Moon is correct that if he did not pick Yoon as his prosecutor general he would not have had the name recognition to compete for the Presidency:

Former President Moon Jae-in expressed regret over his decision to appoint President Yoon Suk Yeol as prosecutor general in 2019, a move that ultimately paved the way for Yoon’s rise to political stardom.

In a rare interview published on Monday, Moon, who has been critical of his successor’s governance, admitted that the appointment played a role in the formation of the Yoon administration.

“There are many things I regret throughout the (appointment) process, but ultimately, the fact that our administration led to the creation of the Yoon Suk Yeol government is something we cannot distance ourselves from. Of course, I bear the greatest responsibility for that. I sincerely regret any distress this has caused to the public,” Moon said in an interview with The Hankyoreh, a center-left daily newspaper in Korea.

“Even before the declaration of martial law, the Yoon government was performing poorly. I felt a deep sense of self-reproach for having handed over power to such individuals. And now, with the impeachment motion and the martial law crisis, the extent of this feeling is indescribable,” he said.

This interview marked the former liberal president’s first official media appearance since he handed power to Yoon in May 2022.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It looks like South Korean lawmakers may be opening the door to having anchor babies in South Korea:

Lawmakers have proposed a bill requiring medical institutions to register the births of non-Korean babies in the government system, in a bipartisan bid to reduce the number of undocumented children and better protect their rights.

Last week, 11 lawmakers from both the ruling People Power Party (PPP) and the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) jointly proposed a bill requiring hospitals and other medical institutions to report the births of children born to foreign nationals in the country, including undocumented residents. (………)

However, this policy has not extended to children born to non-citizens. As a result, some children born to undocumented foreign nationals in Korea remain unregistered, as their parents fearing deportation choose not to report the births. The exact number of such minors living in the country remains unclear. According to the Board of Audit and Inspection, at least 4,025 babies went unregistered between 2015 and 2022.

This is why the bill also seeks to ensure that government officials involved in birth registration are prohibited from reporting undocumented residents to the immigration office, providing a measure of protection for these families.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but if a bank robber shows up at the hospital to have a baby do they get immunity from being arrested as well?

This is a horrible incident over in Daejeon:

 A female teacher in her 40s stabbed an eight-year-old student to death at an elementary school in the central city of Daejeon on Monday and inflicted stab wounds on herself, authorities said.

Earlier, police found the two with stab wounds on the second floor of an elementary school building in Daejeon, 160 kilometers south of Seoul, at around 6 p.m. after the student’s parent reported her missing from an after-school art class.

Rescuers transported the girl to a hospital in an unconscious state, but she later died. The teacher, who sustained stab wounds to the neck and arm, reportedly remained conscious. 

Police later said the teacher admitted to the crime during a subsequent investigation, with officials determining that she might have inflicted the injuries on herself afterward.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the female teacher had a history of depression before the incident and survived the suicide attempt.

Kim Jong-un was going to build his nuclear arsenal further regardless of the military cooperation between the ROK, US, and Japan:

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said an elevated U.S. security partnership with South Korea and Japan poses a grave threat to his country and vowed to further bolster his nuclear weapons program, state media reported Sunday.

Kim has previously made similar warnings, but his latest statement implies again that the North Korean leader won’t likely embrace President Donald Trump’s overture to meet him and revive diplomacy anytime soon. In a speech marking the 77th founding anniversary of the Korean People’s Army on Saturday, Kim said the U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral security partnership established under a U.S. plot to form a NATO-like regional military bloc is inviting military imbalance on the Korean Peninsula and “raising a grave challenge to the security environment of our state,” according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

“Referring to a series of new plans for rapidly bolstering all deterrence including nuclear forces, he clarified once again the unshakable policy of more highly developing the nuclear forces,” KCNA said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Hopefully no one is surprised by this announcement from the ROK NIS:

The Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) model DeepSeek provided different answers to sensitive questions depending on the language — for example, defining kimchi’s origin as Korea when asked in Korean, but claiming it is Chinese when asked in Chinese, Seoul’s spy agency said Sunday. 

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) said it has also found the AI service provides its advertisers with unlimited access to users’ personal data and such information is subject to submission to the Chinese government upon its request under Chinese law. 

The NIS released its assessment of the technological verification of DeepSeek amid growing controversy over security concerns surrounding the service, which has prompted South Korean authorities to block access to the site.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

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