Category: Korea-General Topics

With NATO showing increasing support for South Korea against North Korean provocations and energy and defense agreements with Poland, President Yoon had a very good NATO summit. He concluded his trip to Europe was a final excursion to Ukraine:

President Yoon Suk Yeol speaks to his aides during a meeting on Korea’s heavy downpour on a train from Ukraine to Poland, Saturday (local time). Courtesy of presidential office

President Yoon Suk Yeol wrapped up his trip to three central European nations, Sunday (local time), during which he signaled Seoul’s stronger bonds with NATO and Ukraine. 

While Yoon was attending the 2023 NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, North Korea launched an intercontinental ballistic missile on Tuesday in yet another act of defiance. 

Following the summit and attending engagements in Poland, Yoon paid a surprise visit to Ukraine to discuss cooperation in reconstructing the war-torn nation. (…….)

The highlight of the trip, however, came after Yoon finished his preannounced six-day schedule, as he redirected his itinerary to Ukraine.

Yoon was invited to visit Ukraine during Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska’s visit to Seoul in May, and the presidential office had been reviewing this while preparing for the NATO summit. Yoon made the decision during his trip and reportedly asked for Poland’s help for his visit to Ukraine during the summit with Polish President Duda, who offered a safe route via train to Ukraine.

Only a limited number of presidential staff knew about this as it was kept secret even to most staffers until just hours before his departure to Ukraine. 

During his summit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Yoon expressed Korea’s empathic support of Kyiv and promised expanded military, humanitarian and educational aid to the country. Zelenskyy responded by asking for South Korea’s participation in the country’s restoration projects. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but it will be interesting to see what Russia’s reaction to this is.

Horrible tragedy happening in South Korea with the torrential monsoon rains hitting the country:

Flooding and landslides caused by heavy rains have killed 37 people nationwide and left nine people missing, while thousands have evacuated their homes due to rain damage, authorities said Sunday. 

The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters said 37 people had been killed in the aftermath of the heavy rains that have pounded the country since last week, while nine others remained missing as of 6 a.m.

The death toll includes nine bodies authorities recovered from a bus trapped in a flooded underground tunnel in the central town of Osong.

The 685-meter-long underground roadway was flooded in Osong, North Chungcheong Province, the previous day when a nearby river overflowed after an embankment was brought down by rising water levels due to heavy rain.

Casualties from the underpass flooding are expected to rise further as a rescue operation continues for 15 vehicles and several people believed to be trapped inside the tunnel. Most fatalities were reported in the southeastern province of North Gyeongsang, where 19 people died largely due to landslides and housing collapses, and eight others remained missing.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

These seems like a good bet by South Korea to increase economic cooperation with the growing Eastern European power, Poland as well as prepare to help with the rebuilding of Ukraine when the war is over:

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol (L) and Polish President Andrzej Duda pose for a photo during their summit talks at the presidential palace in Warsaw on July 13, 2023. (Yonhap)

 South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said Thursday that he and Polish President Andrzej Duda discussed strategic cooperation in nuclear energy, arms and infrastructure and agreed the two countries are “optimal partners” for Ukraine’s reconstruction.

Yoon made the remark during a joint press briefing following a summit with Duda, noting the two countries have already made large strides in their strategic partnership established in 2013, with bilateral trade reaching a record US$9 billion last year and South Korea becoming a key investor in Poland.

“We noted South Korean businesses’ expansion into cutting-edge industries in Poland, such as electric vehicle batteries and 5G networks, and agreed to work together to secure a future growth engine for both countries,” he said during the briefing at the presidential palace.

Yoon said he and Duda agreed that nuclear energy development is the optimal means to achieve both energy security and carbon neutrality, and to actively support cooperation between the two countries’ businesses for the successful construction of nuclear power plants in Poland.

He also said the two leaders agreed to work harder to ensure mutually beneficial cooperation in the defense industry following Poland’s purchases of 20 trillion won (US$15.6 billion) worth of K2 tanks, K9 self-propelled howitzers and FA-50 fighters from South Korea last year.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I am sure this guy will happily pay the fine considering he probably got a lot of social media attention and followers to pay for it:

Prosecutors have summarily indicted a British free climber on charges of ascending up to the 72nd floor of the tallest skyscraper in Seoul without permission last month, legal sources said Tuesday.

George King-Thompson, 24, was taken into custody while climbing up the outer wall of the 123-story Lotte World Tower in southern Seoul with his bare hands on June 12, before he was escorted inside the building and captured by police.

The Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors Office has summarily indicted him, seeking a punishment of 5 million won ($3,864) in fines for obstructing business.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Over time this makes me wonder if NATO will become more of a factor for security on the Korean peninsula than the United Nations? With Russia and China on the UN Security Council any attempt to assist South Korea to repel North Korean aggression would likely get vetoed. It makes sense that President Yoon would pursue cooperation with an alternate security organization:

President Yoon Suk Yeol and North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg hold Individually Tailored Partnership Programs signed by the two sides during a meeting at the Lithuanian Exhibition and Congress Center in Vilnius, Lithuania, Tuesday (local time). Yonhap

South Korea and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) signed a new partnership agreement composed of 11 documents, called Individually Tailored Partnership Programs (ITPPs), which will cover bilateral cooperation in new sectors such as cybersecurity, new technologies, climate change and the defense industry.

The agreement was signed at a meeting between President Yoon Suk Yeol and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Vilnius, Lithuania, Tuesday (local time). Yoon is currently visiting the Baltic country to attend the 2023 NATO summit.

“This year’s participation in the NATO summit is aimed at institutionalizing the framework of cooperation between South Korea and NATO through ITPPs and discuss cooperation in military intelligence and cybersecurity,” Yoon said during the meeting.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest gay rights issue being promoted in South Korea:

Kim Gyu-jin and Kim Se-yeon held their wedding ceremony during the 2023 Seoul Queer Culture Festival earlier this month in central Seoul. Hundreds at the festival congratulated the wife-wife couple on their union — even though it is not legally recognized by South Korean law — as well as on the baby they are expecting.

The Kim couple revealed that their quest to have a child required a trip to a foreign country, Belgium, as accessing a sperm donor had not been possible for them in South Korea.

In addition to same-sex couples, single women also face significant obstacles here when it comes to accessing sperm donations, largely due to a combination of legal restrictions and customary practices within the medical community.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

I wish the Chief of the IAEA would have asked these lawmakers when South Korea is going to stop dumping their own treated radioactive water into the ocean?:

Rafael Mariano Grossi (R), director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), attends a meeting with Woo Won-shik (L), the floor leader of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP), and Wi Seong-gon, a DP member who heads a special committee tasked with opposing Japan’s Fukushima water discharge plan, at the National Assembly on July 9, 2023. (Yonhap)

Senior officials of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) on Sunday met with the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to express concerns and regret over Japan’s plan to discharge water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi met DP officials during his three-day visit to Seoul to explain the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s report that concluded Japan’s Fukushima water discharge plan would meet international standards.

DP floor leader Woo Won-shik expressed regret over the IAEA’s backing of Japan’s water release plan despite lingering public concerns over the potential long-term impact of treated wastewater on people and the environment. 

“(The IAEA’s) verification was biased in favor of Japan from the beginning, losing its neutrality and objectivity,” Woo, who has staged a hunger strike for the 14th day, said during the meeting at the National Assembly.

“It is very regrettable that (the IAEA) made a conclusion without properly investigating (the water release’s) impact on neighboring nations, making it ‘self-verification’ and ‘a Japan-tailored investigation,'” Woo added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but this is all just political theater for the uninformed masses on this topic that do not realize that South Korea and other countries release more becquerels of tritium per year into the ocean than what the Fukushima plant is scheduled to release.

The ROK has concluded that the North Koreans were trying to conduct a legitimate space launch with their rocket that crashed in the ocean back in May:

The salvaged wreckage of a North Korean space rocket is displayed on the deck of the ROKS Gwangyang at the Navy’s Second Fleet in Pyeongtaek, 60 kilometers south of Seoul, on June 16, 2023. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)

South Korea has retrieved a North Korean spy satellite wreckage and concluded it has “no military utility,” Seoul’s military said Wednesday, ending a 36-day operation to salvage the sunken debris of a failed North Korean space rocket launch in late May.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said that the military raised multiple key parts of the rocket and the satellite through the operation that began May 31 and ended earlier in the day.

South Korean and U.S. experts have conducted a detailed analysis of the wreckage and found that the salvaged satellite debris has no military utility, the JCS said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.