Category: Korea-General Topics

Fortunately this was just another small quake because I would hate to see what would happen if a massive quake ever hit the Korean peninsula:

A four-point-one magnitude earthquake struck off the southeastern city of Pohang on Sunday.

The Korea Meteorological Administration said that the quake took place at 12:53 p.m. in waters 50 kilometers east-northeast of the port city at a depth of 21 kilometers.

The KMA had earlier announced the quake’s magnitude was four but later revised it.

A KMA official said that it is a quake-prone region, but the magnitude is larger than usual, adding there have been no reports of damage received so far as the location is about 50 kilometers off the coast.

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link.

This shouldn’t come as surprising news to anyone living in Korea that the moped delivery drivers are causing an increasing number of accidents:

Nowadays, more restaurant owners use delivery apps like Baedal Minjok, Yogiyo and Baedaltong to sell their goods, and the market for deliveries has steadily increased. In 2018, sales for delivery services reached 5 trillion won ($4.4 billion). This is four times the amount of sales 10 years ago. Time is money for couriers who receive an average of 3,500 won per delivery. This is why they resort to violating traffic laws to quickly finish off as many deliveries as they can. 

“My children and I were walking on the sidewalk once when we were almost hit by a passing delivery guy speeding on his motorbike,” said Kim Yong-chul, a resident of Seongnam, Gyeonggi. 

“It’s always scary when a speeding motorbike cuts in front of me when I’m driving,” said Baek Gyeong-ae, who lives in Goyang, Gyeonggi. “I’m always worried that an accident will occur.”

According to data from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the number of car accidents has decreased consistently for the last five years. However, during the same time period, the number of accidents caused by speeding motorbikes increased 32 percent.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

I find it interesting how this ROK government report adds Japan as a country to blame for pollution in South Korea and then does not list how much pollution it is responsible for:

External sources accounted for 75 percent of South Korea’s ultrafine dust air pollution in January, a state-run environment agency said Wednesday. 
South Korea saw a drastic rise in the average level of ultrafine dust particles, those smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, in between Jan. 11 and 15. According to the National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER), a think tank under the Ministry of Environment, external sources from China, Mongolia, North Korea and Japan were responsible for 75 percent of ultrafine dust particles in South Korea during that period.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I think the vast majority of Koreans realize the vast majority of pollution is coming from China and there is nothing they can do about it.

“taxi driver interrogations” ㅋㅋㅋ https://t.co/BpjzUV6UjF

— the oranckay (@oranckay) February 2, 2019

This is a lot of garbage with no place to put it for now. Hopefully they don’t just decide to dump it in the ocean:

Part of some six-thousand tons of plastic garbage that was illegally exported to the Philippines has returned to South Korea.

A vessel carrying about one-thousand-200 tons of garbage arrived at 6:40 a.m. on Sunday at Pyeongtaek Port in Gyeonggi Province, three weeks after it departed from the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.

The garbage, mainly consisting of used batteries, electronic devices and medical waste, was exported to the Philippines in July of last year after a joint venture firm between the two countries reported the contents as synthetic plastic.

As the company that illegally exported the garbage failed to respond, the Seoul government used emergency funds to cover the transport cost to bring the garbage back.

The Environment Ministry said it will look inside a couple of containers to check the conditions and types of garbage on Thursday after the Lunar New Year holiday. The Pyeongtaek City government is expecting it will take about six months to dispose the garbage through due procedures.

KBS World Radio

It looks like this experiment will have to go back to the drawing board for some more refinement:

South Korea has experimented with artificial rainfall off its west coast to assess the technique’s efficiency in mitigating fine dust. 

According to the Korea Meteorological Administration(KMA), in the experiment jointly conducted with the Environment Ministry, silver iodide was spread in the air above the West Sea around 120 kilometers away from Gunsan in North Jeolla Province for about an hour from 10:13 a.m. on Friday. 

No rain or snow was detected in the areas where the chemical materials were expected to induce precipitation. Only a light drizzle was observed near Yeonggwang in South Jeolla Province. 

In order to achieve substantial mitigation of fine dust via rain, heavy rainfall of ten millimeters per hour or more is needed for at least two hours. 

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link, but what I find interesting about all this is that the South Korean leftists will protest the US over oil contamnination they cannot even confirm is happening from Yongsan Garrison. However, the Chinese pollute the entire peninsula with fine dust to the point the ROK needs to create artificial rain to stop it and has anyone seen any of the leftists protesting this?

The big question is what are the consequences for the Moon administration for willfully violating UN sanctions? A sternly worded letter isn’t going to be a deterrent for future violations:

A report by a U.N. panel will accuse South Korea of failing to notify the Security Council of its shipments of petroleum products to North Korea in breach of international sanctions, diplomatic sources say.
It will be the first time for the sanctions committee on North Korea under the 15-member council to say that Seoul has violated U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang. South Korea has been stepping up efforts to improve relations with North Korea since last year.


The panel is also expected to say North Korea illegally sold fishing rights to other countries in contravention of Security Council resolutions.
The panel’s annual report is expected to show that vessels carrying North Korean fishing licenses were operating in waters between the Korean Peninsula and neighboring countries. The claim is based on information provided by two unnamed member states — one identified as Japan, according to officials in Tokyo.
It is anticipated that information obtained from fishermen will reveal that around 200 Chinese fishing vessels were operating in North Korean waters, and that the price of a single fishing license cost about 50,000 yuan ($7,250) per month.
South Korea allegedly did not notify the Security Council of its deliveries of petroleum products for use at a joint liaison office set up in September in Kaesong, just inside the North Korean side of the border.

Japan Times

You can read more at the link, but Japanese intelligence collection aircraft flying around the Korean peninsula that are now a subject of controversy are partly there to identify possible sanctions violations.

By the way the accompanying picture of students in South Korea cheering Kim Jong-un is pretty sickening. Someone in the South Korean media should interview families of those killed in the Cheonan attack and Yeonpyeong Island shelling what they think of these rallies.

This is Moon Jae-In at his best. https://t.co/AihvgC4pyU

— Robert E Kelly (@Robert_E_Kelly) February 1, 2019

It will be interesting to see if this actually happens:

Early this month, Rep. Hwang Ju-hong of the minor opposition Party for Democracy and Peace submitted a bill that has drawn surprisingly keen public attention. 

The proposed legislation, jointly handed in by nine other fellow lawmakers of rival parties, calls for mandatory use of the standard “international” age system at all government and public institutions, while recommending that private sector organizations such as companies adopt the same system for administrative matters.
A source of amazement to many foreigners who are unfamiliar with this country, but otherwise common knowledge to most expats living here, South Korea has kept its unique way of counting a person’s age alongside international age.

The most widely known system, referred to as “Korean age,” is the method whereby one year is simply added to a person’s Western age calculating how many years and months that person has lived since his or her birthday.

So if a man was born on January 1, 1980, he is 39 by the international standard but would introduce himself as being 40 years of age in Korea.
Everyone also gets a year older on New Year’s Day, rather than on their actual birthdays.

Such tradition is known to have derived from ancient East Asian thinking that counts the gestational period as part of a person’s age, according to experts. The time in the mother’s womb has been considered as also part of life.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the Philippines government is trying to get Koreans to be more polite to their airport staff:

Twenty-three Korean citizens have been banned from entering the Philippines for being rude and disrespectful to airport staff.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 23 Koreans were denied entry and blacklisted in 2018 for showing arrogance or using foul language to immigration officers.

“Being on the blacklist means you won’t be able to enter the Philippines for at least one year,” the ministry said on Facebook on Jan. 23.

“To avoid such trouble, please be polite when talking to Philippine officials. If you don’t respond to their questions or raise your voices, you may be denied permission to enter the country. Therefore, you should be able to speak English or have someone who can.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.