Author: GIKorea

My guess is that Congress is giving the Pentagon flexibility on how to manage troop levels in the Indo-Pacific region without having to focus on maintaining the 28,500 troop level number in South Korea:

The U.S. Congress passed its annual defense budget bill Wednesday with no ban on the reduction of U.S. Forces in Korea, a clause that had been included in the bill for the past four years.  
   
Every year, the U.S. Congress passes the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to determine the funding for military activities under the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy.  
   
The bill was passed by Congress on Wednesday to authorize a total of $777.7 billion in spending for the 2022 fiscal year, namely on strategic competition with China and Russia and on disruptive technologies like hypersonic weapons and artificial intelligence, amongst other U.S. defense priorities.   
   
Missing this year, however, was a clause legally restricting the U.S. government from reducing the number of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) from its current level of around 28,500. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest restrictions to impact the public in South Korea:

South Korea will reduce the maximum private gathering size to four people nationwide and restore a 9 p.m. curfew on restaurant and cafe business hours, Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said Thursday, as the government rolled back its “living with COVID-19” scheme amid surging infections.

Under the new measures, which will be in effect from Saturday until Jan. 2, the use of restaurants and cafes will be restricted to up to four vaccinated people per visit. Those who have not been vaccinated will be able to use the facilities alone or request take-out or delivery, Kim said.

Bars, nightclubs and other entertainment venues will also be subject to the 9 p.m. curfew while movie theaters, concert halls and internet cafes, however, will be able to operate until 10 p.m., Kim said during a meeting of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This was always a concern that this agency would be used for partisan purposes by whoever was in charge at the time and that is what the opposition is claiming is happening now with the collecting of phone records of conservative media figures:

The state-run anti-corruption office is under fire over allegations that it searched through the phone records of reporters and citizens critical of the organization and the government. 

The agency claims that this was a due, legal process and that it only checked the information of those who had phone calls with some of the people it is investigating. However, there is speculation that this may expand into an illegal surveillance scandal.

When checking phone records, the investigation agency receives personal information including subscriber name, resident registration number and address from the relevant telecommunications company. If the person whose phone records were checked asks the telecommunications company, it has to inform them of the details of when and which investigative agencies have requested data within the past year.

According to local telecommunications companies, the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials (CIO) has asked for the phone records of at least 10 journalists from several conservative news outlets on multiple occasions. 

In detail, the CIO requested the phone records of six reporters from the Chosun Ilbo on 12 occasions from July to October, while it also rifled through the phone logs of three reporters from the Joongang Ilbo 11 times from May to October.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

More restrictions are coming soon on the Korean public. Remember when the government said they didn’t care if daily COVID cases reached 10,000 they would not end the Living with COVID strategy? Well that did not age well:

South Korea’s new coronavirus cases and critically ill patients surged to fresh record highs Wednesday, with the government tipped to restore toughest virus curbs to contain the spread of infections.

The country added 7,850 new COVID-19 infections, including 7,828 local infections, raising the cumulative caseload to 536,495, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

Wednesday’s figure broke the previous record high of 7,174 cases last Wednesday. Daily virus cases have hovered in the range of 4,000-7,000 since early this month, weeks after the country began to ease the distancing rules from Nov. 1.

The number of critically ill patients hit an all-time high of 964, up from the previous record high of 906 on Tuesday.

Deaths from the virus rose by 70, bringing the total to 4,456. The record high death toll was 94 a day earlier. The fatality rate stood at 0.83 percent.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The trouble with fake news is always who gets to define what fake news is:

President Moon Jae-in stressed the need to develop a self-purification capacity to protect democracy from fake news at the U.S.-led virtual Summit for Democracy.

Presidential spokesperson Park Kyung-mee said Moon made the remarks Thursday night, Korea Standard time, at the closed-door leaders’ plenary session hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden. 

Moon said mankind has made unprecedented progress along with democracy, but is faced with the challenges of populism, extremism, inequality, polarization, fake news and hatred. 

Calling for serious consultation to discuss ways to protect democracy, Moon stressed that personal liberty and freedom of expression must be guaranteed but they should be in harmony with freedom for everyone.

He underscored the need to guard against the harm of fake news while guaranteeing freedom of speech. 

The president also said South Korea will actively join and contribute to efforts to promote democracy in Asia based on its experiences of achieving economic development and democracy. He did not mention China in his speech. 

KBS World

You can read more at the link.

I don’t think this is discrimination because foreigners can attend the museum’s special programs if someone is willing to translate without interfering with the class. It seems like this is much to do about nothing:

A tea museum operated by South Korean cosmetics giant Amorepacific is found to have a rather controversial policy: It says no foreigners are allowed in its guided tours or tea classes because no interpretation services are provided. 

Even if the foreigner is OK with not having an interpreter or has a native Korean speaker to help, the museum is apparently reluctant to accept the guest, warning, “The translation (by another guest) may be restricted if it disturbs other participants of the program.” 

The museum in question – Osulloc Tea Museum – is one of Jeju Island’s most popular tourist spots. 

Opened in September 2001 and located near the scenic Seokwang tea fields in Seogwipo, it is the first tea museum in Korea designed to introduce and promote the nation’s traditional tea culture. As of 2020, more than 15 million people have visited the venue, it says, with some 20-30 percent of those being foreign visitors. 

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

It seems like resume padding in Korea’s universities is an ongoing problem that Yoon Suk-yeol’s wife has decided to come clean on:

The People Power Party presidential nominee’s wife is under fire for possibly exaggerating her career history on top of allegations of her involvement in academic plagiarism and stock manipulation.

Kim Keon-hee, wife of presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol, partly acknowledged in an interview with news broadcaster YTN released Tuesday that she exaggerated her credentials in successfully applying for a professor position at Suwon Women’s University in 2007. She served in the teaching job for a year.

In the application form obtained by the media outlet, Kim wrote that she served as a director for the Korea Association of Game Industry for three years beginning in March 2002, even though the association was officially established in June 2004.

She said she does not remember the details of her appointment and is in the process of verifying additional details. But Kim attested she was close to key members of the association in the past and often invited them to speak for seminars and lectures.

Kim also acknowledged that she did not win the grand prize at the Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival in 2004 as claimed in the application, saying the falsely written accomplishment was her attempt to have her application “stand out” from those submitted by others.

“If that can be called a crime, that will be a crime,” she said in the interview.

Yet Kim questioned whether her falsely written application is problematic, as she was not married to Yoon at the time and was not a public official undergoing the vetting process typical of those running for elected office.

“I don’t know how this could be problematic, as I didn’t even write down these accomplishments to advance to schools or anything,” she said during the YTN interview.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but I don’t think voters will hold this against Yoon especially since it occurred before he was even married to his wife. With that said you would think that universities would do some simple background checks on these resumes before hiring someone for a professor position. Some of the things Kim put on her resume would have been easy to verify.