The story for this webtoon sounds ridiculous, but it is cool that it is highlighting the Thai soldiers that fought in the Korean War:

Days after the 1950-53 Korean War broke out, Thailand became the first Asian nation to respond to the U.N.’s call for aid to South Korea.

Over the course of three years, it supplied the war-ravaged country with 40,000 tons of rice as food aid and dispatched 6,326 soldiers in army, navy and air force units to fight off waves of enemy attacks, according to the Ministry of National Defense.

After the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement on July 27, 1953, Thailand continued to maintain a combat unit in Korea until 1972.

A webtoon series that aims to revisit and celebrate this underappreciated historical legacy left by Thailand’s contribution to the Korean War will be launched later this year.

Kakao Entertainment and the Korean Cultural Center (KCC) in Thailand will unveil the series, titled “One Day, My Favorite K-Pop Idol Group Leader Disappeared!” (direct translation), on the Southeast Asian nation’s online platform in September, the company announced, Friday.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It has been nearly five years since the last trilateral meeting, so it is great to see this coordination happening again:

President Yoon Suk-yeol will hold a trilateral meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Spain this week on the sidelines of a NATO summit, his office said Sunday. 

The trilateral summit, set for Wednesday in Madrid, will be the first such gathering in four years and nine months since the last meeting was held in September 2017 on the margins of a U.N. General Assembly. No trilateral meeting has since taken place amid badly frayed relations between Seoul and Tokyo.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I am not sure how much more sternly the ROK can respond to North Korean provocations, but I guess we will soon find out:

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo vowed a stern response to any North Korean provocation, Saturday, as the nation observed the 72nd anniversary of the outbreak of the 1950-53 Korean War.

In a speech during a ceremony marking the anniversary, he said the North’s recent missile launches and nuclear weapon test preparations have escalated tensions beyond the Korean Peninsula and are posing a threat to international peace.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

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

Here is an interesting diplomatic development for South Korea since it shows that NATO countries recognize the ROK’s military capabilities as an alliance partner:

South Korea has decided to establish a mission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Brussels, a presidential official said Wednesday ahead of President Yoon Suk-yeol’s participation in a NATO summit next week.

Yoon will attend the NATO summit in Madrid, Spain, on June 29 and 30, on his first overseas trip as president, National Security Adviser Kim Sung-han said during a press briefing.

South Korea is not a member of the military alliance but has been invited as a partner nation, along with countries, such as Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

The new NATO mission will be headed by the South Korean ambassador to Belgium, who currently also doubles as the ambassador to the European Union, a second presidential official said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Just in case if any of you even care about COVID case numbers any more, here is the latest statistics from South Korea:

South Korea’s new coronavirus cases stayed below 10,000 for the 14th straight day Thursday amid a steady omicron downtrend, though the country remains vigilant against any potential virus resurgence.

The country reported 7,497 new COVID-19 infections, including 92 cases from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 18,305,738, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. 

The daily tally has stayed below 10,000 since June 10. The numbers have declined at a steady pace after hitting more than 620,000 in one day in March at the height of the omicron spread.

The KDCA reported 14 additional deaths from COVID-19, raising the death toll to 24,488. The fatality rate stood at 0.13 percent.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the fatality rate appears to have leveled off since it is the same as a month ago. It would be interesting though to know whether the fatalities were mostly people with pre-existing medical conditions which never seems to get put out.