Author: GIKorea

Though it looks like Texas will be the choice, I am kind of surprised to hear that New York is on Samsung’s short list for their new chip plant considering the state’s infamous taxes:

Samsung Electronics Co. appears to be moving closer to making a final decision on the site for its new chip fabrication plant in the United States, as global semiconductor companies have engaged in increasingly fierce competition amid a global chip crunch.

The South Korean tech giant was found to have withdrawn its application filed in January with Manor Independent School District (ISD) in Travis County, Texas, for corporate tax incentives regarding its new chip plant, the Texas comptroller’s website showed.

School districts in the state constitute an important party in the negotiations over building a new plant. 

The same kind of document filed in July with the city of Taylor, northeast of Austin, can still be found on the public site.

The two locations in Texas have been competing against each other to host the global chipmaker’s new plant believed to be worth US$17 billion. The South Korean company did not rule out other sites in New York and Arizona for potential sites.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

According to the article kids were going to the CDC sick which is what likely caused the outbreak:

Thirteen people, including nearly a dozen children, linked to an on-base children’s center recently tested positive for the coronavirus respiratory disease, an official at the center said Tuesday. 

At least 11 children and two staff members from the Capt. Jennifer M. Moreno School Age Center on Humphreys tested positive within the past week, center coordinator Tiffany Harris told Stars and Stripes by phone. Around 178 children in grades one through five are enrolled in the center, which employs 24 people.

The center, which provides children with after-school programs, was closed Friday for cleaning and sanitizing; it reopened Monday.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but if we learned anything from this pandemic it is to not send your sick kid to school or if you are sick don’t go to work.

It looks like the Disney+ app’s launch in South Korea is having some initial growing pains:

Three days after Disney+ became available in Korea, the video streaming service appears to have fallen short of expectations due to poor subtitling and a user-hostile interface.  
   
Shortly after the app was activated locally Friday, some users started posting negative reviews on the Google Play Store and social media, mostly aimed at the low quality of subtitle translations and amateurish app functions. 

While others still welcomed the app and the vast array of Disney’s programming, they pointed out that Korean subtitles seemed machine-translated rather than professionally translated by a human.  
   
“The state of the subtitle translations is just so serious,” according to a review on the Google Play Store on the day of the app’s release. “It’s similar to, or even worse than, Google translations.”  
   
According to the review, in one scene where a character talks about a “GOAT” — a basketball term that refers to the best player — the word was translated into the hangul for the animal. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but I am sure over time the subtitles will be improved. Disney is launching their app in so many countries they likely used computer translations initially for their content and will improve them later. Regardless the Disney+ app is great if you have kids, if not you would need to be a huge Stars Wars and Marvel fan because that is what most of the rest of the content is. There is also some pretty good National Geographic content on the app as well.

I wonder how long this is going to last? Will it be shutdown if another COVID wave breaks out in Singapore?:

The first tourists from Singapore since the start of the coronavirus pandemic arrived Monday in South Korea under a bilateral travel bubble agreement.

A travel bubble refers to a quarantine-free travel partnership between two or more cities or countries with similar levels of COVID-19 cases.

The tourists landed at Incheon International Airport earlier in the day and will be free to travel around the country without quarantine if they test negative on a polymerase chain reaction test, the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) said.

Among them, a group of Singaporeans working in the tourism industry and reporters were invited by KTO to visit major tourist attractions in the greater Seoul area and Gangwon Province this week.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It seems to me public sector employees should cater their schedules to better serve the public they are there to support and not the other way around:

Controversy is rising over an increasing demand from civil servants across the country to guarantee them a lunch break from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. as offered to other workers. 

They are demanding all services at public offices, including the issuance of official documents, be suspended during the one-hour lunchtime to guarantee their “rights,” but critics say this will cause inconvenience, especially to workers who have to utilize their own lunchtime to visit public offices.

The Korean Government Employees’ Union (KGEU) has recently intensified calls for the guaranteed lunch break to safeguard their health and welfare rights, citing the Labor Standards Act and service regulations for civil servants that stipulate their lunchtime is from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.

The law and regulations, however, also stipulate that heads of local governments can decide to advance or put off the lunchtime by one hour, considering the characteristics of the duties of civil servants. 

Consequently, most civil servants working at public services centers usually rotate their lunchtimes from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. or from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., so services at such centers can continue during the “original” lunch hour. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It appears those sensitive about being overweight are unhappy with the ROK military for trying to encourage young people to lose weight so they can serve in the military:

The Military Manpower Administration (MMA) has taken flak over a promotional video that critics say disparages those assigned to non-combat duties for their mandatory military service due to health or other reasons.

On Nov. 5, the MMA posted video footage on its YouTube channel in which an active service member on leave talks over a meal with his friends, who haven’t been enlisted yet, about life in the barracks.

The problematic part was about the service member’s physical grade. While all able-bodied men in Korea must serve in the military, only those who receive grades of 1 to 3 in their heath examination serve in the military, while those who receive a grade of 4 are assigned to less physically demanding duties, mostly public service positions at public organizations, and those who get a grade of 5 are exempt from duty.

In the video, the man said that he was initially given a grade of 4, but joined the military after losing weight through an MMA program and improving his grade. The project helps those who receive a grade 4 or 5, due to extreme obesity or other health reasons, to get support from hospitals, fitness clubs or public health centers, to lose weight or improve their condition if they want to serve in combat positions.

The man said, “I applied for the project because I thought it fits well with my character,” and the friend replied, “You can proudly call yourself a man only when you fulfill the military service.”

This video has drawn a barrage of criticism for disparaging people who receive grades of 4 or 5 and take public service positions instead of combat duty.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.