It looks like foreign residents in South Korea might eventually become eligible for a COVID-18 stimulus payment:

The South Korean human rights watchdog has stepped in after the governments of Seoul and Gyeonggi Province in March excluded some foreign residents from their disaster relief funds amid COVID-19’s blow to the domestic economy. 

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea said Thursday it had advised Seoul mayor Park Won-soon and Gyeonggi provincial governor Lee Jae-myung to subsidize “all foreign residents” in their regions with registered addresses, according to Korean local news outlet Nocut News.

The independent state agency said that after examining experts’ opinions, precedent cases of COVID-19 subsidies allocated by governments, the constitution and local autonomy laws, it concluded that not paying the money to the foreign residents was “discrimination on an unreasonable ground.”

Article 12 and 13 of the local autonomy law, cited by the agency, states that “residents,” who have the right to local government’s administrative benefits that are fair to all, include foreigners who reported their addresses to local government offices.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It looks like North Korea wants to stay in the headlines and dump on Trump like everyone else it seems like now a days:

North Korea on Friday again vowed to build up its military force to counter what it perceives as U.S. threats and said there would be little reason for a personal relationship between leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump if Washington persists with sanctions and pressure.

On the two-year anniversary of the leaders’ first summit, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Son Gwon said the North would never again gift Trump with high-profile meetings and concessions he could boast as foreign policy achievements unless it gets something substantial in return.

“The question is whether there will be a need to keep holding hands shaken in Singapore, as we see that there is nothing of factual improvement to be made in the DPRK-U.S. relations simply by maintaining personal relations between our supreme leadership and the U.S. President,” Ri said in a statement carried by state media, referring to North Korea by its formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Associated Press

You can read more at the link.

 U.S. military leaders have been unusually outspoken about the need to address institutional racism amid a growing wave of civil unrest over the latest killing of a black man in police custody.

Many black service members speaking Sunday at a forum organized by U.S. Forces Korea welcomed the outrage but called for words to be translated into deeds.

Sgt. Dasha Long, 35, thanked U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. Robert Abrams for tackling the long taboo topic, saying the discussion was an important first step.

“This isn’t new, right? But it feels like it took too long for us to hear something about it,” Long said, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “I Can’t Breathe,” which was uttered by George Floyd before he died as a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes on May 25.

“I feel safer outside the country that I serve than I do in it, so I want to know aside from words what actions are going to take place because I’m tired,” she said.

Anger over Floyd’s death, which was captured on video, has sparked massive protests calling for racial justice and an end to police brutality in the United States. It also has led to soul searching in the military, which has long prided itself as promoting diversity.

Nearly 19% of active-duty enlisted service members are black, but that number falls sharply to just under 9% when it comes to officers, according to a 2018 Defense Department demographics report. Many also complain that they are unfairly targeted by the military justice system and receive unfair sentences compared to their white counterparts.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but I am willing to bet that if the Stars and Stripes took a poll most white soldiers stationed in South Korea would also agree that they feel safer there than back in the U.S. So this is not an exclusively a black soldier issue.

As far as the 9% officer issue, this is caused by societal issues larger than the Army. To become an officer you need to have a four year college degree and either commission through ROTC or OCS. If the number of African-Americans graduating from four year universities increases, the number of officers will also increase.

This is something that would greatly tip the balance of power back towards the United States if China had to account for hundreds of tactical ballistic missiles pointed at them from surrounding countries just like the U.S. military has to do for Chinese missiles:

The first of the new weapons could be in operation within two years, though no decision has been announced about where they will be based. Similar missiles are now carried on U.S. warships and planes based in Asia, but there are no land-based systems.

U.S. officials say that many allies are privately supportive of the missile plan and may come around to permitting them on their territory but don’t want to provoke opposition from Beijing and their own public before decisions are on the table.

The U.S. has a defense treaty with Japan, as it does with South Korea, the Philippines and Australia. Taiwan is not a formal ally but has close, unofficial defense ties with Washington.

“We are very attentive to our allies’ concerns, and we recognized their political challenges,” said a senior defense official, who agreed to discuss Pentagon planning if he was not identified. “Everything that’s said in the media is not necessarily what’s said behind closed doors.”

LA Times

There is now way these missiles will be allowed in South Korea, but the Philippines would be the ideal location for them in response to a South China Sea scenario. The Philippines of course would demand huge concessions in return which I would not be surprised if this is something being negotiated now.

It is pretty clear that the Kim regime is just putting pressure on the Moon administration to see how much concessions they can extract out of him:

North Korea’s decision to sever all official communication channels with South Korea is further weighing on President Moon Jae-in, who was already frustrated by Pyongyang’s lack of response to his inter-Korean peace initiative.

Experts advise Seoul to take a “timeout” from repeatedly offering something to engage the Kim Jong-un regime, while bracing for any possible fallout from increasing tension on the Korean Peninsula.

On Tuesday, the North cut off all cross-border communication lines, including the hotline between Moon and Kim, due to its apparent anger over the South’s “failure” to prevent North Korean defectors and activists from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border tethered to balloons. In addition, the North said “the work toward the South should thoroughly turn into the one against an enemy.”

At the start of the year, the Moon administration emphasized the importance of inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation. In March, the President offered cross-border healthcare cooperation and made another proposal last month to deal with inter-Korean projects that could be carried out separately from the North’s denuclearization negotiations with the United States. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but what does the Kim regime have to lose by playing hard to get? They know the Moon administration will bend over backwards to accommodate them thus they will keep the pressure on them to maximize concessions.

It appears that the Moon administration wants to treat the balloon launch human rights activists like they do conservative journalists by threatening them with jail:

The unification ministry said Wednesday that it will file a complaint with police against two North Korean defector groups for sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border, a day after the North cut off all inter-Korean communication lines over such leafleting. 

The ministry said that it will also take action to revoke business permits granted to the groups, Fighters for Free North Korea and Keunsaem, accusing them of putting the safety of people living in border regions at risk by sending leaflets into the North.

“They have violated public interests by heightening tensions between the South and the North and by running squarely against the agreements reached by the leaders of the two Koreas, and also caused danger to the lives and safety of residents in the border regions,” the ministry said in a press release.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but this is once again another example of how South Korea is a rule by law nation and not a rule of law nation. These activists have been doing this for years and one of their leaders Park Sang-Hak has faced assassination attempts by North Korean agents and had leftist thugs assault him to stop his balloon protests. Now with a change of government and complaints from North Korea, what they are doing is suddenly illegal.

Meanwhile in Japan:

The ranking U.S. diplomat in Japan criticized public broadcaster NHK on Tuesday for its “offensive and insensitive” cartoon depiction of Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the United States.

NHK posted the 85-second promotional video, or teaser, for its weekly children’s program “This Makes Me Understand! The World Now” on Sunday via Twitter.

Joseph M. Young, the chargé d’affaires ad interim for the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, found fault with the video’s depiction of black people and oversimplification of protests against racism and police brutality, often marked by rioting but later by peaceful demonstrations, that erupted after the May 25 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.