I am actually surprised the number is that high:

 Less than half of South Koreans believe it’s necessary to reunify the war-divided peninsula, the lowest percentage in over a decade, according to a recent poll by Seoul National University.

Roughly 44% of respondents to the survey conducted between July and August said it is at least somewhat necessary for North and South Korea to reunify, said the poll released Tuesday by the university’s Institute for Peace and Unification Studies.

The annual in-person poll surveyed 1,200 people between the ages of 20 and 74 and has a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.

The figure represents the lowest number of people who believe reunification is necessary since the poll’s inception in 2007. The number of respondents who think it is not essential has been steadily increasing, from around 16 percent in 2018 to 29 percent this year.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It looks like South Korea is looking at becoming the latest country to accept reality and figure out how to live with COVID:

South Korea said Sunday it will set up a committee this week for a strategy on the “New Normal” of “living with COVID-19,” with the vaccination campaign picking up speed.

The government plans to hold the inaugural meeting of the committee later this week, presided over by Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum, according to health authorities. 

Private sector experts are expected to participate in the meeting with government officials to discuss ways to carry out the envisioned transition in the economic, education, security, coronavirus control and quarantine sectors.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

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

You know you don’t have much to debate when you have to play the anal acupuncturist card:

 Yoon Seok-youl, the leading opposition presidential candidate, has increasingly faced questions about superstitious or unscientific beliefs, this time over his alleged ties to an anal acupuncture specialist that he claims to have no knowledge of.

The allegation surfaced Tuesday during the sixth TV debate among presidential contenders of the main opposition People Power Party, when one of Yoon’s competitors, former Rep. Yoo Seong-min, asked him if he has met someone “known to perform acupuncture on a strange and particular area.” 

Yoon replied he had not. (…….)

Yoo’s campaign reprised the attack on Wednesday, issuing a statement asking “what is Yoon trying to hide by lying” about his relationship with the man.

Yoon’s campaign fired back: “Not only did (Yoo) turn the TV debate into a quiz show on psychics, he is now spreading lies. This attempt to damage Yoon is nothing short of shameful.”

On the video, a spokesperson for Yoon said the man had tried to approach the candidate at the event but was restrained by Yoon’s aides.

Moreover, the man in question was a regular feature not only at political events attended by Yoo, the former lawmaker, but also other political heavyweights such as the ruling Democratic Party’s presidential contender, Lee Nak-yon, minor People’s Party leader Ahn Cheol-soo and former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, according to Yoon’s campaign.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The F-35B’s are providing a new capability to convert Japan’s helicopter carriers into bases for strike aircraft:

A pair of Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II stealth aircraft became the first fighters to fly from a Japanese carrier since World War II after landing and taking off from the JS Izumo on Sunday. 

News about the successful test of the newly upgraded warship’s ability to support the short-takeoff, vertical-landing jets was tweeted by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force on Tuesday. 

The message, which included video footage of the operation, said the JMSDF will continue “to steadily carry out the necessary modifications to the Izumo class to acquire the capability to operate the F-35B.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

President Moon needs to be telling the Kim regime there is no need for confrontation and not the rest of us because they are the ones that have shelled a civilian island, sunk the Cheonan with a torpedo, kidnapped Korean citizens, and the list goes on and on:

President Moon Jae-in said that there is “no reason for confrontation” between the two Koreas Tuesday, a day after the restoring of cross-border hotlines, stressing the importance of co-prosperity with the North.    
   
“From the perspective of overseas Koreans, a Korea divided in two, into the South and the North, must be a sad reality,” said Moon, speaking at a ceremony marking 15th World Korean Day. “But we have no reason for confrontation. Competition over political systems and comparison of national power has long since become meaningless.”  
   
The two Koreas restored cross-border communication lines Monday, 55 days after Pyongyang suspended them to protest a military exercise, taken by the South as a positive signal to deescalate tensions and improve inter-Korean relations.    
   
“Now, it is even more important to prosper together,” continued Moon. “Even if unification takes time, the South and North can cooperate and get along well with each other.”   

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but as I have said before with Moon presidency ending soon the Kim regime knows that their window of opportunity to get sanctions dropped is shrinking. Thus they are being nice to President Moon while at the same time trying to pressure the Biden administration to deal with them by executing missile tests. I would expect the provocations to escalate if the Kim regime feels they are not making progress towards an agreement with the Biden administration.