The trouble with fake news is always who gets to define what fake news is:

President Moon Jae-in stressed the need to develop a self-purification capacity to protect democracy from fake news at the U.S.-led virtual Summit for Democracy.

Presidential spokesperson Park Kyung-mee said Moon made the remarks Thursday night, Korea Standard time, at the closed-door leaders’ plenary session hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden. 

Moon said mankind has made unprecedented progress along with democracy, but is faced with the challenges of populism, extremism, inequality, polarization, fake news and hatred. 

Calling for serious consultation to discuss ways to protect democracy, Moon stressed that personal liberty and freedom of expression must be guaranteed but they should be in harmony with freedom for everyone.

He underscored the need to guard against the harm of fake news while guaranteeing freedom of speech. 

The president also said South Korea will actively join and contribute to efforts to promote democracy in Asia based on its experiences of achieving economic development and democracy. He did not mention China in his speech. 

KBS World

You can read more at the link.

I don’t think this is discrimination because foreigners can attend the museum’s special programs if someone is willing to translate without interfering with the class. It seems like this is much to do about nothing:

A tea museum operated by South Korean cosmetics giant Amorepacific is found to have a rather controversial policy: It says no foreigners are allowed in its guided tours or tea classes because no interpretation services are provided. 

Even if the foreigner is OK with not having an interpreter or has a native Korean speaker to help, the museum is apparently reluctant to accept the guest, warning, “The translation (by another guest) may be restricted if it disturbs other participants of the program.” 

The museum in question – Osulloc Tea Museum – is one of Jeju Island’s most popular tourist spots. 

Opened in September 2001 and located near the scenic Seokwang tea fields in Seogwipo, it is the first tea museum in Korea designed to introduce and promote the nation’s traditional tea culture. As of 2020, more than 15 million people have visited the venue, it says, with some 20-30 percent of those being foreign visitors. 

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

It seems like resume padding in Korea’s universities is an ongoing problem that Yoon Suk-yeol’s wife has decided to come clean on:

The People Power Party presidential nominee’s wife is under fire for possibly exaggerating her career history on top of allegations of her involvement in academic plagiarism and stock manipulation.

Kim Keon-hee, wife of presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol, partly acknowledged in an interview with news broadcaster YTN released Tuesday that she exaggerated her credentials in successfully applying for a professor position at Suwon Women’s University in 2007. She served in the teaching job for a year.

In the application form obtained by the media outlet, Kim wrote that she served as a director for the Korea Association of Game Industry for three years beginning in March 2002, even though the association was officially established in June 2004.

She said she does not remember the details of her appointment and is in the process of verifying additional details. But Kim attested she was close to key members of the association in the past and often invited them to speak for seminars and lectures.

Kim also acknowledged that she did not win the grand prize at the Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival in 2004 as claimed in the application, saying the falsely written accomplishment was her attempt to have her application “stand out” from those submitted by others.

“If that can be called a crime, that will be a crime,” she said in the interview.

Yet Kim questioned whether her falsely written application is problematic, as she was not married to Yoon at the time and was not a public official undergoing the vetting process typical of those running for elected office.

“I don’t know how this could be problematic, as I didn’t even write down these accomplishments to advance to schools or anything,” she said during the YTN interview.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but I don’t think voters will hold this against Yoon especially since it occurred before he was even married to his wife. With that said you would think that universities would do some simple background checks on these resumes before hiring someone for a professor position. Some of the things Kim put on her resume would have been easy to verify.

I don’t think this is a smart political decision because Koreans I think have hit their limit on lockdowns and restrictions:

Ruling Democratic Party presidential nominee Lee Jae-myung asked the government on Tuesday to immediately tighten social distancing rules to curb the surge in coronavirus infections.

Lee issued the call in an “emergency statement” read by a spokesperson at DP headquarters, saying “it is time to take special measures beyond an all-out response.”

“Regrettably, we need to pause the return to normal temporarily,” he said, referring to the loosening of virus restrictions that began under a government initiative last month.

Lee said small business owners should be compensated in advance for the losses they are likely to suffer under the tightened rules.

Details of the strengthened measures should be determined in consultation with health authorities and experts, the spokesperson, Park Chan-dae, said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like South Korea’s vaccine pass system is having some early struggles:

The government’s digital vaccine pass system malfunctioned for the second day on Tuesday, leading to a number of access failures during lunch time despite the addition of emergency servers to deal with heavy user traffic.

COOV, a government smartphone application that authenticates users’ vaccination status by QR codes, along with affiliated third party programs, such as Naver and Kakao talk, has been plagued with major connection issues since Monday, the first day of the government’s vaccine pass enforcement, as a result of heavy traffic.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said it added emergency servers to the system overnight to deal with increased traffic, but many workers and restaurants in Seoul’s office-heavy districts continued to experience outages for the second day around lunch time.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

South Korea has found another purchaser for their K-9 artillery system:

Australia and South Korea signed a $720 million defense deal Monday as South Korean President Moon Jae-in became the first foreign leader to visit Australia since the pandemic began. 

Worth about 1 billion Australian dollars, the deal will see South Korean defense company Hanwha provide the Australian army with artillery weapons, supply vehicles and radars.

It’s the largest defense contract struck between Australia and an Asian nation, and comes at a time of heightened tensions between Australia and China. Australia recently announced a deal to build nuclear-powered submarines in a partnership with the U.S. and Britain — a move that China has strongly condemned. 

Moon met with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison during his visit, and the two leaders agreed to upgrade the formal ties between their nations to a “comprehensive strategic partnership.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.