Under Moon, S.Korea's military intelligence, Defense Security Command will memorate the Former President Park Chung-hee's Assassin, Kim Jae Kyu by putting his photo on the wall. It is like put the picture of #JFK assassin, Lee Oswald on the wall of #DIA https://t.co/buMg8B1q4T
— Dong Yon Kim/김동연 기자 (@dongyonews) March 19, 2019
“The main issue is that there’s just no escaping them.”
— the oranckay (@oranckay) March 20, 2019
Once I was reading mainstream Korean news outlets online at a law firm in the US and someone threatened to tell her superiors I was looking at porn sites. https://t.co/z9NPgGMGUc
If you have wondered if the masks that many Koreans wear to protect themselves from fine dust work, well this study indicates that they do:
Most face masks tested recently by a consumer group work as advertised, with only one failing.
Joong Ang Ilbo
The Daejeon and South Chungcheong branch of the Voice for Consumers tested 20 masks for their ability to protect wearers against particulate pollutants, and 19 provided the level of protection equal to or better than that claimed on the packaging.
All 20 products passed purity tests, which checked for chemicals such as formaldehyde.
YJ Corporation’s large-sized YJCM3 product, sold as a Korea Filter (KF) 94 mask, filtered only 87 percent of particulate matter compared to its advertised amount – 94 percent.
The KF mark indicates the percentage of particulate matter filtered.
The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety has ordered the YJ Corporation mask that failed the test to be recalled and discarded. Production may also be stopped for violating pharmaceutical laws. The organization also checked 50 mask products for the level of information on the packaging, and it found that six did not provide sufficient information. It also reported that some 3M Nexcare mask products, past their expiration period of 36 months, were being sold.
You can read more at the link.
Another alternative energy project with unintended consequences:
South Korea’s second-most destructive earthquake, which struck the southeastern city of Pohang in 2017, was probably triggered by an experimental geothermal power plant, the government said Wednesday.
The government-led teams of experts, from both South Korea and abroad, concluded that a series of earthquakes, reaching a magnitude of 5.4 on Nov. 15, 2017, could have been brought on by efforts to harness energy from the ground.The study is the first official government finding that indicated the possible cause of the tremors that resulted in considerable damage in and around the industrial city, located 375 kilometers southeast of Seoul.
Fluids are injected at high pressure into a hole about four and five kilometers deep at the geothermal power plant, which may cause the surrounding rock to crack, the scientists said. During the process, seismic activity can occur, which could cause earthquakes.“A series of micro-sized earthquakes occurred when fluids were injected by excavating a geothermal well at the geothermal power plant, which eventually triggered the Pohang earthquake,” Lee Kang-keun said
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
Here is some news about health care coverage changes that expats in South Korea need to be aware of:
Stricter terms will be applied to foreign residents to prevent possible abuse of the national health insurance system, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced, Sunday.
Korea Times
According to the changes, effective from July, all foreigners who have continuously resided in the country for at least six months must subscribe to the state healthcare program through a non-employer-sponsored plan and pay monthly premiums.
Previously, mandatory registration was only applied to salaried workers, leading to cases where foreigners who needed high-cost medical procedures signed up for the program because those covered by the insurance get around 62 percent of essential medical costs reimbursed.
Such cases of opportunism ― mostly found in temporary visitors rather than settled residents ― led the ministry to raise the minimum period of residency to make one eligible for the state insurance from three months to six months last December.
Those who leave Korea for 30 continuous days are dropped from the system and must reside another six months here to be eligible for the insurance coverage again.
The monthly premium for foreign subscribers has also become higher than before, about the average of all Koreans, while it used to be the average of Koreans registered with the non-employer-sponsored plan only. This year’s figure was set around 103,000 won ($90).
You can read more at the link, but $90 a month for the national health care plan is really affordable even if it only covers 62% of medical costs.
The KCTU is acting like a bunch of spoiled little kids again:
In a democracy, violence is strictly forbidden. When people’s lives and a nation’s security are endangered, the government can exercise state violence — in a limited way. Yet in Korea, even when labor union violence exceeds a permissible level, the government sits on its hands without taking any action to punish it.
Joong Ang Ilbo
On Wednesday, union members of the Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) in Geoje, South Gyeongsang — a local chapter of the militant umbrella Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) — occupied the office of Mayor Byun Kwang-young and turned violent to protest the government’s selling of the insolvent shipbuilding company to Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), one of its competitors.
The union members threw out couches, tables and documents, and plastered the office walls with leaflets and stickers reading “No to the government-enforced merger!” and “We cannot accept the merger with our rival!” What makes us dumbfounded is the attitude of Mayor Byun and city officials, both of who simply looked on with folded arms.
The unionists raided the mayor’s office on the grounds that he did not clearly express opposition to the sale. Last August, the government-owned Korea Development Bank (KDB) decided to hand over its entire 55.7-percent stake in DSME to HHI. DSME has so far been bailed out with 13 trillion won ($11.5 billion) of government funding.
You can read more at the link, but could you imagine what would happen if someone raided the Mayor’s office like this of a medium sized city in the US? The SWAT team would probably be called in.
Since the KCTU knows the Moon administration is in charge they have been emboldened to do things like this because they know they can get away with it with little to no repercussions.
After a South Korean court allowed conscientious objectors to not serve in the military and instead work at prison facilities to fulfill their mandatory service obligation. This has caused concern that people would lie about being a conscientious objector which has caused investigations of people’s video game habits:
Previously, people evading military services were sentenced to 18 months in jail. Those people are referred to by the public as conscientious objectors.
Yonhap
The top court’s decision, which sparked an outrage among South Korean men, especially those who are fit for conscription, was followed by another question: How can a person’s conscience be judged?
As one of the measures to find out if objectors truly believe in peace, a South Korean district prosecutors’ office announced that it would look into objectors’ gaming history as one measure, including whether they have actively played online games that involve violence.
The Ulsan prosecutors’ office, which is looking into cases of 11 conscientious objectors, won approval from the court to investigate their gaming experiences. Under the court’s approval, the prosecutors requested data of the objectors at five major gaming firms.
The information requested by investigators was whether the objectors had IDs for such games and how long have they played them. As gaming firms only saves players’ data for around six months, prosecutors said they understand it will be hard to find out the history of people who have not recently played games.
You can read more at the link.
Pocheon City just announced it'll spend ₩5.4B ($4.8 million) to restore Kim Il-sung's villa. Where is Pocheon? Not in North Korea, but South Korea, between Seoul & Cholwon (on the invasion corridor to Seoul). While glorifying KIS, they vilify many SK presidents. Mind boggling. pic.twitter.com/cmFofCi459
— Tara O (@DrTaraO) March 12, 2019
I doubt this news is surprising to anyone:
NIER’s report said the days with high fine dust levels were caused by four factors: stagnant air, international pollution, local pollution and a combination of stagnant air and international pollution.
Joong Ang Ilbo
“Of these, we found the combination of stagnant air and long-range transport [of pollutants] made up the majority of cases for the 303 days we analyzed,” the report said.
“As far as our findings go, it appears that there are three things combined that produce high levels of fine dust in Korea,” said Huh Kuk-young, a researcher at NIER. “High concentration of fine dust particles from China, an air current traveling long distances into South Korea and the mix of domestic and international air pollutants.”
You can read more at the link.
Once again reality continues to hit countries trying to go away from both coal and nuclear power generation like South Korea is trying to do:
With fine dust at choking levels, there are calls for a reduction in power plants fueled by coal and a hike in taxes on diesel fuel to discourage dirty methods of transportation.
But such measures could backfire.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced Wednesday it will close six aging coal power plants by 2022, three years earlier than originally planned. It will also expand the range of coal plants that will have their operations curtailed when the government issues a fine dust warning. The list, which originally affected 40 plants, was extended to all 60 plants in the country Wednesday.
Coal plants will conduct more maintenance operations in spring to reduce their hours when fine dust levels are at their highest during the year.
Yet coal power plants are the largest sources of Korea’s power. Unlike solar and wind-powered plants, coal plants are unaffected by weather conditions in generating electricity (as are nuclear plants).
Korea’s coal power plants currently have the capacity to generate 36,031 megawatts per year, which accounts for 28.6 percent of all power generated in the country. That figure is projected to reach 40,241 megawatts by 2022.
Its proportion is set to decrease. Coal power plants actually accounted for 45.3 percent of total output in 2017 when several nuclear plants were not in operation. The projection for 2030 is 36.1 percent.
But even then, coal is also expected to remain the country’s biggest energy production source.
The government wants to replace coal plants with liquefied natural gas (LNG)-powered plants to reduce fine dust emission levels. But LNG plants are not as efficient and will lead to higher electricity bills. It is uncertain whether the public would accept paying higher electric fees in exchange for less coal power.Joong Ang Ilbo
You can read more at the link.
