Category: Uncategorized

Not much really since the ROK is trying to balance showing action to their domestic audience and not broadcasting things that would upset the Kim regime to where it would make it very difficult for them to deescalate.  The propaganda speakers are also a bargaining chip because the ROK right now is broadcasting little propaganda, but could threaten to broadcast more if things do not deescalate:

The loudspeakers that the military is using consist of 40 or so high-output 500 watt digital speakers that are around 4m by 3m in size. During the day, the broadcasts can be heard more than 10km away in the Kaesong Industrial Complex. At night, the sound carries as far as 24km. At the moment, the messages are broadcast intermittently. North Korea also began broadcasting propaganda into South Korea on Aug. 17. Since North Korea is using antiquated analogue loudspeakers, its broadcasts are reportedly hard to even understand in South Korea. The broadcasts that the South Korean military is sending into North Korea typically are not very political, focusing more on news in North and South Korea, world affairs, and the weather. One female defector from North Korea also takes part in the broadcasts, telling the story of how she defected and talking about her life in South Korea. But the fact that South Korea could use the broadcasts to criticize the North Korean regime if it so chose appears to be putting pressure on North Korea.  [Hankyoreh]

You can read more at the link.

It is about time that the government released the names of the MERS infected hospitals so that the public can make a choice on whether they want to go to that hospital or not:

South Korea identified all 24 hospitals affected by the deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) on Sunday, saying it wanted to ensure the public’s safety with transparent information.

Acting Prime Minister Choi Kyung-hwan disclosed the names of the hospitals at a press conference. The government had earlier identified Pyeongtaek St. Mary’s Hospital, in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, where the first MERS case was confirmed, and Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, one of whose doctors has been diagnosed with MERS and apparently contacted over 1,500 people.

The full list included five more hospitals in Pyeongtaek and five more in the nation’s capital.

“We’re disclosing the hospitals where patients have been diagnosed with MERS, so that we can ensure the people’s safety,” Choi said. “MERS has been spreading across these hospitals, and it forces us to impose strict control on them. Hospitals with confirmed MERS cases in the future will be identified as well.”

The government had been under fire for its refusal to share the names of affected hospitals. It’d reasoned that it didn’t want to generate unnecessary fear, though critics said the government had been doing just that by withholding the information.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I am assuming the Korean government was slow to give out this information for fear of causing overcrowding at other hospitals by people avoiding these hospitals.  Regardless until the MERS is under control it may be a good thing that the public avoids these hospitals.

this is probably an accurate assessment:

SEOUL, South Korea — The U.S. government does not believe North Korea’s claim that it has developed nuclear warheads small enough to fit in a missile warhead, adding to the conflicting assessments of Pyongyang’s weapon and delivery capabilities.

“Regarding that specific claim of miniaturization, we do not think they have that capacity and our assessment on that hasn’t changed,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told a Wednesday media briefing in Washington. [Stars and Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but the North Korean’s military capabilities are probably exaggerated in other areas as well. 

This is definitely the end of an era:

SEOUL, South Korea — Generations of soldiers have set off on this test of physical and mental endurance armed with what will be their most potent weapons: sturdy, broken-in boots and several pairs of thick socks.

On Wednesday, the decades-old tradition will come to an end when the 2nd Infantry Division’s 2nd Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment hosts its final Manchu Mile in South Korea as the unit prepares to inactivate.

“I think bittersweet is a good word to use,” Commander Lt. Col. Scott Knight said. “It’s the last one we’re doing on the peninsula. It’s in conjunction with our inactivation. It’s a lot of goodbyes that are involved, so it’s an awesome experience to go out on a high note.”

The 25-mile march with backpacks is held twice each year to commemorate the unit’s 85-mile march in China during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. The 2-9 will inactivate in July as part of a move toward increased use of U.S. rotational forces on the peninsula.  [Stars and Stripes]

You can read more at the link. 

Via a reader tip comes this CNN report about a Korean family in Baltimore that lost their business due to the criminals that some in the media like to make excuses for by calling them protesters or rioters:

You can read the rest at the link, but I always find it interesting how people who can even speak the language can come to this country, open a business, make a living, and be productive citizens while many American born here cannot.

That is what the writer’s at the Marmot’s Hole tried to determine by signing up for an account and testing to see if the Ashley Madison website is legitimate or not:

Now, according to the claims of Christoph Kraemer, director of international relations for Ashley Madison, “. . . Membership is growing quickest in India, South Korea and Japan.” (cite)
When I read about this, I checked and, yes, the site is accessible now from Korea and does offer support in Korean, however, since there are quite a few complaints of this service being fraudulent.  Several people I know thought that this site was a typical dating scam setup, where there are fake accounts setup just to drawn in the unsuspecting, so we thought it would be a good idea to test this and to ascertain if previous complaints had any merit and the following is what we found.  [Marmot’s Hole]

You can read the rest at the link, but basically they found the site to be misleading with bots posing as women to get people to sign up for accounts.  They never did interact with any real women.  I think their advice of learning some Korean and just being a pleasant person is much better way to meet people in Korea than depending on a website like Ashley Madison.

The Marines are coming!  The Marines are coming!:

South Korea and the United States plan to stage a joint landing drill here late this month, with three U.S. amphibious ships participating, officers said Wednesday.

Starting at the end of this month, the Marine Corps and the navies of the two nations are scheduled to hold the annual landing drill of Ssangyong in South Korea’s southern port city of Pohang “to boost capabilities of conducting the full spectrum of a combined arms, amphibious landing operation,” a military officer said.

Though the exact scale of the planned exercise is not known, officers say some 1,000 U.S. Marines and 3,000 South Koreans are to take part in the drill, which is expected to last less than a week, together with the three U.S. amphibious vessels.

“The U.S. plans to send the 25,000-ton USS Green Bay transport dock, the 41,000-ton USS Bonhomme Richard assault ship and the 15,000-ton USS Ashland dock landing ship for the exercise,” another officer said.

The Green Bay, which takes on the design for stealth capabilities, is able to deliver a fully equipped battalion of 800 Marines. It is the first time that the San Antonio-class ship has taken part in the joint drill.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I would like to see the anti-US leftists try and stab these guys like they did the US ambassador.

With the repeal of the adultery law in South Korea, this has opened the door to the reopening of the Ashley Madison website that is used by people looking to have an affair:

A Canada-based website facilitating extra-marital affairs among its clientele is back in business in South Korea, authorities said Tuesday, in what seems to be a quick move after the country’s top court abolished a decades-old anti-adultery law late last month.

Ashley Madison, an online dating site which hooks up married individuals as well as singles, has resumed service for local customers under a new domain, www.ashleymadison.co.kr, the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC), the local watchdog for online materials said.

The controversial website, operating in more than 20 countries worldwide, first began its service here last year, luring customers with aggressive marketing until the KCSC banned the site in April, citing the demoralizing nature of the business.

The KCSC, however, lifted the ban on Ashley Madison on Tuesday, following the decision by the Constitutional Court to repeal the anti-adultery law on Feb. 26. [Korea Herald]

You can read more at the link.

Defense Minister Han Min-koo (R) tours the headquarters of the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises by South Korea and the United States at an air force base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, on March 6, 2015. (Yonhap)

For those who have an interest in South Korea’s modern history, I highly recommend taking the time to read this interview in the Joong Ang Ilbo with former Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil.  Just about every event in Korea’s modern history he played a significant role in to include the military coup that brought Park Chung-hee into power and the deal with Japan to normalize relations in return for economic aid:

There was once a time not so long ago when Korean politicians played by rules largely dictated by The Three Kims: Kim Dae-jung, Kim Young-sam and Kim Jong-pil. The Three Kims wielded considerable influence on the Korean political landscape – sometimes as rivals or enemies, sometimes as allies – and two of the Kims went on to become president: Kim Young-sam in 1993 and Kim Dae-jung 1998.

Kim Jong-pil helped each of them clinch those presidential victories.

Though Kim Jong-pil never made it to the Blue House, he was named prime minister twice, by Park Chung Hee in 1971 and Kim Dae-jung in 1998. And few doubt the size of the boots in which he strode the political stage.

Kim retired from active politics a decade ago. At 89, he has offered his view of a tumultuous half century history of Korean politics in a series of interviews with the JoongAng Ilbo.

Beginning last October, the former political titan shared vivid glimpses of events that he either witnessed or made happen himself, many of which changed the flow of Korean history.

Kim was born in 1926 in what is now Buyeo County, South Chungcheong, to a wealthy farmer.

“Because I was born to a rich family, I did not suffer economic hardship when I was young,” Kim recalled. “But after my father’s death, things started getting difficult and I had to change my path.”

Kim dropped out of Seoul National University’s school of education and enrolled in the Korean Military Academy. He graduated a second-lieutenant and worked at the military’s intelligence bureau, where he first met Park Chung Hee.

“Park worked at the intelligence bureau as a government employee after he was discharged from the military,” Kim said. “He had to leave the army after prosecutors sought a death sentence for him on charges of being a socialist in 1949 [when he was 32].” Park was eventually convicted of following leftist ideas and sentenced to life in prison, but his sentence was commuted to a 10-year suspended prison term. Park was discharged shortly after.

Kim recalled it was Park’s meticulousness that appealed to him.

“The most important thing in your life is what kind of people you meet,” he said.

Kim was the architect of the May 16 military coup led by Park. It overthrew a civilian government set up a year earlier after the student-led April 19 Revolution that toppled the government of Syngman Rhee, South Korea’s first president. Park carried out the coup in the name of bringing an end to its ineffectiveness and corruption and getting rid of Communist elements in a country still reeling from the 1950-53 Korean War.

Kim wrote a declaration of promises to the nation after the coup in the name of the new leaders. The first promise he made to the people was to make anti-Communism the state’s No.1 priority.

“It was done to create a new set of rules by discarding old, ineffective rules of the past,” said Kim about the coup, which critics consider a grab for power by ambitious men in uniforms in brazen disregard of the Constitution or any ideals of democratic freedoms.

Supporters of Park Chung Hee, the father of current President Park Geun-hye, say he cut through the rapidly diminishing hopes at the time, changed the way the country was governed, and through intelligence, determination and an iron fist enabled it to grow into an economic powerhouse at a speed no one had foreseen.

When asked about the ongoing debate over how to define the coup on May 16, 1961, Kim brushed the question off as an irrelevance.

“It doesn’t matter at all whether it is defined as a revolution or a coup,” he said. “What’s important is that it brought about profound changes in every sector encompassing politics, economics and the society. And it produced tangible outcomes. And that is the revolution.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest of this interesting interview at the link that has other interesting tidbits such as how he tried to stop Park Chung-hee from changing the Constitution to seek a third presidential term, but Park went ahead with the “Yushin Constitution” changes anyway that gave him dictatorial powers.  I wonder how differently Park Chung-hee would have been viewed by history if he would have taken Kim Yong-pil’s advice at the time?