made to prevent negligent discharges from happening:

A South Korean army unit responsible for protecting the western front along the nation’s heavily fortified border has been standing guard with unloaded machine guns, according to a media report.  The 1st Corps revised its guard-duty instructions earlier this year, directing soldiers to keep K6 heavy machine guns unloaded with live ammunition nearby, Yonhap News Agency reported Wednesday, citing unnamed military sources.  The 1st Corps oversees operations along the western section of the Demilitarized Zone, which separates North and South Korea. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, which oversees all operations along the border, was unaware of the unit’s updated policy, the report said. 

Stars and Stripes

You can read more at the link.