It will be interesting to see how this turns out because in the U.S. universities did not give discounted or refunded tuition to students that were forced into online learning either:

South Korean university students have joined together to file a class action lawsuit against the Ministry of Education and schools, seeking partial tuition refunds for disruptions to learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Movement for Tuition Refunds, a student group formed by the National University Student Council, held a press briefing on Wednesday in front of the Seoul Central District Court to call on universities to refund part of their spring tuition.

Some 3,500 students from 42 universities nationwide have participated in the class action lawsuit, according to the group.

The global crisis caused by the novel coronavirus has created a major disruption in the way the country’s higher education institutions offer classes. As schools shut down and classes are being offered remotely, there have been continuing complaints from students that they are not getting what they paid for.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It seems inevitable that the coronavirus is going to infect kids at school and I am surprised it has taken this long for it to happen:

Three infection cases of school kids in Daejeon have sent officials and educators to scurry for measures to curb transmission among young children Wednesday, as they might be the country’s first school transmissions.

Three fifth-graders at Cheondong Elementary School in Daejeon, about 160 kilometers south of Seoul, were confirmed to have tested positive for the new coronavirus, according to city officials.

One is a classmate of the school’s first patient, who was confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 on Monday. The two students took classes at the same cram school, but their schedules were found not to have overlapped.

Another student was found to have come into contact with the first patient at a gymnasium. The two students are known to be quite close to each other, visiting each other’s houses frequently.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the infection may have happened outside of the school as well. Bottomline though is that schools just need to have a plan in place in how to deal with infections when they happen because they will.

There should be more of this antibody testing done in the U.S. as well to get a better idea of how wide spread the coronavirus actually is:

The South Korean quarantine authorities are gearing up efforts to conduct a nationwide COVID-19 antibody testing to determine what percentage of the population has been infected and has acquired immunity.

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(KCDC) said on Tuesday that tests and surveys on around three-thousand serum samples, including those collected from coronavirus patients in Seoul, are underway. 

Kwon Jun-wook, deputy director general at KCDC, said a thousand people in Daegu and its surrounding North Gyeongsang Province, the two hardest-hit areas in the country, will also be surveyed in July and August. 

Under the government plan, blood samples will be collected from seven-thousand people across the country. 

While the antibody testing is expected to be completed around December, Kwon speculated the result will be little different from other countries, where immunity rates were found to be low.

KBS World Radio

This has been a long time coming:

 South Korea on Tuesday began accepting applications from men who want to substitute mandatory military service for other public services due to religious or personal beliefs, the military manpower agency said. 

By law, all able-bodied South Korean men must carry out military service for about two years in a country that faces North Korea across one of the world’s most heavily fortified borders. Violators are punished with prison terms.

In December, the National Assembly passed a bill allowing “conscientious objectors” to do 36 months of alternative service at local correctional facilities, instead of joining the military.

Last week, a 29-member committee — comprising lawyers, professors, activists and other experts from various fields — was launched to review the applications.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I have always felt there is more productive things that can be done with consciouses objectors than putting them in jail. It is good to see this now happening.

The Russians are alleging that the human rights activists sending of balloons with vulgar pictures of Kim Jong-un’s wife is what caused the recent uproar:

A Russian diplomat on Monday suggested that North Korea likely retaliated against defector-led anti-Pyongyang leaflet campaigns in South Korea after recent leaflets contained obscenely edited photos of first lady Ri Sol-ju.

Speaking to TASS Russian News Agency, Russian Ambassador to Pyongyang Alexandre Machegora said the North Korean leadership and citizens were furious over leaflets sent on May 31 containing content that was deemed vulgar and insulting.

Days before demolishing the Gaeseong liaison office, the North’s ruling party mouthpiece Rodong Sinmun said plotting to harm the regime’s supreme dignity is more threatening than Seoul and Washington’s joint military drills.

Pyongyang’s retaliation is also believed to have been triggered by posts in the online communities of some defector groups in which individuals claimed to be buying ​items used by COVID-19 patients to send to North Korea to spark a pandemic that would cause Kim Jong-un’s regime to collapse.

KBS World Radio

I doubt this because the defector groups have been sending unflattering material of the Kim regime for a long time without this reaction. My theory is that the Kim regime was just looking for a convenient excuse to start a provocation cycle to pressure the Moon administration. The Kim regime behaved and did what it could to help the Korean left win April’s parliamentary elections and now wants to cash in by pressuring the Moon administration to unilaterally drop sanctions.

The Moon administration plays the Imperial Japan card for everything just like certain groups in the U.S. play the race card for everything. Here is the latest example:

 Japan’s reported protest against South Korea joining an expanded Group of Seven (G7) summit reflects its typical “shameless” behavior, a Cheong Wa Dae official said Monday.

The official was responding to a news report that the Shinzo Abe administration has delivered its objection to U.S. President Donald Trump’s idea of inviting President Moon Jae-in to the envisioned session.

Trump earlier announced that he wants to add the leaders of South Korea, Australia, India and probably Russia to the list of attendees at the event, which he hopes to host in the autumn.

Tokyo, however, has formally informed Washington of its negative view on the move to include Seoul, saying it is “not in lockstep with G7 members” on the China and North Korea issues, according to Japan’s Kyodo News service.

“There’s nothing to be surprised any more by Japan’s consistent attitude not to admit or atone for its wrongdoings,” the official said, describing Japan as accustomed to “harming” a neighboring country.

“The level of Japan’s shameless (stance) is something of the world’s top,” the official added. “I don’t expect any major impact (to Trump’s plan to expand the G7 and include South Korea as a member), as the international community, especially advanced nations, is sufficiently aware of Japan’s such level.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the Abe administration would not have opposed ROK attendance at the meeting if it wasn’t for the bilateral differences mentioned, it has nothing to do with Imperial Japan. Bringing up Imperial Japan as a response just demonstrates that the Abe administration was correct since no subsistence response to differences on North Korea and China was provided.