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The Washington Post has an article published that takes a very detailed look at the Itaewon crowd crush disaster:
For nearly four hours before people started dying during a Halloween celebration in Seoul’s Itaewon district, partygoers pleaded with police to divert the crowds that were packing World Food Street and pushing into a 16-foot-wide alley — a tight, sloping space where most of 158 lives would be lost in a gruesome crush.
And once that crush began, it took at least 26 minutes for emergency personnel to start effectively evacuating people. Some victims were trapped for more than an hour before rescuers reached them. The delays proved catastrophic.
A Washington Post analysis of more than 350 videos and photos, some obtained exclusively and many reviewed by experts at The Post’s request, found that multiple critical factors contributed to the tragedy and death toll in Itaewon on the night of Oct. 29.
Washington Post
You can read more at the link, but really I only learned two new things from the article. First is that 119 calls were being placed about people being injured due to overcrowding in the alley almost four hours before people died. There was police officers there trying to redirect the crowd before the crush happened. However, there was not enough of them to stop more people from entering the alley.
What the article does not answer is who was the group reports claimed was pushing people on top of the slope? Was there really a Korean celebrity sighting that triggered the pushing? Hopefully someone figures that out because the alley was over capacity for almost four hours before the pushing caused it to turn tragic.
Chongryon has long been a pro-Kim regime organization in Japan affiliated with organized crime and North Korea propaganda:
North Korea warned Wednesday that Japan will “pay a high price” if it continues to unduly persecute and oppress a group of pro-Pyongyang ethnic Koreans in Japan, mentioning its firing in October of a ballistic missile over the neighboring country.
North Korea regarded “persecution and oppression” against the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, also known as Chongryon, and North Koreans living in Japan as a challenge to its dignity and sovereignty, according to a commentary carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
“We’ve solemnly stated that the Oct. 4 firing of a new type of a ground-to-ground intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) is a warning to our enemies over instability on the Korean Peninsula,” the KCNA said, referring to the North’s launch of the Hwasong-12 ballistic missile over Japan.
“Whether this warning will lead to actual results will depend on attitudes of hostile forces, including Japan,” it said, warning Japan will “pay a high price” against anti-North Korea acts.
The commentary appears to refer to an increase in hate crimes reported against students at schools for ethnic Koreans in Japan.
Chongryon is the largest organization of pro-Pyongyang ethnic Koreans in Japan that was established in 1955.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
The CFC has finally completed its move from Yongsan Garrison:
The combined command that defends South Korea officially opened the doors on a new headquarters Tuesday, nearly three years after beginning its relocation from Seoul.
The Republic of Korea-United States Combined Forces Command now resides at Camp Humphreys, Pyeongtaek, after 44 years at Yongsan Garrison in Seoul. Republic of Korea is the official name for South Korea.
Humphreys, the largest U.S. military base overseas, now serves as the headquarters for U.S. Forces Korea, U.N. Command and the Combined Forces Command. Roughly 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea, the majority of them at Humphreys.
USFK commander Gen. Paul LaCamera and Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup during a ceremony at the new headquarters welcomed soldiers from both countries and thanked them for their help in maintaining the South Korea-U.S. alliance.
Since its creation in 1978, the Combined Forces Command coordinates the defense of South Korea with troops from Seoul and Washington. The command has operational control of over 700,000 active-duty U.S. and South Korean troops.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
What ever agreement the Yoon administration reaches with Japan on the forced labor issue you just know the political opposition is going to demagogue. We saw this play out when the last conservative Korean president signed a deal to compensate former comfort women:
President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida agreed to seek a quick settlement of the issue of compensation for Korean victims of wartime forced labor during their summit in Cambodia earlier this week, a presidential official said Wednesday.
The official was referring to a Yoon-Kishida summit held on the sidelines of regional gatherings in Phnom Penh on Sunday, during which he said the leaders affirmed their clear commitment to resolving a “pending issue” between the two countries.
Pending issue is a reference to ongoing negotiations between the two countries over how to settle differences over a 2018 South Korean court ruling that Japanese firms should pay compensation to Korean victims of forced labor during World War II.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
First Lady Kim Keon-hee cannot do anything without getting ripped by her critics. Has there ever been a first lady this demonized?:
First lady Kim Keon-hee is back under the microscope on Monday, this time for her charity work during President Yoon Suk-yeol’s visit to Cambodia for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit. She was photographed holding a boy suffering from a congenital heart disease, and some opposition politicians are claiming that she tried to imitate an image of “Roman Holiday” star Audrey Hepburn in war-torn Somalia back in 1992.
Korea Times
According to the presidential office, Kim, who is accompanying President Yoon Suk-yeol on his trip to Cambodia and Indonesia, visited the child’s home on Saturday.
Kim was supposed to meet the boy a day earlier when she visited Hebron Medical Center in Phnom Penh, a facility established in 2007 by a South Korean pediatrician, but the boy did not show up to the event due to his condition.
Kim decided to meet the boy instead of visiting Angkor Wat as part of an official program for first spouses that the Cambodian government had set up, the presidential office said.
“You can beat it, right? Get well and let’s meet in South Korea,” Kim was quoted by deputy presidential spokesperson Lee Jae-myoung as saying to the boy.
The photos of Kim holding the boy grabbed the attention of the Korean public.
Wearing a black short-sleeved polo-style shirt and white pants, Kim was holding the boy in her arms while staring into the distance. People online soon compared this photo with Hepburn’s photo taken during her visit to a UNICEF-assisted feeding center in Baidoa, Somalia, in 1992.
In the 1992 photo, Hepburn was wearing a dark polo-style shirt and light-colored chino pants, staring into the distance while holding a child in her arms. Online users and main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) Rep. Kim Yong-min accused the Korean first lady of mimicking the British actress.
“If you want to emulate someone, try to emulate their spirit and sacrifices, not their pose or attire,” Kim wrote on Facebook. “Also, please start by abandoning the evil of using those who are suffering as ornaments.”
During a party meeting on Monday, DPK Rep. Jang Kyung-tae accused the presidential office of resorting to “poverty porn” and chided the first lady for committing a “diplomatic discourtesy” for ducking out of the official program for first spouses.
You can read more at the link.
