Author: GIKorea

Despite the most recent Dokdo nonsense, Korean consumers do not seem to car as they continue to buy Japanese beer:

Driven by younger consumers who focus on what they buy rather than past grievances between Korea and Japan, Korea’s imports of Japanese beer hit an all-time high of 119.2 billion won ($78.94 million) last year. The record surge suggests the 2019 ‘No Japan’ boycott has faded amid a thaw in relations and a sharp rise in tourism. 

The shift is evident at the retail level. When Sapporo Beer opened its first official outlet in Korea in Seongsu, eastern Seoul, last December, the venue was crowded with visitors. Younger consumers willingly paid 9,000 won for a glass — 30 to 60 percent higher than domestic options and nearly twice the price of some Korean beers.

“The foam is soft and the mouthfeel is different,” a woman in her 30s who visited the store with a friend said.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Here we go again with more Dokdo nonsense from Japan:

South Korea urged Japan on Tuesday to correct its territorial claims over Dokdo, Korea’s easternmost islets, in new high school textbooks, after Tokyo announced the list of state-approved publications for next year.

The foreign ministry called in Hirotaka Matsuo, deputy chief of mission at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, to lodge a complaint, expressing deep regret over the description of distorted facts about the islets.

Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology announced the final list of social studies-related textbooks approved for use in high schools starting next year.

Most of the textbooks describe Dokdo, referred to as Takeshima by Japan, as part of Japanese territory.

The textbooks state that Dokdo was placed under Japanese jurisdiction and incorporated into Shimane Prefecture in 1905, describing South Korea’s control of the islets as “illegal.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

As the war with Iran drags on more governments are going to have to implement fuel saving policies like this:

The government will strictly enforce a mandatory five-day vehicle rotation system for the public sector to respond to possible oil supply disruption amid persisting tensions in the Middle East while implementing additional energy-saving measures, the climate ministry said Tuesday. 

Starting Wednesday, the government will beef up monitoring of the public sector’s compliance with the license plate-based rationing system, under which cars are divided into five groups based on the last digit of their license plate numbers and each group is prohibited from driving on a designated weekday, according to the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment. 

The system has been in place but run loosely. Electric and hydrogen vehicles are exempt from such restrictions.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is going to be interesting to see if over time defectors from this area come down with a higher rate of cancer like what happened to people exposed to radiation at the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombing sites:

A quarter of North Korean defectors from regions near the northeastern Punggye-ri nuclear test site have shown chromosome mutations possibly attributable to exposure to radioactivity, data showed Monday. 

Radioactive exposure tests conducted in 2024 by the Korea Institute of Radiological & Medical Sciences (KIRAMS) on 35 North Korean defectors from eight regions near the Punggye-ri nuclear test site found that 12 of them, or 34 percent, showed chromosome mutations possibly linked to radiation exposure, according to the unification ministry.

The regions include Kilju, Kimchaek and Paekam. Since 2006, the North has conducted all of its six nuclear tests at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, located in Kilju County.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

All the appeasement by President Lee hasn’t matter as Kim Jong-un continues to bash South Korea:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un formally called South Korea the “most hostile state” and warned of merciless consequences if provoked, the North’s state media reported Tuesday.

South Korea “is officially designated as the most hostile nation,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted Kim as saying on the second and final day of the first session of the Supreme People’s Assembly. 

Kim said South Korea will pay the price for any provocation if Seoul provokes Pyongyang, according to the KCNA. 

Kim also said his country’s status as a nuclear weapons state will never change, vowing to make efforts to fight “hostile forces” against Pyongyang.

Yonhap

An authoritarian cult of personality like what North Korea has must have a threat to justify its rule. No matter what President Lee does the Kim regime is going to label South Korea as an enemy. The best they can hope for is to be called a puppet regime of their other enemy the United States. Notice though that Kim has been real quiet about bashing Trump. He seems to understand better than many leaders in the West that if you don’t bash Trump he won’t bash you. Pretty simple.

President Lee is pushing for a self reliant defense of Korea, whatever that means:

President Lee Jae Myung on Monday underscored the importance of self-reliant defense capabilities, citing a “very complex and fluid” international situation, as the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran has disrupted global energy markets. 

“I believe self-reliant defense capability is essential to our integrated security posture,” Lee said during a regular security meeting with senior officials, according to Cheong Wa Dae. “We must be able to defend ourselves without relying on outside assistance, and we do have such capabilities.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but if South Korea has so called self reliant defense capabilities than why is President Lee using them to help open the Strait of Hormuz where much of Korea’s energy passes through? Iran is essentially committing an act of war against South Korea by blockading ships designated to go to South Korea from departing the Persian Gulf.