This guy is lucky to be alive and will likely be spending some time in jail for surviving this fall:
An inflatable jump bag is set up in front of an apartment building in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang, on Monday after a man started engaging in a standoff while holding his ex-girlfriend hostage at knifepoint. [NEWS1]
A man in his 20s, who had been holding his ex-girlfriend hostage at knifepoint on Monday, jumped off an apartment building from a staircase between the sixth and seventh floors of the building.
According to South Gyeongsang police, the incident took place in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang, at around 2 p.m.
The man engaged in a four-hour standoff with the police before jumping from the building.
He struck an exterior structure of the apartment on the third floor before landing on an air mattress laid on the first floor.
He was taken to a hospital by first responders.
The police said that the man was undergoing court proceedings for stalking his ex-girlfriend.
I did not realize that the Netherlands had their own chipmaking capabilities:
President Yoon Suk Yeol began his state visit to the Netherlands by meeting with a group of Korean residents and vowing to upgrade the two countries’ relations to a “semiconductor alliance.”
As the first official schedule, Yoon and first lady Kim Keon Hee attended a welcoming ceremony hosted by Willem-Alexander, king of the Netherlands, held at Dam Square in Amsterdam on Tuesday (local time).
oon arrived in Amsterdam on Monday on a four-day visit aimed at strengthening cooperation between South Korea, a leading chip manufacturer, and the Netherlands, home to chipmaking equipment companies such as ASML.
“Semiconductors are an important area not only for our industries but also for our security,” he said during the dinner meeting with some 100 Korean residents at an Amsterdam hotel. “Through this visit, the semiconductor cooperation between South Korea and the Netherlands will be upgraded to a semiconductor alliance.”
Here is the life most young South Korean couples have:
Korea’s newlywed couples were burdened with record-high amounts of debt last year while having the least number of babies in history. The number of married couples also decreased by 6.3 percent to 1.03 million in 2022 compared to the previous year, according to Statistics Korea on Monday.
The statistics agency polled the country’s newlyweds whose marriage registration is less than five years old as of November last year.
The median debt for respondents came to 164.2 million won ($124,600), up 7.3 percentage points from a year ago, with 89 percent of the surveyed couples in debt.
More newlyweds in Korea are falling into the category of DINK (Dual Income No Kid). The majority, or 57.2 percent, of the newlyweds have a dual income, up 2.3 percentage points on year.
The proportion of dual-income households is on the decline with many females quitting their jobs to concentrate on child-rearing.
The average income of dual-income couples stood at 84.3 million won compared to a single-income household with 49.9 million won.
As for children, 46.4 percent of the surveyed couples had no child, marking the highest rate since the data was collected.
You can read more at the link, but racking up records amount of debt before having kids is a sure way to keep the birth rate low because kids will greatly add to expenses. If the Korean government can find ways to relieve the debt crisis they will likely solve the birth rate crisis at the same time.
Hopefully the amount of artillery shells shipped from the ROK has not dangerously depleted their own reserves used in response to any contingency with North Korea:
South Korea’s “indirect” provision of 155-mm artillery shells for Ukraine this year has made it a larger supplier of ammunition for the war-ravaged country than all European countries combined, The Washington Post (WP) reported Monday.
In an article on Russia’s protracted war against Ukraine, the U.S. daily explained Washington’s effort to secure munitions from South Korea when the U.S.’ production of shells was barely more than a tenth of some 90,000 shells that Ukraine needed per month.
South Korean law prohibits providing weapons to war zones, but U.S. officials sought to persuade Seoul to provide munitions, estimating that about 330,000 155-mm shells could be transferred by air and sea within 41 days from Korea, according to the WP.
This is a really good technology demonstration for the ROK to have put a satellite into space with a solid fuel rocket from a barge:
South Korea successfully conducted a third test flight of a solid-fuel space rocket Monday, the defense ministry said, as part of efforts to build its independent space-based surveillance system against North Korea.
The space launch vehicle was launched from a barge floating in waters about 4 kilometers south of Jeju Island at 2 p.m. and placed a small Earth observation satellite into orbit at an altitude of about 650 km, the ministry said.
The 100-kilogram synthetic aperture radar satellite, made by Hanwha Systems, succeeded in sending signals to a ground station at 3:45 p.m., which means it is operating normally, the company said.
The rocket is designed to put a small satellite into a low Earth orbit for surveillance operations. Compared with liquid-fuel space vehicles, solid-fuel ones are known to be usually simpler and more cost-effective to launch.
The decline is students is expected to impact the entire educational industry to include the number of teachers hired in the future:
South Korea is set to record the lowest number of first graders entering elementary school next year, signaling the consequences of an apparent demographic crisis driven by the world’s lowest birth rate.
According to local reports quoting the statistics agency’s birth rate data, fewer than 400,000 children are expected to enter elementary school next year. This will be the first time the number has dropped below 400,000 since the agency started compiling data.
This comes amid a sharp decline in the number of infants born in 2017, who will be entering elementary school in March next year.
It will be interesting to see if more schools in South Korea turn towards AI robots instead of hiring foreign English teachers:
Seoul Education Superintendent Cho Hee-yeon speaks during a press briefing held at the Seoul Metropolitan Education Office of Education in central Seoul, Wednesday. (Yonhap)
Robots powered by artificial intelligence will aid English education in five elementary and middle schools in Seoul starting in March 2024, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education said Wednesday.
The English tutoring robots will aid students in brushing up their English language knowledge, conversation skills and pronunciation. For students struggling academically, the robots will provide a customized education service, enabling them to learn the language at their own pace.
The education office also said it would provide schools with a chatbot app, which allows users to practice conversations via mobile phones. The app enables students to engage in conversations and discussions with the robot based on a topic selected by the user.
This is incredibly sad for the parents to lose their teenage daughter like this, but their decision on organ donations is giving extended life to people from five other families:
This photo shows Lee Ye-won (right) and her younger sister. (Korea Organ Donation Agency)
The state-run organ donation agency on Monday revealed the story of a 15-year-old middle school student, whose post-mortem donation of her vital organs gave five people a new lease on life.
Lee Ye-won, who passed away last year on May 11 after extensive damage to her brain from a cerebral hemorrhage, had her heart, lungs, liver and both kidneys donated to five individuals, said the Korea Organ Donation Agency, an affiliate of the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
The child collapsed on April 26 of the same year after suffering an acute headache and failed to regain consciousness after surgery. She was pronounced brain-dead.
Lee’s parents decided on organ donation, saying that considering their daughter had always been a kind and helpful person, she would have wanted to do something meaningful for the world.
It looks like the Saudi money overcame what was clearly a better Expo site in Busan. Who is excited to go to Riyadh?:
South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo shakes hands with a Saudi official after the final presentation for South Korea’s bid to host the 2030 World Expo at the 173rd general assembly of the Bureau International des Expositions held at the Palais des Congres in Paris before its members their vote for the host city on Nov. 28, 2023. (Yonhap)
South Korea’s Busan came up short in its bid to host the 2030 World Expo on Tuesday as Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh won a resounding victory over Busan and Italy’s Rome without a runoff vote.
Members of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), the body responsible for overseeing the international fair with the potential to generate economic benefits and stimulate job creation, held a ballot in Paris after representatives from the three candidates made final presentations of their proposals.
In the first round of voting, the Saudi capital won 119 votes against Busan’s 29 votes and Rome’s 17 votes. Riyadh’s votes were more than a two-thirds majority needed for a candidate to win without a runoff.
The Saudi delegation celebrated as the results were displayed on an electronic board, concluding the anonymous voting held in Issy-les-Moulineaux, the southwestern suburban area of the French capital.
![An inflatable jump bag is set up in front of an apartment building in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang, on Monday after a man started engaging in a standoff while holding his ex-girlfriend hostage at knifepoint. [NEWS1]](https://i0.wp.com/koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2023/12/11/722d3a9f-8631-4022-9996-2cad04d4ed76.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)
