This is why it is important to continue to undermine the Kim regime by providing access to outside information into North Korea:

North Korean brothers who brought their family members out of the country earlier this month are late millennials, part of the tech-savvy younger generation of North Korea who have increased access to external information.

Sources with knowledge of the latest defections told The Korea Herald on Sunday that it was the two brothers in their early 30s who had made the decision to leave North Korea with their family.

The sources said that the brothers told Seoul officials here in a screening interview that they had yearned for a life in South Korea after secretly watching South Korean TV. In particular, they cited the talk show “Now on My Way to Meet You,” featuring North Korean defectors, as having had a major influence.

Analyses say North Korean millennials are the main consumers of foreign media content, mostly from South Korea, in the totalitarian country where such acts are severely punished.

According to a South Korean government report on the human rights situation in North Korea released in March, North Korea has publicly executed citizens including teens for watching South Korean media.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Here is another sign of how President Yoon and Prime Minister Kishida are working together on not allowing historical issues derail their bilateral relationship:

President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Sunday paid tribute to South Korean victims of the 1945 Hiroshima atomic bombing at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, in a symbolic gesture to transcend the two countries’ historical issues and normalize their ties. 

During a summit that followed, just two weeks after their previous meeting in Seoul, the leaders agreed that their visit was “a courageous act toward the future” and the two countries should cooperate to tackle various global challenges.

“Today, I and Prime Minister Kishida together paid a tribute to the monument,” Yoon said during the summit. “It was about paying condolences to the South Korean victims of the Hiroshima atomic bombing and at the same time will be remembered as the prime minister’s courageous act toward a peaceful future.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Japan wants to maintain their anti-nuclear weapons stance, but they are surrounded by hostile nuclear armed neighbors which makes it increasingly hard to do so:

From left: US President Joe Biden, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and France’s President Emmanuel Macron pose for a family photo during the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Hiroshima on Sunday, (AFP-Yonhap)

Geography is a big reason for Kishida’s attention to nuclear disarmament. He represents Hiroshima, where his family is from, in parliament. Although a pro-military conservative, he is politically linked to a city where a fast-dwindling number of elderly bomb survivors are a palpable reminder of one of the most momentous events in human history.

As a child, Kishida heard about the horrors of the atomic bombing from his grandmother, who was from Hiroshima. Her stories left “an indelible mark” and inspired his work for a world without nuclear weapons, said Noriyuki Shikata, Cabinet secretary for public affairs.

But Japan, a liberal democracy, staunch US ally and the world’s third biggest economy, is also located in a dangerous neighborhood.

Wary of China and North Korea, Kishida has been steadily pushing for an expansion of a military constrained by a pacifist constitution primarily written by the Americans after Japan’s World War II defeat. He relies on the so-called US military umbrella, which includes nuclear weapons and the 50,000 US military personnel, and their powerful, high-tech weaponry, stationed in Japan.

To some critics, Kishida’s disarmament goals ring hollow as he simultaneously pushes to double Japan’s defense budget in the next five years and strengthen strike capabilities.

Japan also refuses to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which took effect in 2021. Kishida says it is unworkable because it lacks membership by nuclear states. He maintains that Japan needs to take a realistic approach to bridging the gap between nuclear and non-nuclear states in a challenging world.

“A path to a world without nuclear weapons has become even more difficult,” Kishida said in April. “But that’s why we need to keep raising the flag of our ideal and regain a new momentum.”

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

This is like something out of a Korean drama:

Bank of Korea (Herald DB)

Twin brothers are under investigation, with one twin allegedly taking an employment exam for a public financial institution on behalf of the other in 2022.

The Bank of Korea and Financial Supervisory Service on Wednesday reported the twin brothers to the police for cheating on their entrance exams, which took place simultaneously on Sept. 24, 2022.

While the younger of the twins took the exam for the BOK, the elder twin took the exam for the FSS, which was taking place in another part of Seoul at the same time pretending to be his younger twin.

The two institutes hold the first step of their recruitment exam on the same day every year to prevent possible confusion from overlapped applications. The BOK and the FSS announced the shared test schedule in advance last year.

With high income and job stability, they were regarded as some of the most preferred destinations for job seekers, for which the day of their simultaneous test was called an “A-match” among would-be employers of financial companies.

Both brothers passed the exams, enabling the younger one to move on in both organizations’ recruitment process until he was finally admitted to the BOK, the suspects stated in a BOK internal inspection report.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

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

Good on this firefighter for saving the life of this woman who really wanted to die. Hopefully she gets the treatment she clearly needs:

Kim Chan-soo with the Gimhae Seobu Fire Station pulled the woman to safety from Samrangjin Bridge as she was trying to jump after taking sleeping pills.

Kim was driving over the bridge to go to work in another city and came across the woman sitting at the side of the bridge. She was taking pills and bleeding from her arms and legs.

Kim approached the woman and found she was taking sleeping pills.

Kim removed the pills from her mouth and tried to calm her, then calling the 119 emergency service.

But when Kim went to move his car, which had been blocking traffic on the bridge, the woman climbed over the handrail. She was caught by Kim narrowly before falling from the bridge and was pulled up.

The woman reportedly was found to have consumed 20 pills and three bottles of soju, and was receiving treatment at a hospital.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.