Category: Korea-General Topics

Here is an interesting way to power a building:

Using a toilet can pay for your coffee or buy you bananas at a university in South Korea, where human waste is being used to help power a building.

Cho Jae-weon, an urban and environmental engineering professor at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), has designed an eco-friendly toilet connected to a laboratory that uses excrement to produce biogas and manure.

The BeeVi toilet – a portmanteau of the words bee and vision – uses a vacuum pump to send faeces into an underground tank, reducing water use. There, microorganisms break down the waste to methane, which becomes a source of energy for the building, powering a gas stove, hot-water boiler and solid oxide fuel cell.

Channel News Asia via a reader tip

You can read more at the link.

As COVID cases increase the Korean government is implementing stricter restrictions on the public:

South Korea’s daily new COVID-19 cases rose above 1,300 for the third straight day Sunday, as health authorities were set to impose the toughest virus curbs in the greater Seoul area to bring the fourth wave of the outbreak under control. 

The country recorded 1,324 more COVID-19 cases, including 1,280 local infections, raising the total caseload to 168,046, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said.

It is the first time that the nation’s daily infections have risen above 1,300 for three straight days since the beginning of the pandemic. Sunday’s figure compares with 1,275 on Thursday, 1,316 on Friday and 1,378 on Saturday. (……….)

Under the Level 4 rules, private gatherings of three or more people will be banned after 6 p.m. and in-person classes will be closed. Weddings and funerals can only be joined by relatives. Entertainment establishments, including night clubs and bars, will be ordered to shut down, while restaurants will be allowed to have dine-in customers until 10 p.m.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It may be easier soon to do late night video gaming in South Korea:

The Ministry of Gender, Equality and Family has agreed to review the controversial “shutdown law” that bans minors from playing PC games after 12 a.m.  
   
Effective since November 2011, the law bans teens younger than 16 from playing computer games between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m. The aim was to forcibly prevent teenagers from late-night gaming — an activity seen by the ministry as causing sleep deprivation, health damage and potentially, game addiction.  
   
Since it took effect, the law has been attacked by players, game companies and even lawmakers that questioned its effectiveness, especially after smartphones replaced desktops as the dominant medium for games. Facing those criticism, the Ministry of Gender, Equality and Family has always refused to abolish the law.  
   
Its Tuesday statement, however, strikes a softer tone, suggesting the ministry is now willing to consider a change.  
   
“The gaming environment has shifted and multiple bills were proposed to the National Assembly in regard to this law, including abolition,” the statement said. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

A former Korea Herald chairman appears to have had enough of COVID protocols in Korea:

Hong Jung-wook, a former chairman of the Korea Herald and ex-lawmaker, who is now chairman of the food company Organica, has caused a stir after calling Korea’s COVID-19 control measures “totalitarian” while praising the speed of the U.S.’s vaccination drive and return to normal daily life in his latest Facebook post.

Hong wrote July 5 that it took him less than five minutes at customs upon arriving in New York to check his health regarding COVID-19 and that wearing a mask was optional.

“The country that has seen the world’s highest number of casualties due to COVID-19 is now returning to daily life quickly,” he said. “On the other hand, it takes about an hour to enter Korea. For even vaccinated people like me, they have me write in an app, call me and send me text messages every day, only to hear me say, ‘no symptoms.'”

Hong, who served in the National Assembly from 2008-2012, said that Korea’s disease control authorities should put more effort into vaccinating citizens instead of into trying to control them. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It looks like people in Seoul can probably expect new restrictions in the coming days:

South Korea confirmed over 1,000 new coronavirus cases Tuesday for the first time in six months amid a resurgence in the Seoul metropolitan area, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said.

The country reported 1,006 more COVID-19 cases from 12 a.m. to 6 p.m. and the number is expected to further rise when the daily total is announced Wednesday morning.

The figure shot up to over 1,000 for the first time since Jan. 3 when the nation was undergoing a third wave of the pandemic, raising concerns over the fourth wave hitting in the summer.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

You would think she would be keeping a very low profile after the fall out from her first altercation, but here we go again:

The wife of the Belgian ambassador to South Korea, who faced assault charges in Seoul earlier this year, was involved in an altercation with a street sweeper in the city Monday morning, police said.

Police said Xiang Xueqiu, the spouse of Ambassador Peter Lescouhier, got into a fight with the cleaner in a park in central Seoul after the cleaner’s broom touched Xiang.

Police said the two apparently traded blows, but when officers arrived on the scene, neither wanted the other punished.

Xiang was taken to a nearby hospital after the cleaner shoved her to the ground. The cleaner later visited a police precinct to report that Xiang had slapped the sweeper in the face, and sought help on pressing charges.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I can only imagine the phone call the Belgium ambassador must have received from his Foreign Ministry after this latest incident.

If you are an international student at the University of Seoul expect to pay double the current tuition rate:

Controversy has arisen over the University of Seoul’s plan to nearly double the tuition fees paid by foreign students starting next year. 

Some students and members of the general public say the sudden hike is unfair and taking advantage of a minority group at the school. However, others say the school’s tuition fees are kept artificially low through subsidies from taxpayers and it is improper to provide such a benefit to foreign students who do not pay taxes.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but according to the article students at the University of Seoul have their tuition cut in half with the subsidy from taxpayers. Tuition is roughly $906 a semester with the subsidy meaning international students will pay twice that rate which is still extremely affordable compared to tuition rates in many U.S. universities.

This is a tragic and bizarre way to die:

Two workers have died after inhaling toxic gas in a bathroom at a shipyard in the southeastern city of Busan, police said Sunday.

The two, one of them 48 years old and the other 28, were found unconscious in the restroom at 11:04 a.m. on Saturday before being taken to a hospital. 

The 48-year-old died less than an hour later and the other died Sunday. 

Police said the two were believed to have inhaled hydrogen sulfide and ammonia in the bathroom.

Tests have shown that hydrogen sulfide levels there were 250 parts per million at the time, more than 16 times higher than the maximum safety level of 15 ppm, they said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I am not sure why this is such big news when it has never been claimed the COVID vaccines were 100% effective:

South Korea has confirmed 44 cases of the so-called vaccine “breakthrough” COVID-19 infections, health authorities said Monday, as the country speeds up its inoculation campaign.

As of last Thursday, a total of 44 people had tested positive for the novel coronavirus even after being fully vaccinated, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

A “breakthrough case” refers to when a person is diagnosed with COVID-19 two weeks after being administered with the full-dose regimen.

Among the 44 cases, 26 patients had received the Pfizer vaccine, while 18 were administered with the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but according to the article 4.6 million Koreans have two shots of the vaccine. 44 people getting infected with COVID out of 4.6 million is pretty good odds. Plus what is not mentioned in the article is how sick these people got. Were they asymptomatic? This seems like important information to share to further help people decide if they want to take the vaccine or not.