It is amazing how much of a difference not having makeup and being exposed to the sun can do to someone’s face:

A Chinese woman in her 20s who went on a 10,000km long hike turned into a grandmother in her 60s in three months.

According to the Hong Kong South China Morning Post on the 10th, Xasha (28), from Hubei Province in central China, departed from Chongqing City in southwest China in January and embarked on a walking tour to the Tibetan Autonomous Region. With a backpack weighing 50 kilograms, the walking distance so far is about 10,000 kilometers.

Sasha, who walks about 50km a day, receives donations through live streaming online from time to time. When there is a lot of donations, it is about 10,000 yuan (1.87 million won) per month.

A Chinese influencer filmed her hike and posted it on social media. What made headlines was her face, not her hiking scene.

This is because she did not wear makeup and her sunburnt face looked different from her previous appearance. On social media, “Your face looks 58 years old (not 28 years old).”

Maeil Kyeongchae

You can read more at the link.

For South Korea, a regional war that disrupts their energy supplies from the Middle East would be devestating to their economy. This is true for many other countries as well, which is wahy Israel is probably under enormous pressure right now to not retaliate for the attack on their country this weekend:

President Yoon Suk Yeol on Sunday presided over an emergency meeting to discuss the economic and security impact of heightened tensions in the Middle East following Iran’s recent missile and drone strikes against Israel, his office said.

The meeting was held to discuss the global security and economic situation following the latest Mideast crisis and its impact on South Korea’s economy and security, it added.

Noting the growing uncertainty of the global economy arising from the geopolitical instability in the Middle East, the participants agreed to keep close tabs on the impact on the international oil prices and exchange rate movements and to respond quickly to its effect on the economy, including supply chains.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Its an election year and it is pretty clear the Biden administration wants Kim Jong-un to behave, so offering talks may be an attempt to do this:

 The top U.S. envoy to the U.N. will reaffirm America’s “ironclad” security partnership with South Korea and its openness to “unconditional” dialogue with North Korea during her visit to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas next week, a senior U.S. official said Friday.

On Tuesday, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield plans to pay a visit to the DMZ, after which she will have a roundtable with North Korean escapees. She is set to arrive in Korea on Sunday as part of her East Asia swing that will also take her to Japan.

“The message that Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield will send by visiting the DMZ is that the security partnership with the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Japan is ironclad. She wants to obviously go to the DMZ to get a firsthand look at the situation there,” the official said in an online press briefing. ROK is the abbreviation for South Korea’s official name.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

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

President Yoon needs to figure out how to decrease inflation and improve Korea’s overall economic outlook. I think that is what what voters were telling him with this election defeat for his political party:

President Yoon Suk Yeol has vowed to reform state affairs to reflect people’s will following the ruling party’s crushing defeat in the parliamentary elections, the presidential office said Thursday. 

“I will humbly accept the will of the people expressed in the general election, and will strive to reform the administration and do my best to stabilize the economy and enhance people’s livelihoods,” Lee Kwan-seop, presidential chief of staff, quoted him as saying during a press conference.

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo as well as three senior presidential aides, including Lee, offered to step down to take responsibility for the election defeat, according to the office.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but expected grid locked government for the next three years of Yoon’s term because he will need help from the DPK to get any legislation approved. This very unlikely to happen considering the hostile relationship between Yoon and the DPK’s leader Lee Jae-myung.

According to the article there is likely more than six victims that this guy has drugged and sexually assaulted:

The U.S. media released the employee’s identity while a Korean man who worked as an engineer at NASA was accused of sexually assaulting six women.

According to the Harris County Prosecutor’s Office in Texas on the 9th (local time), A (37) was charged with sexual assault on six women he met through a dating app between 2019 and 2022.

The prosecution said, “We approached women by saying that he attends NASA,” adding, “We believe that there will be additional victims in that he often traveled abroad such as Japan, the UK, and Canada.”

The investigation reportedly began with a website that shares the experiences of sexual assault victims.

There was also testimony that A secretly fed drugs and became unconscious or threatened to release sex videos if he reported them to the police.

Maeil Kyeongchae

You can read more at the link.