Tag: South Korea

This shouldn’t come as surprising news to anyone living in Korea that the moped delivery drivers are causing an increasing number of accidents:

Nowadays, more restaurant owners use delivery apps like Baedal Minjok, Yogiyo and Baedaltong to sell their goods, and the market for deliveries has steadily increased. In 2018, sales for delivery services reached 5 trillion won ($4.4 billion). This is four times the amount of sales 10 years ago. Time is money for couriers who receive an average of 3,500 won per delivery. This is why they resort to violating traffic laws to quickly finish off as many deliveries as they can. 

“My children and I were walking on the sidewalk once when we were almost hit by a passing delivery guy speeding on his motorbike,” said Kim Yong-chul, a resident of Seongnam, Gyeonggi. 

“It’s always scary when a speeding motorbike cuts in front of me when I’m driving,” said Baek Gyeong-ae, who lives in Goyang, Gyeonggi. “I’m always worried that an accident will occur.”

According to data from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the number of car accidents has decreased consistently for the last five years. However, during the same time period, the number of accidents caused by speeding motorbikes increased 32 percent.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

I find it interesting how this ROK government report adds Japan as a country to blame for pollution in South Korea and then does not list how much pollution it is responsible for:

External sources accounted for 75 percent of South Korea’s ultrafine dust air pollution in January, a state-run environment agency said Wednesday. 
South Korea saw a drastic rise in the average level of ultrafine dust particles, those smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, in between Jan. 11 and 15. According to the National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER), a think tank under the Ministry of Environment, external sources from China, Mongolia, North Korea and Japan were responsible for 75 percent of ultrafine dust particles in South Korea during that period.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I think the vast majority of Koreans realize the vast majority of pollution is coming from China and there is nothing they can do about it.

This is a lot of garbage with no place to put it for now. Hopefully they don’t just decide to dump it in the ocean:

Part of some six-thousand tons of plastic garbage that was illegally exported to the Philippines has returned to South Korea.

A vessel carrying about one-thousand-200 tons of garbage arrived at 6:40 a.m. on Sunday at Pyeongtaek Port in Gyeonggi Province, three weeks after it departed from the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.

The garbage, mainly consisting of used batteries, electronic devices and medical waste, was exported to the Philippines in July of last year after a joint venture firm between the two countries reported the contents as synthetic plastic.

As the company that illegally exported the garbage failed to respond, the Seoul government used emergency funds to cover the transport cost to bring the garbage back.

The Environment Ministry said it will look inside a couple of containers to check the conditions and types of garbage on Thursday after the Lunar New Year holiday. The Pyeongtaek City government is expecting it will take about six months to dispose the garbage through due procedures.

KBS World Radio

When it comes to religion, Koreans can be quite aggressive in promoting their churches, but this particular church seems pretty extreme:

For a Korean woman surnamed Seo, 29, the last two years and three months have been traumatic. 

Her passionate, can-do spirit drove her to leave her country, to pursue an ultimate goal to “take over” foreign countries by recruiting foreign members for Shincheonji Church of Jesus, the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony (SCJ).

A former nurse, she was a strong believer until just a few months ago. According to her, when she left Turkey, there were about 60 SCJ members in Istanbul alone, and the number was increasing rapidly.  (……..)

“I want the Turkish people to know what the group has done, and still is doing,” she said, as if confessing. 

She said for two years and three months, she was one of “them” in Turkey. 

With very little support, without telling her parents, her life was all about recruitment. All team members shared the same room, having only one or two meals a day. Some members were even forced to marry Turkish people, she said. 

“Single members were often targeted for brainwashing, including me,” she said. 

Korea Times

You can read the rest at the link.

The big question is what are the consequences for the Moon administration for willfully violating UN sanctions? A sternly worded letter isn’t going to be a deterrent for future violations:

A report by a U.N. panel will accuse South Korea of failing to notify the Security Council of its shipments of petroleum products to North Korea in breach of international sanctions, diplomatic sources say.
It will be the first time for the sanctions committee on North Korea under the 15-member council to say that Seoul has violated U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang. South Korea has been stepping up efforts to improve relations with North Korea since last year.


The panel is also expected to say North Korea illegally sold fishing rights to other countries in contravention of Security Council resolutions.
The panel’s annual report is expected to show that vessels carrying North Korean fishing licenses were operating in waters between the Korean Peninsula and neighboring countries. The claim is based on information provided by two unnamed member states — one identified as Japan, according to officials in Tokyo.
It is anticipated that information obtained from fishermen will reveal that around 200 Chinese fishing vessels were operating in North Korean waters, and that the price of a single fishing license cost about 50,000 yuan ($7,250) per month.
South Korea allegedly did not notify the Security Council of its deliveries of petroleum products for use at a joint liaison office set up in September in Kaesong, just inside the North Korean side of the border.

Japan Times

You can read more at the link, but Japanese intelligence collection aircraft flying around the Korean peninsula that are now a subject of controversy are partly there to identify possible sanctions violations.

By the way the accompanying picture of students in South Korea cheering Kim Jong-un is pretty sickening. Someone in the South Korean media should interview families of those killed in the Cheonan attack and Yeonpyeong Island shelling what they think of these rallies.

It looks like the Philippines government is trying to get Koreans to be more polite to their airport staff:

Twenty-three Korean citizens have been banned from entering the Philippines for being rude and disrespectful to airport staff.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 23 Koreans were denied entry and blacklisted in 2018 for showing arrogance or using foul language to immigration officers.

“Being on the blacklist means you won’t be able to enter the Philippines for at least one year,” the ministry said on Facebook on Jan. 23.

“To avoid such trouble, please be polite when talking to Philippine officials. If you don’t respond to their questions or raise your voices, you may be denied permission to enter the country. Therefore, you should be able to speak English or have someone who can.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I guess this is one way to make your point heard:

A Korean man has destroyed his new car worth more than 50 million won ($45,000) in a fury, claiming he was given a Ford Explorer that “wasn’t actually new.”

Jang Dong-min smashed his vehicle with a baseball bat in front of a Ford sales shop in Jeonju on Jan. 20, accusing Ford Motor Company of giving him a car with “traces of repair.”

“It was the last and only thing I could do after no one had believed me,” Jang told The Korea Times Tuesday. “Every time I looked at my car, I felt my heart swelling with anger … I couldn’t just let it go.”

Jang bought his first Ford Explorer in May 2017, but within a few weeks, a serious engine problem occurred, he said. So the company exchanged that car for a new one in August that year.

But he later found some traces, which he believes indicate that his car was not brand new.

After receiving an experts’ technical evaluation report that supports his claims, Jang eventually brought the issue to the court. But the judges did not accept his claims.

Jang said he would continue to protest.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The Abe administration must be getting a good domestic political bump from the radar issue with the ROK because you would think at this point they would just let it go:

The Defense Ministry announced Monday it will terminate talks with its South Korean counterpart over the radar lock-on dispute, while revealing what it claims are sounds, converted from radio waves, of the fire-control radar system of a South Korean destroyer.
The 18-second audio file, if genuine, reportedly shows that continuous, intense radar waves were directed at the P-1 anti-submarine patrol airplane operated by the Maritime Self-Defense Force on Dec. 20 in the Sea of Japan.

Japanese defense officials said the wave patterns are completely different from surface search radar waves that Seoul claimed were being used by the South Korean Navy’s Gwanggaeto destroyer.
“We believe a third party would be convinced that what we have said is true if they examine the sounds, a video footage and other materials in a comprehensive way,” said a senior Defense Ministry official who briefed reporters at the ministry, referring in particular to 13 minutes of video footage.
The video footage also included the voice of the pilot of the MSDF P-1 aircraft, who the ministry said heard the same radar sounds while flying near the destroyer.
Japanese officials said that they had identified FC (fire control) waves as being directed from the STIR-180 fire control system of the South Korean destroyer.
However, it is not yet clear — and is perhaps unlikely — that the newly-revealed evidence will put an end to the Tokyo-Seoul dispute.
“We express deep regrets over its decision to stop consultations designed to verify the facts,” Choi Hyun-soo, a spokeswoman for Seoul’s defense ministry, said of Tokyo’s move, according to Yonhap News Agency.
“The sounds that the Japanese side presented are just mechanical sounds from which we can never verify the pieces of information we have demanded — the detection date, angle and traits of electromagnetic waves,” she added.

Japan Times

You can read more at the link, but the Japanese Defense Ministry even admits this is not a smoking gun, but believe all the evidence released so far would convince a third party observer that a fire control radar was in fact used by the ROK on the Japanese aircraft.

This issue is not going to be completely resolved unless the Japanese release sensitive radar data collection evidence which they likely will not do. Releasing how sensitive their radar wave detection capability is just to make a political point against the ROK is probably not worth it.

Just all the more reason the Japanese should just lets this issue go: