Author: GIKorea

This is a horrible tragedy over in Namyangju:

A woman was mauled to death by a stray dog in a suburb near Seoul on Saturday afternoon. The 59-year-old died of excessive bleeding a few hours after the dog bit her neck. 

The dog’s attack was filmed by a closed circuit camera set up in the neighborhood, and police later captured the dog, which looked like a hybrid of Pungsan Dog and Samoyed.

This is not an isolated incident at a time when many pedigreed dogs end up on city streets and turn into strays, baring fangs and attacking people and livestock alike.

Last week, packs of strays raided a poultry farm in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province, culling around 800 chickens. It was the second attack at the farm after strays struck a week earlier and killed about 250 chickens.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

You may soon be able to walk outdoors in South Korea without a mask if you are vaccinated. Really why wait until July 1st, why not just drop the mask mandate for vaccinated people now?:

South Korea announced Wednesday that people who have received a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine will no longer be required to wear masks outdoors starting in July, as part of incentives for those participating in the public vaccine campaign.

The incentive program announced at a daily interagency coronavirus response meeting also included a plan to lift the gathering ban for direct family members who have had their first vaccine dose.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but governments are finally realizing that the mask mandates after getting a vaccine is a disincentive to getting the vaccine.

The Moon administration is already trying to backtrack on the Joint statement made by President Moon and President Biden during last week’s summit:

The government has stepped up efforts to prevent any fallout from President Moon Jae-in’s summit with U.S. President Joe Biden adversely affecting South Korea’s ties with China, with the foreign minister saying their post-summit statement touching on Taiwan was “theoretical and principled.” 

President Moon and his U.S. counterpart held their first in-person meeting at the White House last week and their joint statement referred to the importance of preserving peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. It also referred to freedom of navigation and overflights in the South China Sea and beyond.

Despite not directly mentioning China, it was seen as a sign that South Korea agreed with the U.S.’s anti-China campaign, and this drew a strong response from Beijing. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see if USFK gets tasked to do this or if the vaccines just get shipped to South Korea for the ROK military to do the vaccinating themselves:

The U.S. Department of Defense is working on details of how and when U.S. vaccines will be provided to South Korean troops working with U.S. Forces Korea, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday.

U.S. President Joe Biden made a surprise announcement Friday that the U.S. will help fully inoculate all 550,000 South Korean service members, who work closely with U.S. troops in South Korea on a daily basis.

“Obviously we support the president’s direction here to provide the vaccines to our ROK allies,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a press briefing. ROK stands for the Republic of Korea, South Korea’s official name.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Hopefully President Moon doesn’t have any summits in China anytime soon because it sounds like they CCP is not too happy with him right now:

China is aware that part of a joint statement from last week’s summit between South Korea and the United States is targeted at Beijing, though it made no mention of the country, the top Chinese envoy here said Monday.

Chinese Ambassador Xing Haiming made the remarks amid expectations that the statement following the first in-person summit between Presidents Moon Jae-in and Joe Biden on Friday could stir unease in China, as it touches on sensitive issues involving the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

“There was no mention of China, but it’s not that (Beijing) is unaware it is targeting China,” Xing told reporters after a forum, noting he watched the summit between Moon and Biden unsatisfactorily.

“For instance, the Taiwan issue is an internal Chinese affair, but that was brought up. There exists no problem with the South China Sea as free transit is guaranteed. That’s a matter involving China and its neighboring countries,” he added.

The joint statement stressed “the importance of preserving peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” the first time the Taiwan issue has been included in a joint summit statement between Seoul and Washington. Still, it included no mention of China.

The statement also mentioned the freedom of navigation and overflights in the South China Sea, the lion’s share of which is claimed by China.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the CCP is also unhappy with South Korea increasing the range of their missiles and statements about the Quad.

According to this article Japanese citizens that worked even decades ago in the U.S. are receiving U.S. government sponsored coronavirus stimulus checks:

A 79-year-old man in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, received an official-looking piece of mail printed in English in late April. 

The addresser was the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Inside the envelope, he found a check for $1,400 (153,000 yen).

His wife also received a check for the same amount.

They are among the Japanese recipients of U.S. stimulus checks to boost the economy during the pandemic, who are at a loss of what to do with the surprise payments. 

According to a person who is related to a major bank, the bank’s call center has been inundated with inquiries about U.S. stimulus checks since May 11.

“As far as the bank is concerned, if a person wants to cash a check and the person’s identity is verified, we have to ask the U.S. side to pay,” the person said. “We don’t have a way to examine if the person is eligible to receive the check.” (…….) The man entertained the idea of pocketing the $2,800 and said to himself, “The United States has so much money to spare that it gives out (the checks) to foreigners like me who lived there about 40 years ago.”

Asahi Shimbun

You can read more at the link.