Yet another example of increasing military cooperation between the ROK and Japan and this is a good thing:

(L to R) South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik; Lloyd Austin, U.S. Secretary of Defense; and Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara hold trilateral talks on Nov. 12, 2023, in this photo provided by Seoul’s defense ministry. Minoru joined the session in Seoul via a video link. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

South Korea, the United States and Japan agreed Sunday to launch a real-time missile warning data sharing system next month to better detect and assess North Korea’s ballistic missile launches, Seoul’s defense ministry said.

The defense chiefs of the three nations reached the agreement during their meeting on the occasion of U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s visit to Seoul for annual bilateral security talks with his South Korean counterpart, Shin Won-sik, slated for Monday. Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara joined the trilateral session via a video link.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Only a high trust society could pull this off. Could you imagine what would happen in parts of the U.S. that had staffless stores?

During the COVID-19 pandemic, unmanned shops drew interest as a way to prevent infection and cater to contact-averse customers. Now such shops are again in the spotlight as a means to help solve serious labor shortages. Research is underway on systems to run unmanned shops safely and efficiently, and such systems have been introduced by a wide range of businesses, including cosmetics companies and a bookstores.

In May, cosmetics company Orbis Inc., based in Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo, opened an unstaffed store in the Granduo Tachikawa shopping mall at JR Tachikawa Station. While the company has 93 directly managed shops across the nation, this is the company’s first unstaffed shop. The shop is small, about 7 square meters, and offers about 90 cosmetics, such as lotions and serums. When a customer picks up a product, several cameras installed in the ceiling and a weight sensor installed in the shelf instantly recognize the product. The customer then pays the amount displayed on a cash register screen, and a gate opens to let the customer out.

Yomiuri Shimbun

You can read more at the link.

Winter is coming early to Jeju island and South Korea:

The first snow of the season fell on Mount Halla on the southern resort island of Jeju on Sunday, as the morning temperature dropped below zero across the nation, the weather agency said.

Mount Halla, the highest peak in South Korea, experienced the first snow 18 days earlier than the one recorded a year earlier, as the temperature sharply fell, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA).

South Korea was gripped by cold snaps across the nation, with the country’s northeastern Gangwon Province experiencing the coldest weather this fall.

As of 6 a.m., temperatures were minus 10.8 C on Mount Seorak of Gangwon Province and minus 7.7 C in Daegwallyeong Pass, located in a mountainous region in eastern South Korea.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Via a reader tip comes news that South Korea will no longer ban plastic straws or single use cups due to the burden it is putting on small business owners:

“It is not the government’s duty to impose another burden on small business owners and self-employed people when they are already suffering from difficult economic conditions,” Lim told reporters during the briefing.

The Environment Ministry also pointed out that paper straws, an alternative to plastic straws, are 2 1/2 times more expensive but have lower consumer satisfaction.

“The use of plastic straws and stirring bars will be banned when the quality of replacement products is improved and the prices stabilize,” said Lee, without clarifying a specific time frame.

Although the ministry claims it has considered various situations, including the economic burden on consumers, criticism of the massive retreat on eco-friendly policies seems inevitable.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but I will never understand why activists are against paper cups. Paper is a renewable resource that is biodegradable.

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

It is interesting how transparent the KATUSA selection process has become to include now even a publicly viewable lottery system. In the past their was a lot of suspicion of rich and connected families receiving the KATUSA slots for their mandatory service:

Applicants and their parents vying for a military service placement in the Korean Augmentation to the United States Army (KATUSA) attend a lottery at the Military Manpower Administration (MMA) office in Daejeon, Thursday. Yonhap

Silence filled the room as young men and parents waited anxiously to hear their fate at the Military Manpower Administration (MMA) headquarters in Daejeon, Nov. 2, during a lottery to select who would join the Korean Augmentation to the United States Army (KATUSA).

The descion was made within a few minutes in a lucky draw. The 30 or so young men and their parents, who showed up on behalf of their sons, were among the 15,360 applicants nationwide who signed up for this year’s competition to serve at U.S. Army bases across the nation. 

Among them, only 1,762 would make the cut — a competition ratio of 8.7 to 1. 

Some bit their lips, while others closed their eyes for a moment of prayer as MMA officials prepared red, yellow and blue colored and numbered balls for the computerized lottery program.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It is not so much that Lee Jun-seok switched to English, but what he said, “You became one of us but you don’t look like us as of now” that is really racist:

Naturalized South Korean doctor Yohan Ihn’s appointment as reform head of the ruling People Power Party in October came as a surprise move in a country with a relatively short history of racial or ethnic diversity in politics.

Following his appointment, the 64-year-old Ihn, also known as John Linton, who is white and the descendant of US missionaries, has faced personal attacks over his ethnicity from political opponents who sought to undermine his power, overshadowing his reform agenda.

At the same time, the issue has opened up opportunities for counterattacks by Ihn’s supporters over the bigoted nature of the attacks.

On Saturday, Ihn made a surprise appearance at a conference in Busan, where disgraced ex-People Power Party Chair Lee Jun-seok was scheduled to speak. Ihn attended the conference to meet Lee face-to-face, two days after his party membership suspension was lifted upon Ihn’s recommendation.

Lee appeared to give Ihn the cold shoulder and, while onstage during the conference, switched to English and argued to Ihn that he thought it was not the right time to hold such a meeting.

Lee said that Ihn had “failed to meet the prerequisites” for an in-person meeting with him on the grounds that, he believes, Ihn represents the current leadership of the party over which President Yoon Suk Yeol holds sway. Lee further believes that the party leadership has not learned its lesson from its critical by-election loss in Seoul’s Gangseo-gu in October.

“The reason I spoke to you in English is,” Lee said in Korean, before switching back to English to continue: “You became one of us but you don’t look like us as of now. Please be (on) our side, and speak in the same language as we do, and speak in the language of democracy with us, please. I said please.”

Korea Herald

Dr. Ihn has also faced attacks from local media for talking positively about the late General Paik Sun-yup who is arguably one of the most important Koreans in the ROK’s modern history:

The critical public reception of Ihn has not been hard to notice in Korea over the last few weeks. Citizens’ Press Dandelion, a local citizens’ media outlet, in October described Ihn as a “special Korean” who has a “lopsided and superficial understanding of Korea’s history and politics.”

The comments were made in criticism of Ihn’s past remarks praising a controversial historical figure, the late former Gen. Paik Sun-yup, in a news report headlined, “Heavy burden on Yohan Ihn, who loves Korea but does not know much about it.”

You can read more at the link.