Category: Korea-General Topics

Here is the latest Moon administration attack on the human rights group that send leaflets into North Korea:

The government is seeking stronger measures against activist and North Korean defectors groups that have been sending anti-North Korea leaflets across the inter-Korean border, stating that their campaigns are not helping to create peace on the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea watchers say that the government’s tough stance could lead to the campaigns losing ground here. 

On Monday, the Ministry of Unification held a hearing to give two North Korean defectors’ groups a final opportunity to justify their actions before it makes a decision on whether to revoke their civic group licenses, following their sending of propaganda leaflets, rice and other items across the border. 

“We held a hearing today for Fighters for a Free North Korea and Kuensaem,” the ministry said in a press statement. “After checking whether there are any additional documents they need to submit, we will proceed with the license revocation and other related procedures.”

If their licenses are annulled, they will not be able to hold official fundraisers. Currently, donors for activist groups are eligible for various tax benefits.

“Individuals can donate, but their contribution could be seen as a donation of their property, which means they may have to pay gift taxes,” ministry spokesman Yoh Sang-key said. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but this is the state of affairs in Korea right now. Leaders running human rights groups trying to make change in North Korea will have to pay taxes for donations while leaders of comfort women groups get to embezzle the money and then get appointed to the National Assembly to avoid prosecution.

The coronavirus response in South Korea continues to battle cluster infections:

The number of South Korea’s daily COVID-19 cases bounced back to over 50 on Saturday amid another outbreak of cluster infections traced to a major church in Seoul.

A total of 51 people tested positive for the new coronavirus, according to data collated during the last 24 hours by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).

Among them, 31 people contracted the virus via community spread, while 20 cases were imported, it announced.

They included 15 in Seoul, 12 in nearby Gyeonggi Province and two in Daejeon, some 160 kilometers south of the capital.

In particular, nine people were added to the list of COVID-19 patients related to Wangsung Church in the southwestern ward of Gwanak, which has emerged as a source of cluster infections. It is known to have more than 1,700 followers.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is pretty clear to me anyway that President Moon did not want to single out North Korea as a security threat and instead made this broad statement:

Pledging a tough response to “provocations from any direction” in his Korean War anniversary speech this week, South Korean President Moon Jae-in was talking about “comprehensive security,” not just North Korea, his office said Friday.

The previous night, Moon attended the Seoul Air Base ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the war and stressed, “Our military has strength to ward off any threat.”

He added, “It has a thorough readiness posture and will never allow even a handspan of our territory on land, sea or air to be violated again.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the only military threats to South Korea are from North Korea and their Chinese backers. However, to a South Korean leftist they actually believe Japan is a bigger security threat.

It is interesting how the Moon administration is putting more pressure on a human rights activist to change his behavior than they ever have on the Kim regime to modify their behavior:

Police on Friday searched the house and office of a former North Korean defector who has been at the center of the anti-Pyongyang leafleting campaign in South Korea, denounced vehemently by North Korea. 

The national security probe team of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency dispatched officials to search the home and office in Seoul of Park Sang-hak, who heads Fighters for a Free North Korea, an activist group that has been leading the campaign to send anti-North Korean propaganda leaflets across the border. 

The police officials combed through Park’s places in Songpa Ward, eastern Seoul, to secure potential evidence.

“The search is part of efforts to seize materials so that we could verify if Park’s activities are in breach of law,” a police officer said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the Moon administration is searching his house and making a media spectacle out of it to force him to have to move. ROK Heads may remember that Park Sang-Hak in the past has faced assassination attempts by North Korean agents and had leftist thugs assault him to stop his balloon protests.

With his address now disclosed he will have to move to avoid the leftist crazies that will be coming after him. I would have to think that Park and his group knew this day was coming as soon as Moon Jae-in was elected President and have some kind of contingency plan in place to lay low for a while.

ROK Heads may remember that Park Sang-hak who leads the defector group, Fighters for a Free North Korea has been subject to assassination attempts before by North Korea. The ROK media appears eager to help North Korea finish the job.

Here is the latest on the coronavirus spread in South Korea:

South Korea’s virus fight is dragging on, with a steady rise in new virus cases and untraceable infections, along with a spike in imported cases. Health authorities warned that another possible wave of infections and “hidden” virus spreaders across the country may strain the country’s containment efforts.

The country added 49 new cases on Friday, including 32 local infections, raising the total caseload to 12,306, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).

The number of new daily COVID-19 cases marks a slight slowdown from a three-week high of 59 a day earlier.

Of the locally transmitted cases, 26 were reported in the densely populated Seoul and nearby metropolitan areas, around half of the country’s 50-million population lives.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but something never mentioned in these articles is if the infection level is such that the hospitals can’t keep up. It appears that the hospitals are doing fine considering the death toll right now is 280 people:

Health authorities said that the country may roll back to strict distancing in daily life if the number of new cases falls back to single digits.

There were no additional deaths, keeping the total death toll to 280.

The fatality rate came to 2.27 percent, but it shot up to 25.65 percent for those aged 80 and above.

Health authorities said it is worrisome that South Korea has been experiencing a hike in the portion of elderly among new patients.

Patients aged 50 and above accounted for a whopping 55 percent of new infections in the first two weeks of June, marking a drastic rise from only 12 percent posted a month earlier.

It seems to me this will just be the new normal until herd immunity happens and the virus runs its course. The key will be making sure the hospitals are not overwhelmed so the most critical patients can be treated which the numbers are showing South Korea is doing a great job of.

It looks like it is not a good time to be an Itaewon business owner:

COVID-19 has done no favors to food and beverage businesses since the initial outbreak in Daegu months ago, but many restaurants continue to open as they find themselves in a catch-22. They won’t survive if they don’t open ― but if they do, they have to just hope they aren’t visited by an infected patient which puts them on the map. 

The government has done an amazing and internationally touted job with its test-and-trace program to keep residents informed but it has some pitfalls, as businesses in Itaewon have learned. 

“While I appreciate and applaud the efforts made by the Korean government to mitigate and curtail the spread of COVID-19 in the country,” explained Juweon Kim, cofounder and CEO of Vatos Urban Tacos in Itaewon, “I think what we have experienced in Itaewon is one of the negative consequences of the very public track-and-trace methods being employed by the government. Itaewon served as the low-hanging fruit for the 24-hour news cycle during a period when the news cycle was slowing down for COVID-19-related stories.”  (……..)

Residents around Korea need to be vigilant and take precautions as the pandemic continues to spread, but according to Juweon there has been “a mischaracterization by the media to make Itaewon sound like it’s the epicenter of the spread and it’s where there’s a high concentration of COVID-19 infections. This false narrative must change.” 

Despite the government-released data that showed patient zero came from Yongin and the majority of the infected do not live or work in Itaewon, the media quickly labeled the uptick the “Itaewon cluster” and turned the once-popular district into a ghost town. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

If you ever wanted to avoid the crowds at a waterpark in Korea, now is the time:

Everland’s Caribbean Bay and other water parks across the country have recently opened their pools and slides in the summer heat, but are suffering a sharp drop in visitors due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, company officials said Thursday.  (…….)

A Caribbean Bay official said the water park has had about 100 to 400 visitors a day since its opening this year. The figure nosedived compared to 10,000 tallied in early June last year.

“Last year, the limit on the number of daily visitors we set was 20,000. This year, we set the limit at 1,200 amid the pandemic, but the daily figure is even falling far short of this limit,” the official said.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.