These exercises have definitely been scaled down significantly, but I guess we will see if North Korea cares or not:

 South Korea and the United States will stage a major springtime combined military exercise starting this week in a scaled-back manner amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said Sunday. (………)

“South Korea and the U.S. decided to conduct the springtime combined exercise from March 8 for nine days, after comprehensively taking into consideration the COVID-19 situation, the maintenance of the combat readiness posture, the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the establishment of peace,” the JCS said in a statement.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

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

PETA is was recently protesting the Thai embassy in the Yongsan district of Seoul because apparently farmers in Thailand use monkeys to help pick coconuts and keep them in very poor conditions:

A performer, dressed in a monkey costume with a chain around his neck, pushes a cart piled high with coconuts in front of the Royal Thai Embassy in Yongsan District, Seoul, Friday afternoon. After taking several steps forward, he suddenly empties the cart, leaving dozens of coconuts precariously tumbling down the road, before picking up a sign.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but it is interesting that PETA is having this protest at the same time that abuses of migrant workers in South Korea is making headlines.

South Korea’s Employment Permit System is coming under scrutiny by the foreign media which is likening its migrant agriculture workers as modern day slaves:

The Employment Permit System was launched in 2004, to replace a 1990s industrial trainee system notorious for exposing migrant workers to horrific working conditions. It was meant to afford migrant workers the same basic legal rights as Koreans. But critics say the current system is even more exploitative and traps workers into a form of servitude.

Migrant farm workers are more vulnerable than factory workers since rules about working hours, breaks and time off don’t apply to agriculture. The country’s Labor Standards Act doesn’t apply at all to workplaces with four or less employees, which is typical of many farms.

Choi Jung Kyu, a human rights lawyer, says workers at these farms are virtually unprotected against unjust firings or wage theft, uncompensated for workplace injuries and have scant access to health care. They often must pay $90-$270 a month to stay in miserable makeshift dormitories that often are just shipping containers equipped with propane tanks for cooking. Such temporary structures usually only have portable toilets.

Associated Press

You can read more at the link, but many of these elderly farm owners likely grew up in the same rough conditions these migrant workers find themselves in. It doesn’t make it right, but in their minds this is probably how they justify the conditions they have their workers living in.