Author: GIKorea

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Like many reports from North Korea who knows how true this report this:

 North Korea appears to be enforcing home classes for elementary school students as a way to avoid classroom gatherings amid nationwide anti-coronavirus efforts, according to state media reports.

Uriminzokkiri, one of the North’s propaganda websites, said that elementary school teachers in Pyongyang are visiting homes of their students every three days for education as vacation continues.

“With the vacation for kids in place, such a new schedule has been started,” the website said. “As long as there are kids, this holds true for any district, ward and unit.”

The North had extended winter vacation for students until early June amid the global coronavirus pandemic. The report suggests that the North has extended summer vacation again by delaying the start of autumn semesters.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Over at the Lowy Institute which is an Australian think tank, they have article published speculating that South Korea could in the near future become a neutral nation:

Around five years ago, I submitted an article to a leading strategic studies journal detailing how options previously considered extreme – such as abandoning the US alliance, acceding to China’s dominance, declaring a position of neutrality and/or securing a nuclear weapons capacity – were entering strategic debate in South Korea. Their assessment was that such views were unrealistic and fanciful. One Trump administration later, and these views have entered mainstream political debate in South Korea. It’s time to realise that strategic change on the Korean peninsula will not come from North Korea – strategic change will come from South Korea.

Lowy Institute

You can read the rest at the link, but the author Jeffrey Robinson seems to be putting blame on the Trump administration for South Korea pursuing these different options. I would argue Trump has little to do with South Korea’s current political trajectory. I believe that current President Moon Jae-in is far more the reason for South Korea’s current political trajectory than Trump.

President Moon has long had a policy of appeasement with North Korea. His policy of appeasement stretches back to when he was former President Roh Moo-hyun’s Chief of Staff. Back in those days the ROK government was funding the North Korea regime more than they were contributing to the US-ROK alliance. The Kim regime of course used all that funding to further modernize their military, expand their nuclear weapons program, and build an ICBM capability instead of investing in the welfare of their people.

It has been effectively argued that the Moon administration’s ultimate goal if they are able to get sanctions eased is to pursue a confederacy with North Korea. To get to a confederacy a Korean War peace treaty is needed which would then pave the way for the end of the US-ROK alliance. That is why the South Korean left and the Kim regime has been relentlessly pushing for a Korean War peace treaty; if there is peace why is USFK needed? With sanctions eased and no USFK there is little reason to think the Korean left cannot push forward with their confederacy agenda.

A confederacy would leave the ROK at the mercy of the Kim regime’s nuclear weapons and China’s good will to keep North Korea in check. To keep North Korea in check the ROK would likely need to become a neutral nation in the strategic power competition in the region between China and the U.S. This would effectively Findlandize the ROK under China’s orbit. The anti-U.S. Korean left seems to prefer this inevitably instead of the current status quo that has brought unprecedented wealth and prosperity to South Korea.

The only thing that has stopped the confederacy agenda has been the Trump administration’s hardline stance on sanctions and denuclearization before any peace treaty. This clearly shows that Trump is not the cause, but instead the impediment to the Moon administration moving forward with their post-US-ROK alliance confederacy agenda.

The Moon administration wants everyone to believe that the President did not know anything about the Justice Ministers attempt to oust the Prosecutor General for daring to investigate Blue House corruption:

Moon’s silence is widely seen as supporting Choo’s handling of the conflict with the top prosecutor, who, according to the minister, has not only committed various misdeeds but also violated the political neutrality required of a senior civil servant. Yoon, who has recently emerged as a favorite in polls for potential presidential candidates, has expressed, albeit tacitly, that he would consider a life in politics after his term ends in July next year.

The opposition parties are expressing their anger at the move by Choo, accusing Moon of trying to oust Yoon because he had initiated investigations into corruption allegations involving presidential aides. “The President himself should speak about the lawlessness of the justice minister,” Rep. Joo Ho-young, floor leader of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP), said in a statement. 

Joo criticized the President for being a coward. “If the President is discontent with the prosecutor general, he should take on the political responsibility and dismiss Yoon. The suspension of the prosecutor is a very regrettable moment in our legal history. The entire administration has been mobilized to oust the prosecutor general for baseless reasons.” 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The ROK military has now been locked down on post to help stop the spread of the coronavirus in South Korea:

The military decided to temporarily ban all troops from vacationing and taking off-installation trips after cluster infections were reported at an Army boot camp amid a nationwide spike in virus cases, the defense ministry said Thursday.

Until Dec. 7, all troops will be subject to tightened social distancing rules in barracks, with vacationing and off-installation visits to be suspended starting Friday, according to the ministry. 

Officers are restricted from having private meetings, while in-person religious gatherings and business trips are also banned. 

“Troops who violate the rules, resulting in a COVID-19 infection or its spread to others will be strongly reprimanded,” the ministry said in a release. 

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

South Korea’s daily coronavirus case rate has now reached the same levels of when Daegu was ground zero for the global pandemic back in March:

The daily number of novel coronavirus cases in South Korea surpassed 500 for the first time in over eight months on Thursday due to sporadic cluster infections across the country as health authorities strive to curb a third wave of infections. 

The country added 583 more COVID-19 cases, including 553 local infections, raising the total caseload to 32,318, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

It marks the first time that the country’s daily virus cases exceeded 500 since March 6, when the figure reached 518 due to a massive outbreak in the southeastern city of Daegu. 

It is also above the peak in the country’s second wave of virus infections on Aug. 27, when 441 cases were confirmed in a single day.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the ROK Army cluster infection is now up to 68 cases, a dance academy in Seoul had 66 cases, a sauna in Seoul had 48 cases, and a Korean traditional drum class in Ulsan had 53 cases. It is pretty clear that large group gathers indoors is what drives the spread of the coronavirus when looking at these numbers.