Author: GIKorea

Jeju island had multiple communities that wanted to host their trash incinerator while Seoul cannot find one place to put it without protests:

While Seoul’s plan to build a new trash incinerator in the western district of Mapo has been sparking protests from residents since last year, a similar plan on Jeju Island has developed into a very different course of action: Islanders are welcoming with open arms the construction of landfill facilities and several districts competed with each other to have them right in their backyards.

Last September, Jeju Special Self-Governing Province selected an uninhabited patch of the authority’s land in the Sangcheon area of Andeok District in the island’s southern city of Seogwipo as a site for the island’s new waste incinerator. The selection process, which lasted nine months from December 2021, saw no disputes with the residents. It was a clean race to win the municipality’s bid with no visible signs of a “not-in-my-backyard” (NIMBY) attitude among the locals.

After finding out what benefits the authority will provide to the residents living around the selected site, three different communities in Seogwipo voluntarily stepped up for the bid. Each community hoisted banners welcoming the new incinerator with hopeful and cheerful messages, a rare scene in Korea, where the public hardly embraces the construction of a large-scale waste incinerator that burns hundreds of tons of garbage every day. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the Jeju community that hosted the trash incinerator received benefits such as new roads, community center, a swimming pool. Such incentives in Seoul are not enough to sway people who largely already have access to such facilities, thus the NIMBYism.

Maybe offering free trash service to the neighborhood in Seoul that hosts the incinerator and higher fees everywhere else might be a way to persuade a neighborhood to want to host the plant?

If you are an international student in South Korea you will once again be paying more for tuition this year:

Amid what they say are financial struggles, local universities are relying on international students in their decision to raise international student tuition. 

This year’s hikes for international students are in sharp contrast to tuition for domestic students, which has been frozen for the last 15 years. 

Major universities in Seoul, including Chung-Ang University, Hanyang University, Sogang University, Sungkyunkwan University, the University of Seoul and Yonsei University, will raise tuition for international students by up to five percent this year, according to those in the education circle.

The main reason for the tuition hikes for international students is government restrictions on raising tuition for domestic students, they say. According to Korea’s Higher Education Act, tuition increases cannot be more than 1.5 times the average increase in consumer prices during the three preceding years, meaning that tuition for domestic students can only rise by up to 4.05 percent this year. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

If Iran is not a threat to the UAE as Iran claims, then why are U.S. and ROK troops stationed there?:

President Yoon Suk Yeol’s description of Iran as the “enemy” of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has provoked protest from Tehran as it calls Yoon’s remark undiplomatic and asks for Seoul’s explanation.

The government is stepping up to prevent the issue from creating diplomatic problems with Iran. 

Yoon made the remarks during his visit to the Akh Unit, which trains the UAE’s special operations forces, Sunday (local time), as part of his efforts to encourage its soldiers. 

“You are here because the UAE is our brother nation,” Yoon told the troops. “And (defending) our brother nation’s security is as important as that of South Korea’s. The UAE’s enemy ― the most threatening nation ― is Iran and our enemy is North Korea… We are in a very similar position to the UAE.” 

He was on a four-day state visit to the Middle Eastern country when he made the comment.

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani said the ministry is looking into and following up on the comments of the Korean president on relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the UAE, which are neighboring countries with established diplomatic relations.

The spokesman also said Yoon’s remarks show he is totally unaware of the historical and friendly relations between Iran and the Persian Gulf littoral states, including the UAE, as well as positive developments quickly taking place in this regard.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Some happy chaebol chiefs today in South Korea:

Korea and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) signed a total of 24 agreements worth $6.1 billion in traditional industries, such as energy and defense, as well as emerging businesses, including hydrogen, mobility, bio and digital transformation, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, Monday.

The ministry said about 320 officials from business lobby groups, Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor Group and other Korean companies, who accompanied President Yoon Suk Yeol’s state visit to the Middle Eastern country, held the Korea-UAE Business Forum at the Rixos Marina Abu Dhabi hotel.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This is just another example of how Koreans like to keep up with the Joneses:

Koreans were found to have spent the most per capita on high-priced bags and other luxury goods, according to a report by Morgan Stanley. 

The global investment bank said it estimated that Koreans’ total spending on luxury items grew 24 percent to $16.8 billion (208.6 trillion won) in 2022 from a year ago, which is about $325 per person. The per capita figure is far more than the $280 and $55 spent by Americans and Chinese, respectively.

Morgan Stanley analyzed that the high demand for luxury goods among Koreans comes from their increased purchasing power over the years and desire to flaunt their social standing by wealth.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This has pretty much been the consensus from most people is that the nuclear test is going to happen sometime soon. I believe the Kim regime is trying to goad the Yoon administration into doing something retaliatory to their other provocations to justify the nuclear test. Canceling the Inter-Korean Military Agreement could be one of those triggers to conduct a nuclear test:

A North Korean nuclear test might be inevitable while China, despite its perceived influence in Pyongyang, may be unwilling to help prevent such a test from taking place, former U.S. nuclear negotiator Victor Cha said.

Cha also insisted that Beijing may not have the means to prevent North Korea from conducting a nuclear test even if it wanted to in a recent interview with Yonhap News Agency.

“I think it’s inevitable. I think it’s seventh nuclear test is inevitable and I think another Hwasong-17 (intercontinental ballistic missile) test using a solid fuel propeller, I think that’s inevitable because in the New Year speech, they said that,” said Cha, currently a senior vice president and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.