Category: Korea-General Topics

It is amazing that likely one cigarette butt has caused this much damage:

Police and fire officials conducted a probe Wednesday at an east coast mountain site believed to be the ignition point of a recent major wildfire.

The wildfire, which started in Uljin, 330 kilometers southeast of Seoul, on March 4, became the country’s most devastating on record as it spread to nearby areas in the eastern province of Gangwon, wiping out 643 facilities and scorching an estimated 20,923 hectares of woodland. 

Officials from the police, the National Forensic Service and the Korea Forest Service (KFS) conducted a joint probe at the purported ignition site, taking photos and collecting various evidence.

Authorities believe the blaze may have started due to a cigarette butt thrown from a passing vehicle, as the fire was kindled near a road, according to CCTV footage.

The KFS and police have identified the owners of four vehicles that passed through the area close to the time when the fire broke and also obtained black boxes from the vehicles in question. Officials said they plan to further the investigation based on the collected evidence and results of their forensic analysis.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is just becoming bizarre how South Korea just continues to set new record highs for COVID cases while most of the rest of the world is in a steep decline. However with that all said the fatality rate continues to drop to .14% when it was .69% back in early February:

South Korea’s new COVID-19 cases hit yet another somber milestone of more than 400,000 on Wednesday, driven by the dominant omicron variant spreading at an overwhelming speed. 

The country added 400,741 new daily COVID-19 infections, mostly locally transmitted, raising the total caseload to 7,629,275, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. 

It’s an all-time high since South Korea reported the first COVID-19 case on Jan. 20, 2020, and a big jump from Tuesday’s 362,338. The previous record high was 383,659 reported last Saturday.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Rhee Keun is still alive in Ukraine and it will be interesting to learn at some point what the Ukraine military has him tasked to do:

 A former Korean Navy special warfare officer who recently left for Ukraine to join the war against Russia as a volunteer soldier posted news of his survival on social media Tuesday.

“I’m alive,” Rhee Keun wrote on his Instagram account in an apparent denial of recent rumors about his death after Russia claimed to have killed about 180 foreign volunteer fighters in an attack on a training base in western Ukraine.

“My teammates withdrew safely from Ukraine, and I’m alone in the country,” he said. “I have a lot of things to do. I’m busy combating every day. There will be no news from me until I complete my mission,” he added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Remember when the Korean government said that they would not ditch their “Living with COVID” strategy even if case rates went over 10,000? Before the case rates could even hit 10,000 the Moon administration implemented COVID restrictions once again. It seems like a long time ago, but this all only happened back in December. Now that it is March it is clear that the COVID restrictions did not work as case rates have hit a new record of 383,664:

South Korea’s daily COVID-19 cases stayed above 350,000 for the second straight day Sunday as the country is grappling with the fast spread of the omicron variant.

The country reported 350,190 new COVID-19 infections, including 350,157 local cases, raising the total caseload to 6,556,453, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

The tally fell from an all-time high of 383,664 on Saturday due largely to less testing on the weekend.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It seems like countries that tried the COVID Zero strategy are now the ones experiencing massive outbreaks. New Zealand and Hong Kong, like South Korea were all hailed as COVID success stories and all three have largely given up now on stopping COVID:

Korea reported a record 342,446 new Covid-19 infections on election day, and one in 10 people in the country have contracted the virus.  
   
Wednesday’s count was up 139,726 from the previous day, or 68.9 percent, and crossed the 300,000 mark for the first time. All but 58 cases were locally transmitted, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).  
   
The total caseload now stands at 5,212,118, exceeding 5 million for the first time. That is 10.2 percent of the country’s total population of 51.3 million people.  
   
On Feb. 28, health authorities warned the pandemic would peak at up to 350,000 daily cases around mid-March based on the predictions made by research institutes. After then, the government scrapped the vaccine pass system to get into restaurants, bars and cafes, and the mandatory quarantine of virus patients’ cohabitants. It also relaxed a curfew on businesses by an hour to 11 p.m. Such eased public health measures, along with and more transmissible strain of the virus known as “Stealth Omicron,” led to the sharp rise in infections.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Congratulations to Yoon Suk-yeol on winning an extremely close ROK Presidential election:

Yoon Suk-yeol of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) was elected as Korea’s next president early Thursday morning, narrowly beating his liberal rival.    
   
Yoon, the first former prosecutor to be elected as president, stressed a message of national unity and cooperation with the opposition in a speech at the National Assembly in Yeouido, western Seoul, shortly after his victory was ascertained.    
   
In Korea’s closest presidential election, frontrunners Yoon and Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) were neck-and-neck in exits polls Wednesday evening, making a victor too close to call nearly all the votes were tallied around 4 a.m. Thursday.  
   
At 4:05 a.m., with 98.15 percent of the ballots counted, Yoon earned 48.59 percent of votes, effectively confirming his victory in the 20th presidential election. Lee received 47.8 percent of votes, just 0.8 percentage points less than Yoon.   

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but it will now be interesting to see what position Ahn Cheol-soo receives because it is arguable that his coalition with Yoon put him over the top to win the Presidency.

Additionally we will need to wait and see what the reaction from North Korea will be. Considering Yoon’s hardline rhetoric towards North Korea during the campaign it seems the Kim regime is likely to go bigger on whatever provocation they have planned. There has been reports of North Korea preparing for a nuclear test so this could be their response if preparations are complete. If not another ICBM or other missile tests would be a near term way for them to respond to Yoon’s election.

At this point the damage has been done to the creditability of early voting, lets just hope this is not a very close election:

The National Election Commission (NEC) decided Monday to allow COVID-19 patients and those in quarantine to put their votes into ballot boxes themselves after an earlier decision to collect their votes in unofficial containers first sparked widespread complaints of foul play.

The election watchdog came under fire following revelations virus-infected voters and people under self-isolation were not allowed to put their votes into ballot boxes and election officials instead collected them in plastic bags and other unofficial containers during early voting Saturday. 

The indirect voting sparked suspicions of election rigging, but the NEC has flatly rejected such claims.

On Monday, the NEC held an emergency meeting to discuss the issue and decided to allow virus patients to put their votes into ballot boxes the same way as other voters in the March 9 election after regular polling closes.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is okay to bash Japan, but not okay to bash China because they will actually harshly retaliate is basically what the experts are warning:

 South Koreans avidly took part in boycotting Japanese brands when bilateral tensions escalated in the past years, given the history of the two countries. This time, the antagonism is directed at another neighbor in Northeast Asia: China.

While the situation may appear negligible and based merely on online skirmishes over the origin of cultural elements such as the pickled side dish kimchi or hanbok, a recent survey shows that the level of anti-China sentiment in Korea is notable. At this time when certain presidential candidates may be looking to take advantage of this sentiment to shore up support, experts warn of potential dangers, given how crucial bilateral relations between the countries are. (…..)

Andrew Yeo, SK-Korea Foundation Chair in Korean Studies and a senior fellow at the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, said, “It is always tempting to drum up nationalism and anti-foreign sentiment during election season, which can create unintended consequences of permanently damaging bilateral relations between Korea and China.”

China remains Korea’s No. 1 trading partner. The Moon Jae-in administration has also largely relied on Beijing for progress in relations with Pyongyang, given the North’s close alliance with China. 

“Whoever wins the election will need to maintain ties to Beijing given the significance of economic ties between Korea and China,” Yeo said via email.

“There may be greater pressure to decouple from China and join U.S.-led coalitions if the anti-China sentiment is sustained for a prolonged period, which neither China would take kindly. However, given the size and influence of China’s economy in East Asia, Korea will need to sustain a sizeable degree of trade and investment with Beijing,” he said.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.