Author: GIKorea

It looks like this could start another diplomatic back and forth between Korea and Japan when things have been quiet the past few months due to COVID:

 A local court has decided to begin a legal procedure that could lead to liquidating seized assets of a Japanese firm that has ignored a ruling to compensate Korean victims of Japan’s wartime forced labor.

According to the legal representatives for four Korean plaintiffs Wednesday, the Pohang branch of Daegu District Court, in southeastern Korea, decided Monday to take the legal procedure of “delivery of public notice,” where a court ruling is considered to have been delivered to a defendant who fails to respond either purposely or with invalid address.

The decision was made as the Japanese foreign ministry has failed to pass the document containing the Korean court’s asset seizure ruling to Japan’s Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but you know things are getting back to normal with the Koreans and Japanese have time to start bashing each other again.

By the way I wonder if anyone is going to seize any assets from Yoon Mi-hyang who has allegedly swindled millions from the comfort women?

It looks like the balloon launches that bring propaganda leaflets over the border in North Korea will soon be stopped by the Moon administration:

The government is working on a plan to legislate a ban on sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets into the communist nation, the unification ministry said Thursday, hours after North Korea railed against such leaflets and threatened to scrap a no-hostility military pact with the South.

The envisioned legislation is aimed at preventing chilly inter-Korean relations from deteriorating further, but enacting a law banning leaflet-sending could spark an outcry over the possible infringement of the right to freedom of expression.

The announcement came hours after Kim Yo-jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, issued a statement denouncing the flying-in of such propaganda leaflets as a hostile act that runs counter to peace agreements the two sides signed during summit talks of their leaders in 2018.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but Kim Yo-jong claims the leaflets are causing environmental pollution. I wonder if she will send the activists that send these balloons tickets for littering?

It appears that President Duterte was bluffing in regards to ending the US-Philippines defense pact:

The Philippine president has suspended his decision to terminate a key defense pact with the United States, at least temporarily avoiding a major blow to one of America’s oldest alliances in Asia.

Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said Tuesday he dispatched a diplomatic note to the U.S. ambassador in Manila informing the U.S. government that the Philippines is delaying its decision to abrogate the Visiting Forces Agreement by at least six months.

Washington immediately welcomed the move.

“Our longstanding alliance has benefited both countries,” the U.S. government said in a statement released by its embassy in Manila. “We look forward to continued close security and defense cooperation with the Philippines.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more a the link, but but Duterte is probably going to keep suspending this decision in order to keep pressure on the U.S. to give in to whatever demands he wants.

All the looting going on is horrible for small business owners to include many Korean-Americans:

Nights are long these days for many Koreans in every corner of the U.S.

Rioting and looting have become nightly events in major cities and small towns alike, and Korean mom-and-pop stores are just some of the countless businesses that continue to get ransacked, robbed and destroyed by angry mobs all across the nation.

“This is just like the LA riots all over again,” said Nancy Kim, 44, who owns a clothing shop near Koreatown in Los Angeles. “I was only 16 when the riots happened here, but I still suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder from the horrifying scenes. I can’t believe almost 30 years later, we’re doing this all over again.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but according to the Joong Ang Ilbo the California National Guard has deployed to Koreatown which has prevented it from being attacked like they were back in 1992. Those riots led to the “Rooftop Koreans” meme.

A temporary deal has been reached to get Korean employees back to work on U.S. bases:

 The United States and South Korea agreed to a $200 million stopgap measure allowing more than 4,000 local base employees to return to work after months of unpaid leave, despite the allies’ failure to reach a broader defense cost-sharing deal.

The Pentagon said Wednesday that it has accepted Seoul’s proposal to fund the labor costs for all South Korean employees of U.S. Forces Korea through the end of this year amid stalled talks on reaching a new contract known as the Special Measures Agreement.

“This decision effectively ends the partial furlough,” USFK commander Gen. Robert Abrams said in a separate statement. “We expect our entire workforce to return back to USFK within the next few weeks.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but it appears there is still no long term cost sharing deal that is going to happen any time soon.

Inflatable characters are seen in the stands Sunday at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Songpa District, southern Seoul, while the Doosan Bears face off against the Lotte Giants. The KBO last Thursday announced plans to continue no-spectator games for several more weeks after recent spikes in Covid-19 cases in Korea. [YONHAP]

Leave it to the usual suspects to be upset that the THAAD battery in South Korea is getting updated missiles to better protect the country:

 The defense ministry stuck to its flat-out denial Monday of any upgrades to a U.S. THAAD missile defense base in South Korea after a series of reports suggested that last week’s transport of military hardware into the base was aimed at upgrading or strengthening the unit.

On Friday, the U.S. Forces Korea brought new interceptor missiles as well as other military hardware and equipment for facility construction onto its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system base in the central town of Seongju by ground, according to the ministry. 

Officials here made it clear that the missiles were to replace expired ones and that no additional launchers were brought in. They also stressed that the transport has nothing to do with the U.S. project to upgrade the batteries.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.