This is another example of South Korea being quick to adapt new technology:

Incheon International Airport is set to become the first airport in the world to run self-driving cars starting at the second half of next year.

The Incheon International Airport Corporation said on Friday it will conduct a three-month trial run during the first half of 2020, before operating two autonomous vehicles in the second half.

The project aims to promote smart technologies at the airport.

While priority for the use of the driverless cars will be given to seniors and people with disabilities, all passengers will be able to access them at terminal arrival gates and immigration checkpoints.

Users will be able to insert their destinations on the vehicle’s touch screen or place their flight tickets on a separate device within the vehicle.

KBS World Radio

I will have to check this strip out the next time I am in Gangneung:

More than 30 coffee shops are lined up along the Anmok Beach in the east coast city of Gangneung, 170 kilometers east of Seoul, which played host to skating and other ice events of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. 

From rooftop terraces to a five-story all-cafe building, most of the coffee houses, which boast ocean panoramas, serve high-end pour-overs freshly brewed by skilled baristas. 

Such large coffee franchises as Starbucks and Caffe Pascucci also have their own berths on the Coffee Street, dubbed a “holy land” for baristas and coffee lovers.

But they are apparently the underdog in the half-kilometer stretch of road selected as a “Star of Korea Tour” and one of the “Top 10 Must-Visit Tourist Spots” by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Tourism Organization.

Initially, the district was home to a strip of instant coffee vending machines in the 1980s. Anmok’s first two cafes opened in 1998, around when South Koreans began paying attention in earnest to hand-drip coffee instead of ready-to-drink soluble products.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but have any ROK Heads visited this strip of coffee shops before?

Anyone surprised by this news?:

Prosecutors investigating former Justice Minister Cho Kuk’s family appear to have found evidence that Cho’s younger brother, who faces allegations of receiving bribes from teachers at a school operated by the Cho family, did not fall and hurt his back as he claims. 

Sources with knowledge of the ongoing probe at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office told the JoongAng Ilbo earlier this week that prosecutors thoroughly reviewed CCTV footage from the area where Cho’s brother asserted he fell but found zero proof to corroborate his claims.

Prosecutors are planning to submit the footage to a court in the coming days when filing a second request to detain him before his trial, the sources continued, in order to dissuade the court from striking down the pretrial detention warrant because he’s injured.

The Seoul Central District Court dismissed the prosecution’s first warrant for him last week, saying his allegations were “open to doubt” and enough evidence collection has already taken place. The court also cited the younger Cho’s health in explaining why they decided not to detain him.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but next we will probably see him in a wheel chair.

There was more than seven people involved in this crime and why didn’t the police immediately hold them in jail after the crime instead of letting them go?:

 Prosecutors said Sunday they have requested a Seoul court to issue arrest warrants for seven progressive college students on charges of breaking into the U.S. ambassador’s residence.

Seventeen members of a progressive college student group used ladders to climb over the wall of the Habib House in Seoul on Friday afternoon.

The residence was vacant at that time, as Ambassador Harry Harris and his wife were away for a Cheong Wa Dae reception hosted by President Moon Jae-in.

The activists displayed banners reading “Harris leave this land,” with two others having attempted to break into the compound. They were protesting Washington’s call for Seoul to sharply increase its financial contribution to the presence of American troops in South Korea.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I doubt any real consequences will come from this.

Could you imagine what would happen if this was a random U.S. military commander telling subordinate leaders to send all emails to a non-government email to include classified information?

The State Department has completed its internal investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of private email and found violations by 38 people, some of whom may face disciplinary action.

The investigation, launched more than three years ago, determined that those 38 people were “culpable” in 91 cases of sending classified information that ended up in Clinton’s personal email, according to a letter sent to Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley this week and released on Friday. The 38 are current and former State Department officials but were not identified.

Although the report identified violations, it said investigators had found “no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information.” However, it also made clear that Clinton’s use of the private email had increased the vulnerability of classified information.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but no word from General Petraeus about what he thinks of this.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone:

If the government pushes ahead with its expanded welfare spending plans, Korea’s fiscal debt will rise W360 trillion above the government’s original target by 2028 (US$1=W1,181). 

According to an estimate by the National Assembly Budget Office on Thursday, Korea’s fiscal debt will reach W1,491 trillion by 2028, while the government debt ratio will reach 56.7 percent of GDP. 

Just last year, the office estimated Korea’s fiscal debt at W1,130 trillion by 2028 or 48 percent of GDP. But within less than a year, the projection has risen a whopping 31.9 percent and the government debt ratio 8.7 percentage points. (……..)

Cho Dong-geun at Myongji University said, “Welfare policies aimed at winning votes are casting a long shadow over the future of Korea when the economy is already losing steam. The government is committing a serious offense against future generations.”  

Chosun Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Welcome to South Korea:

Zenani Mandela-Dlamini, the daughter of former South African President Nelson Mandela, has been appointed as her country’s ambassador to Seoul.

Mandela-Dlamini, who arrived at Seoul early this month, visited the Foreign Ministry here on Thursday for a meeting with officials. 

“We’ve got great bilateral relations, and I’ll continue to work to strengthen them,” she told reporters. “We’ve got great trade relations with Korea and I look forward to strengthen them during my tenure.”

Zenani (60) was the first child of Nelson and his second wife and political partner Winnie. She was four years old when her father was imprisoned in 1964 for treason over his resistance to the apartheid

Chosun Ilbo

You can read more at the link.