Author: GIKorea

This is pretty much the last thing that needed to move off of Yongsan Garrison:

The headquarters of the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC) will relocate to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi, this month, ending a four-decade presence in Seoul’s Yongsan District.    
   
The South Korean Defense Ministry said Tuesday that the relocation of the CFC’s headquarters is expected to wrap up by the end of the month.    
   
“Through the relocation, the CFC plans to establish an even stronger combined defense system based on a strengthened alliance spirit and operational efficiency in Pyeongtaek, the new cradle of the alliance,” the ministry said in a statement. (……)

Approximately 700 South Korean and U.S. personnel currently serving at the CFC’s Yongsan headquarters will begin moving to Camp Humphreys starting early this month, while the CFC plans to hold a ceremony in November marking the end of the command’s era in Yongsan.   

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Tensions are once again heating up on the Korean peninsula after North Korea’s latest missile test:

North Korea fired a missile that flew farther than any before — 4,600 kilometers (2,850 miles) — and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol warned of a “resolute” response.  
   
The intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) travelled over Japan before landing in the Pacific Ocean, reaching an apex of 1,000 kilometers and a terminal speed of Mach 17 in its final re-entry phase, according to South Korean military authorities.  
   
The test triggered a nationwide emergency alert in Japan — known as a J-Alert — for the first time in five years.  

Joong Ang Ilbo

Here is what the US & ROK did in response which I don’t think the Kim regime is going to be too impressed by:

In response to the test, a South Korean F-15K fighter fired two Joint Direct Attack Munition (Jadam) guided bombs at a firing range on the unhabited island of Jikdo in the Yellow Sea on Tuesday, the South Korean military said.  
   
The JCS said that the F-15K dropped the Jadam bombs on Jikdo following air drills with U.S. warplanes in a joint strike group consisting of four South Korean F-15Ks and four U.S. F-16 fighters. 

I guess we will see in the coming days if the US, ROK, and Japan respond even more strongly in other ways. If so this will continue to increase tensions which is probably what the Kim regime wants to justify their long anticipated nuclear test.

It is official now that the Army did not meet its recruiting goals for this past fiscal year:

The Army fell about 15,000 soldiers — or 25% — short of its recruitment goal this year, officials confirmed Friday, despite a frantic effort to make up the widely expected gap in a year when all the military services struggled in a tight jobs market to find young people willing and fit to enlist.

While the Army was the only service that didn’t meet its target, all of the others had to dig deep into their pools of delayed entry applicants, which will put them behind as they begin the next recruiting year on Saturday. (……)

“In the Army’s most challenging recruiting year since the start of the all-volunteer force, we will only achieve 75% of our fiscal year 22 recruiting goal,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said in a statement to The Associated Press. “The Army will maintain its readiness and meet all our national security requirements. If recruiting challenges persist, we will draw on the Guard and Reserve to augment active-duty forces, and may need to trim our force structure.”

Officials said the Army brought in about 45,000 soldiers during the fiscal year that ended Friday. The goal was 60,000.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It appears this whole investigation of the fishery official killed by North Korea has turned political. I say this because there is really no way to prove definitively that this guy was trying to defect or not since he left no note or any other evidence stating he was doing so. That left the Moon administration to make an assessment on how this guy ended up in the water. Maybe there assessment was wrong, but it doesn’t mean it was criminal:

Former President Moon Jae-in said the state audit agency’s recent attempt to question him over a South Korean fisheries official killed by North Korea in 2020 is “very rude,” according to Rep. Youn Kun-young, his former aide.

The lawmaker of the main opposition liberal Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) told reporters at the National Assembly, Monday, that Moon said it was “very rude” and improper for the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) to call him and send him an official email regarding the case.

After receiving the email on Sept. 28, the office of Moon’s secretary told the institution two days later that he will not answer any of its questions.

The 47-year-old fisheries official, who was unarmed, was killed in September 2020 by the North Korean military while adrift in the North’s territorial waters and his body was incinerated afterwards. It was initially concluded that he was killed during his attempt to defect to the North. But the story took a drastic turn as the military and police, under the Yoon Suk-yeol government, said there was not sufficient evidence that he was intentionally trying to cross the border. Over the past few months, the prosecution has been looking into who was involved in drawing that conclusion.

“The BAI appears to try to curry favor with the people in power despite its duty to maintain political neutrality. We should find the whole truth behind this,” Youn said.

More than 10 lawmakers, who worked for the previous administration, appeared at the press conference where they vowed to fight against what they described as “political retaliation” by the Yoon administration.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Another example of South Korea trying to get back to normal in the wake of steeply declining COVID rates:

Starting Tuesday, people will be allowed to visit their elderly relatives at long-term care facilities in person. Elderly people who receive their second booster of a COVID-19 vaccine will also be permitted to leave their facility and stay out overnight. 

Due to the COVID-19 resurgence this summer, in-person visits were suspended in late July.

A steady decrease in the daily number of infections and a more than 90-percent rate of vaccination with the second booster of the residents of such facilities has led the government to decide to loosen restrictions, the Central Disaster Management Headquarters (CDMH) said Friday.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

If anyone cares at this point there has been a steep drop in daily COVID cases in South Korea which so happens to coincide with the dropping of many COVID protocols:

 South Korea’s new COVID-19 cases fell below 20,000 on Monday after staying in the 20,000s for the previous three days amid waning virus infections and fewer tests over the extended weekend. 

The country reported 12,150 new COVID-19 infections, including 132 from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 24,831,761, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said.

The latest virus wave, triggered by the spread of a highly contagious omicron variant, has been on a decline since mid-August, when it peaked at more than 180,000 cases.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.