This latest trip abroad for President Yoon has gone way better than his last one where he showed up late to Queen Elizabeth’s funeral and was caught using an expletive on a hot mic initially reported to be directed towards President Biden:
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol (L), U.S. President Joe Biden (C) and South Korean first lady Kim Keon-hee pose for a photo during a gala dinner for leaders attending ASEAN summits at the Chroy Changvar International Convention and Exhibition Center in Phnom Penh on Nov. 12, 2022, in this photo provided by the presidential office.
President Yoon Suk-yeol and first lady Kim Keon-hee briefly reunited with U.S. President Joe Biden at a gala dinner for world leaders in Phnom Penh the previous day, the presidential office said Sunday.
Yoon and Kim “met with U.S. President Joe Biden who entered the venue shortly after they arrived and happily exchanged greetings,” deputy presidential spokesperson Lee Jae-myoung said in a written briefing. “President Yoon and President Biden caught up with each other and fondly posed for photos.”
The couple also happily exchanged greetings with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his wife, Yuko, Lee said.
The leaders are in Cambodia to attend regional summits involving the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. On Sunday, Yoon, Biden and Kishida are scheduled to hold bilateral and trilateral summits on the event’s sidelines.
It is pretty clear that the political opposition wants to form this committee so they can come up with findings to blame the Yoon administration for the crowd crush tragedy in Itaewon:
Rep. Yong Hye-in (L) of the Basic Income Party, Rep. Wi Seong-gon (C) of the Democratic Party and Rep. Jang Hye-yeong of the Justice Party submit a joint request to open a parliamentary probe into the Itaewon crowd crush at the National Assembly on Nov. 9, 2022. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)
The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) and two minor progressive parties submitted a joint request Wednesday for a parliamentary investigation into the Itaewon crowd crush despite opposition from the ruling party.
The DP, the Justice Party (JP) and the Basic Income Party submitted the request to the National Assembly’s Bills Division on Wednesday afternoon, with an aim to have the request reported at a parliamentary plenary session scheduled for Thursday.
“We should clearly determine where the responsibility lies and come up with measures to prevent a recurrence by looking thoroughly into the accident, including its cause and measures taken before or after the tragedy,” the parties said in the request sponsored by 181 lawmakers.
The parties called for forming an 18-member special committee to oversee the probe and look into whether measures by government agencies were appropriate and whether there were attempts to minimize or cover up the tragedy.
South Korea has joined with the vast majority of the world to condemn Russia’s attempted annexation of territory within Ukraine:
This undated file photo, provided by Yonhap News TV, shows the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ building in central Seoul.
The South Korean government said Saturday it does not recognize Russia’s recent annexation of Ukrainian territory as legitimate while strongly condemning Moscow’s invasion of the eastern European country.
On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed treaties to annex four regions in Ukraine, following referendums in the territory late last month.
“The Korean government strongly condemns Russia’s armed invasion against Ukraine as a violation of the principles of the U.N. Charter,” foreign ministry spokesperson Lim Soo-suk said in a statement.
“The Korean government does not recognize the referenda held in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson and Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian territory as legitimate.”
You can read more at the link, but areas that Russia is claiming in this annexation have already been liberated by Ukraine. This includes Russia’s embarrassing defeat this weekend in the logistical hub of Lyman.
Just from a security stand point getting the Presidential office out of North Korean artillery range would be a smart move:
An illustration of a government building in Sejong Government Complex / Korea Times file
Several government ministries will team up to help facilitate the construction of a second presidential office in Sejong City, an administrative area 144 kilometers south of Seoul, by 2027, according to government officials, Sunday.
Setting up a second presidential office and a legislative building in Sejong was a key campaign pledge of President Yoon Suk-yeol, a vision he believes will cement the sparsely populated city as the nation’s administrative capital. The plan gained traction after the National Assembly revised related laws in May.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Ministry of Interior and Safety and the National Agency for Administrative City Construction said a joint team of officials will commission a study before October to determine the function, size and location of the second office. Plans to strengthen the public transportation system and infrastructure in a broader context of city planning will also follow.
Reports that Yoon had to be briefed about the floods in his home last night because he was trapped there and could not travel to the control center or visit the affected areas.
So many online comments are now asking: Why did you move out of the Blue House?
Education Minister Park Soon-ae speaks during a press conference in Seoul on Aug. 8, 2022. (Yonhap)
Education Minister Park Soon-ae offered to resign Monday, just 34 days after taking office, amid criticism she mishandled key school policy proposals, such as lowering the elementary school entry age.
Park has been under pressure to step down after many teachers and parents protested strongly against lowering the school entry age by one year to 5. She has been criticized for announcing the proposal without sufficient preparations, such as collecting public opinion.
Her ministry had also unveiled a plan to abolish foreign language high schools, only to retract it days later.
Should President Yoon Suk-yeol accept the resignation, Park will be the first Cabinet minister to step down since Yoon took office in May.
It seems like momentum is building to resolve the forced labor issue between the ROK and Japan:
Foreign Minister Park Jin speaks at an interpellation session at the National Assembly on July 25, 2022. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)
Foreign Minister Psrk Jin said Monday he believes a summit with Japan will take place once thorny issues, like Japan’s wartime forced labor, are resolved.
“I anticipate that a summit between South Korea and Japan will likely be held when desirable resolutions for ongoing issues, like wartime forced labor, are prepared,” Foreign Minister Park Jin told a parliamentary interpellation session.
Acknowledging that bilateral ties between the two countries are unlikely to recover without such a resolution, Park said the government will aim to find a “reasonable measure” for both countries while respecting the opinions of the victims.
When asked about possible measures to mend ties, Park said the government is reviewing many options such as former National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang’s proposal to launch a fund for the victims backed by both companies and people of South Korea and Japan.
This seems like a lot of hyperbole by the Interior Minister:
Interior Minister Lee Sang-min speaks during a special briefing to address his position on the police’s resistance to a government plan to establish a supervisory bureau to put law enforcement officers under the ministry’s control, at the government complex building in central Seoul, Monday. Yonhap
Interior Minister Lee Sang-min strongly criticized the chiefs of police precincts Monday for their collective action on Saturday against the envisioned launch of a supervisory bureau inside the interior ministry, calling it “an incident akin to a military coup.”
During a news briefing, Lee said Saturday’s meeting of police officials reminded him of the Dec. 12 military coup led by a group of generals that took place weeks after the assassination of President Park Chung-hee in 1979.
“A lot of time has passed since then and we now live in an era when a military coup has become an unimaginable incident. But the fact that armed officials went ahead and gathered despite a warning from their superior and discussed an action against the government is a serious matter,” he said, indicating that the ministry will investigate those involved in the collective action.
The minister’s strongly-worded criticism came days after some 190 senior police officials from across the country responded to calls by Ulsan Jungbu Police Station Senior Superintendent Ryu Sam-young to gather and discuss how to react to the interior ministry’s plan to launch a supervisory bureau to put the police under its control.
I think the Yoon administration needs to be careful with this because what is to stop the Korean left once they are back in power at some point and prosecuting conservative officials for payback. We have already seen them do this at the Presidential level:
This undated file photo shows the National Intelligence Service in Seoul. (Yonhap)
South Korea’s state spy agency said Wednesday it has requested formal investigations by prosecutors into allegations that two of its former chiefs mishandled controversial incidents involving North Korea a few years earlier.
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) filed a complaint with the Supreme Prosecutors Office against Park Jie-won for “deleting intelligence-related reports without authorization” in regard to North Korea’s killing of a South Korean fisheries official in 2020.
Park, formerly a longtime lawmaker, is accused of abusing his authority and unlawfully destroying public electronic records during his stint as director of the NIS under the previous liberal Moon Jae-in administration.
In September 2020, Lee Dae-jun, then 47 years old, was fatally shot by the North’s coast guard near the Yellow Sea border between the two Koreas, a day after going missing while on duty on board a fishery inspection boat.
A storm of controversy has stirred up here since the South’s Coast Guard and the defense ministry recently announced that they have not found any concrete evidence backing the probe results from two years ago that the official might have attempted to defect to North Korea.
I'm leaving for Madrid today to attend the @NATO Summit. Through this occasion, I look forward to building a comprehensive network with our NATO and other like-minded partners to protect our economy, security, and solidarity that's based on our shared liberal democratic values. pic.twitter.com/FznVIByVRC
