Author: GIKorea

I would not be surprised if this is an old landmine that may have been washed out of the ground by rain:

A South Korean soldier in a frontline Army unit was wounded due to an unidentified explosion during a border defense mission earlier this week, officials said Wednesday.

The blast occurred Tuesday when the soldier was conducting a land clearing operation to ensure visibility near a general outpost of the Army’s First Corps that lies just south of the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas.

He is currently receiving treatment for an injury to his toes, the officials said.

The military authorities are trying to ascertain the exact cause of the explosion, including the possibility of a stray landmine blast.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is actually smart move by President Yoon to try and de-politicize the Gwangju Uprising issue from the liberals:

President Yoon Suk-yeol and some 100 lawmakers from the ruling People Power Party (PPP) traveled to the southwestern city of Gwangju on Wednesday and paid their respects to the victims of the 1980 pro-democracy uprising in an unprecedented outreach to the home turf of the main opposition party.

The civil revolt, in which Gwangju citizens rose up against the then military junta led by late former President Chun Doo-hwan, has long been associated with the liberal opposition Democratic Party (DP), and the conservative party has kept a distance from it amid perceptions its roots have ties to Chun.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I feel bad for the investors that lost their money, but investing in bitcoin has always had a casino like atmosphere to it. You should not invest money that you cannot afford to lose:

The collapse of Luna is starting to ripple through Korea as investors in the coin and companies associated with it add up their losses and adjust their plans.  

Victims range from retail punters to some of the largest business names in the country, and the damages go from trivial to existential, though the sense is that, so far, the Luna fiasco will not be a Lehman moment and threaten crypto markets or the broader markets in a systemic way.    

“I lost my entire lifesavings in just two days,” one person wrote anonymously on Bitman, a Korean blockchain community, on May 14. “I repeatedly sold Luna at a loss, bought more to lower the average price and sold it at a loss again. After losing more than 100 million won [$78,000] that I struggled to save for years, I can neither eat nor sleep. I loathe myself.”  

Terra coins were algorithmically pegged to other currencies though arbitraged with Luna coins. When faith in the design evaporated in early May, Luna lost most of its value in a matter of days and TerraUSD, which is the Terra that tracks the dollar, dropped to about 10 cents. 

One man, who claims to have lost 2 billion won ($1.6 million) by investing in Luna, was under investigation after showing up at the house of Kwon Do-hyeong, one of the masterminds behind the Terra stablecoin scheme.    
   
“Kwon should officially apologize and announce some sort of plan using any means available, including using his own money,” the man told the local press. “There are some people around me who have actually lost their lives.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more about the cryptocurrency losses impacting South Korea at the link.

To make way for the Presidential office in Yongsan the ROK military’s Joint Chief’s of Staff office will be moving to Southern Seoul:

The South Korean government plans to relocate the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) headquarters to southern Seoul and seeks to construct its new building there by 2026, the defense ministry said Tuesday.

In a parliamentary policy briefing, the ministry made public the relocation plan, as the ministry’s key offices have occupied parts of the current JCS building since the presidential office’s relocation to what used to be the ministry’s headquarters in Seoul’s central district of Yongsan.

Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup said that the government plans to move the JCS building to the Capital Defense Command in Namtaeryeong, southern Seoul, in the “mid- and long-term.” 

Lee estimated that the relocation and the construction of the new JCS building may cost between 200 billion won (US$ 157 million) and 300 billion won, much more than initially expected.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest scam by North Korea to avoid sanctions on the country because of their nuclear and missile programs:

The U.S. warned businesses Monday not to be fooled into hiring IT staff from North Korea taking advantage of the anonymity of remote working.  
   
In an advisory issued by the State Department, Treasury Department and the FBI, the U.S. government said the use of freelance IT staff by the North was a way for it to bypass U.S. and United Nations sanctions and earn foreign exchange for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.  
   
“There are thousands of DPRK IT workers both dispatched overseas and located within the DPRK, generating revenue that is remitted back to the North Korean government,” the advisory stated, referring to the North by the acronym for its official name, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.  
   
“These IT workers take advantage of existing demands for specific IT skills, such as software and mobile application development, to obtain freelance employment contracts from clients around the world, including in North America, Europe, and East Asia,” the advisory said. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

This is probably a smart move with the amount of major car companies now offering electric vehicle options that is driving increased competition. If Samsung wanted to get into this market they should have done it at least a decade ago in order to already have captured market share like Tesla has done:

But at Samsung, still Apple’s top rival in the smartphone segment, its proven “go-to-market strategy” won’t be applied in the finished EV segment, as the Korean tech behemoth decided recently not to manufacture its own brand of EVs, as two senior executives, both of whom are directly involved in the issue, told The Korea Times. 

The core reasons behind this decision are that it doesn’t believe its entry into the finished EV segment will see sustainable profits, and it holds the intention to continue avoiding any possible conflicts with its top clients, amid the focus on its contract-based semiconductor foundry business, according to them.

“After thorough reviews, response and discussions with clients, top Samsung management reached a consensus that making a foray into the finished EV segment won’t be the right fit both in terms of a profit standpoint and from a client management perspective,” one of the sources said on condition of anonymity.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.