Author: GIKorea

Japan wants to maintain their anti-nuclear weapons stance, but they are surrounded by hostile nuclear armed neighbors which makes it increasingly hard to do so:

From left: US President Joe Biden, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and France’s President Emmanuel Macron pose for a family photo during the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Hiroshima on Sunday, (AFP-Yonhap)

Geography is a big reason for Kishida’s attention to nuclear disarmament. He represents Hiroshima, where his family is from, in parliament. Although a pro-military conservative, he is politically linked to a city where a fast-dwindling number of elderly bomb survivors are a palpable reminder of one of the most momentous events in human history.

As a child, Kishida heard about the horrors of the atomic bombing from his grandmother, who was from Hiroshima. Her stories left “an indelible mark” and inspired his work for a world without nuclear weapons, said Noriyuki Shikata, Cabinet secretary for public affairs.

But Japan, a liberal democracy, staunch US ally and the world’s third biggest economy, is also located in a dangerous neighborhood.

Wary of China and North Korea, Kishida has been steadily pushing for an expansion of a military constrained by a pacifist constitution primarily written by the Americans after Japan’s World War II defeat. He relies on the so-called US military umbrella, which includes nuclear weapons and the 50,000 US military personnel, and their powerful, high-tech weaponry, stationed in Japan.

To some critics, Kishida’s disarmament goals ring hollow as he simultaneously pushes to double Japan’s defense budget in the next five years and strengthen strike capabilities.

Japan also refuses to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which took effect in 2021. Kishida says it is unworkable because it lacks membership by nuclear states. He maintains that Japan needs to take a realistic approach to bridging the gap between nuclear and non-nuclear states in a challenging world.

“A path to a world without nuclear weapons has become even more difficult,” Kishida said in April. “But that’s why we need to keep raising the flag of our ideal and regain a new momentum.”

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

This is like something out of a Korean drama:

Bank of Korea (Herald DB)

Twin brothers are under investigation, with one twin allegedly taking an employment exam for a public financial institution on behalf of the other in 2022.

The Bank of Korea and Financial Supervisory Service on Wednesday reported the twin brothers to the police for cheating on their entrance exams, which took place simultaneously on Sept. 24, 2022.

While the younger of the twins took the exam for the BOK, the elder twin took the exam for the FSS, which was taking place in another part of Seoul at the same time pretending to be his younger twin.

The two institutes hold the first step of their recruitment exam on the same day every year to prevent possible confusion from overlapped applications. The BOK and the FSS announced the shared test schedule in advance last year.

With high income and job stability, they were regarded as some of the most preferred destinations for job seekers, for which the day of their simultaneous test was called an “A-match” among would-be employers of financial companies.

Both brothers passed the exams, enabling the younger one to move on in both organizations’ recruitment process until he was finally admitted to the BOK, the suspects stated in a BOK internal inspection report.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

Good on this firefighter for saving the life of this woman who really wanted to die. Hopefully she gets the treatment she clearly needs:

Kim Chan-soo with the Gimhae Seobu Fire Station pulled the woman to safety from Samrangjin Bridge as she was trying to jump after taking sleeping pills.

Kim was driving over the bridge to go to work in another city and came across the woman sitting at the side of the bridge. She was taking pills and bleeding from her arms and legs.

Kim approached the woman and found she was taking sleeping pills.

Kim removed the pills from her mouth and tried to calm her, then calling the 119 emergency service.

But when Kim went to move his car, which had been blocking traffic on the bridge, the woman climbed over the handrail. She was caught by Kim narrowly before falling from the bridge and was pulled up.

The woman reportedly was found to have consumed 20 pills and three bottles of soju, and was receiving treatment at a hospital.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

This is good politics by President Yoon to try and take the Gwangju issue away from the Korean left:

President Yoon Suk Yeol speaks during a ceremony in the southwestern city of Gwangju on May 18, 2023, to mark the 43rd anniversary of a pro-democracy uprising. The Gwangju May 18 National Cemetery honors hundreds of people who were killed in the city during protests against the military junta of Chun Doo-hwan in May 1980. (Yonhap)

President Yoon Suk Yeol vowed Thursday to courageously stand against any challenges to freedom and democracy by upholding the spirit of a 1980 pro-democracy uprising in the southwestern city of Gwangju.

Yoon made the remark during a ceremony marking the 43rd anniversary of the Gwangju Democratization Movement, in Gwangju, some 267 kilometers southeast of Seoul, which was attended by a large number of lawmakers from the rival parties and families of the victims.

“If we do not forget and inherit the May spirit, we must boldly fight against all of the forces and challenges threatening freedom and democracy and have such practical courage,” Yoon said during the ceremony held at the May 18th National Cemetery.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but this time of the year is when I recommend people read the book by Linda Lewis, Laying Claim to the Memory of May that discusses her experiences being in Gwangju when the uprising happened.

Now in addition to using personal email, Chat GPT is now the latest threat companies have to be aware of where their corporate secrets could be inadvertently leaked by employees:

Samsung Electronics has experienced continued data leaks, amid the intensifying global competition for supremacy in the semiconductor sector, according to industry officials, Wednesday.

Samsung Electronics said its Device Solutions (DS) division in charge of chip production dismissed an engineer recently who was found last month to have sent dozens of emails containing proprietary data to private email accounts.

The company also asked for police to investigate the case.

“Through disciplinary measures and legal actions, we will be tough on coping with this issue,” a Samsung Electronics spokesman said.

In March, another Samsung Electronics engineer mishandled confidential company data by uploading source code to ChatGPT. This case led the company to restrict its employees from using the artificial intelligence-based chatbot during work.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.