Author: GIKorea

It will be interesting to see how long the Panmunjom tours are suspended due to the increased tensions after the ending of the Intra-Korean military pact:

A tour program to the truce village of Panmunjom on the inter-Korean border has been suspended again as safety concerns increased due to North Korean soldiers armed with pistols in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas, the unification ministry said Thursday.

The government partially resumed the tour program on Nov. 22, after it had been halted since mid-July following US Army private Travis King crossing the border into North Korea.

But the ministry said it has recently decided to suspend the program again, as North Korea has begun rebuilding guard posts and bringing heavy firearms along the border after effectively scrapping a 2018 inter-Korean military tension reduction deal.

“As North Korean troops are carrying pistols in the Joint Security Area in the DMZ while South Korean soldiers remain unarmed there, we’ve decided not to run the Panmunjom tour for the time being,” a ministry official said.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

If war was to break out on the peninsula being able to deal with chemical, biological, and nuclear threats will be important skills for Soldiers to master:

The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has released photos of a U.S. Army chemical corps company conducting joint drills with South Korean forces near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) amid heightened tension along the border with North Korea. 

American soldiers from the 59th Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear Company have been training together with U.S. Forces Korea and South Korean troops near the DMZ to bolster the combined defense posture, the command said in a post Wednesday (local time), without specifying the schedule.

The New York-based company has been on a nine-month rotational deployment in Camp Casey in Dongducheon, 41 km north of Seoul, since July in support of the 2nd Infantry Division and Eighth Army stationed in South Korea. The company attended the Ulchi Freedom Shield, an annual joint military exercise held by South Korea and U.S. forces in August. 

The training focused on reconnaissance and decontamination missions as well as countering weapons of mass destruction, and chemical, biological and nuclear hazards, according to the command.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but by the way has anyone ever seen MOPP suits like the ones shown in the picture? They must be a new model becasue I have never seen ones like that before.

It will be interesting to see if more schools in South Korea turn towards AI robots instead of hiring foreign English teachers:

Seoul Education Superintendent Cho Hee-yeon speaks during a press briefing held at the Seoul Metropolitan Education Office of Education in central Seoul, Wednesday. (Yonhap)

Robots powered by artificial intelligence will aid English education in five elementary and middle schools in Seoul starting in March 2024, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education said Wednesday.

The English tutoring robots will aid students in brushing up their English language knowledge, conversation skills and pronunciation. For students struggling academically, the robots will provide a customized education service, enabling them to learn the language at their own pace.

The education office also said it would provide schools with a chatbot app, which allows users to practice conversations via mobile phones. The app enables students to engage in conversations and discussions with the robot based on a topic selected by the user.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Unlike those that have avoided the mandatory military service obligation in Korea, I definitely have respect for the BTS members who are putting their lives on hold to serve their country:

The remaining four members of K-pop megastar BTS — RM, Jimin, V and Jungkook — will begin their mandatory military service next month, music industry sources said Wednesday.

According to the sources well informed of the matter, RM and V will enlist on Dec. 11, followed by Jimin and Jungkook the next day.

In South Korea, all able-bodied men are required to serve in the military for about two years. The members were allowed to postpone their military service until the end of the year when they turn 30, under a conscription law revised in 2020.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is incredibly sad for the parents to lose their teenage daughter like this, but their decision on organ donations is giving extended life to people from five other families:

This photo shows Lee Ye-won (right) and her younger sister. (Korea Organ Donation Agency)

The state-run organ donation agency on Monday revealed the story of a 15-year-old middle school student, whose post-mortem donation of her vital organs gave five people a new lease on life.

Lee Ye-won, who passed away last year on May 11 after extensive damage to her brain from a cerebral hemorrhage, had her heart, lungs, liver and both kidneys donated to five individuals, said the Korea Organ Donation Agency, an affiliate of the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

The child collapsed on April 26 of the same year after suffering an acute headache and failed to regain consciousness after surgery. She was pronounced brain-dead.

Lee’s parents decided on organ donation, saying that considering their daughter had always been a kind and helpful person, she would have wanted to do something meaningful for the world.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

This is what I have been saying, that North Korea’s claims of having all this amazing imagery of U.S. military installations is likely just propaganda unless the Russians went and built them their own satellite:

But South Korean military officials are voicing doubts about the satellite’s reconnaissance capabilities.

“Compared to previous attempts, it seems that the new satellite achieved its own technological progress to some extent,” a military official said.

“The North claims that it photographed U.S. aircraft carriers and naval bases in Hawaii just 10 hours after the launch. That is not impossible, but a proper operation of a military satellite requires months of testing, verification and correction. Given this, (the recent KCNA news reports) appear to be propaganda.”

The official said that the military had analyzed the debris of a satellite that the North failed to put in orbit in May, and it had limited operational capabilities and provided very poor resolution images. “It is highly questionable whether North Korea addressed these limitations in a short period,” the official added.

Shin Jong-woo, a senior researcher at the Korea Defense and Security Forum, a think tank, assumed that the satellite would be an entry-level optical one, based on KCNA’s description.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.