It is pretty surprising that the ROK government is not providing children drafted to fight in the ROK Army during the Korean War the same benefits of normal veterans:

Park Tae-seung, 92, vividly remembers the day he was conscripted into the South Korean military to fight against North Koreans. It was near the end of August 1950, only three months after the 1950-53 Korean War began. He was 17.

“Age didn’t really matter — if we were physically big enough, then the country deemed us sufficient to enter the war,” Park, who now lives in the quiet city of Yeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, told The Korea Herald on Wednesday.

“I saw so many of us — both allies and enemies — fighting in the war and getting killed. It still haunts me to this day how I had to leave behind my friends on the battlefield just to survive,” he added.

Park is one of the 29,603 soldiers aged 17 and under who were conscripted for the Korean War, according to data provided by the Institute for Military History under the Defense Ministry in 2011. Among them, 2,573 were killed in the war.

Korea Herald

Here is the rights these child soldier veterans are fighting for:

Under the current law, former child soldiers are recognized as war veterans but not as registered patriots. Registered patriots receive bigger rewards and better health benefits compared to those classified as war veterans. Bereaved families of registered patriots can also continue receiving similar benefits after his or her death. Families of war veterans cannot.

A bill to amend the Act on Honorable Treatment of War Veterans and Establishment of Related Associations, aiming to establish a compensation and support system for child soldiers, has been repeatedly drafted, yet scrapped at the National Assembly throughout the past decade. It has never been prioritized, according to attorney Ha Kyoung-hwan, who has worked closely with the survivors of the forgotten group since 2014.

You can read more at the link.

It appears the policies of prior President Yoon did have one positive impact which is improving the birthrate:

The number of babies born in South Korea rose at the fastest pace in 34 years in April from a year earlier, data showed Wednesday, driven by a rise in marriages and demographic changes.

A total of 20,717 babies were born in April, up 8.7 percent from 19,059 babies born a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.

It marked the steepest on-year increase in monthly births since April 1991, when the figure also rose by 8.7 percent.

It was also the first time in three years that the number of monthly births surpassed the 20,000 mark after hitting 21,164 in April 2022. 

The country’s total fertility rate, the average number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime, also rose by 0.06 from a year earlier to 0.79 in April.

“The rise in births appears to be influenced by increased marriages since last year, growth in the population of women in their early 30s, and various birth promotion policies by the central and local governments,” an official at Statistics Korea said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but we will see if President Lee can continue this momentum to improve the birth rate with his policies.

It looks like Fighters for a Free North Korea are going to have a hard time continuing their activities under the new Lee administration:

Lee also directed the government to curb propaganda leaflets sent northward by balloon by activist groups in South Korea. The North characterized the balloons as an act of war. The balloons that sometimes carry rice, small radios and other essentials to aid impoverished North Koreans hinder diplomatic relations between North and South and “threaten the daily lives and safety” of border-area residents, according to a presidential office statement June 14.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but it will be interesting to see if the Lee administration tries to jail the leader of Fighters for a Free North Korea Park Sang-hak. During the Moon administration they arrested him Park multiple times in an effort to stop his group from sending balloons to North Korea.

Kamakura is a beautiful area of Japan filled with various temples and shrines. It is not surprising to me that they would have a Korean shrine there as well. Good to hear the shrine is returning to its original home in Korea:

A building believed to be a royal shrine from the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) has returned to Korea, about 100 years after it was taken to Japan.

The Korea Heritage Service (KHS) and the Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation announced Tuesday that they had received parts of the structure, known as Gwanwoldang, under an agreement reached a day ago with Kotoku-in, a Buddhist temple in Kamakura, Japan. 

The return was made possible through the decision of Takao Sato, chief priest of the temple, who concluded that the shrine should be preserved in its original home — Korea.

It marks the first time an entire Korean building located overseas has been repatriated. Previously, in 1995, 110 tons of remains from Jaseondang Hall of Gyeongbok Palace, discovered in a garden path at Tokyo’s Okura Hotel, were returned. However, those remains consisted mostly of stone components, such as stylobates and cornerstones.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

As long as the Ukriane-Russia war continues there is no reason for Kim Jong-un to pursue any diplomacy with Trump. Kim is getting the money and military aid he needs from the Russians for now. If he started diplomacy with Trump it would look like he is backstabbing Putin:

Joseph Yun, the acting U.S. ambassador in Seoul, said Tuesday that any renewed talks between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un hinge on mutual willingness.

“I have no doubt that President Trump considers his engagement with North Korea during his first term as unfinished business, and he wants to reengage with North Korea,” Yun said. 

“But it takes two to tango,” he added. “We have not really heard from the North Korean side whether they too want to reengage. And to me, that’s the bigger unknown.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.