Author: GIKorea

This is a pretty big statement being directed towards China from the Pentagon:

Taiwan’s Naval Command on Monday (Nov. 9) confirmed media reports that a contingent of U.S. Marines have arrived at the invitation of Taiwan’s military and will begin training Taiwanese troops for four weeks starting that day, marking the first public acknowledgment of U.S. Marines training in Taiwan in over 40 years.

Starting on Monday, the Marine Raiders, the Marines’ special operations soldiers, will begin training Taiwanese Marines in assault boat and speedboat infiltration operations at the Tsoying Naval Base in Kaohsiung, reported UDN. This is the first interaction between Taiwanese troops and those of an allied country since the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) put a halt to such exchanges about seven or eight months ago.

Taiwan News via a reader tip

You can read more at the link.

This is going to be great news for the travel industry once this vaccine gets released:

South Korean travel-related stocks rallied Tuesday on growing hopes that the COVID-19 pandemic could be subdued after U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. reported promising results for its new coronavirus vaccine.

Pfizer announced Monday (U.S. time) that its vaccine candidate developed with BioNTech SE was found to be more than 90 percent effective in preventing COVID-19, signaling progress in the global fight against the pandemic.

Local airline stocks, which have taken a beating this year from the pandemic, were buoyed by the report.

Shares in South Korea’s largest carrier, Korean Air Lines Co., soared 11.24 percent to 24,250 won (US$22), outperforming the broader KOSPI’s 0.23 percent gain. The carrier’s stock price spiked as high as 23.62 percent during the session.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but anyone think that this will be called the Biden Vaccine by the media once it is available to be released?

The article is right that Michelle Flournoy likely becoming the next Secretary of Defense was not a well kept secret:

On June 20, 2016, then-Vice President Joe Biden delivered keynote remarks at an event hosted by the Center for a New American Security, the think tank founded and, at that point, led by Michèle Flournoy.

Flournoy introduced Biden, praising him as a national security thinker and noting the ties between his staff at the White House and CNAS. Biden, in turn, acknowledged the little-kept secret of the defense world: that Flournoy was in line to become the first woman to serve as defense secretary under President Hillary Clinton.

“Well, madam secretary,” Biden said with a laugh as the crowd applauded. “I’m writing a recommendation for her, you know.”

The Clinton administration never materialized, following the election of President Donald Trump. But four years later, president-elect Biden is widely expected to fulfill his promise and tap Flournoy to lead the U.S. military.

Defense News

You can read more at the link, but supposedly Tammy Duckworth is interested in the position as well. Flournoy is way more qualified especially when you consider the difficulties Duckworth had running the Illinois VA. What creates confidence that she could run a much larger organization like the Pentagon?

Foreigners in South Korea may soon have some new trash bags to help them understand the recycling process:

The Gyeonggi Provincial Government rolled out plans Monday to encourage every city in the province to include common foreign languages — like Chinese and English — on their authorized garbage bags to improve recycling.  
   
Gyeonggi, which surrounds the capital of Seoul, is known to have the largest foreign-born population out of all provinces and metropolitan cities in Korea. Some 720,000 people, or 32.5 percent of all foreigners living in Korea, reside in Gyeonggi, the provincial government said.  
   
Currently eight cities in Gyeonggi have some form of foreign language instructions on their garbage bags, the provincial government said Monday in a statement — Suwon, Bucheon, Hwaseong, Ansan, Pyeongtaek, Gwangmyeong, Gunpo and Dongducheon. 

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I have been saying for months that reacting to cluster infections would be the new reality for South Korea until a vaccine is developed and it appears that this will be the case:

South Korea’s new coronavirus cases rose by triple digits for the second day Monday, with a series of cluster infections being reported from venues of everyday life, ranging from markets to family gatherings, straining the country’s anti-virus fight.

The country added 126 more COVID-19 cases, including 99 local infections, raising the total caseload to 27,553, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

It marked a slight drop from 143 cases added on Sunday, but Monday’s caseloads are relatively high given the lower number of tests carried out over the weekend.

South Korea, which has been striving to curb COVID-19 from hospitals and nursing homes, recently saw more sporadic cluster infections at risk-prone facilities, such as nursing homes and private gatherings.

Over the past two weeks, around 35.7 percent of the newly added cases have been group infections, with some 13.6 percent not having clear transmission routes.

Yonhap

South Korea might be stressing about being in triple digits of daily coronavirus infections in a country of 51 million people, but this is basically what large U.S. cities are facing every day. For example the city of El Paso, Texas when I checked their dashboard had 899 new cases.

This is likely a trial balloon for something that will eventually be implemented on the rest of the country:

Seoul City will ban high-emission cars from the roads in the greater metro area from December to March as part of efforts to reduce fine dust during the winter months.

The city government announced on Sunday that anyone caught driving vehicles classified as Grade 5 in terms of emission levels inside the capital region will be fined 100-thousand won from December.

People can face fines if they drive Grade 5 vehicles without an emission-reduction device from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays in the capital region.

As of September, there are about one-point-46 million vehicles nationwide that fall into this grade.

KBS World Radio

I doubt that this will do much of anything in regards to the pollution when the majority of it is coming from China. This seems like the Korean government is saying they are “doing something” when they know the problem is unsolvable as long as China doesn’t change its own pollution policies.