Author: GIKorea

Many Koreans regardless of government regulations are not going to be taking their masks off anytime soon:

Many Koreans aren’t ready to take off their masks indoors.  
   
According to a survey by polling institution Real Research Korea from Dec. 5 to 9, 44.3 percent of the 3,800 people surveyed said they would “keep their masks on” no matter what.  
   
Korea is the only OECD member nation still requiring masks be worn in all indoor spaces, a regulation it has kept since October 2020. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but you can walk around Seoul and even outdoors the majority of people are masked up. Even people jogging in the park are masked up. However, you can go into a packed restaurant with everyone eating with their masks off. It is probably going to be quite a while before people get socially reverted back to not wearing masks.

The bad cop of North Korea is back at it blasting South Korea:

The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Tuesday blasted South Koreans who questioned Pyongyang’s reconnaissance capabilities in response to its launch of a test satellite in a statement carried by state-controlled media on Tuesday.    
   
Kim Yo-jong, who serves as deputy director of the ruling Workers’ Party propaganda department, also warned that the regime would soon conduct a long-distance missile launch to silence critics who doubt the regime’s ability to launch a nuclear weapon that can re-enter the atmosphere without disintegrating, according to Pyongyang’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency.  
   
In her vitriolic statement, the North Korean leader’s sister said that Sunday’s spy satellite test involved two missiles, and that the first was intended “only to send signals to the transmitter and test whether the ground control station could trace and receive them.” 

Kim also bristled at comments by South Korean defense analysts who said the low-resolution images of Seoul and Incheon taken from the North Korean test satellite demonstrated the shortcomings of North Korean reconnaissance technology.  
   
“I really want to slap these bastards who are rattling on but don’t know where to start,” the KCNA reported Kim as saying.

Joong Ang Ilbo

Here is her most interesting comment which I said earlier was the real reason for their satellite launch rhetoric:

“It seems others want to disparage our strategic weapon capabilities by saying it can’t be demonstrated through a lofted-angle launch and must be proven through a normal-angle launch,” she said, adding that the latter was “something that may happen soon.” 

The spy satellite launch claims by the Kim regime is to set conditions to test an ICBM over Japan and claim it is a space launch. This gives their defenders in Moscow and Beijing a reason to defend them after they conduct a thinly veiled ICBM test at a nominal trajectory unlike their prior tests which were all lofted trajectories. This will further inflame tensions which is what they want while further testing their ICBM technologies.

This is a standard playbook response to North Korean missile launches from the U.S. and the ROK that has training value, but has done nothing to deter the Kim regime’s nuclear and missile programs:

South Korea and the United States conducted combined air drills, involving U.S. B-52 strategic bombers and F-22 stealth fighters, on Tuesday, in an effort to strengthen the credibility of America’s “extended deterrence,” Seoul’s defense ministry said.

The drills took place in the South’s air defense identification zone southwest of its southern island of Jeju amid tensions caused by the North’s launch of two medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) on Sunday.

The South’s F-35A stealth jets and F-15K fighters also joined the drills.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the Japanese Self Defense Force is having its own “Me-Too” moment:

A former Japanese soldier who came forward with her sexual misconduct case said Monday that harassment was as rampant in her army unit as if “part of daily communication.”

Rina Gonoi filed the case last year with the Defense Ministry, but it was dropped. She demanded it to be reinvestigated earlier this year, saying she had suffered multiple assaults by a number of male colleagues, causing her to give up her military career.

In response, Japan’s army in September acknowledged part of the misconduct and apologized, and last week fired five servicemen and punished four others. The Defense Ministry also announced interim results of a rare organization-wide investigation that found over 100 similar complaints and other forms of misconduct totalling more than 1,400.

In announcing the punishments last Thursday, army chief Yoshihide Yoshida repeated his apology to Gonoi and said he felt a strong sense of responsibility over her sorrow and pain. He also said he took the problem seriously and was determined to eradicate such misconduct.

“At a unit I belonged to, sexual harassment was so rampant it was carried out as if a part of communication and there was a loss of sensitivity,” Gonoi told reporters Monday. She said the punishments in her case were “appropriate,” but added that other soldiers who looked the other way should have been also held accountable.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It looks like China is experiencing what most of the world already went through one to two years ago. The protests must have been a shock to the CCP to so quickly drop their prior COVID Zero policy:

Beijing’s rapidly spreading COVID outbreak has turned the Chinese capital of 22 million people into a virtual ghost town as stores close and restaurants empty, underscoring the cost of President Xi Jinping’s sudden pivot away from COVID zero.

Bucking expectations for a managed and gradual transition, Xi’s government is now allowing the virus to run rampant. While officials have abandoned efforts to track case numbers, anecdotal evidence suggests entire families and offices in Beijing have become infected in the span of just days — a potential harbinger of worse things to come in other parts of China with less-developed health care systems.

Beijing residents are hunkering down at home, either because they’re scared of catching the virus or because they already have it. While many grocery stores are still open to provide essentials, delivery services for food and other goods are facing delays with workers out sick. The retrenchment suggests China’s economy is likely to get worse before the benefits of exiting COVID zero start to kick in next year.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This announcement may be an attempt by the Kim regime to set conditions to test an ICBM over Japan and claim it is a space launch. This gives their defenders in Moscow and Beijing a reason to defend them after they conduct a thinly veiled ICBM test at a nominal trajectory unlike their prior tests which were all lofted trajectories:

North Korea has conducted an “important final-stage” test at its rocket launching facility on putting a military reconnaissance satellite into orbit, with a plan to complete preparations for the project by April next year, according to its state media Monday.

The test was conducted at the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground on Sunday mainly to “evaluate the capabilities of satellite photography and data transmission system and ground control system,” according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The country fired a vehicle carrying a “test-piece satellite” at a lofted angle to an altitude of 500 kilometers, an unnamed spokesperson at the National Aerospace Development Administration said in a statement carried by the KCNA.

North Korea will “finish the preparations for the first military reconnaissance satellite by April, 2023,” the official said, adding the results of the test were immediately reported to the central military committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.