The Moon administration continues to throw everything they can at Yoon Seok-youl whether it is true or not to smear him before the upcoming presidential election. Remember these are the same people who smeared their main competitor Ban Ki-moon before the last presidential election to get him to drop out:

The Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) said Friday it opened a case on presidential candidate Yoon Seok-youl.    
   
“We began our probe on Yoon to investigate him for possible power abuse, divulgence of official secrets and violations of the Personal Information Protection Act and the Public Official Election Act,” the CIO said in its statement on Friday.    
   
Yoon, prosecutor general at the time of the general elections on April 15, 2020, has been accused of helping Son Jun-sung, a high-ranking prosecutor working for Yoon, share drafts of criminal complaints against journalists and political figures affiliated with the ruling Democratic Party (DP) with Kim Woong, a prosecutor-turned-politician who was managing the general election campaign for the United Future Party (UFP), a predecessor of today’s opposition People Power Party (PPP).  
   
In short, the allegation is that Yoon encouraged a high-ranking prosecutor to work with his friend in the UFP to try to smear the campaigns of DP candidates by pushing the UFP to lodge criminal complaints against DP members and their friends.  

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but hopefully Yoon is not surprised by any of this and if he is then he clearly isn’t ready to be the next President of South Korea. He is up against people that took out and jailed a sitting President largely with fake news and then went and put a prior President in jail as payback for investigating corruption of his predecessor.

This is a fairly simple malware attack launched by the North Koreans:

A hacker group believed to be linked to North Korea has attempted to steal data from South Korean experts working as members of an advisory panel for the defense ministry, a cybersecurity firm said Sunday.

Emails were sent to some members of the advisory panel earlier this month from hackers who disguised themselves as a North Korea-related department of the defense ministry, notifying them of an upcoming seminar on the occasion of the anniversary of a 2018 inter-Korean military agreement, according to ESTsecurity.

A few days later, another email was sent, asking the panel members to open attached papers written for the event. It had some disguised images on the attachments that appeared to be official government documents, according to ESTsecurity.

ESTsecurity said it suspects North Korea-linked hacking organization Thallium to be behind the attempted attacks.

The hackers attached malicious files disguised as government documents to emails that can install malware on users’ computers, allowing them to steal information.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Does anyone think it is a coincidence that with the drawdowns in Iraq an Afghanistan that the CSIS is advocating for cutting troop benefits to pay for more equipment from the defense contractors that lavishly donate to CSIS?:

To counter ever-rising personnel costs in the ranks, defense officials should consider radical changes to troops’ compensation packages like replacing annual pay raises with more targeted bonuses and mandating 25 years of service for full retirement benefits, according to a new budget analysis released this week.

“While today’s U.S. military is near its smallest size since the end of World War II in terms of active duty end strength, personnel costs are at a historic high,” wrote Seamus Daniels, associate director for Defense Budget Analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Military Times

You can read more at the link.

I had no idea that plant poaching was even a thing:

The leader of an international plant poaching ring has pleaded guilty to digging up thousands of succulents from remote state parks in California to ship to Asia to sell for giant profits, federal prosecutors said.

Byungsu Kim, 46, of South Korea, was accused with two co-conspirators of flying to Los Angeles in 2018, and then driving to small state parks in northern California where they illegally dug up numerous Dudleya plants.

The plants are prized in Asia, but take years to grow in nurseries, so those growing in the wild along the California coast have become a major target for poachers, authorities say. Black market Dudleyas can sell for up to $1,000 each, wildlife experts say.

Market Watch

It is a bit surprising how slow the roll out for the vaccine has been in South Korea:

South Korea’s daily coronavirus cases dropped under 1,800 on Sunday as health authorities try to stem virus infections ahead of a major holiday amid persistent infections in the greater Seoul area. 

The number of fully vaccinated people surpassed the 20 million mark, representing 39 percent of the population, with a nationwide effort to boost vaccination rates.

Yonhap

Meanwhile in Japan despite their initial slow start, they have reached a 50% vaccination rate:

Japan’s government says more than 50% of the population has been fully vaccinated.

Japan’s vaccine rollouts began in mid-February, months behind many wealthy countries due to its lengthy clinical testing requirement and approval process. Inoculations for elderly patients, which started in April, were also slowed by supply shortages of imported vaccines, but the pace picked up in late May and has since achieved 1 million doses per day.

Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, who is in charge of COVID-19 measures, told NHK public television’s weekly talk show Sunday that about 60% of the population is expected to be fully vaccinated by the end of September, on par with current levels in Europe.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the links.

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

Anyone who thinks the Afghan withdrawal is a sign of a weakening US commitment to South Korea doesn’t know much about US-ROK relations:

A bipartisan pair of U.S. lawmakers said Thursday the alliance with South Korea remains strong, despite fears that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan signals weakened resolve on the Korean Peninsula.

Reps. Ami Bera, D-Calif., and Young Kim, R-Calif., gave their assessment of the alliance with South Korea during a virtual panel discussion hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Bera, a co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Study Group on Korea, advised policy watchers not to read too deeply into President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan.

“Korea is a totally different country — it’s one of the most developed democracies in the world,” he said. “It’s certainly a developed economy. We have a long geopolitical, strategic relationship and our security commitments are extremely important to members of Congress in a bilateral way.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but I don’t see the ROK president fleeing with a helicopter full of cash and the ROK Army completely folding against any North Korean attack. Unlike the Afghan military, the ROK military is professional, motivated, and will fight.