Author: GIKorea

I actually like Mr. Pizza, but it looks like they are willing to use dirty tricks against their pizza rivals:

A Mr. Pizza sign [YONHAP]

Korea’s antitrust regulator said Tuesday it has decided to slap a fine of 400 million won ($302,158) on local chain operator Mr. Pizza for obstructing a rival’s operations.  
   
The punitive action against Mr.Pizza came in response to the company’s interference with Pizza Union Coop’s operations, including disrupting the supply of ingredients, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said.  
   
Pizza Union Coop was founded by individuals who previously operated Mr.Pizza stores but left the franchise following disagreements with the market’s second-largest player. 

In 2017, Mr.Pizza directly opened new locations near Pizza Union Coop’s stores where it rolled out massive discount promotions.  
   
The regulator said it was evident that Mr.Pizza opened its directly controlled stores with the intention to obstruct the operation of Pizza Union Coop, as it previously opened such shops only in busy areas, including Gangnam in southern Seoul.  
   
It also filed a lawsuit against the founder of Pizza Union Coop for defamation and exerted influence on ingredient suppliers to cut off shipments to the newly established firm. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

It looks like President Yoon is actually trying to be a conservative who actually wants to reduce spending unlike U.S. conservatives who only seem to care about cutting spending when they are not in charge:

President Yoon Suk Yeol vowed Tuesday to stick to a sound fiscal policy, strongly criticizing the preceding Moon Jae-in government for increasing national debts with reckless spending.

Yoon made the remark during a Cabinet meeting, pledging to reject temptations of spending for political purposes, as the government proposed a national budget of 656.9 trillion won (US$495 billion) for 2024, the slowest on-year growth since 2005. 

“Due to the previous administration’s lax fiscal management, the national debts rose by 400 trillion won, and reached over 1,000 trillion won for the first time last year,” Yoon said in opening remarks at the Cabinet meeting. 

Thanks to his administration’s efforts to achieve fiscal soundness, Yoon said the growth of national debts has markedly slowed, and the government will continue to stick to a sound fiscal policy for the sake of external credibility and price stabilization.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The protesters don’t care about facts like this, they only care about push anti-Japanese narratives and bashing the Yoon administration:

This image provided by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries on Aug. 27, 2023, shows locations, marked by dots, in South Korea’s territorial waters where radiation tests are being or will be conducted by Seoul, as Japan began to release radioactive water from its crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. (Yonhap)

The radiation levels in the waters near South Korea remain well below the standards for drinkable water defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), Seoul’s oceans ministry said Sunday.

It was the first such test conducted on 15 locations in three areas of South Korea’s territorial waters after Japan began to release radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean last Thursday.

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said it released the results of the radiation tests, carried out Friday, on five locations in the southeastern waters, and plans to disclose the rest of the test results on 10 other locations as soon as they are available.

In the latest result, the concentration levels of cesium-135 and cesium-137 stood at 0.067-0.094 and 0.077-0.098 becquerel per liter, respectively, compared with the WHO’s 10 becquerel per liter for drinking water.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I don’t know if this is really a fight worth having for the Yoon administration:

The government is considering relocating a bust of revered independence fighter Hong Beom-do from outside the defense ministry headquarters due to his past record of collaborating with Soviet communist forces, officials said Monday.

Earlier, the defense ministry said it is considering relocating the busts of five Korean independence fighters, including Hong’s, from the Korea Military Academy in northern Seoul, sparking protest from opposition parties and the Heritage of Korean Independence, an association representing the independence fighters and their descendants.

The move is seen as being in line with the Yoon administration’s push to align closer with the United States and Japan in the face of growing cooperation among North Korea, China and Russia.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but of course the opposition party is backing keeping the busts of communist supporters in place.

The prior rocket launch the U.S. and the ROK were able to recover much of the rocket. According to the article the North Koreans this time may have deliberately destroyed the rocket once it began to fail in order to prevent its recovery:

The United States is assisting the South Korean military in retrieving wreckage from North Korea’s failed reconnaissance satellite launch, a senior defense official told lawmakers Friday.

Seoul and Washington are working to salvage the space launch vehicle from the Yellow Sea and are analyzing the launch together, Heo Taekeun, chief of South Korea’s National Defense Policy Department, said at a televised hearing of the parliamentary National Defense Committee.

Neither Heo nor National Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup disclosed during the hearing how U.S. forces are contributing to the search. U.S. Forces Korea did not immediately respond to requests for comment by phone and email Monday.

The search for debris continued Monday, National Defense Ministry spokesman Jeon Ha Kyou told reporters that day.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

The opposition party and these protesters 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 is all about politics and sliming the Yoon administration:

Korean public sentiment over Japan’s release of wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is deteriorating rapidly, with the opposition bloc spearheading protests on Tokyo’s “irresponsible behavior.”

Despite the worsening public sentiment, President Yoon Suk Yeol remains silent on the matter, having Prime Minister Han Duck-soo speak for the government on the matter. 

Reps. Woo Won-shik and Yang Yi Won-young of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), Rep. Kang Eun-mi from the minor opposition Justice Party and independent lawmaker Rep. Yang Jung-suk participated in a protest organized by Japan’s Social Democratic Party and a number of civic groups in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture. 

“This protest is not about a fight between Korea and Japan, it is about taking action to protect the ocean and the future generation,” DPK Rep. Woo Won-shik said during the protest. 

“The most appropriate way of recovering Japan’s reputation is an immediate stop of the release. Through solidarity between the two countries, Japanese people should fix the problems of the Fumio Kishida administration and Koreans should fix that of the Yoon administration.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.