Here is what is coming up next for the $15 minimum wage crowd, restaurant automation:

The food and beverage industry here has seen an increasing use of robots to serve food and beverages and even complete basic tasks such as making noodles in less than a minute. 

Industry officials said Sunday that more robots will be used in restaurants with the development of robotic technologies and soaring demand to utilize robots for routine and repetitive tasks, replacing human employees.

LG Electronics said it has deployed a robot chef called the CLOi Chefbot to a Seoul branch of VIPS restaurant in cooperation with the family restaurant chain operator CJ Foodville.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Now the Moon administration is bickering with the Japanese on why they caved on the cancellation of the GSOMIA:

South Korea and Japan clashed Sunday over an agreement on keeping alive their military information-sharing pact, casting a pall on upcoming negotiations over the agreement.

The move came two days after South Korea conditionally suspended the expiry of the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), six hours before it was due to lapse.

South Korea also decided to temporarily halt a petition process at the World Trade Organization while negotiations with Japan on the two sides’ export control policies go on.

“In the future negotiations, everything depends on Japan’s attitude,” Chung Eui-yong, director of Cheong Wa Dae’s national security office, told reporters at an exhibition center in the southeastern port city of Busan, noting South Korea’s recent decisions are conditional and provisional.

A key condition of the suspension is that South Korea can terminate the military pact at any time it wants and Japan has expressed “understanding” over it, according to South Korea. (………)

“We have no choice but to express deep regret” over the Japanese behavior, Chung said, calling the Japanese moves a “breach of faith.”

Chung also slammed Japanese leaders for their reported remarks that South Korea caved in to U.S. pressure and that Japan had achieved a diplomatic victory, describing them as untrue.

A senior presidential official also said it would be very disappointing if Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s reported comments are true. Japanese media reported that Abe said Japan had made no concessions.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This guy is the definition of a Jody:

Scott, an Apache helicopter pilot, met the woman — the wife of a deployed sergeant first class assigned to the 19th Special Forces Group — in May 2015 at a spin class she was teaching at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. The two soon began dating, according to court documents.

Unaware for some weeks that she was married, Scott introduced the woman as his girlfriend to co-workers. By October, the command had learned the woman was married and Scott’s supervisor, a colonel, ordered an end to the romance. Scott did not comply.

After the sergeant’s wife ended the relationship in January, Scott began harassing her by text message, alternately threatening her, demanding sex and professing his love, court documents say.

In one message, Scott sent the woman a link to a news story about a Special Forces soldier who had been killed in Afghanistan, and asked if her husband was dead.

When she responded that his unit was surrounded and that members of the unit had been killed, Scott “suggested that she might get lucky if (her husband) were to be killed in action,” according to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals case summary. He also told her, “No man wants a whore for a wife.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

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

This appears to be a way that the Korean government may try and hit back at U.S. negotiators trying to work out a new USFK cost sharing agreement:

Members of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) Thursday floated the idea of including South Korea’s indirect financial contributions for the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) as “leverage” if Washington keeps asking Seoul to pay “excessive” costs. 

“If Washington keeps making absurd demands, South Korea will seriously reconsider the adjustment of indirect costs created by the USFK apart from defense cost-sharing,” Rep. Cho Jeong-sik, chief policymaker of the DPK, said during a party meeting, Thursday.

Underlining that U.S. President Donald Trump’s current rumored demand for Seoul to pay $5 billion for U.S. forces here is “excessive” and not written in the U.S.―South Korea Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) or the Special Measures Agreement (SMA), he added the U.S.’ demands for Korea to pay more in additional categories such as rotation of U.S. forces and off-peninsula drills are irrelevant to the defense of the Korean Peninsula.

“Korea is making large contributions in many categories directly and indirectly. For example, Korea is letting the USFK use harbors, railways and land for free. It costs 3.5 trillion won as of 2015. Seoul can [recalculate the indirect contributions] and use them as leverage,” another DPK lawmaker who is familiar with the SMA negotiations said during a phone interview with The Korea Times.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Considering all the U.S. pressure that the Moon administration has been facing from the U.S. this must be the face saving way they are attempting to maintain the GSOMIA without looking like they backed down:

 South Korea announced a decision Friday to “conditionally” suspend the expiry of a military information-sharing accord with Japan.

South Korea has also decided to temporarily halt a petition process at the World Trade Organization while negotiations with Japan on the two sides’ export control policies go on, Kim You-geun, deputy director of Cheong Wa Dae’s national security office, said at a press briefing.

He added the two sides have agreed to resume working-level talks to discuss the export controls.

It paves the way for the two sides to focus on substantive dialogue, at least for the time being, on pending bilateral issues such as compensation for wartime forced labor and the trade dispute. Depending on progress, President Moon Jae-in may hold one-on-one summit talks with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe next month.

Seoul’s announcement was made six hours before the expiry of the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), scheduled at the end of the day. 

A key condition is that South Korea can terminate GSOMIA at any time it wants and Japan has expressed “understanding” over it, Kim said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.