Category: Korea-General Topics

I bet former President Park Geun-hye probably wishes she could have banned anti-government rallies and jailed news media critical of her like the current Moon administration is doing:

The government on Friday banned rallies scheduled to be held by conservatives in central Seoul to mark National Foundation Day on Oct. 3, in response to fears of another spike in coronavirus cases.  
   
The National Police Agency (NPA) issued no-assembly orders for 78 rallies with more than 10 participants set to take place within prohibited zones. Police have received 291 requests to hold rallies on Oct. 3.  
   
The move was reported by the NPA to the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters that day.  
   
Since Aug. 21, the Seoul Metropolitan Government has enforced a ban on gatherings of more than 10 people in the capital as a part of its social distancing measures to contain the spread of the new coronavirus. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

It seems the international media is starting to take more notice of the corruption and authoritarian streak of the Moon administration:

This drastic decline in public support for the president and the government illustrates not only the volatile nature of South Korea’s democracy, but also the growing backlash against their attempts to make abuse of power the new norm in the country. 

Indeed, since their stunning election victory in April, President Moon and his party have repeatedly undermined the rule of law, ignored the procedures put in place to ensure the separation of powers, and made controversial moves to further their populist agenda and help their allies escape accountability.

After winning the election with a margin unprecedented in South Korea’s democratic history, which enabled it to dominate all 17 standing committees of Parliament, the DP transformed the National Assembly into its own law-passing agency. It rammed through numerous contentious laws, without subcommittee review or any other consultative procedure required under the National Assembly Act. 

The governing party also railroaded a series of housing laws in an attempt to stabilise skyrocketing real estate prices in the Seoul metropolitan area, where half of the country’s population lives. The measures not only failed to bring the housing market under control, but also drew public anger, as they created more hurdles for middle-class first-time-buyers under the age of 40 – the main support group for the government. In July, as real estate prices in the country continued to rise, the Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice, an influential Seoul-based civic group, revealed that 42 governing party legislators elected in the April 15 parliamentary elections owned two or more houses, and made a considerable profit as a result of the soaring real estate prices.

Al Jazeera

You can read much more at the link.

There has been a VANK sighting! I have heard much from these guys since the height of the anti-US movement in South Korea over 10 years ago. Now VANK is taking on Chinese netizens; good luck with that:

The Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK), a civic organization working for public diplomacy for Korea, started an online petition Friday, urging Chinese netizens to stop “cyberbullying” Korean singer Lee Hyo-ri after her Instagram account was bombarded by “malicious” complaints from them.

VANK said it posted an online petition titled “Stop China’s cyber chauvinism which lynched a Korean celebrity!” urging people to sign it.

“We oppose the chauvinistic attitude of attacking others in the name of nationalism, which includes interpreting even the smallest part of an expression in the most vicious and offensive way,” VANK wrote, adding “If we remain silent, this incident will be repeated in the future.”

The move came after Lee received hundreds of thousands “malicious” comments on her Instagram account in Korean, English and Chinese after she said in MBC’s reality show “Hangout with Yoo” that “What about a Chinese name? We can go global with it. How about ‘Mao’?” She made the remarks while brainstorming about a faux Chinese stage name. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but VANK was basically Korea’s version of the 50 Cent Army during the peak of Anti-Americanism in the ROK. They would look for any slight to Korea made by foreigners, especially Americans and U.S. military and attack them online for it. So now we basically have two 50 Cent Armies going after each other now.

This is the 10th tropical storm to hit the region this summer which is leaving Korea’s mountains and rivers extremely waterlogged:

The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters said Haishen temporarily disrupted power supply to 75,237 houses nationwide, with around 34 percent of them still waiting for power to return.

One person was reported missing and five others were injured as of 4:30 p.m., while 124 had to flee their homes that were destroyed. More than 2,600 have been moved to shelters as a precautionary measure.

In Samcheok, Gangwon Province, a man in his 40s was reported missing at around 11:23 a.m. He was believed to have been swept away in a flooded waterway.

Five residents and a couple in their 70s were rescued by firefighters in Yangyang and Samcheok, both in Gangwon Province, respectively.

A body of a man in his 40s, whom coast guard officials said was suffering from personal issues, was found in seas at the southeastern port city of Busan. Police are looking into whether his death is related to the typhoon.

In Ulsan where Haishen made landfall earlier in the day, the typhoon temporarily knocked out power at the assembly lines of Hyundai Motors, South Korea’s biggest carmaker by sales, which produces such models as the Genesis G90 and G80. Similar power outages were also reported at a factory of Hyundai Mobis Co., the country’s biggest auto parts maker.

In Busan, the typhoon cut off power, toppled trees and snapped a traffic light in its path.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Typhoon Haishen has thankfully decreased in strength, but it is still going to be a strong storm people need to prepare for:

While no longer a super typhoon, Haishen was the first in 2020 to reach that status as it started swinging towards Japan and South Korea.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) defines a super typhoon as one that reaches maximum sustained one-minute surface winds of at least 150 mph (241.4 km/h), which is equivalent to a Category 4 or 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale in the Atlantic basin.

On Saturday morning, the JTWC said Haishen’s maximum sustained winds are 212 km/h, with gusts reaching as high as 259 km/h — equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane.

Haishen could hit or at least pass very close to Japan Sunday as the equivalent of a Category 2 storm before tracking into South Korea as a Category 1 storm by Monday morning.

You can read more at the link.

It appears the Moon administration may have blinked a bit to end the doctors’ strike:

Thousands of senior and junior doctors decided Friday to end a weekslong collective action after reaching a deal with health authorities and the ruling party to review a medical reform plan, but trainee doctors are still threatening to continue their walkout.

Doctors at general hospitals and other medical institutes have been protesting a slew of issues, including raising admission quotas at medical schools and establishing a new public medical school.

Under the agreement, the government will not push forward with the medical reform plan unilaterally, and will reflect doctors’ voices in the scheme.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but does anyone think the Moon administration will just ram through their reforms with little care of what doctors think once the pandemic ends?

Here is the carnage from the latest typhoon to hit South Korea:

Typhoon Maysak swept across South Korea, leaving two people dead and three others injured, causing power outages, disrupting transportation and damaging homes and farmland, authorities said Thursday. The weather agency warns of another typhoon, possibly even more powerful than Mayak, to strike the country early next week. 

Casualties and damages from Maysak, the ninth typhoon of this season, were mainly in the southern part of the country, where it came ashore early Thursday morning with top winds of 45 meters per second, the fourth strongest in history, before weakening to a tropical depression at around noon in the East Sea. 

According to the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters, a woman in her 60s died of severe bleeding from glass shards after strong guests shattered the windows of her apartment unit in Busan. Another, a man in 50s, also suffered cuts from broken windows at his apartment unit also in the southeastern port city. 

Some 22 people from 17 households saw their homes destroyed by the typhoon, while some 2,280 people from 1,505 households had to temporarily evacuate from their homes in a precautionary measure. 

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.