I wonder how long this is going to last? Will it be shutdown if another COVID wave breaks out in Singapore?:

The first tourists from Singapore since the start of the coronavirus pandemic arrived Monday in South Korea under a bilateral travel bubble agreement.

A travel bubble refers to a quarantine-free travel partnership between two or more cities or countries with similar levels of COVID-19 cases.

The tourists landed at Incheon International Airport earlier in the day and will be free to travel around the country without quarantine if they test negative on a polymerase chain reaction test, the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) said.

Among them, a group of Singaporeans working in the tourism industry and reporters were invited by KTO to visit major tourist attractions in the greater Seoul area and Gangwon Province this week.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It seems to me public sector employees should cater their schedules to better serve the public they are there to support and not the other way around:

Controversy is rising over an increasing demand from civil servants across the country to guarantee them a lunch break from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. as offered to other workers. 

They are demanding all services at public offices, including the issuance of official documents, be suspended during the one-hour lunchtime to guarantee their “rights,” but critics say this will cause inconvenience, especially to workers who have to utilize their own lunchtime to visit public offices.

The Korean Government Employees’ Union (KGEU) has recently intensified calls for the guaranteed lunch break to safeguard their health and welfare rights, citing the Labor Standards Act and service regulations for civil servants that stipulate their lunchtime is from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.

The law and regulations, however, also stipulate that heads of local governments can decide to advance or put off the lunchtime by one hour, considering the characteristics of the duties of civil servants. 

Consequently, most civil servants working at public services centers usually rotate their lunchtimes from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. or from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., so services at such centers can continue during the “original” lunch hour. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It appears those sensitive about being overweight are unhappy with the ROK military for trying to encourage young people to lose weight so they can serve in the military:

The Military Manpower Administration (MMA) has taken flak over a promotional video that critics say disparages those assigned to non-combat duties for their mandatory military service due to health or other reasons.

On Nov. 5, the MMA posted video footage on its YouTube channel in which an active service member on leave talks over a meal with his friends, who haven’t been enlisted yet, about life in the barracks.

The problematic part was about the service member’s physical grade. While all able-bodied men in Korea must serve in the military, only those who receive grades of 1 to 3 in their heath examination serve in the military, while those who receive a grade of 4 are assigned to less physically demanding duties, mostly public service positions at public organizations, and those who get a grade of 5 are exempt from duty.

In the video, the man said that he was initially given a grade of 4, but joined the military after losing weight through an MMA program and improving his grade. The project helps those who receive a grade 4 or 5, due to extreme obesity or other health reasons, to get support from hospitals, fitness clubs or public health centers, to lose weight or improve their condition if they want to serve in combat positions.

The man said, “I applied for the project because I thought it fits well with my character,” and the friend replied, “You can proudly call yourself a man only when you fulfill the military service.”

This video has drawn a barrage of criticism for disparaging people who receive grades of 4 or 5 and take public service positions instead of combat duty.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

For anyone that thinks Democrats and Republicans are irresponsible spenders, this guy may have the craziest presidential platform I have seen yet:

 Pompously clad in a Joseon-era general’s suit of armor, a longsword in hand, Huh Kyung-young, honorary chief of a little known political party, showed up on horseback at an historic battlefield site northwest of Seoul in August to declare his presidential bid in yet another bout of his unique political gimmickry.

Enacting the Joseon army’s heroic victory over invading Japanese forces at Haengju Fortress in one of the major Imjin War battles (1592-1598), the 71-year-old made a spectacle by playing the role of a national hero who slices the enemies to death and saves the country, in front of journalists and supporters. 

He then changed into a sleek business suit and glided back to the audience in his famous Rolls Royce to declare his campaign pledge to run in the 2022 presidential election, solemn-faced throughout the whole event.

The pledges blatantly included a one-shot payment of 100 million won (US$85,258) to everyone aged 18 and above in emergency livelihood assistance upon his presidential victory, along with 1.5 million won in “public dividends” every month.

Huh also promised to give a newlywed couple 100 million won each as a subsidy, plus another 200 million won as a no-interest loan to help them buy a home. Giving birth will bring in another 50 million won per baby, he promised.

Huh said he will do away with 90 percent of the state penitentiary facilities, adopt a system to levy fines proportional to offenders’ wealth and collect “anti-tax evasion taxes” to bankroll his splurge of subsidies if he becomes president.

“Our nation is the world’s 10th-strongest economy, but the level of people’s lives is in 100th place. This attests to the fact that the country is not short on money, but it has a lot of thieves,” he rashly claimed.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but it only gets wackier about Huh Kyung-young. He even went to jail before for lying about being engaged to former President Park Geun-hye.

The Stars & Stripes has an update on the case of the Filipina bartender who murdered a 3-year old son of a USFK service member left in her care:

 Jamaica Eblacas, 30, a Pyeongtaek bartender who admitted killing a U.S. soldier’s 3-year-old son, is refusing a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation or to cooperate with her defense attorney, the attorney told Stars and Stripes on Wednesday.

“We’re frustrated,” attorney Jung Wang Jae told Stars and Stripes in an interview Thursday. “We feel a bit bad for our client. This is a big case, and she has a baby as well.”

At her arraignment Nov. 5, Eblacas admitted killing Noa Calhoun, the son of Army Pvt. James and Kourtney Calhoun, after his father left the child and his 7-year-old brother in her care two months earlier. 

James Calhoun is assigned to the 61st Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Company at Camp Humphreys.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but in court she admitted to stabbing and beating the young boy. Other news is that she got into an unrelated fight with an elderly Korean man before this incident and her ex-husband who is Korean says she is not mentally well. No word on what the U.S. Soldier was doing leaving his kids in the care of a juicy girl that night though we can speculate.

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