Category: Korea-General Topics

Great job by these ROK firefighters who undoubtedly gained some valuable forest fire experience to bring back with them to Korea:

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks in front of Korean firefighters on their way back to Korea from Ottawa, Wednesday. Screenshot from X

anadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday tweeted a video clip of himself expressing gratitude to a Korean emergency firefighting team who helped his country deal with raging wildfires.

“This morning in Ottawa, I got to send off an incredible group of people. They came from Korea and spent the last few weeks battling wildfires in Quebec,” Trudeau said in the video message posted on social media. “On behalf of all Canadians ― I thanked them for their heroic work.”

The Korea Disaster Relief Team (KDRT), comprised of 151 personnel from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Korea Forest Service, the National Fire Agency and the medical sector, arrived in Lebel-sur-Quevillon, Quebec, on July 2. Two days later, they began a month-long mission fighting the natural disaster that prompted the Quebec provincial government to declare a state of emergency. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It seems every few years a Korean builders gets exposed for shoddy construction. Here is the latest example which could impact the entire Korean construction industry:

Rebar and wires are exposed in the collapsed parking garage of GS E&C’s apartment complex construction site in Incheon in this May 2 file photo. Yonhap

The government’s recent disclosure of poorly built underground parking garages of apartment complexes nationwide has not only sparked fears about the safety of Korea’s housing construction, but also caused concerns over a potential setback in Korea’s ambitious plan to win $50 billion in overseas construction orders every year until 2027, industry experts said Wednesday. 

Given that GS E&C, DL Construction, Hyosung Heavy Industries and other major Korean builders have been criticized for building parking garages having insufficient steel bars in their pillars, the experts warned that foreign clients may avoid placing orders with those companies.

“This issue will eventually affect the overseas business of Korean builders, tarnishing the country’s reputation as a construction powerhouse,” said Choe Myeong-ki, who is in charge of the construction sector in the Industrial Field Professors under supervision of the labor ministry. “Foreign clients will raise questions about the capability of Korean builders involved in poor construction.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It isn’t really surprising that some parents would abuse the changes made to the child abuse law to go after teachers:

It was the second weekly gathering of teachers and aspiring teachers, as the organizers seek to hold rallies regularly until early September, which will be 49 days after the death of the 23-year-old teacher who took her own life in an elementary school classroom in Seocho-gu, earlier in July. The rally last week saw some 5,000 participants.

Saturday’s rally indicated that parents’ abuse of the right to report a child abuse case against teachers has been obstructing teachers’ responsibility to manage their behavior and discipline them appropriately, as often teachers believe no actual child abuse was committed.

Once a teacher is accused of abusing a student in his or her classroom, the teacher is suspended and the rest of the child’s classmates and their parents face the change of the teacher into a substitute teacher, and the accused teacher cannot return until they are cleared of the abuse allegation.

“Consequently, the classroom (ecosystem) is imploding,” an unnamed teacher said before the protesters.

“We are seeing the children’s right to be protected being respected at all times, while teachers’ responsibility to teach children how to behave appropriately is being dwarfed by the law to prevent child abuse. This needs to improve.”

Also joining the rally was another unnamed teacher with over 20 years of work experience, who was acquitted of her child abuse allegation earlier in July after a year of litigation.

The teacher was accused of child abuse by the parent of a student who beat up their classmates. She had flipped a table to get students’ attention when a student was exerting violence, and tore into pieces what was supposed to be a letter of apology by the student as it contained no show of apology and the student told the teacher she should let go of it.

Wearing sunglasses, the teacher claimed that a teacher who tries to break up a fight between classmates faces allegations of physical abuse, and a teacher who yells at children who picked a fight will face allegations of emotional abuse.

“Is it normal to take our courage in both hands to teach what we are supposed to teach?” she said.

“I feel like I’m walking on thin ice every day. … The law to prevent child abuse should not be abused to allow parents to handcuff or threaten teachers.”

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but flipping a table may not be child abuse, but it does seem a bit unhinged on this teacher’s part.

Thank goodness this was only another small earthquake, I can only imagine how much damaged would be caused in South Korea if ever hit by a large earthquake:

A 3.5 magnitude earthquake struck northern Jangsu, 216 km south of Seoul, on Saturday, South Korea’s weather agency reported, with no casualties or damage being immediately reported.

The quake occurred in the region in North Jeolla Province at 7:07 p.m. according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA). The KMA initially reported the earthquake was a magnitude 4.1 but shortly revised it down.

The depth was estimated at 6 km.

It was the third-strongest quake to occur on the Korean Peninsula or waters around it so far this year. 

The province’s fire authorities have confirmed receiving around 40 reports related to the earthquake, but no damages have been reported so far.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The case of a 23 year old elementary school teacher that committed suicide inside her classroom before school started has drawn big headlines in South Korea:

An elementary student on Tuesday pays his respects at a memorial set up for the 23-year-old elementary school teacher in Seoul’s Seocho-gu who took her own life last week. (Yonhap)

The bereaved family of a 23-year-old junior elementary school teacher who took her own life last week released part of her diary indicating that she had struggled with too much work and an unruly student on Tuesday, amid the ongoing investigation into the circumstances surrounding her death.

“After going to work on Monday, I was bombarded with an immense workload and chaos caused by a student. I just wanted to let go of everything (at that point),” a diary entry presumed to have been written on July 3 reads.

Another entry read, “I was out of breath. My hands were shaking, and I almost burst into tears while eating.”

Amid rumors that the teacher may have been bullied by several parents’ excessive complaints and reports filed at her school regarding her teaching and handling of school affairs, police said Tuesday that they had summoned a parent who had allegedly complained in an attempt to determine the exact cause of her death.

According to reports, the late first grade teacher had been verbally harassed by the parent of a student who had suffered from school violence in the first semester. The parent had allegedly complained about the teacher’s lack of qualifications for failing to prevent the bullying from occurring.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but in my opinion she was working in the wrong profession if she could not handle one unruly first grader and a parent complaining about their kid being bullied. I would not be surprised if there is more going on here.

The impeachment of the Interior Minister was political since the Democratic Party controls the National Assembly. They have been trying to turn the Itaewon tragedy into President Yoon’s Sewol and so far have been unsuccessful:

The Constitutional Court on Tuesday unanimously overturned the National Assembly’s impeachment of Interior Minister Lee Sang-min over last year’s fatal crowd crush in Itaewon, central Seoul, which claimed 159 lives.  
   
Lee, who had been suspended from his duties, was immediately reinstated after the court decision. (…..)

The court’s decision came 167 days since the National Assembly passed an impeachment motion against Lee, marking the first time the legislative body impeached a sitting Cabinet member.  (……)
    
In a much-anticipated ruling, all nine judges of the Constitutional Court ruled against the impeachment on Tuesday, saying that from a constitutional and legal perspective, it was hard to believe that Lee failed his constitutional duty to protect citizens by violating the Framework Act on the Management of Disasters and Safety and the State Public Officials Act.  
   
“The Itaewon tragedy did not arise or escalate due to a single cause or specific individual,” said the court. “It was the result of combined factors, such as each government agency’s failure to cultivate integrated response capabilities to large-scale disasters.”  

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but as the court ruled the Interior Minister should not be working at the police station level ensuring where police officers are deployed for crowd control. Additionally as I have always said if Itaewon Station was shut down that night, that would have prevented this disaster as well.

It is great to see that this final smear from the Korean left against the late General Paik has finally been removed:

This file photo, taken July 5, 2023, shows a statue of the late Gen. Paik Sun-yup being unveiled at a ceremony in the southern county of Chilgok, 215 kilometers southeast of Seoul. (Yonhap)

South Korea’s veterans ministry said Monday it has deleted a state burial record describing Korean War hero Gen. Paik Sun-yup as a pro-Japanese figure, saying that such an expression was written with no legal grounds.

The ministry said it has decided to remove a phrase identifying Paik as a person who engaged in pro-Japanese and anti-national activities in the late general’s online burial record on the Daejeon National Cemetery’s website, a term that strikes a sour note due to Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

The description had been in place since his burial in 2020 at the cemetery in Daejeon, 139 kilometers south of Seoul, as a presidential committee put him on a list of pro-Japanese figures in 2009, citing his military service for Manchukuo, a puppet state for Imperial Japan, during Tokyo’s colonial rule.

Paik served in the pro-Japan Gando Special Force under the Manchukuo Imperial Army from 1943 to 1945, which was tasked with suppressing anti-Japanese forces. When he was alive, Paik denied that he actually fought against Korean independence forces.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but General Paik denied ever hunting down Korean guerrillas during his service in the Manchukuo Imperial Army. Additionally this truth-finding committee that made these claims against Paik was operated by the Korean left to go after conservatives and the U.S. military during the Roh Moo-hyun years. ROK Heads may remember this was the same group who attacked the U.S. military for the fraudulent massacre at No Gun Ri that they could find no physical evidence to support. Any findings from this group are bias and should be suspect. 

These clowns made it difficult to even find a place for General Paik to be buried after his death. He is arguably the greatest ROK military hero from the Korean War that ensured South Korea remained a free nation. It is almost as if these Korean leftists are disappointed that General Paik helped lead the successful defense of the country.

The death toll from the deadly flooding in Korea continues to rise:

 Four more bodies have been recovered from a flooded underground road in central South Korea, bringing the number of people dead or missing in recent downpours to 49, officials said Monday.

The Osong underground roadway in the central city of Cheongju was flooded Saturday when a nearby river overflowed after an embankment was brought down by rising water levels due to heavy rain.

Four more bodies were recovered overnight, including the driver of a submerged bus, bringing the death toll to 13. Five people were previously found dead in the bus.

Through a search operation, fire authorities found 16 vehicles waterlogged in the underpass, one more than what they had previously said.

Rescuers continued to search for one more person reported missing but were having difficulties due to water mixed with mud at waist height, clogging the central underpass area.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.