Like I predicted, the Korean left is going apocalyptic with the forced labor agreement with Japan:

A group of civic groups on Tuesday condemned the government’s plan to compensate victims of Japan’s wartime forced labor on its own, saying the decision amounts to national humiliation similar to Korea’s 1910 forced annexation by Japan.

The government of President Yoon Suk Yeol announced the plan Monday in an effort to restore strained relations with Tokyo. It calls for establishing a foundation charged with collecting public donations and compensating more than a dozen victims.

Critics, including some victims, civic groups and the main opposition Democratic Party, bristled strongly at the decision, arguing that it makes no sense to compensate victims with public donations, rather than money from Japanese companies that exploited them for hard labor.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but there was never going to be a deal the Korean left would be happy signing with Japan because they need to keep this issue alive. Stoking anti-Japanese sentiment has long been a way to distract the Korean public from other issues. Even the Korean right has done this before in the past as well. Unfortunately this deal will probably not last because as soon as the Korean left takes power again they will likely scrap it.

This seems like this would be something hard to screw up, but some how DOD found a way to do just that. Kudos to Hal and Edward Barker at the Korean War Project for identifying these errors:

The US Congress has urged the US Defense Department to take immediate measures to fix more than 1,000 errors on the Washington memorial wall erected to remember service members and Korean augmentees killed during the Korean War.

Six bipartisan lawmakers, including chair of the House Committee on Armed Services Mike Rogers, on March 2 sent a letter to US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

“We find these errors deeply concerning and write to seek accountability on how the Remembrance Wall’s glaring flaws went unnoticed until post-construction,” the letter to Austin read.

The Wall of Remembrance at the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington was unveiled to the public on July 27 last year, marking the anniversary of the armistice agreement that brought a cessation to the three-year Korean War.

The Defense Department in January conceded there were inaccuracies on the Wall of Remembrance that features names of more than 36,000 American service members and more than 7,000 Korean augmentees who died in the theater during the 1950-53 Korean War. It pledged to correct the mistakes in coordination with the Interior Department, explaining that the US military had reviewed every name on the Korean War Casualty List before engraving the wall.

The Pentagon apology came after Edward Barker and Hal Barker, who spent decades researching the Korean War and who operate an online repository of information about the war, first pointed out that the wall contained more than 1,000 spelling errors. The names of 245 late service members who were unrelated to the war were included, and around 500 names that should have been featured on the wall were not inscribed.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see how much these regulations will improve morale for troops eating in ROK military chow halls. I have eaten in ROK Army chow halls before and the food wasn’t bad, but if I had to eat it every day with no variety I can understand why Soldiers would complain:

South Korea’s Defense Ministry on Monday announced a new food service modernization program for this year that meets more of soldiers’ preferences, so that they could enjoy more varied options at barracks starting from the next month.

The new plan seeks to end the previous military policy of providing meals to around 500,000 enlisted soldiers based on standardized menus and ingredients that were unilaterally imposed by the military authorities without considering soldiers’ predilections for food.

South Korean troops have so far designed a daily menu to meet the allocated amount of food ingredients that must be supplied to soldiers. For instance, the existing food service program mandates that a soldier should consume 8.84 grams of white radish, 1.54 grams of green pumpkin, and 3.41 grams of napa cabbage per day.

But the new policy — which will be implemented this April — enables military units to independently select menus to reflect the preferences of enlisted soldiers as long as meal plans cover their nutritional needs and are within budget.

The South Korean military will also renounce its mandatory consumption rate of livestock products. For instance, troops are currently required to allocate 15 percent of pork loin and 22 percent of pork foreleg when stir-frying pork.

But according to the new program, the units will be able to freely choose livestock products within the budget.

The frequency of providing unflavored milk, which is not popular among soldiers, will be reduced. The military will instead supply flavored milk products, soybean milk and juice to soldiers to reflect their preferences.

The South Korean troops will also be able to provide various brands of processed food products, including tofu, sugar, salt and cooking oil. Military units do not have the option to choose brands as only a single company is selected as a provider.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

I think this will be North Korea’s excuse to launch ICBM technology over neighboring countries by claiming they are satellite launches:

North Korea’s development of a high-thrust engine capable of carrying a rocket has provided a “sure guarantee” for the country to launch various satellites into orbit, according to state media Monday.

Pak Kyong-su, vice director of the National Aerospace Development Administration, made the remarks amid speculation the North is likely to put a military spy satellite into orbit by April.

In an interview by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Sunday on the occasion of the 14th anniversary of the North’s accession to the international outer space treaty, Pak said the North has made “steady” progress in the work to develop “multi-functional and high-performance” satellites.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The word “ajumma” is supposedly no longer acceptable to say in polite Korean society and one woman took her offense to the term to the extreme by launching a knife attack after being called it on the subway:

A 37-year-old woman accused of injuring three people with a knife on a subway told police that she did so because someone called her “ajumma,” police said Saturday.

The accused, whose identity was withheld, is charged with injuring two women in her 60s and a man in his 50s inside a subway train headed to Jukjeon Station in the city of Yongin, Gyeonggi Province.

According to the subway police, the accused was speaking on the phone when one of the two women asked her to lower her voice, calling her “ajumma,” which she said offended her.

Although the word, “ajumma,” is a casual way of referring to a middle-aged woman who is unrelated to the speaker — coming from the more polite word, “ajumeoni” — it has grown to have a negative connotation over the years among Koreans.

One of the victims underwent surgery, although none of the injuries were fatal.

Korea Herald via a reader tip

You can read more at the link.

This is a pretty bad case of arson, fortunately no one was killed:

Vice Minister of the Interior and Safety Han Chang-seob, left, and Incheon Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok inspect the charred ruins of Hyundae Market in Dong District, Incheon on Sunday. [YONHAP]

A man detained Sunday morning on suspicion of starting a massive overnight blaze that burned down more than 50 stores in an Incheon market set fire to five different locations inside and near the market, according to police.  
   
The suspect, whom the Incheon Jungbu Police Precinct described only as a man in his 40s, is accused of starting three fires inside the Hyeondae Market in Songnim-dong, Dong District, at around 11:38 p.m. the previous day.  
   
Police said closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage recorded by street cameras outside the market showed the man also setting fire to garbage awaiting collection next to a church outside the market, then to a small cargo truck parked nearby.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.