The Marines in Japan continue to have rising COVID case numbers:
Another 73 people were confirmed positive for COVID-19 at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni over the four-day New Year’s holiday, according to base news releases Friday and Monday.
The base 25 miles south of Hiroshima has reported 143 cases of the coronavirus respiratory disease since Dec. 27. Its new case numbers surged suddenly but fall short of the 200-plus at Marine Corps bases on Okinawa where a viral cluster erupted in mid-November.
Another Marine Corps installation, Combined Arms Training Center Camp Fuji, reported 10 COVID-19 cases between Dec. 27 and 28, according to a base news release Wednesday.
Tokyo reported 103 new cases Monday, the first time the capital city has confirmed more than 100 infections on one day since Oct. 8, according to NHK.
The public broadcaster also reported Monday that Okinawa prefecture, where the bulk of U.S. forces in Japan are stationed, reported 130 cases Monday, breaking 100 for the first time since Sept. 25.
Okinawa public health authorities reported 235 cases within the U.S. military on Saturday, a single-day record for that population, according to The Asahi newspaper on Sunday. A spokesman for Marine Corps Installations Pacific did not return an email request for comment Monday from Stars and Stripes.
Japan overall reported 477 new cases Sunday, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link, but Japan with 477 case numbers is still incredibly low though the number has been growing the past three weeks.
It looks like with just two months to go until the Korean presidential election that opposition candidate Yoon Suk-yeol’s campaign is in disarray:
The main opposition People Power Party (PPP) said Monday all senior members of its campaign committee, excluding its chief, offered their resignations to presidential nominee Yoon Suk-yeol to demonstrate their commitment to overhauling the campaign amid declining support for the candidate.
The PPP initally said in a text message to reporters that the resignations were submitted by campaign chief Kim Chong-in, all the standing chairs, co-chairs, heads of divisions and the chairman of the Saesidae Preparatory Committee.
A committee spokesperson later clarified that Kim did not offer to resign, and cited an error in communication.
It was not immediately known whether Yoon accepted the others’ offers.
The move comes just two months ahead of the March 9 presidential election and follows a series of resignations by other campaign and party officials.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
Seoul is such an incredible city that I can’t blame Koreans for wanting to live there. However, there are plenty of other great cities in Korea as well that hopefully Koreans start moving back to. Having so many people concentrated near the DMZ just further feeds into the strategic advantage North Korea has:
With an influx of people from all over the country, the number of residents in the Seoul metropolitan region ― including Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province ― surpassed 50 percent of the nation’s total population for the first time ever last year, even though the region occupies only 11.8 percent of the country’s total land. The extremely high concentration of the population in Korea’s capital area contrasts with those of the U.K. at 12.5 percent, France at 18.8 percent and Japan at 28 percent.
Korea Times
Other parts of the country, meanwhile, are collapsing. The government recently designated 89 out of the 228 cities, counties and districts around the country as areas facing the risk of “extinction.”
The collapse of local towns is also negatively affecting the quality of life in Seoul.
“The contraction of local towns accelerates the population concentration in the capital area, resulting in soaring housing prices and a lack of jobs. It will in turn pull down the birthrate in the capital area, accelerating the population decrease of the country as a whole,” said Kim Hyeon-ho, a researcher at the Korea Research Institute for Local Administration.
You can read more at the link.
In South Korea those without a booster shot are essentially being treated as being unvaccinated now:
Proof of vaccination required for access to multiuse facilities will be valid only for six months after the primary series or booster doses starting Monday, health authorities said as they seek to stem the latest upsurge in virus cases.
Under the tightened measure, those who completed the primary series on July 6 last year or before will not be allowed to use those facilities starting Monday if they are not administered with a booster shot, officials said.
The so-called vaccine pass is required for people to enter restaurants, cafes, theaters, cram schools and other indoor multipurpose facilities. The measure will be applied to department stores and large discount store chains Jan. 10.
Unvaccinated people should present negative COVID-19 test results that were issued within 48 hours in a bid to use such facilities. The government plans to adopt the pass system for youths in March after a one-month grace period.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but it looks like getting a booster shot every six months could become the new normal in South Korea.
It will be interesting to see if North Korea makes a showcase of whoever this person is that defected. If they don’t that might be an indication this is a returning spy:
South Korea’s military announced Sunday an unidentified person crossed the eastern inter-Korean land border into North Korea the previous night despite its eleventh-hour efforts to stop the move.
The person was spotted moving into the North across the Military Demarcation Line at around 10:40 p.m. on Saturday, some 80 minutes after being detected by surveillance equipment installed on the heavily fortified border, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
The JCS has yet to identify the person, with an investigation under way, its officials said.
After first detecting the person in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas at around 9:20 p.m., the military authorities sent troops to the scene to capture the person but failed, according to the JCS.
“Due to various geographical conditions, including the mountain terrain, we failed (to capture the person),” a JCS official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
In a fact-finding process later, the authorities used monitoring equipment to find the person breaking through the barbed-wire fence to enter the DMZ at around 6:40 p.m. — an indication they remained unaware of the border breach for nearly three hours.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but DMZ violations that are detected hours afterwards has been ongoing issue for the ROK military which has relied more on technology than man power in recent years. However, if the people responsible for monitoring the technology are busy playing video games instead, the technology really doesn’t matter then.
It appears that Lee Jae-myung wants to Finland-nize South Korea’s relationship between the U.S. and China:
South Korea is torn between the United States and China in their intensifying strategic competition, as Washington is a longtime security ally, while Beijing is the nation’s largest trading partner.
Korea Times
This situation has thereby led South Korea to take a stance of so-called strategic ambiguity, a policy of refraining from any overt actions that would suggest Seoul is taking sides.
However, calling into question why South Korea should be the one to bear the pressure of choosing between the two superpowers, Lee Jae-myung, the presidential candidate of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), instead says that it should be the U.S. and China that vie to seek Seoul’s closer cooperation for their own interests. He calls this “national interest-centered pragmatic diplomacy,” and it’s the backbone of his foreign policy platform for the presidential election, scheduled for March 9, 2022.
“Amid the intensifying Sino-U.S. rivalry, South Korea has seen less room to maneuver, but I don’t think we deserve to face pressure to pick a side because we are maintaining strategic ambiguity,” Lee said in a joint interview with The Korea Times, Reuters and the South China Morning Post at the DPK’s headquarters in Seoul, Wednesday.
“South Korea is the world’s 10th-largest economy, while possessing the world’s sixth-most-powerful military, so why should we be pressured to make a choice in accordance with other countries’ interests? I think the situation is coming where we can make decisions independently, putting our national interests first,” he added. “Any thinking that we have to choose between the two is a very disgraceful approach.”
You can read more at the link, but it sounds like Lee just doesn’t want to decouple the South Korean economy from China like other countries have begun to do. He just wants to maintain the status quo. Decoupling from China would be extremely painful at first, but Australia’s recent example has shown that it can be done.
I hope everyone has a great and safe New Year’s. I will see everyone in 2022!:
