Though cases are dropping nationally in South Korea there has been a slight uptick in cases in Seoul which has led to this decision:

U.S. Forces Korea put four districts in Seoul and three in adjacent Gyeonggi province off-limits following a rise in COVID-19 cases there, according to an announcement Wednesday.

Only mission-essential visits are permitted to the Jongno, Yeongdeungpo, Guro and Geumcheon districts in Seoul and the Gwacheon, Dongducheon and Ansan districts in Gyeonggi, according to USFK’s weekly travel restrictions update. The command placed 10 districts off-limits Wednesday.

The Jongno district includes the U.S. Embassy, Seoul City Hall and the presidential Blue House. Camp Humphreys, the headquarters for USFK and the U.N. Command, and Osan Air Base are in Gyeonggi province.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Here is a rare instance where I actually agree with the Kim regime, no parent should let their kids watch squid game which is brutally violent:

North Korea has been taking jabs at South Korean Netflix megahit “Squid Game” by airing criticisms of the dystopian-thriller coming from many countries around the world. 

The nine-episode show, the U.S. streaming company’s all-time biggest hit estimated to generate $900 million (1.06 billion won) in value, features hundreds of debt-ridden adults participating in a series of deadly Korean children’s playground games to win 45.6 billion won in prize money. The drama is Netflix’s most-viewed drama in 90 countries.

“Squid Game is about survival in a capitalist society where you can earn money if you win by any means and you die otherwise. As children have started acting out games from the violent drama, schools around the world have been advising children not to watch it and urging parents to take extra precautions, but they are helpless,” North Korean state-run website Arirang Meari said, Tuesday.

The propaganda site picked a few examples of opposition to the thriller’s content. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Here is an interesting read in the Korea Times about how solar energy farms in South Korea are destroying the environment and impacting the livelihood of farmers:

Thousands of solar energy facilities have been built in rural mountainous regions in recent years, in line with a government policy to increase the ratio of renewable energy sources in the country’s energy mix. 

However, many of them have become danger zones as the removal of trees for their construction has heightened the possibility of landslides, becoming a major headache for local residents during the nation’s annual rainy season. What is of more concern is that the installations are feared to end up destroying the landscape and environment through massive deforestation.

Seokdong Village in Gangjin County, South Jeolla Province, is one such village, where over 25,400 square meters of forest there were cut down to install solar panels in 2016. 

But since then, soil has been washed away from the facilities during each summer’s rainy season, and in July this year two meters of stone embankments and 20 meters of barbed wire fencing collapsed.

“As the rain poured in July, the solar facilities collapsed and the village’s rice paddies were completely flooded. Fortunately, nobody was on site and hurt but if there had been, it would have caused many casualties,” Lim Jun-hyung, the village head, told The Korea Times, Friday. “The company that installed the panels won’t come to fix it for months, no matter how many times we call them. I can’t even stand the sight of those panels now.” 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but what is ironic is that the Korean government is blaming global warming for the flooding and not the fact that huge swaths of forest were cut down to put in these solar farms. I also find it interesting that these farmers are not protesting and blockading these solar farms like the farmers blockading the THAAD site are which has done absolutely nothing to their crops.

By the way I am actually impressed the Korea Times actually published an article like this critical of solar farms. Generally it seems the media doesn’t want to report anything negative about green energy projects.

This is called keeping up with the Jones. The ROK Navy recently test fired an SLBM so the Kim regime likely told their weapons experts to hurry up and put together an SLBM test as well. Additionally the ROK has a space launch this week that North Korea is likely trying to steal headlines from as well:

 North Korea fired what appears to be a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) toward the East Sea on Tuesday, South Korea’s military said, in yet another setback to Seoul’s drive for peace with Pyongyang.

The short-range missile was launched from waters east of Sinpo, a city on the North’s east coast, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The launch was detected at 10:17 a.m., it said.

The missile traveled about 590 kilometers at a top altitude of around 60 km, an informed source said, noting the possibility that the North might have used a submarine as a launch platform this time.

The North previously conducted an SLBM test in 2015 and 2019. The South’s military believes that it used a barge rather than a submarine during the past tests.

Officials said that Tuesday’s launch came after South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities had detected signs of a possible weapons test near Sinpo, where the North has been pushing to build a 3,200-ton submarine capable of SLBM operations.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

All Koreans that work for USFK will have to receive the COVID vaccine by next month:

 All Korean civilians employed by the U.S. military in South Korea are required to be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus by Nov. 22, according to a U.S. Forces Korea memo obtained by Stars and Stripes.

The Oct. 13 memo, signed by foreign labor program director Lebanon Spann, cites President Joe Biden’s executive order last month requiring all U.S. federal employees to be vaccinated “to ensure the health and safety of the federal workforce and members of the public with whom they interact.”

“The health and safety of the federal workforce, and the health and safety of members of the public with whom they interact, are foundational to the efficiency of the civil service,” Biden’s executive order said, adding that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “has found that the best way to do so is to be vaccinated.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Like many other places in the world it appears that the spread of the coronavirus is now seeing sharp drop in cases in South Korea as well:

 South Korea’s daily coronavirus cases dropped to the lowest level in more than three months Monday as the country eased restrictions on private gatherings ahead of preparations for a gradual shift to the “living with COVID-19” scheme. 

The country reported 1,050 new cases, including 1,030 local infections, raising the total caseload to 343,445, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said.

Monday’s tally is the lowest daily number since July 7, when the country reported 1,211 additional virus cases on the onset of the fourth wave of the pandemic. The daily cases have since stayed in the quadruple digits, including the record high of 3,273 on Sept. 25.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but hopefully the cases continues to drop so some kind of normal life can return to the people and small businesses in South Korea.