Author: GIKorea

The mandate for testing only foreigners continues to cause controversy in South Korea:

Several South Korea provinces and cities continued to require coronavirus testing for foreign workers, despite a request from the national government that prompted Seoul to end its mandate amid international outcry.

Last week the headquarters of the nation’s pandemic control effort asked local governments to end mandatory testing for foreigners, and improve testing policies to eliminate discrimination or rights violations. But only Seoul scrapped its controversial order.

The same day, Daegu, the fourth-largest city, with a population of 2.5 million, doubled down with a second order expanding the number of foreign workers that needed to be tested. No foreign workers among 2,553 in the first round tested positive, Daegu said in a statement.

Reuters

You can read more at the link.

Her is the latest stupid online conspiracy theory in South Korea:

Daegu police on Wednesday opened an investigation into claims circulating online that President Moon Jae-in’s vaccine was secretly switched –– and he did not get the AstraZeneca jab.  
   
On Tuesday, Moon and First Lady Kim Jung-sook became the first Koreans over 65 to be vaccinated for Covid-19. The first couple got their shots at a public health center in Jongno, central Seoul, near the Blue House, ahead of the president’s trip to Britain for a Group of Seven summit in June.  
   
A video of the president and first lady being administered the AstraZeneca vaccine was part of the government’s attempt to calm public fears over the vaccine’s safety, following two local reports of blood clots arising in patients who received AstraZeneca shots. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but if the President was going to fake a vaccination couldn’t he have just had water injected into his arm? Why bother switching vials while being filmed?

It seems that North Korea is slowly working their way up towards another provocation cycle if they don’t get what they want:

North Korea fired two cruise missiles off the west coast Sunday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said Wednesday, Pyongyang’s first missile test in about a year seen as aimed at testing the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden without being too provocative.

“We detected two projectiles presumed to be cruise missiles fired from the North’s western port county of Onchon early Sunday,” a JCS officer told reporters.

Yonhap

You can read more at the test, but firing cruise missiles is actually not part of the UN ballistic missile ban on North Korea.

An increase in coronavirus cases on Okinawa has led to a ban on off base dining again:

The Marine Corps and Air Force ordered an indefinite end Monday to indoor dining at off-base restaurants on Okinawa, citing an increase in coronavirus cases on the island and at their respective installations.

Since March 5, the Marines have seen “a steady rise in COVID-19 cases both on and off-base,” Marine Corps Installations Pacific announced in a Facebook post. “Due to this result, the [health protection condition] measures were re-evaluated and changed for the health and safety of everyone on island.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Here is another example of the Chinese using their auxiliaries to push around a weaker neighbor in the South China Sea. The Philippines is in a tough spot because if they send in Coast Guard and Naval assets to remove the auxiliaries than that gives the Chinese military the excuse to move in and protect them. This is a fight the Philippines cannot win thus why they are turning to the international media:

The Philippine defense chief on Sunday demanded more than 200 Chinese vessels he said were manned by militias leave a South China Sea reef claimed by Manila, saying their presence was a “provocative action of militarizing the area.”

“We call on the Chinese to stop this incursion and immediately recall these boats violating our maritime rights and encroaching into our sovereign territory,” Lorenzana said in a statement, adding without elaborating that the Philippines would uphold its sovereign rights.

A government watchdog overseeing the disputed region said about 220 Chinese vessels were seen moored at Whitsun Reef, which Beijing also claims, on March 7. It released pictures of the vessels side by side in one of the most hotly contested areas of the strategic waterway.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Notice how these politicians are always pushing out their goals to dates they will likely not even be alive to avoid political responsibility for their decisions:

President Moon Jae-in on Friday declared 2021 as the starting year of South Korea’s green transition for daily infrastructure, reiterating his commitment to the Green New Deal policy.

Attending a government strategy meeting on the Green New Deal policy at the Boryeong Thermal Power Plant in Boryeong, South Chungcheong Province, Moon said the nation’s political, economic, social and cultural sectors should be overhauled “with an extraordinary determination that the Green New Deal is the only way for the nation to survive.”
The Moon administration has been campaigning for the Green New Deal aimed at fostering environment friendly industries in tandem with a push for balanced national development.

On his vision of South Korea achieving carbon neutrality and reducing carbon emissions to zero by 2050, Moon said the nation has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 10.8 percent over the past two years, thanks in part to the earlier-than-scheduled closures of coal power plants.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Is this a sign that the Korean people are tiring of Moon Jae-in and the ruling Democratic Party:

Two leading opposition candidates for next month’s Seoul mayoral by-election are double digits ahead of their ruling party rival should they unify candidacy and run in a two-way race, a survey showed Sunday.

Conducted by three pollsters, Ipsos, Korea Research and Hankook Research, the survey found that Oh Se-hoon of the main opposition People Power Party garnered 47 percent with Park Young-sun of the ruling Democratic Party winning 30.4 percent in a hypothetical two-way race.

Ahn Cheol-soo of the People’s Party got 45.9 percent versus the ruling party candidate’s 29.9 percent in a two-way contest, according to the survey commissioned by three broadcasters, SBS, KBS and MBC.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.