Category: Korea-General Topics

You have to be mentally unwell to kill yourself in this fashion:

This file photo provided by a reader shows police investigating the site where a presumed Yoon supporter set himself on fire in Seoul on March 7, 2025. (Yonhap)

A man in his 70s who was presumed to be a supporter of impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol died Wednesday after setting himself on fire earlier this month, according to police. 

The 79-year-old man, whose name was withheld, staged a self-immolation action after scattering printouts illustrating support for Yoon on the rooftop of a building near Seoul City Hall on March 7.

According to police, the man died while being treated at a hospital specializing in burn injuries in Seoul at around 1 p.m. 

It marked the second case of a supporter of Yoon dying from self-immolation.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

As long as this cable car boom is focused on high traffic mountains and not every mountain in South Korea I really don’t have a problem with it. Anyone who has rode the cable car at Seoraksan for example knows they need another cable car up that mountain with its incredibly long lines:

South Korea is experiencing a cable car boom.

Of the 41 cable cars currently operating nationwide, 17 have been built in the past five years, according to the Korea Transportation Safety Authority.

Yeosu, a coastal city in South Jeolla Province, serves as a model demonstrating the benefits of a successful cable car installation.

The city opened the Yeosu Maritime Cable Car in 2014, which was the first marine cable car in South Korea and links the mainland with Dolsando just across the water.

Drawing visitors to the spectacular views of the coastline and surrounding islands from the cable car, the city has attracted more than 13 million visitors annually, which led to a revitalization of the tourism industry, city officials said.

Wonju, Gangwon Province, is also hoping to duplicate Yeosu’s success with its newly launched Sogeumsan Cable Car. This area already has the nation’s longest pedestrian bridge, which stretches 200 meters across a canyon.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but of course the environmentalists are upset about the cable cars impacts on wildlife and forests.

Accordingto the article this person was terminated from their position, I would prefer that this person be sitting in a jail cell instead:

 A U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) contractor employee was terminated after attempting to board a flight to South Korea with export-controlled information on nuclear reactor design software, a report showed Monday.

Idaho National Laboratory (INL), one of the DOE’s national laboratories, terminated the person during the reporting period from Oct. 1, 2023 through March 31 last year, the DOE report to Congress said, as questions persist over why South Korea was placed on the DOE’s “Sensitive and Other Designated Countries List (SCL)” in early January.

The information in question is proprietary nuclear reactor design software owned by INL. The DOE’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) conducted a search of the employee’s government email and chat history showing the employee’s knowledge of export control restrictions and communications with a foreign government. 

“This is an ongoing joint investigation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security Investigations,” the report said.

Hours earlier, Seoul’s foreign ministry said that South Korea’s placement on the SCL was because of a security issue related to a DOE-affiliated research institution rather than a foreign policy matter.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

If the Korean government changes this regulation will this lead to the Korean leftists to start another mad cow crisis like what happened in 2008?:

The U.S. nationwide cattlemen’s group asked the Trump administration Tuesday to help lift South Korea’s import ban on American beef from cattle aged 30 months or older, noting that similar curbs have been lifted in China, Japan and Taiwan.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) sent its comments to U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer as the USTR has requested those comments to “assist in reviewing and identifying unfair trade practices, and initiating all necessary actions to investigate harm from non-reciprocal arrangements.”

The age restriction on U.S. beef was put in place in 2008 amid fears over mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the violent mad cow riots in 2008 has to rank up there as one of the most ridiculous anti-US protests ever in Korea. The 2000 Yongsan Water Dumping Incident protests are probably the only ones more ridiculous than the mad cow riots.

The demographic collapse of South Korea, and to a lesser extent Japan, is due mainly to imposition of liberalism by the Empire that occupies them (China is in better shape). The West looks on in dismay because it senses South Korea is the canary in the coalmine: Liberalism kills. pic.twitter.com/ZcU6IYk2hy

— King Baeksu (@KingBaeksu) March 1, 2025

This makes me wonder what the quality of the Phd these people who cannot have a job have?:

Three out of 10 people who obtained a Ph.D. last year were unemployed, with the ratio going up to nearly 50 percent for those aged under 30, data showed, Sunday.

The unemployment rate of Ph.D. holders is at an all-time high since Statistics Korea began collecting the data in 2014, highlighting a shortage of quality jobs and the widening impact of the job market downturn on highly educated professionals.

According to the data, 70.4 percent of the 10,442 individuals who obtained a Ph.D. last year said they secured a job. Those who failed to find employment accounted for 26.6 percent, while 3 percent were classified as economically inactive.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Hopefully this ends up being a sustainable increase:

The number of babies born in South Korea increased for the first time in nine years in 2024, driven by a post-pandemic rise in marriages, evolving attitudes toward parenthood and demographic changes, the statistics agency said Wednesday.

A total of 238,300 babies were born last year, up 3.6 percent from a record low of 230,000 in 2023, according to Statistics Korea. The figure had been declining since 2015, when it stood at 438,400.

The total fertility rate, the average number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime, also rebounded for the first time in nine years, reaching 0.75 in 2024, up from 0.72 tallied a year earlier.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is a horrible bridge collapse accident in Anseong:

 A bridge collapsed at an expressway construction site in Anseong on Tuesday, killing four workers and injuring six others, authorities said.

The accident occurred at around 9:50 a.m. in the city some 65 kilometers south of Seoul during construction on a section of the Seoul-Sejong expressway.

Several slabs placed on a pier fell to the ground, knocking off or burying 10 people working at the site. Of them, four died, five were seriously injured, and one sustained minor injuries, according to the fire authorities.

One of the four killed was pulled out from under the rubble at around 2:20 p.m., after which the authorities ended their rescue work.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.