As low as Yoon’s approval ratings are at 37%, this is actually up from the 27% he was previously at just a month ago. However, his negative rating is 60% which is driven by economic concerns. The impact of the Inflation Reduction Act in the U.S. continues to be an issue his critics have been hammering him on since he could not get any concessions from the Biden administration for Korean companies:
President Yoon Suk Yeol’s approval rating stands at 37.5 percent ahead of this week’s first anniversary of his inauguration, a Yonhap News Agency-Yonhap News TV joint survey showed Tuesday.
The survey also showed the ruling People Power Party (PPP) and the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) would win 32 percent and 30 percent of the vote, respectively, if next year’s parliamentary elections were to take place tomorrow.
Seven out of 10 people also said they are worried about South Korea’s security, the survey showed, amid a series of North Korean missile launches, and tensions with Russia over Ukraine and with China over the cross-strait issue.
According to the poll, the positive assessment of Yoon’s performance was 37.5 percent, while the negative assessment came to 60 percent. (……….)
Defense and diplomacy were the factors most cited by respondents in giving positive assessments of Yoon’s performance, followed by science, health care, culture and the economy, the poll showed.
In contrast, the economy was the factor most cited by respondents in giving negative assessments.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
I did not realize there was that many Vietnamese in the southwest Gyeongi-do area to support their own club, much less one trafficking in illegal drugs:
South Korean police on Saturday arrested 10 people for suspected illegal drug use after raiding a foreigners-only club in Siheung, Gyeonggi Province.
According to officials, five police stations across the provincial cities of Siheung, Osan, Hwaseong and Ansan conducted a joint crackdown of a local club located in Jeongwang-dong, Siheung, arresting two Koreans and eight Vietnamese. One of the Koreans was a man in his 40s who owns the club — operated exclusively for Vietnamese — while three of the Vietnamese were club workers.
The police raided the venue after receiving a tip-off that “100 people were doing drugs at a Vietnamese club.” Officials ran drug tests on the 70 people who were at the club and arrested 10 people who tested positive.
Korea Herald
You can read more at the link.
Here is some analysis on what Japanese Prime Minister Kishida’s statement of regret for Korean forced laborers during World War II means:
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Sunday that he felt “strong pain” in his heart when he thought of the suffering of the Korean victims of forced labor during his country’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
In carefully selected words, he expressed sympathy for the Koreans at a press conference in Seoul after his summit with President Yoon Suk Yeol, acknowledging “the extreme difficulty and sorrow that many people had to suffer under the harsh environment in those days.”
Kishida’s remarks suggest both his determination to improve Korea-Japan relations and how far he was willing to go in that effort, given his political climate at home, according to experts, Monday.
“In his famous 2015 address [marking 70 years since Japan’s defeat in World War II], former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said his administration would not let their future generations ‘be predestined to apologize’ ― a position from which Kishida is not free. This is why Kishida said he would carry forward the positions on colonial-era history of Japan’s previous cabinets during Yoon’s visit to Japan in March,” Shin Kak-soo, former vice foreign minister and former Korean ambassador to Japan, told The Korea Times. “In that sense, his comment this time is a step forward.”
The former ambassador said that Kishida ― under pressure from both Korea and the conservative wing of his ruling Liberal Democratic Party in Japan, which rejects any form of concession ― appeared to have expressed his stance by sophisticatedly using restrained terms.
“From what I heard, Japan’s foreign ministry opposed the idea [of expressing his sympathy]. That means Kishida made his own political decision,” he added.
Jin Chang-soo, an expert on Japan at the Sejong Institute, a think tank, agreed.
“There is a wide political consensus in Japan that it should stop apologizing to Koreans over historical issues,” Jin said. “Given the situation, I think Kishida’s remarks, though insufficient, helped make progress in rapprochement.”
Korea Times
You can read more at the link, but apology fatigue in Japan is a real thing. Additionally the fact that Japan has made apologies and concessions in the past to just have the Korean administration change and rip up prior agreements and make new demands is something President Yoon will have to convince PM Kishida will not happen this time before any larger concessions are made.
I feel horrible for the surviving child that saw his parents and sibling gun down in front of them:
Three members of a Korean American family were among the deceased victims of a weekend shooting spree at an outlet mall in Texas, a South Korean diplomatic mission said Sunday.
The couple in their 30s and their three-year-old son were shot to death in Saturday’s rampage at the mall in Allen, while another child of the couple was injured and is being treated at a hospital, according to the South Korean Consulate in Dallas.
The shooting has left at least eight people dead and seven others injured, according to CNN.
The gunman, identified as 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia, was killed by a police officer who was at the mall for an unrelated issue. The motive behind the killings remains unclear.
Yonhap
What I find interesting about his shooting is the media has been focusing on how he is an alleged white supremacist without mentioning the irony of judging by his name he is Hispanic. The focus really should be on is that this guy has long had mental issues. He was kicked out of the Army back in 2008 after only 3 months of service due to mental health issues. So how is a guy too unstable to stay in the Army allowed to buy a gun?
At least some more parts of the old Yongsan Garrison is being used as a public park. Hopefully this continues instead of just filling in this land with apartments:
A repurposed section of Yongsan Garrison, once the U.S. military’s primary headquarters in South Korea, opened to the public as a park on Thursday during a ceremony convened by South Korean President Yoon.
Over 200 kids and parents attended the grand opening of the Yongsan Children’s Garden, a newly developed 74-acre park in Seoul, according to a news release from the presidential office.
Yoon at the ceremony praised the park’s construction and said there are “no decent fields in our country where children … can run as much as they want,” according to the release.
The opening ceremony took place on the eve of Children’s Day, a South Korean national holiday.
The park is next to the presidential office and includes a cafe, a walking trail lined with sycamore trees, a baseball field and a soccer field. Its location is meant to “serve as a bridge between the government and the people,” the release said.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
Here is what Japanese Prime Minister Kishida has offered President Yoon during their bilateral summit:
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida took steps Sunday to reciprocate President Yoon Suk Yeol’s commitment to improving bilateral ties, as he accepted a South Korean team’s inspection of the planned release of radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant and acknowledged the past pain of Koreans under Japanese colonial rule.
The water release and Japan’s attitude about its 1910-45 colonial occupation were the main points that were closely watched as Yoon and Kishida held their second summit in less than two months to add momentum to the recent warming of bilateral ties.
The thaw began in March after the Yoon administration decided to compensate Korean victims of Japanese wartime forced labor without the involvement of Japanese firms, a decision Kishida lauded as “courageous.”
Kishida returned the goodwill Sunday by announcing he will accept a visit by a team of South Korean experts to inspect the planned release of the contaminated water.
Amid South Korean calls for a sincere apology, he also acknowledged the pain of forced labor victims.
“My heart aches over the fact that many people had an extremely painful and sad experience in harsh conditions at the time,” he said, before adding he was speaking in a personal capacity.
Critics said the remark still falls short of a direct apology.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but they can add this apology to this ever growing list of apologies that the Korean left is still not happy with.
