It was only a matter of time before small businesses that cannot stay profitable due to increasing minimum wage requirements used technology to replace overpriced labor:

This allowed employees living in the Philippines to take store orders, adjust delivery orders, answer store calls, and even manage restaurant reviews.

Happy Casher expects more than 100 New York-based restaurants to use the service by the end of this year.

The hourly wage for Filipinos working in this job is $3 (about 4,100 won), which is quite cheap considering New York’s minimum wage of $16 (about 22,000 won).

There is a 12-hour time difference, but employees of Happy Casher communicate with visitors through Zoom and take orders.

The manager of the Japanese restaurant said, “It is a way for small business owners to survive.”

Maeil Kyeongchae

You can read more at the link, but I think something that customers will appreciate is that by ordering through a Zoom worker they likely do not need to leave a tip making the meal more affordable.

The ROK government has been wanting to get a new US-ROK cost sharing agreement in place before the U.S. presidential election. This is because they know the potential acrimony that could happen if Donald Trump is elected President and they have to negotiate a new agreement with his administration:

This photo, captured from the State Department’s website, shows Linda Specht, a senior adviser and lead negotiator for security agreements at the department.

South Korea and the United States outlined their respective visions for a new bilateral defense cost-sharing deal during their first round of negotiations in Honolulu this week, the top U.S. negotiator said Friday.

Linda Specht, senior advisor and U.S. lead negotiator for security agreements at the State Department, made the remarks after the initial round of talks over the deal, named the Special Measures Agreement (SMA) took place from Tuesday through Thursday.

The talks are aimed at determining how much Seoul should pay for the stationing of U.S. Forces Korea. The current six-year SMA is set to end at the end of next year.

“The United States and Republic of Korea outlined their respective visions for the 12th SMA,” she said in a statement. She did not elaborate on the visions.

“Our commitment to reinforcing the readiness of our combined defense posture underlines the enduring vitality of the U.S.-ROK alliance. We will continue to consult whenever necessary to further strengthen and sustain the Alliance under the 12th SMA,” she added.

Shortly before the talks, Specht said that the U.S. seeks a “fair” and “equitable” outcome in the SMA talks.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It wasn’t that long ago actions like this was not taken seriously by Korean courts. It is good to see the progress made holding these weirdos accountable:

The court sentenced a pastor in his 40s to prison and arrested him in court for forcibly harassing a woman in her 20s who was a believer and related to a heterogeneous cousin.

According to the legal community on the 28th, the Chuncheon District Court’s Wonju Branch 1 (Chief Judge Lee Soo-woong) sentenced A (41) to three years in prison and arrested him without detention on charges of violating the Special Act on Sexual Violence Crimes Punishment.

The court also ordered the completion of a 40-hour sexual violence treatment program and restrictions on employment for five years at facilities related to children, adolescents, and the disabled, respectively.

A, a church pastor, was indicted on charges of hugging B and touching her body by putting her hand inside her clothes while talking to B (25, female), a member and heterogeneous cousin, at 2 p.m. on June 23 last year.

At the time, the victim refused, saying to A, “What’s wrong with you, I’ll report it,” but “There are times when I can’t control myself because there are many male hormones.” It was revealed through the indictment that he continued to molest, saying, “I wanted to touch it normally.”

Maeil Kyeongchae

You can read more at the link.

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

Green tea fields

Visitors take a stroll through green tea fields producing premium tea brand Osulloc on South Korea’s largest island of Jeju on April 25, 2024. (Yonhap)

Another sector of the Korean defense industry could be receiving some work in the near future in the United States:

The world’s largest shipbuilder, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. of Ulsan, South Korea, has signed a deal to seek U.S. government shipbuilding and maintenance contacts in alliance with Philly Shipyard Inc., which employs around 1,000 at the former Philadelphia Navy Yard site in South Philadelphia.

An agreement to “explore a potential business relationship” for government work was signed April 12 by Won ho Joo, chief executive of HD Hyundai’s naval and special ships unit, and Steinar Nerbovik, who has run the Philly yard since 2014 on behalf of its owner, Norway-based Aker ASA. The deal announced this week follows a February visit by U.S. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro to Korean shipyards where he invited owners to invest in U.S. shipyards to build for military and civilian clients.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.