Here is some good news for Korean students looking to study in the U.S.:
The United States government rescinded its controversial decision to revoke foreign student visas whose courses move online due to coronavirus, a federal judge said Tuesday.
The universities of Harvard and MIT, with the support of a number of other institutions, had taken legal action against the move that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced on July 6.
“The government has agreed to rescind” the decision as well as any implementation of the directive, Judge Allison Burroughs said in a brief hearing.
A portrait of the late Paik Sun-yup, a famous Korean War hero and South Korea’s first four-star general, is placed on a memorial altar set up at the Asan Medical Center in Seoul, Saturday. Paik passed away at the age 99 the previous day. Yonhap
The death of Paik Sun-yup, a Korean War hero and South Korea’s first four-star general, has brought an ideological controversy to the political and civic arenas over where he should be buried due to his record of service in the Japanese Army during Japan’s colonial rule of Korea (1910-45).
While he has been highly recognized as a war hero by the South Korean and U.S. militaries, and his contributions during the war entitled him to be buried in a national cemetery, opponents claim he doesn’t deserve the honor due to his alleged pro-Japanese activities.
After Paik passed away, Friday, at the age of 99, the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs and the South Korean Army said the next day that they decided to have his body buried at a graveyard for former generals at Daejeon National Cemetery, at the request of the bereaved family.
According to the relevant law, the nation’s first four-star general is fully entitled to be buried in the cemetery.
But some liberal politicians and civic groups are claiming he should not be buried there, calling him a pro-Japanese collaborator.
In 1941 during Japan’s colonial rule of Korea, he became an officer of the Manchukuo Imperial Army. Manchukuo was a puppet state set up by Japan in Manchuria. According to the Center for Historical Truth and Justice, the army fought against Korean independence fighters. In 2009, he was included on a list of pro-Japanese collaborators issued by a presidential truth-finding committee.
You can read more at the link, but General Paik has denied ever hunting down Korean guerrillas during his service in the Manchukuo Imperial Army. Additionally this truth-finding committee was operated by the Korean left to go after conservatives and the U.S. military during the Roh Moo-hyun years. ROK Heads may remember this was the same group who attacked the U.S. military for the fraudulent massacre at No Gun Ri that they could find no physical evidence to support. Any findings from this group are bias and should be suspect.
I continue to maintain that if the Korean left prevents General Paik from being buried in the National Cemetery then an offer should be made for him to be interred in the United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Busan. There I believe he would be properly recognized for his contributions during the Korean War and to the nation of South Korea.
Arrivals receive instructions from health officials at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, on July 12, 2020. (Yonhap)
South Korea on Monday started to require foreigners arriving from high-risk countries to submit a certificate showing they tested negative for the new coronavirus, as a steady rise in imported cases has strained its anti-virus fight.
All foreign arrivals from the four countries — Bangladesh, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan — are obligated to hand in health certificates proving they have tested negative for COVID-19 on a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test.
South Korea has also ordered regular flights from such countries to limit the number of passengers to 60 percent of capacity. Those who depart for countries with large outbreaks will face strict entry processes when returning to South Korea, health authorities said.
YOON Mee-hyang, #comfortwomen exploiter who used old victims & stole their, gov't, corp & donors' funds, has yet to be questioned by prosecutors 2 mo into scandal. She's protected by Moon. Park escaped #DPRK murder attempt, harassed by police lately, & now this. #Revictimizationhttps://t.co/lUQiJFqLU0
Here is the latest update on the suicide of Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon:
Park Won-soon
On Friday, city authorities unveiled a note Park left at his official residence.
Park said he is “sorry” to everyone and specifically mentioned that he is sorry to his family for “causing only pain.”
He asked to be cremated and be scattered at his parent’s graves. The message did not mention the sexual harassment allegations raised against Park.
The mayor was reportedly facing a probe into the allegations after a female former secretary filed a criminal complaint on Wednesday over unwanted “physical contact” and “inappropriate” messages.
In accordance with the law, the case was automatically terminated upon the mayor’s death. (…….)
When asked whether the city plans to open an investigation, city officials said they are “not yet aware” of the allegations and have not reviewed such plan.
The city government said that Park’s funeral will be held in the fashion of a mayoral funeral for five days. Funerals in Korea generally last for three days.
You can read more at the link, but it is becoming pretty clear why Park committed suicide. Instead of being reviled and possibly jailed for sexual misconduct like what happened to former Governor An Jee-hung, Park is being honored and revered. The sexual misconduct allegations will slowly be forgotten.
The commissioner of Korea Immigration Services is saying that the country needs to accept more immigrants in a Korea Times interview:
Without the inflow of foreign workers, Korea is already shrinking.
After deaths outnumbered births for the first time in November 2019, the gap has widened since. A chronically low birthrate, which hit an all-time low of 0.92 that year, suggests that the trend is only going to accelerate and that the country will face massive labor shortages in the decades to come if nothing changes.
Years of government efforts to reverse the trend have been futile, leaving the country with the difficult choice of enduring the shock of a rapid decrease in the population or turning to immigration.
Without immigration, the risk is that the population will continue to decrease and fail to provide enough taxpayers to fund social welfare and medical costs that will grow as the country ages.
Cha Gyu-geun, commissioner of the Korea Immigration Service (KIS), says the time has come to face that reality and the country, at the very least, should start discussing the issue openly before it is too late.
According to the YTN News report Mayor Park was found dead in slopes of Bukhansan mountain near Waryong Park. The below map shows where the park is located at in Seoul with red tree icon:
It has not been confirmed if this is suicide yet or not, but according to what this daughter has said, it does appear to be a suicide. If confirmed this would be the second major political suicide since 2009 to rock South Korea. In 2009 former President Roh Moo-hyun committed suicide when him and his family was faced with corruption probes.
It looks like there will be fewer Koreans studying in the United States this Fall:
This photo illustration shows a visa stamp on a foreign passport in Los Angeles on June 6, 2020. The United States said June 6 it would not allow foreign students to remain in the country if all of their classes are moved online in the fall over the coronavirus crisis.
International students in the United States on student visas cannot attend a university this fall if their studies are entirely online, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Monday.
In a statement, ICE announced that students on non-immigrant F-1 and M-1 visas who attend universities that operate entirely online amid the COVID-19 pandemic “may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States.”
“The U.S. Department of State will not issue visas to students enrolled in schools and/or programs that are fully online for the fall semester, nor will the U.S. Customs and Border Protection permit these students to enter the United States,” ICE said.
The agency added that F-1 students who attend schools that provide a mixture of online and in-person classes will be permitted to take some online courses.
You can read more at the link, but the loss of these students coming to the U.S. will be a blow to the universities and local communities. This is because they will lose money from them staying in the dorms and spending money living in the community. Additionally I would not be surprised if many of these students just drop out since they can’t travel to the U.S. to attend thus the schools will lose the tuition money as well.
