It is still early, but the polling shows that Korean conservatives do have a good shot of regaining the Blue House five years after the disastrous impeachment of former conservative President Park Geun-hye:

 Yoon Seok-youl, the presidential nominee of the main opposition People Power Party, is leading his opponent Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party by nearly 12 percentage points in a hypothetical multicandidate race, a survey showed Monday.

Yoon garnered 43 percent support against Lee’s 31.2 percent in the survey conducted on 1,009 adults nationwide on Friday and Saturday, according to the Korea Society Opinion Institute (KSOI).

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is just another example that a country should not rely on China for key ingredients in their supply chain for critical needs especially something as important as diesel fuel:

 South Korea said Sunday it plans to import urea water solution, a key material used in diesel vehicles to reduce emissions, from Australia this week in a bid to ease its supply shortage that has caused soaring prices.

The government has decided to mobilize military aircraft to bring 20,000 liters of urea solution from Australia, the finance ministry said after a meeting on security and the economy.

“The country plans to mobilize all available diplomatic channels to import thousands of tonnes of urea within this year not only from Australia but also from other countries, including Vietnam,” the government said.

South Korea has been grappling with a shortage of urea water solution, known as diesel exhaust fluid, in recent weeks, as China tightened exports of fertilizers and related materials, including urea, in October amid a power crisis caused by a coal supply shortage. Coal is the main feedstock for urea.

South Korea heavily relies on China for its supply of urea water solution, as 97.6 percent of its import came from China in the first nine months of this year. In around 2013, local manufacturers of urea shut down business as they lost price competitiveness over foreign rivals, such as China and Russia.

In Korea, a relatively high portion of diesel cars caused a shortage of urea water solution.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I can see the point of view of local Korean web service providers who’s networks are being strained by high demand from Netflix:

Netflix finds itself in an increasingly difficult position after its global competitors opted to pay network fees in the Korean market through content delivery networks (CDN). 

A CDN is a geographically distributed network of proxy servers and associated data centers. Content providers such as media companies pay CDN operators to deliver their content to end users.

The controversy over network fees snowballed in recent weeks, following the overwhelming popularity of Netflix shows such as “Squid Game.” Increased views have resulted in a spike in data traffic, which internet service providers claim is posing a burden to them.

SK Broadband is currently engaged in a lawsuit with Netflix over network fees. Netflix has maintained its stance that it will not pay for using local networks. 

Netflix Vice President of Public Policy Dean Garfield last week reiterated at a press conference in Seoul that the company will use its open connect appliances (OCA) as a means to help alleviate the traffic.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Really the only changes between the Biden and Trump administrations is that Biden asked for less money from the ROK and largely ignored the Kim regime:

 Most South Koreans see the alliance with the United States as stable, a dramatic increase over last year, according to an annual poll from a government-funded think tank.

The Seoul-based Korea Institute for Defense Analysis polled 1,000 South Koreans, 67% of whom view the alliance favorably. The figure represents a “substantial” increase from last year’s 47%, and the two years prior to 2020.

“The relatively low level of stability perceived by the public during these past few years implies that they were concerned about the disharmony between [South Korean President Moon Jae-in] and the Trump administration over North Korea policies,” Hong Sukji, an institute fellow, wrote in her analysis published Tuesday.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Good to see that things are slowly getting back to normal:

 People flocked to churches and temples in South Korea on Sunday to attend worship services on the first weekend since the country began easing virus restrictions as part of steps to return to pre-pandemic normalcy.

South Korea on Monday kicked off the first of the three-stage “living with COVID-19” scheme to gradually phase out coronavirus restrictions as more than 70 percent of the population have been fully vaccinated. 

Under the eased rules, in-person worship services are now allowed to take up to 50 percent of their capacity regardless of attendees’ vaccination status. 

If the attendees are comprised only of fully vaccinated people or those who submit negative PCR test results, no such cap is applied.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.