Tag: South Korea

The subway doors were once considered a good idea to reduce the deaths of people falling in front of oncoming trains, but now have become a safety liability after a subway workers was killed by the doors last month:

The Seoul Metropolitan Government plans to replace platform doors at subways with retractable doors.

The city government said Monday that it will replace doors at three subway stations by the end of the year.

The doors have been criticized for making evacuations during emergencies difficult as some are installed between billboards that cannot be moved.

All platform doors at stations on Line 9 can be opened, but 25 percent of the doors on Lines 1 through 8 are stationary.

Seoul plans to replace all platform doors down the road, but is in consultations with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport about receiving government grants as the replacement is expected to cost over 50 billion won.  [KBS World Radio]

Nothing is going to stop the ROK government from putting on the best Winter Olympics that they possibly can, not even 500 year old trees:

Campaigners in South Korea have accused organisers of the 2018 winter Olympics of destroying a “sacred” forest to make room for a ski slope, and dismissed official assurances that the site will be restored to its original state after the Games.

Environment groups say the recently-completed removal of tens of thousands of trees from the slopes of Mount Gariwang, including ancient and rare species, amounts to an ecological disaster.

The site in the country’s north-east will host several days of Alpine skiing events during the Games in Pyeongchang, which will become only the third place in Asia to host the winter Olympics after Sapporo and Nagano in Japan.

The row between environmentalists and the Olympic organisers centres on a 500-year-old mountain forest that some South Koreans consider sacred due to its connections to the Chosun ruling dynasty.

Green Korea United claims that the removal of tens of thousands of trees will inflict irreparable damage on the area’s delicate ecosystem.  [The Guardian]

You can read the rest at the link, but since Green Korea United is involved in this I would take their claims with a grain of salt since they were involved in the bogus USFK water dumping scandal.  Additionally it was alleged that environmental groups like Green Korea had ties to North Korea back during the Il Shim Hue spy scandal a few years ago.

The Stars & Stripes has an article published that details how some elderly women in South Korea turn to prostitution to supplement their incomes due to the lack of a robust Social Security like pension system:

As about a dozen elderly men loiter in a small plaza near a cinema, mostly chatting or watching people pass by, several deeply wrinkled women stroll among them, trolling for customers willing to pay for sex in nearby motels.

“Hey, do you want to go with me? I can treat you really well,” a 76-year-old woman with a limp says as a reporter approaches her on a recent sunny afternoon.

Despite a police crackdown this spring that resulted in 33 arrests, including an 84-year-old woman, the so-called “Bacchus ladies” can still be seen near the Piccadilly theater in Seoul’s Jongno neighborhood. The nickname comes from the popular energy drink that many of the prostitutes have traditionally sold.

The middle-aged and elderly women and their customers — both pitied and scorned in this conservative country — provide a look at the dark side of South Korea’s rapid economic rise and erosion of traditional parent-child roles. As a growing, ultra-competitive middle class has become preoccupied with getting ahead, many elderly and poor people have been left to fend for themselves.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.

In this aerial photo, bumper-to-bumper traffic in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, clogs one side of a highway linking Seoul to the southwestern port city of Mokpo on Sept. 25, 2015, as South Korea’s annual exodus for the Chuseok fall holiday begins. Chuseok, which falls on Sept. 27 this year, is the season for family reunions, with Koreans traditionally offering a ritual feast to their ancestors on Aug. 15 of the lunar calendar.(Yonhap)

South Korea is looking to add further detection capabilities along the DMZ:

 As North Korea watchers look for signs of a missile launch in upcoming weeks, South Korea’s defense acquisition agency has announced it is producing “mini” drones for surveillance.

The drones, which will be distributed to South Korea’s army and marines in the next three years, have the ability to “surveil and transmit images on a real-time basis around the clock,” the Defense Acquisition Program Administration said in a statement.

The drones are 4.6 feet long, nearly 6 feet wide and can fly hour-long missions at speeds of up to 50 mph, Yonhap News reported.

Although DAPA’s statement did not mention North Korea, the drones are thought to be intended to monitor the Koreas’ tense land and sea border, which was the site of the latest provocation by Pyongyang last month. A land mine planted by the North exploded and maimed two South Korean soldiers while on routine patrol in the Demilitarized Zone.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.

This provided photo shows black smoke billowing from a food-making plant in Dongducheon, Gyeonggi Province, north of Seoul, on Sept. 17, 2015, as the three-story building is engulfed by a fire. No casualties were reported. (Yonhap)

If any of you ROK Heads living in Korea feel the need to purchase your very own THAAD missile defense system to put in your backyard to protect you from Kim Jong-un’s missiles, it would set you back only $2.5 billion:

Deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system on the Korean Peninsula would cost around US$2.5 billion, the Air Force Chief of Staff said on Sept. 22.A propeller from the 1,800-ton top-of-the-line submarine Ahn Jung-geun was also reportedly replaced five years after its introduction because of 151 cracks found on it.Newly appointed Air Force Chief of Staff Jeong Kyeong-doo responded to questions on the cost of THAAD deployment from New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) lawmaker Kim Kwang-jin during a National Assembly National Defense Committee parliamentary audit on Sept. 22 at Air Force headquarters at Gyeryongdae, South Chungcheong Province.“It would be around plus or minus three trillion won (US$2.53 billion), although nothing precise has been given yet,” Jeong said.  [Hankyoreh]

You can read the rest at the link, but I think the ROK Air Force chief is just setting conditions on why the US military should provide the system for the ROK instead of purchasing it out right.

This decision makes me wonder if this technology transfer denial has anything to do with how the ROK military continues to have issues keeping classified information secret?:

South Korea’s plan to receive technology transfers from Lockheed Martin in exchange for purchasing F-35 stealth fighters has partly been scrapped due to rejection by the U.S. government.

New Politics Alliance for Democracy Rep. Ahn Gyu-baek said that the U.S. rejected the export of four technologies, including the Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar system, among 25 core technologies that were to have been transferred.

The military had planned to load the AESA radar, which is more capable of detecting targets than existing radars, on South Korean fighter jets.

Minister Chang Myoung-jin of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said at a parliamentary audit on Thursday that the agency is pursuing both domestic development and international cooperation to develop new technologies following the rejection from the United States.

DAPA is said to be seeking to independently develop the AESA radar and infrared search technologies and jointly develop comprehensive technologies for electromagnetic interference equipment with a European corporation.

A DAPA official said although Lockheed didn’t fulfill its contract terms, there is no way to impose sanctions as the U.S. government rejected the deal.   [KBS World Radio]

The new ROK Air Force Chief of Staff is pretty much continuing the ROK military’s stance which of being cautious about the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system to South Korea:

Newly appointed Air Force Chief of Staff Jeong Kyeong-doo took a cautious stance on the possible deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system in South Korea.

During the parliamentary defense committee’s audit of the Air Force Headquarters on Tuesday, Jeong said that there are pros and cons about deploying the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery.

He made the remarks when ruling Saenuri Party lawmaker Yoo Seung-min asked if he approves the US Forces Korea’s deployment of the THAAD battery.

The Air Force chief of staff said basic conditions should be satisfied to deploy the missile system. He said that the system will be effective only when South Korea and the United States establish an integrated intelligence system, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) assets to identify and intercept missiles from North Korea immediately.   [KBS World Radio]

You can read the rest at the link.

Here is the latest special warfare unit being established by the ROK military:

The South Korean Army’s Special Warfare Command plans to form a commando unit to destroy North Korean strategic weapons facilities.

The special operations command on Wednesday presented the plan in its report to the parliamentary defense committee.

A military official said that the command is looking to set up a special unit to infiltrate enemy territory and strike its key strategic facilities.

The official said that key strategic facilities refer to facilities for long-range missiles and nuclear weapons, mobile missile launchers and weapons of mass destruction.

The official said that the military made the decision to adapt to modern warfare as the North is bolstering asymmetric warfare capabilities.

The command said it also plans to form its own aviation forces for special operations to enhance infiltration capabilities.   [KBS World Radio]