Despite the “bad” level of fine dust, hikers cross a suspension bridge in Wonju, east of Seoul, on March 25, 2018, amid mild temperatures. The 200-meter-long bridge, which opened in early January, is the longest of its kind in South Korea. (Yonhap)
South Korean President Moon Jae-in (4th from L, front) and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan (6th from L) of Abu Dhabi, join a group photo with South Korean officials and workers during a ceremony at a nuclear power station in Barakah, about 300 km west of the United Arab Emirates’ capital, on March 26, 2018, to mark the completion of a nuclear reactor built by South Korea. It is the first out of four reactors South Korea plans to provide the UAE under a 2009 deal that marked South Korea’s first exports of nuclear reactors. (Yonhap)
Moon decided to use the word "nodong" instead of "geunro" to refer to labor in his constitutional revision bill. "Geunro" means "diligent or faithful" labor. Working faithfully for whom? https://t.co/53OXKXpf3i
— Ha-young Choi (@Hy_Choi0826) March 25, 2018
Australian Ambassador to South Korea James Choi (L) poses for a photo during a publicity event at a department store in Seongnam, south of Seoul, on March 23, 2018, to promote Australian grapes. (Yonhap)
My rule of thumb is that anything the Kim regime is against must be a good thing for South Korea or the US. In this case the acquisition of the F-35A by the ROK military must be good thing considering the reaction:
North Korea blasted the South Korean military on Sunday for acting against the conciliatory mood developing on the Korean Peninsula, saying that the South is engaging in military maneuvers against Pyongyang.
The North criticized South Korea’s decision to deploy F-35A stealth jets and moves to buy more long-range air-to-ground missiles as part of a bid to strengthen weapons systems.
The military is scheduled to formally unveil the first F-35A stealth fighter aircraft for its military in a rollout ceremony this week. Seoul’s arms agency said it signed in February a purchase deal for 90 more Taurus bunker-buster missiles.
“(Such announcements) are open provocations against the negotiating party and a dangerous move that runs counter to the current mood for reconciliation and unity that the two Koreas had not witnessed in a long time,” said a commentary carried by the North’s ruling party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but South Korea already cancelled participation in a handover ceremony with Lockheed Martin to appease the Kim regime and they still are not happy.
The Chinese government has long sought to break up the US-ROK and US-Japan military alliances that maintains the current security framework in Northeast Asia. The THAAD issue is a perfect example of how they have created tension in the US-ROK alliance with disinformation. The comfort women issue is another issue that Beijing has weaponized to create tension between the US, Korea, and Japan:
The “comfort women” issue appears, on the surface, to be a bilateral problem between South Korea and Japan. In reality, it is deeper. The key player is increasingly not South Korea, but China, and the ultimate target is not Japan, but the United States, as the comfort women are co-opted by Beijing in its anti-American information war.
China has been waging this war since Beijing realized after the First Gulf War that it would likely be unable to the United States on the battlefield. As the document Unrestricted Warfare, published by two high-ranking Chinese military officials, makes clear, the Chinese have chosen to fight the US, and particularly the US-Japan alliance, using desinformatsiya rather than hardware and troops. (…)
Overseas Chinese groups have also pressed hard on the comfort women and Nanjing issues in the US and Canada: In San Francisco, Superior Court judges Julie Tang and Lillian Sing retired from the bench in order to co-found the Comfort Women Justice Coalition, which was ultimately successful in bringing a comfort woman statue to San Francisco. Chinese-American San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee was himself a vocal proponent of the comfort woman statue. [Asia Times]
You can read more at the link, but I would not be surprised if Beijing isn’t fanning the flames of the anti-base sentiment in Okinawa as well to create further tension between the US and Japan.
62% of Korean actresses, female film workers sexually harassed: survey https://t.co/LYaOjpazLC
— JamesTurnbull (@JamesTurnbull) March 22, 2018
South Korean first lady Kim Jung-sook (2nd from R) and Vietnamese first lady Nguyen Thi Hien (2nd from L) tour the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi on March 23, 2018. Kim is accompanying President Moon Jae-in on his three-day state visit to the Southeast Asian country, which began the previous day. (Yonhap)
This seems to be the wave of the future, cashless stores:
Starbucks Coffee Korea, the local unit of the U.S. coffee giant, said Thursday it will begin a test run of cashless stores at three outlets next month amid rising use of credit card and mobile payment systems.
The stores at the country’s major office districts — Gangnam and Guro in Seoul, and Pangyo, just south of the capital — have been tapped to start testing the new system April 23, according to the company.
When launched, it will mark the second trial for the global coffee giant, following its first cashless store under test run in Seattle, the United States, it said.
Paying with cash has been constantly declining at Starbucks stores in South Korea, from 31 percent of the total in 2010 to 15 percent in 2013 and 7 percent last year, the company said. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link.
Snowy scenery of Pyeongchang, South Korea.
