Category: Korea-General Topics

This is something I had been wondering about because if the fishery official was floating in the water for six hours before being shot by the North Koreans, why didn’t anyone try to rescue him?:

South Korea’s defense ministry said Wednesday there were no such words as “shoot to kill or fire” in the military’s initial intelligence on North Korea’s killing of a South Korean fisheries official in the West Sea. 

The ministry also expressed regret over some reports that said the South’s military took no action despite hearing the North’s order to kill the official. 

“What happened during the incident in which (the North) shot (the South Korean fisheries official) and burned (his body) was determined after a considerable lapse of time by analyzing pieces of intelligence,” the ministry said. 

It also said the military did not know all of the facts of the incident in real time. 

In line with the ministry’s remarks, the South Korean presidential office Cheong Wa Dae denied the reports that the government had full awareness of the situation but did not suitably respond to it.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but this leads me to believe that the ROK military must have cameras and listening devices placed in certain areas or unmanned aerial reconnaissance that they can download as needed to view imagery from in that area.

At the end of the article the journalist admits that she sees know way the U.S. could replicate what South Korea has done because of the different mentality of Americans:

A bag arrived from the local authority the next day that contained a thermometer, a pack of disposable masks, two types of hand sanitizers and a garbage bag. For the two weeks of my quarantine, I would need to discard any of my garbage in the government-mandated bag. I was told it would be collected at the end of my stay.

On day seven of the quarantine, my mom received yet another call from my appointed Covid-19 contact. They wanted to speak with me. I was asked to confirm that I was, in fact, me, before asking some questions and offering mental health services if I required one.

Whenever a new case emerged in a neighboring town, my iPhone would ping with a new notification, the same noise phones make when there is an Amber Alert in the U.S. I would get two or three of these alerts almost every day.

NBC News

You can read more about her whole experience traveling to South Korea under pandemic conditions at the link.

For anyone living in Seoul you might want to avoid driving on October 3rd:

Leading conservative activist groups on Thursday said they will alter their plans for a massive antigovernment protest in downtown Seoul, and instead hold a drive-thru rally to avoid potential blame for subsequent coronavirus infections.  
    
A group of well-known conservative activists, including former Gyeonggi Gov. Kim Moon-soo and Pastor Suh Kyung-suk, held a press conference on Thursday to announce the change. The conservatives earlier had vowed to organize a rally near Gwanghwamun in central Seoul on National Foundation Day on Oct. 3, despite the government ban.    
   
“We will not hold a street gathering on Oct. 3 near Gwanghwamun,” the civic group said in a statement. “We urge other right-wing groups to join our position.”  
   
By law, it’s illegal to rally in large numbers in Seoul under the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s ban on any congregations involving 10 or more people through Oct. 11. Police warned they would arrest anyone who participates in rallies exceeding that limit.  
   
“No matter how serious the Covid-19 outbreak is, we must still express our rage toward the Moon Jae-in administration’s evil deeds and faults,” the statement said. “We believe holding a car parade is the only way to express our voices without falling into the trap of the government.”    
   
Earlier this month, Suh’s group applied for permission to hold a drive-thru rally on Oct. 3 in central Seoul. Suh said over 200 cars will march from Yeouido, western Seoul, to Seocho Police Station through Gwanghwamun from 1 to 5 p.m.    
   
“Because the authorities banned drive-thru rallies with more than 10 cars, we will march in groups of nine cars,” Kim said.   

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Companies pay these parcel workers by each delivery they complete and not by the hour which is the issue at the center of this strike. Likely they are paid this way to encourage quick completion of each delivery to make more money. Pay by the hour would actually encourage working slower to accumulate more hours to be paid:

 Some 4,000 parcel delivery workers will refuse to sort parcels in protest of heavy workloads ahead of the Chuseok holiday, a civic advocacy group said Thursday.

The civic task force working for the rights of delivery workers and associated with the progressive Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) said that the parcel delivery workers will stop sorting out parcels starting from Monday if their demand for additional manpower goes unmet.

“Sorting parcels is the primary reason for their long working hours,” the group said during a press conference at the KCTU headquarters in Seoul. “Half of their working hours of 13-16 hours a day focus only on sorting parcels with no additional pay.” (…….)

The group argued that the workers are paid per delivery and that their time-consuming sorting job goes unpaid.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It appears the Korean government wants to push sex education down into elementary classrooms:

In Korea, the word conservative isn’t quite enough to describe the social ban on the mention of sex especially in the public sphere. Even sex education only lightly touches on the details. Parents complain to schools for teaching students how to use condoms, never mind giving condoms out or showing educational videos about sex.

Last month, seven children’s books on sex and gender education among 199 books that were distributed to schools by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family were recalled after they were criticized by the conservative party for being inappropriate for children. Conservative parents and Christian media alike criticized the books for their “promiscuity” even though many of them have been used to teach children all over the world for decades and recognized for their educational purposes.  

While it has mostly been taken for granted in Korea that sex education is lacking, the recent controversy surrounding these books has reignited the debate on whether something should be done about this status quo. (……..)

On Aug. 25, Rep. Kim Byeong-wook from the opposition People Power Party singled out seven books from the list during an Education Committee meeting held at the National Assembly in Seoul for their “inadequacy” as children’s education books. He claimed the books were “too sexual,” “caused early sexualization” and “beautified homosexuality.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

I hope no one is surprised by so few people coronavirus antibodies when virus suppression has been the main strategy in South Korea:

Only one in 1,440 Koreans in a second round of serology tests has coronavirus antibodies, if the test conducted by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention proves reliable. That translates into just 0.07 percent. 

The second round of tests was conducted between June 10 and Aug. 13 on subjects in 13 cities to see if they might have had symptomatic infections. 

Given 20 percent of COVID-19 infections over the last couple of weeks were not traceable, health officials have believed that quite a number of people would show antibodies. 

The KCDC announced the results of its first serology test on July 9 which showed only one out of 3,055 test cases had coronavirus antibodies (0.03 percent).

Chosun Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but to put this into perspective back in June Sweden reported that 10% of Stockholm residents had the COVID-19 antibody. Sweden is well known for not instituting lockdowns like most other countries have and that led to an initially high death rate. However, for the month of August the daily death rate has dropped significantly into the low single digits with some days with no deaths.

It is still too early to tell which strategy will work and much of it will be determined by if a workable vaccine is actually developed.

This is a pretty amazing narrative of how COVID spread from Seoul to Daejeon:

Citizens in Daejeon, a central city about 150 kilometers south of Seoul, are getting restless as authorities announced Saturday a chain of coronavirus transmissions originating from a health care product business forum has infected 54 people so far.

Daejeon’s latest cluster infection began Aug. 25, when a Seoul resident infected with COVID-19 hosted the forum on health care goods at a building in the In-dong district in the city’s Dong Ward.

A Daejeon woman in her 50s, codenamed Daejeon 293rd Patient, contracted the coronavirus from the Seoul resident and has since spread the virus to 28 other people, including her family members and acquaintances, according to municipal health authorities.

Soon after the business forum, the woman, a resident of Gayang-dong, Dong Ward, met with a number of family members and acquaintances, infecting six of them.

One of her infected acquaintances, identified only as a man in his 60s, visited a restaurant in Gayang-dong later, triggering a chain of coronavirus transmissions in the local community, the authorities explained.

They noted it is regrettable that the man codenamed Daejeon 311th Patient had visited the Gayang-dong restaurant twice, on Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, for 20 minutes each time despite showing symptoms, such as phlegm and loss of taste.

The coronavirus then jumped from the 311th patient to as many as 19 people, including the restaurant’s owner and a middle school student.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but this just shows how prolonged periods in enclosed spaces is where people are contracting this virus.