Author: GIKorea

I don’t think the KCTU is going to win any public sympathy by keeping people up all night with their protests:

A Cabinet meeting led by President Yoon Suk Yeol is held at the presidential office in Seoul on May 23, 2023. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)

President Yoon Suk Yeol slammed a major labor group Tuesday for its overnight street rally last week, saying its actions infringed on people’s freedoms, disturbed the public order and will not be tolerated by the people.

Yoon made the remark during a Cabinet meeting, referring to a rally staged by the Korean Construction Workers’ Union in protest of the government’s labor policies from Tuesday to Wednesday.

An estimated 25,000 union members took part in the rally in downtown Seoul, causing massive traffic congestion and leading to some 80 noise complaints being filed with the police.

The union falls under the umbrella Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU).

“Our Constitution guarantees the freedom of assembly and demonstration, and as president, I, too, have respected this,” Yoon said.

“However, guaranteeing the freedom of assembly and demonstration does not mean infringements on another person’s freedoms and basic rights, or acts disturbing the public order, are justified.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Just think that for housing this is about as good as it gets for most people in North Korea:

North Korea has held a ceremony to mark the completion of building another housing district in Pyongyang as part of the country’s project to construct 50,000 units of new homes in the capital by 2025, state media reported Monday.

The North held the ceremony to celebrate the completion of the construction of new residential areas in the Taephyong district in Pyongyang on Sunday, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The Taephyong district in western Pyongyang is located near Mangyongdae, the birthplace of North Korea’s late founder Kim Il-sung, also the grandfather of the current leader Kim Jong-un.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

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.

It will be interesting to see what Korea’s inspection team says once they complete their inspection:

In this file photo, officials at Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, speak to journalists at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station on Feb. 2, 2023. (Yonhap)

A team of South Korean experts will focus on examining storage tanks of radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant and its treatment system, the team’s chief said Monday, amid lingering concerns about the safety of the water.

Nuclear Safety and Security Commission Chairperson Yoo Guk-hee, who heads the 21-member inspection team, made the remarks before his meeting with Japanese officials from Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the wrecked power plant, at Tokyo’s foreign ministry.

He added that the experts will check with their “own eyes” the K4 tanks, designed to store and conduct measurements of radioactive substance, and “request required data” from the Japanese authorities.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is why it is important to continue to undermine the Kim regime by providing access to outside information into North Korea:

North Korean brothers who brought their family members out of the country earlier this month are late millennials, part of the tech-savvy younger generation of North Korea who have increased access to external information.

Sources with knowledge of the latest defections told The Korea Herald on Sunday that it was the two brothers in their early 30s who had made the decision to leave North Korea with their family.

The sources said that the brothers told Seoul officials here in a screening interview that they had yearned for a life in South Korea after secretly watching South Korean TV. In particular, they cited the talk show “Now on My Way to Meet You,” featuring North Korean defectors, as having had a major influence.

Analyses say North Korean millennials are the main consumers of foreign media content, mostly from South Korea, in the totalitarian country where such acts are severely punished.

According to a South Korean government report on the human rights situation in North Korea released in March, North Korea has publicly executed citizens including teens for watching South Korean media.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Here is another sign of how President Yoon and Prime Minister Kishida are working together on not allowing historical issues derail their bilateral relationship:

President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Sunday paid tribute to South Korean victims of the 1945 Hiroshima atomic bombing at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, in a symbolic gesture to transcend the two countries’ historical issues and normalize their ties. 

During a summit that followed, just two weeks after their previous meeting in Seoul, the leaders agreed that their visit was “a courageous act toward the future” and the two countries should cooperate to tackle various global challenges.

“Today, I and Prime Minister Kishida together paid a tribute to the monument,” Yoon said during the summit. “It was about paying condolences to the South Korean victims of the Hiroshima atomic bombing and at the same time will be remembered as the prime minister’s courageous act toward a peaceful future.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.