Trade Minister Joo Hyung-hwan (7th from L) and other guests cut tape to mark the construction of the country’s first electric vehicle (EV) super-charging station at World Cup Stadium in Seoul on Aug. 2, 2016. The government announced a plan to invest 200 billion won (US$180.3 million) this year to develop the nation’s EV industry. Under the plan, 150 on-street charging station will be built across the nation by November, plus 30,000 regular chargers to be set up at apartment complexes nationwide. (Yonhap)

Will North Korea bring the first kimchi to the Moon?:

North Korean space officials are hard at work on a five-year plan to put more advanced satellites into orbit by 2020, and don’t intend to stop there: They’re also aiming for the moon, and beyond.

In an interview with The Associated Press, a senior official at North Korea’s version of NASA said international sanctions won’t stop the country from launching more satellites by 2020, and that he hopes to see the North Korean flag on the moon within the next 10 years.

“Even though the U.S. and its allies try to block our space development, our aerospace scientists will conquer space and definitely plant the flag of the DPRK on the moon,” said Hyon Kwang Il, director of the scientific research department of North Korea’s National Aerospace Development Administration.  [ABC News]

You can read more at the link, but a country with money for a space program that wants to go to the Moon shouldn’t need international aid money to care for and feed their people.

I hope this one western trend that some Koreans will not think is cool to take up:

Graffiti has been spotted in at least 20 subway stations over the past two weeks. Unlike the elaborate work of graffiti artists – with a distinct aesthetic or message – the recent graffiti were mere scribbles done in less than a minute.

Stations with graffiti problems include Jamsil, Gangnam, Konkuk University, Hapjeong, and Sangsu.

There’s a history to Korea’s subway graffiti problem. In May 2016, a subway car idled in a garage in Incheon was found with two drawings spraypainted on it.

In May 2015, a Latvian graffiti artist and three others were arrested for defacing Seoul Metro subway cars. In February 2015, a group of four Australians fled Korea after covering subway cars in Wangsimni, Anam, and Sinnonhyeon stations in graffiti.

The Korea Railway Police feared that foreign graffiti artists were targeting its cars – and circulating information on how to penetrate certain stations with lax security.

Current law states that graffiti corresponds to property damage described in Article 336 of the criminal code. Guilty parties can be imprisoned for a maximum of three years or fined up to 7 million won ($6,290).

Additional punishment is possible if multiple people were involved, according to the Law on Punishment of Violent Acts.

However, it is not easy to track down graffiti aficionados, since they work stealthily.

“We have found through CCTV footage that there was one culprit involved, but it is difficult to detect the identity of the suspect,” said a police official in charge of a recent graffiti case at Jamsil Station on subway line No. 2. “The person in question committed the crime and fled within a minute. Obscure scribbles 30 cm (1 foot) wide and 50 cm (1.6 feet) tall were written in marker on the walls of a passageway.

“Foreign culprits are more difficult to arrest since many have left the nation when investigations have started,” said Kim Hyeon-mo, an investigator of the Korea Railway Police.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

The Secretary of the Army recently got a hands on experience with the great soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Division in South Korea:

The Army’s new civilian leader has taken a real hands-on approach during his first tour of the Pacific, even firing a rocket from a Kiowa helicopter during a demonstration flight near the border with North Korea.

But it’s the real military drills held regularly by the U.S. and its allies that impressed him the most.

Army Secretary Eric Fanning kicked off his visit to the region in Hawaii where multinational naval exercises were being held and wrapped it up in South Korea where the U.S. and its ally are preparing for annual war games later this month.

“Those integrated exercises are one of the ways we’re enhancing our capabilities as we draw down the Army,” Fanning told Stars and Stripes in an interview Wednesday.

Fanning said his trip, which also included stops in Guam, Malaysia, Japan and Alaska, highlighted the challenges facing the Army as it deals with budget constraints, aging equipment and a massive troop drawdown.

“We’re asking a lot of our soldiers, and the requirements are going up, and you see more of that here certainly on this peninsula,” he said after meeting with soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Division that mans the front lines near the heavily militarized border with North Korea.

“Part of that is the rotational concept that we’re using, which allows us to have a bigger footprint even as we draw down the Army,” he said.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

Basically these students are protesting to remain an elitist institution by not allowing in older students who could not afford to go to college after high school, but could later on in their lives:

Hundreds of students at Ewha Womans University in Seodaemun District, western Seoul, have been occupying one of the school’s halls for days in a bid to pressure the university to scrap its decision to create a college for non-traditional students.

Some 300 students have participated in the sit-in so far, which began last Thursday in a building housing the president’s office. The school’s board of trustees had officially decided that day to push the plan forward, rejecting voices from the student body that denounced the so-called Future Life College.

A group of five professors and faculty members who joined Thursday’s meeting was locked inside the building when 200 students stormed in to express their defiance, leading local police to dispatch around 1,600 officers Saturday to guide them out.

Around 10 students were physically injured during the altercation. Some were transported to a nearby hospital by ambulance.

The school’s initiative to establish the Future Life College is led by the Ministry of Education, which sought to offer high-quality education to people who started working right after graduating from high school. The plan was to offer opportunities for those who couldn’t afford a college education but felt the need to get one later in their careers.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

https://twitter.com/dprkwatch/status/760703935669739521

A group of grandchildren of Koreans who were forcibly taken to work on Russia’s far east island of Sakhalin during the Japanese colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula (1910-45), arrives at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, on Aug. 2, 2016. A civic organization in Busan invited the group to a five-day history tour program. Some 43,000 Koreans were sent to the icy island that was a part of the Japanese empire at the time. (Yonhap)

What a horrible tragedy in Busan.  If this guy has such a bad neurological disorder why was he even allowed to drive?:

A Peugeot traveling at more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour ignored traffic lights at a crossroad in Haeundae District in Busan on Sunday and crashed into six other cars, killing three and injuring 14, including the driver.The driver, a 53-year-old man surnamed Kim, was traveling between 100 and 120 kilometers per hour and allegedly did not hit the brakes even when he neared the crosswalk at the intersection of Haeundae Cultural Center, according to police.

The Peugeot hit a Hyundai Accent waiting at a red light, skidded and hit four people crossing the street, including a woman in her 40s, her teenage son and a middle school student. The mother and her 18-year-old son were visiting Busan on a family vacation. All three died. The Peugeot hit five more cars that were passing the intersection before stopping. The accident occurred at 5:18 p.m. Sunday.

Police said Kim was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the accident. “I don’t remember why the accident happened,” Kim reportedly told police. “I woke up and I was at the hospital.”

Kim testified to police that he is suffering from a neurological disorder and did not take his medication on the day of the accident. Kim’s doctor in Ulsan told police that Kim was diagnosed with epilepsy last September, and that he was on medication from November. The doctor said patients suffering epilepsy can lose consciousness sporadically if they stop taking medication, even for a day.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but this wasn’t his first accident caused by his condition according to the article.

Considering where North Korea fired from and where the missiles landed it appears the North Koreans were trying to test as much of the range as possible.  They are additionally continuing their signaling to the ROK and Japan that their missiles work and have the range to hit anywhere in their two countries:

Pyongyang fired a ballistic missile that flew around 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) and landed in waters in Japan’s exclusive economic zone Wednesday morning, according to military officials.

At around 7:50 a.m., Pyongyang launched the missile from Unryul County in southwestern South Hwanghae Province toward its eastern coast, said the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

It was presumed to be an intermediate-range Rodong missile, which has a range of up to 1,300 kilometers.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad) determined that Pyongyang actually fired two intermediate-range missiles, but one exploded in midair immediately after launch.

The U.S. Strategic Command said in a statement that it detected “the simultaneous launch of two presumed intermediate-range ballistic missiles,” adding that one “exploded immediately after launch, while the second was tracked over North Korea and into the Sea of Japan,” which South Korea calls the East Sea.

“The missile that North Korea launched toward its east coast today flew over 1,000 kilometers and landed in Japan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ),” a JCS official said. Japan’s exclusive economic zone covers most of its ADIZ.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning was in Korea and told the ROK media that along with the deployment of the THAAD battery the US is also looking to upgrade its remaining Patriot PAC-2 batteries to the more advanced PAC-3 configuration:

The United States will focus on upgrading the Patriot PAC-2 missile systems in South Korea to the more advanced PAC-3 anti-missile shield to better protect the Seoul metropolitan areas by 2018, the U.S. Army’s senior civilian official said Tuesday.

“Right now, we are focusing on upgrading the Patriot system that we have here in Korea,” United States Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning told Yonhap News Agency in a group interview held in the Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul.

He didn’t specifically confirm local reports that Seoul and Washington are planning to replace the PAC-2 system currently in the country with the more lethal PAC-3 system by the end of 2018, although he hinted that such a move is likely.

“I have seen the potential for the upgrades,” the 47-year-old official said during the interview while he visited the 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade at the air base, adding that the change to a PAC-3 from PAC-2 will allow forces in the country to better cope with evolving nuclear and missile threats from North Korea.  [Yonhap]

Here is what he had to say about the health effects of the THAAD radar:

Asked about local concerns of health risks that might be caused by the powerful radar used in the anti-missile defense system, he pointed out that examination of electromagnetic waves from the operational THAAD battery in Guam showed clearly it poses no problems. The U.S. allowed a group of Korean reporters to visit the U.S. territory and check the level of electromagnetic waves emanating from the AN/TPY-2 radar.

Despite the test results, residents in Seongju, 296 kilometers south of Seoul, have asked the deployment plan to be scrapped, saying that they cannot trust the results. Seoul had tapped the rural town as the site for South Korea’s first THAAD battery last month, with the interceptor system to be operational by 2017.

You can read more at the link.