Tag: South Korea

Two B-1B strategic bombers of the U.S. Air Force trained with South Korea’s fighter jets over and near the peninsula earlier this week in yet another show of force against North Korea, defense authorities here said Wednesday.  [Yonhap]

The Steve Bannon of the President Moon administration may be putting out a trial balloon of the North Korea policy the ROK President may ultimately move towards:

Meanwhile President Moon has declared a commitment to avoiding war no matter what, and last week Moon Chung-in, his special envoy for unification issues, approvingly stated that many South Koreans are ready to decouple the alliance in order to keep the peace. The Yonsei professor also renewed his opposition to the stationing of THAAD and called for recognition of the North as a nuclear power. While claiming not to speak for the president, despite his special status, he made sure to add that many people in the Blue House agree with him.

Let there be no doubt that Professor Moon is saying what President Moon would say if Kim Jong Un could just bring himself to sit quietly for a month or two. The envoy’s apparent function (his famous bluntness precluding any traditionally diplomatic one) is to habituate a domestic audience to messages the Blue House will issue in due course.  [B.R. Myers]

I highly recommend reading the entire article by ROK Drop favorite B.R. Myers at the link.  However, is anyone else seeing a possible perfect storm of events that could lead to a massive shake up in the US-ROK alliance?

Stopped in a Gongcha. They have a “Touching” point card system. The girl asked me in Korean if… https://t.co/BCOpof5ivl

— Michael Hurt (@metropolitician) October 7, 2017

Hikers take in a view from Mangyeongdae Pavilion on a trail of Mount Seorak in eastern Gangwon Province on Oct. 1, 2017. The national park service has started to restrict the number of visitors on the trail to a maximum 2,000 on weekdays and to 5,000 on weekends and holidays for those who have made reservations. It will stay open to Nov. 14.  [Yonhap]

I think this may be a case of a cultural difference because I have seen kids left unattended in vehicles in Korea quite often where in the US this will land you in jail like this Korean couple visiting Guam have found out:

A South Korean judge-lawyer couple has been accused in Guam of child abuse. They reportedly went shopping on Monday with their two children locked in a car in sweltering weather.

U.S. law punishes parents who leave minors unattended inside a car as child abuse.

The children, aged six and one, were found “slumped forward” in the car parked near a shopping center Monday afternoon.The engine was off and the windows closed.

Two people noticed the children and called police after failing to find their parents. Police rescued the children who had “sweat streaming down their foreheads and the sides of their faces. ” They are now recovering, according to local media.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Statues symbolizing comfort women are being moved from a bus to their temporary location in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on Oct. 2, 2017, prior to their transportation to regional towns to signify their homecoming for the Chuseok holiday. Donga, a bus company, has been operating five buses since mid-August that carry the statues symbolizing Korean women who were sexually enslaved by Japanese soldiers during World War II. The statues will be taken to different towns, including Suwon, Daejeon and Jeonju, on the occasion of World Comfort Women’s Day. (Yonhap)

I don’t know who is worse, the people making pills from aborted babies or those willing to purchase them?:

More than 8,500 pills made from baby flesh have been found over the past three years, a main opposition party lawmaker said Tuesday.

The pills, allegedly made from the flesh of aborted or stillborn babies, were mostly smuggled from China in the false belief they are good for health.

According to data obtained by Rep. Park Myung-jae of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, 8,511 capsules were found from 2014 to June this year.

In 2014, 6,694 pills were found, 251 in 2015 and 476 last year.

Rep. Park said most of the pills were smuggled by international mail.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Statues symbolizing comfort women are temporarily set up in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on Oct. 2, 2017, prior to their transportation to regional towns to signify their homecoming for the Chuseok holiday. Donga, a bus company, has been operating five buses since mid-August that carry the statues symbolizing Korean women who were sexually enslaved by Japanese soldiers during World War II. The statues will be taken to different towns, including Suwon, Daejeon and Jeonju, on the occasion of World Comfort Women’s Day. (Yonhap)

I am really not surprised by this at all considering how littering still does not seem to have much social stigma attach to it yet in Korea:

The crowd at the 2017 Seoul International Fireworks Festival on Saturday were treated to breathtaking blooms of fire-flowers, as they are called in Korean.

Teams representing the US, Italy and Korea took turns showing their best-coordinated fireworks.

Unfortunately, as events like this attract large crowds, the following morning showed the not-so-beautiful side to the show.

In the area street cleaners faced mounds of garbage haphazardly thrown away by the 1 million-strong crowd that attended the event.

In order to prevent this, Hanwha, who organized the event, had precautionary measures in place on the night of the event; plastic refuse bags were handed out and warnings were issued to only dispose of waste at designated zones. However, it seems the effort largely went ignored.  [Korea Herald]

It seems many people’s attitude is why walk over to a garbage can when I can just throw it on the ground for someone else to pick up after me.

This is an example of how the ROK government during the Sunshine Policy years helped to fund North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and the leftists running the country at the time thought the North Koreans would actually pay them back.  Despite all this the current Moon Jae-in administration in South Korea wants to give them even more money they will likely never pay back:

North Korea seems unwilling to repay loans it received from South Korea when inter-Korean relations were good in the 2000s, an opposition lawmaker claimed Thursday.

Citing data from the Export-Import Bank of Korea (Eximbank) and the National Assembly Budget Office, Rep. Shim Jae-cheol of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) said the North’s outstanding liabilities are 161.4 billion won ($142.5 million) as of July, out of accumulated loans of 1.05 trillion won ($932 million).

“North Korea has not paid back a penny since 2012 but the government has yet to come up with any countermeasure,” Shim said.

“The amount of redemption must have been used in nuclear and missile development. The government should do its utmost not to lose the entire 1.05 trillion won, which is the people’s tax money.”

According to the National Assembly data, the Kim Dae-jung government offered loans worth 369 billion won ($327 million) and the Roh Moo-hyun administration provided as much as 683.7 billion won ($650 million) in the form of food, material and equipment.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.