Pyongyang's trade fair was very well-attended, but dwindling number of foreign companies: http://t.co/Ph3d5keUnd

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) June 20, 2015

South Korean actress Ah Ri, who stars in the new movie “Black Idols,” poses for a photo during a publicity event in Seoul on June 15, 2015. The movie will be released in South Korea on June 25. (Yonhap)

For those of us who were in Korea in 2000 when the Yongsan Water Dumping Incident happened this news about 25 companies dumping toxic chemicals in the Han River with hardly any outrage shows the entire hypocrisy of what happened back in 2000:

The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Friday it has caught 25 companies releasing wastewater polluted with hazardous chemicals into the Han River.

Most of the polluters are small and medium-sized enterprises operating factories to make textiles and metals, according to the municipality. But it refused to disclose their names.

The city government suspected the firms discharged nearly 3,000 tons of wastewater poisoned with potassium cyanide, chromium, lead, copper and phenol, all of which should be tightly regulated for its potential health risks.

The city found the illegal wastewater release after taking samples from 52 locations along the river during an inspection that began in April.

“The city received tips about their illegal activities,” a city inspection officer said. “We know there are businesses which have released hazardous chemicals into the river. This year, inspection has been stricter because of a drought. If factories upstream leak chemicals, it could cause serious damage to drinking water for Seoul residents.”

The Han River is a major source of drinking water in Seoul and its surrounding areas.

The inspector said the level of potassium cyanide found in water was 765 times higher than the permitted amount. The amount of chromium was 10 times more than the allowable limit. The level of lead, copper and phenol showed 4,098 times, 628 times and 222 times, respectively, higher than the regulated cap.  [The Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but this is just another example of why I do not recommend drinking tap water in Korea.  To put this pollution in perspective South Korea went into a anti-American hatefest over 20 gallons of formaldehyde that was diluted first by running water, then was processed through the Seoul waste treatment system, and finally through the Nanjido central metropolitan treatment plant along with 1.9 million gallons of other sewage and waste. Here we have 3,000 tons of potassium cyanide, chromium, lead, copper and phenol dumped in the Han River with little criticism.

https://twitter.com/SouthKoreaDaily/status/611668552509075456

South Korean singer Yangpa performs during a baseball match between the Texas Rangers and the Los Angeles Dodgers at Globe Life Park in Arlington, Texas, on June 15, 2015. She sang the national anthems of South Korea and the United States consecutively, winning the applause of spectators. (Yonhap)

With all the news around how 8 Kansas City players could start on the American League All-Star team due to a surge in online fan voting this got me wondering if South Korean netizens were behind this?  I ask because the Kansas City Royals are a popular team in Korea now due to their SuperFan Lee Sung-woo.  If anyone knows how to get out the vote online it is South Koreans netizens.  So is this online voting surge just a coincidence or has anyone seen anything in regards to South Koreans getting out the vote for the Kansas City Royals?:

– In every corner of the Kansas City Royals‘ clubhouse, they revel in the chaos, each player’s face contorted into something that resembles a Guy Fawkes mask. Somehow, the American League All-Star team’s lineup as of today consists of eight Royals and the best player in the world, and this, to them, is the most glorious kind of anarchy, one everybody involved wants to believe is built on the back of pure passion.

It may well be that the 25th-sized market of Major League Baseball’s 26 mobilized, rocked the vote and did so without the help of a sneaky Python script or an undetectable Perl script or any of the ways around the system that for the first time has gone online only and seen itself turned completely on its head. Because right now, the single worst offensive player in baseball is the AL starter at second base and the single best offensive player in the AL is not starting and the entire thing is like a coastal fever dream in which the Midwest rises up and fights back for all those years of flyover jokes.  [Yahoo Sports]

You can read the rest at the link.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

What is likely going on here is that North Korea is using the MERS crisis in South Korea for maximum domestic propaganda purposes.  The Kim regime is able to claim that their government has been able to develop a cure for MERS unlike the South Koreans who a dieing from the virus. I would not be surprised if the domestic propaganda had a racist element to it criticizing the South Koreans for contracting these diseases by mixing with dirty foreigners in the first place.  For those that are not familiar with North Korea’s race based nationalism I highly recommend reading B.R. Myers great book, “The Cleanest Race“:

North Korea said Friday it has developed an injection that is highly effective in preventing and curing the MERS virus and other contagious diseases.

But doubts have arisen over the credibility of its claim given its poor health care system.

North Korea’s Pugang Pharmaceutic Co. has developed “Kumdang-2,” made of extracts from ginseng with the injection of rare earth elements, according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

“As a strong immune-activator, the injection has been recognized to prevent different malignant epidemics,” the KCNA said, citing remarks by Jon Sung-hun, a doctor and director of the pharmaceutical company.

The report came as South Korea has confirmed the 24th death from and 166 infections of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome since the first case was reported in May.

The reclusive North’s claim couldn’t be verified independently by the outside world. Observers here said chances are slim that the North has developed such an injection, given that many North Koreans are suffering from tuberculosis and other diseases amid a lack of vaccination and the poor health care system.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link.

https://twitter.com/dramafever/status/611231340055269377

A soldier is checked for a fever at the Army’s Special Warfare Command in Seoul on June 16, 2015, before he participates in a field training exercise, as a precaution against the spread of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). As of that day, South Korea had confirmed four additional cases of the viral respiratory illness with three more deaths, bringing the total number of cases to 154 with 19 deaths. (Yonhap)