Author: GIKorea

You can read more at the link, but President Moon is likely betting that the majority of the Korean media will continue to cover for the ruling party’s sexual misconduct scandals:

Questions are rising over why President Moon Jae-in is not making any mention of a series of sexual harassment scandals involving star politicians of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK).

His silence on the issue is considered unusual, given that he had pledged to be a “feminist President,” and has underscored the need for supporting and empowering women and put a special emphasis on raising the proportion of female leaders in his Cabinet and the presidential office.

There was an expectation that Moon, during Monday’s meeting with senior aides, would mention the death of former Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon and the allegations that he sexually abused his secretary ― a case that has made headlines in the local media since Park was found dead in an apparent suicide, July 10.

But Moon failed to mention anything related to the Park scandal. The President has also distanced himself from the sexual violence scandals of other DPK heavyweights, such as former South Chungcheong Province Governor An Hee-jung and former Busan Mayor Oh Keo-don. Both politicians stepped down from office due to #MeToo allegations from women who worked closely with them.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

SpaceX has just put up South Korea’s first military communications satellite:

South Korea’s first military communications satellite was launched into space Monday, Seoul’s arms procurement agency said, making the country the world’s 10th to own a communications satellite for military purposes only.

The Anasis-II satellite lifted off atop a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket manufactured by U.S commercial space firm SpaceX from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 5:30 p.m. (U.S. time), according to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA).

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I wonder who they are conducting clinical trials on if they claim they have no coronavirus cases?:

North Korea is developing a vaccine for COVID-19 Pyongyang’s science research council said Saturday. 

According to a report posted on Mirae, the website run by the North’s State Commission of Science and Technology, its scientists are currently conducting clinical trials on a vaccine for the novel coronavirus. 

The report said the vaccine development was being led by a medical biology institute under the North’s Academy of Medical Science using angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). 

North Korea claimed it has confirmed the immunogenicity and safety of its candidate vaccine through animal tests and that clinical trials started this month. 

The reclusive state, which has yet to report a single virus case in the country, added that scientists are in discussions on conducting the third phase of the clinical study. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Not that I think this will happen, but wouldn’t this be an ethical dilemma for the world if North Korea developed a coronavirus vaccine?

Another Korean journalist is heading to jail and yet the international media doesn’t seem to even care:

Another journalist, Woo Jong-chang (우종창, 63), is jailed in South Korea after being convicted of the “crime” of “libel” for announcing “false information.”  On July 17, 2020, Judge Ma Seong-yeong (마성영) (with judges Kim Young-hwan 김영환 and Yoon Jeong-un 윤정운 on the team) of the Seoul Northern District Criminal Court sentenced journalist Woo Jong-chang to eight months in jail for libel and “Violation of the Act on Promotion of Information and Communication Network Utilization and Information Protection” and imprisoned him.  When the sentence was announced, a woman sitting in the court yelled out, “Is this a dictatorship? How can this happen?”

Judge Ma Seong-yeong stated, “As a journalist, he did not even go through the process of confirming the minimum facts and forced false information through broadcasting.” 

East Asia Research Center

I highly recommend that everyone read the whole article from Dr. Tara O at the link. If what Woo reported on his Youtube channel from a tip he received is true it would be very problematic for the Blue House.

However, could you imagine what would happen to the U.S. news media if every tip they reported on led to them being prosecuted for libel and put in jail?

Despite President Moon’s overall great handling of the coronavirus pandemic that saw his popularity rise to 70% in April, his support has sharply dropped because of the growing scandals:

One of the things that has set President Moon Jae-in apart from his predecessors is that his popularity rating has enjoyed a stable level throughout his presidency since May 2017.

But latest surveys reflect a noticeable loss of public confidence in President Moon and his administration in the past few weeks due to some glaring policy missteps, including those related to real estate.

However, the increased disappointment is not with the missteps themselves but the “two-faced” attitude and discordance between words and actions by some of the President’s key aides and ranking government officials. The disappointment stems from the fact that the Moon administration was launched under the banner of “fairness and justice.”

This hypocrisy was highlighted by the recent controversy surrounding chief of staff Noh Young-min, who belatedly followed his own recommendation he had made late last year for senior presidential aides owning more than one home to sell off all properties other than their main residence. The recommendation came in response to rising public discontent toward the government’s failure to contain soaring housing prices.

When Cheong Wa Dae announced earlier this month that the chief of staff would sell one of his two homes, the public became even more angry because the decision to sell a less lucrative apartment in Cheongju, South Chungcheong Province, was seen as a move to retain a more valuable property in Seoul’s Seocho-gu. Yoon Seong-won, presidential secretary for land, infrastructure and transport, was criticized for a similar move, trying to keep a more expensive property in southern Seoul instead of a house in Sejong City, the nation’s as-yet underdeveloped administrative capital.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the article also mentions the Cho Kuk Scandal as another major factor of discontent that people remember. Not mentioned in the article are all the other scandals such as the Druking Scandal, the Comfort Women Scandal, the Real Estate Speculation Scandal, and various election interference scandals.

With that all said 44% for a Korean President is still not a horrible number and well above his all time low of 39% that occurred during the Cho Kuk Scandal. However, if the trend continues he could find himself back at 39% very soon.

This shouldn’t be surprising news to anyone following the US-ROK cost sharing negotiations:

The Pentagon has offered the White House options to reduce American troop levels in South Korea, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the paper said the options were presented in March following a broader review of options for withdrawing troops from around the world, including in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Asia.

The White House requested the review last fall, and by December, the Pentagon had come up with broad ideas, it said.

No decision has yet been made to reduce the number of U.S. forces stationed in South Korea from the current 28,500, according to the WSJ.

Yonhap

You can read more at link, but President Trump has already reduced U.S. troop levels in Germany over cost sharing issues and he has been having the same monetary disagreements with South Korea. This report I suspect was leaked to the Wall Street Journal in order to pressure the Korean side that Trump is serious about USFK troop withdrawals.

However, this all may be playing out as Korean President Moon Jae-in wants it to play out. Moon is a very skilled politician that needs to keep the Korean right at bay and public anxiety down.  If he openly advocated for a USFK withdrawal, that would give the South Korean right an issue to strongly attack him with and cause much public anxiety after decades of security guarantees provided by US forces.  

This is why President Moon has been saying all the right things that USFK should remain, to include claiming Kim Jong-un understands this as well. However, if troop withdrawals do happen he has political cover to not be blamed for it by claiming President Trump’s monetary demands were unreasonable which is a position likely a majority of Koreans believe.