This high number though is kind of an artificial jump in infections due to a number of Russian sailors and returning Korean workers from Iraq testing positive for the virus. I would suspect next week it will go back down again:

Anchor: The number of COVID-19 cases imported to South Korea from overseas surged to a record daily high on Friday. Due to an influx of infections from Iraq and Russia, South Korea added 86 additional imported cases on top of 27 locally-transmitted infections.
Jim Bulley has more.

Report: The daily increase of COVID-19 cases in South Korea has topped 100 for the first time in 115 days, according to figures released on Saturday.

Many of the new infections are imported cases among Russian sailors and South Korean workers who returned from Iraq on government-arranged flights. 

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(KCDC) announced the latest tally, saying that 113 new cases were reported throughout Friday.

The accumulated total stands at 14-thousand-92.

Of the new infections, 86 are imported including 32 Russian sailors and 36 Korean workers airlifted from Iraq. Eighty-one of the imported cases were detected upon arrival.

An imported caseload of 86 is the highest since the first coronavirus patient was confirmed in South Korea on January 20. The previous high in imported cases was 67, recorded on March 29.

Among the 27 new domestic transmissions tallied Friday, Seoul and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province each reported eleven cases tied to a church, a facility for the elderly and a military unit in Pocheon.

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link.

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

So how many ROK Heads would want to do this?:

I never step back from a chance to try something new, especially activities that are likely to get my adrenaline pumping.  
   
For someone who dreams about going skydiving one day, the chance to take a walk around Lotte World Tower’s newly opened Sky Bridge and see a miniature-sized Seoul from about 541 meters up (1,775 feet), was one that I could not pass up.  
   
Lotte World Tower is the tallest building in Korea and the fifth tallest in the world.  
   
When I arrived at the elevator that would transport me to the bridge, I was greeted with a promotional video showing two steel peaks connected by an 11-meter-long bridge. The video filled with quick cuts of sky-high views got my heart palpitating. Would I be able to do this?  

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Since the Korean left controls the National Assembly the failure of this impeachment is no surprise, but the Korean right did have an opportunity to describe how Choo Mi-ae is has stopped probes into Blue House corruption:

On Monday, the UFP submitted a motion to impeach Choo to the National Assembly. It was signed by 110 lawmakers. All 103 lawmakers from the UFP, all three lawmakers from the People’s Party and four independent lawmakers who were formally members of the UFP co-sponsored the motion.    
   
Although the motion was struck down, it appeared that at least two members of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) or its allies had voted to support it.    
   
According to Rep. Joo Ho-young, floor leader of the UFP, not all 110 lawmakers who sponsored the motion participated in the voting. Two UFP lawmakers and one independent lawmaker were absent. (……)

“A justice minister is a servant of the people, not a specific political faction. As a servant to the people, the minister must maintain political neutrality, not abuse power of office, never submit to outside pressures and faithfully respect laws,” Rep. Bae Hyun-jin, spokeswoman of the UFP, said before the voting started. “But Choo’s actions clearly violated her duty to serve the people.”  
   
“Shortly after she took office, she reassigned the prosecutors who were investigating corruption and abuse of power allegations against key members of the Moon Jae-in administration, without consulting the prosecutor general,” Bae said, pointing to the move as retaliation.   
   
Bae also said Choo had illegally intervened in the prosecution probes, and such actions are in violation of the law governing the prosecution. Choo also disgraced the Ministry of Justice and the prosecution by publicly criticizing the prosecutor general, Bae said.   

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but I have long chronicled how Choo was specifically chosen to stop all prosecution attempts to investigate the Blue House. Choo has even promised to investigate the prosecutors who were leading the Blue House corruption probes as payback.

Just think that prior ROK President Park Geun-hye was impeached for far less than this.

Does anyone else see the irony of a prominent North Korean defector elected to the National Assembly questioning the Unification Minister on his past communist background?:

Opposition lawmakers on Thursday bombarded Unification Minister nominee Lee In-young with questions about his ideological leanings during a National Assembly confirmation hearing that was largely devoid of policy discussions over the deteriorating state of inter-Korean relations.    

The fiercest attacks came from Rep. Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat and defector elected as a South Korean district representative in April. Thae led the conservative United Future Party’s (UFP) charge against Lee, accusing him of not renouncing his supposed former Communist beliefs.    

Lee was a founding member and first chair of Jeondaehyup, or the National Council of Student Representatives, an influential left-wing student union active in the struggle against South Korea’s military junta throughout the 1980s.  

The group’s prominent pro-unification activities, like its dispatch of a student delegation to Pyongyang in violation of domestic law in 1989, led many on the right to accuse Jeondaehyup of being a pro-North organization, though many of the group’s leaders, including Lee and former Blue House Chief of Staff Im Jong-seok, have since entered the mainstream of South Korea’s liberal establishment.  

After stating that he officially renounced North Korea’s Juche state ideology after defecting to the South, Thae argued, without evidence, that he was taught in the North that members of Jeondaehyup recited anti-American slogans in front of North Korean leader Kim Il Sung’s portrait every morning.  

Lee denied that he ever harbored a belief in Juche, responding that such attempts to vet a candidate’s ideology belonged to the playbook of North Korea or South Korea’s past authoritarian governments, and were not appropriate in modern South Korean democracy.    

“In the North such things like ideological defection may be forced upon [people] but in the South, ideology and morality are not imposed,” Lee said. “That [Thae] has asked me about my ideological beliefs shows [Thae] still lacks an understanding of democracy in the South.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but The Yong-ho knows enough about democracy to get elected to the National Assembly.

The trickle of positive coronavirus cases from USFK personnel arriving in South Korea continues:

The number of coronavirus cases affiliated with U.S. Forces Korea soared to 111, with 12 more troops and a dependent testing positive after traveling from the United States to South Korea over the past two weeks, the military said Wednesday.

The increase reflected a surge in infections in the United States. USFK has insisted the arrivals pose no risk to local communities because they are tightly controlled with a strict testing and two-week quarantine process.

Ten service members and the dependent who tested positive arrived at Incheon International Airport on commercial flights on July 8, 9 and 19, according to a press release.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.