This is really horrible for everyone that lost their homes. Hopefully the firefighters can quickly get this under control:
Hundreds of residents and tourists evacuated from a wildfire that spread fast with strong winds blowing across Gangneung, Gangwon Province, on Tuesday, amid growing concerns over additional damages due to high winds and dry weather.
According to the Gangwon Fire Headquarters, the forest fire broke out in Nangok-dong of Gangneung, Gangwon Province, at around 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, and the flames began to spread to houses nearby and other areas through strong winds. About 103 hectares of forest, the size of 144 soccer fields, were damaged and about 40 homes were destroyed. No casualties were reported as of 1 p.m., but authorities said they were having difficulties in extinguishing the fire as they were unable to dispatch helicopters due to strong winds.
South Korea just reported their first locally transmitted case of the monkeypox:
Health authorities reported the nation’s first locally transmitted case of monkeypox Saturday, bringing the total number of infections to six.
The South Korean national, who has no recent overseas travel history, tested positive for the disease the previous day, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
The person visited a hospital with a skin rash Monday and was reported to health authorities as a suspected monkeypox case Thursday.
Not much of a surprise that the DPK would criticize President Yoon for not attending the Jeju Uprising Ceremony:
The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) on Monday slammed President Yoon Suk Yeol for not attending a commemoration ceremony for the Jeju April 3 Uprising and Massacre, which killed tens of thousands of people amid ideological conflicts on Jeju Island in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
The DPK held its Supreme Council meeting on the southern island and accused the Yoon administration of disrespecting the spirit of the uprising.
“The president’s promise for a complete resolution to April 3 has gone sour,” DPK Chairman Lee Jae-myung said. “Due to the administration’s retrograde movements, there are far-right activists who are disavowing the April 3 Uprising.”
The uprising began on the island on April 3, 1947, when ideological conflict was in full swing in Korea after it was liberated from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule. In protest against elections, which were to be held only in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula, controlled by the United States Army Military Government in Korea, protesters, including members of the Workers’ Party of South Korea (WPSK), attacked police stations, killed people they deemed as right-wing supporters and burned polling stations.
Seeking a speedy resolution to the insurrection, the mainland authorities sent thousands of soldiers and members of the Northwest Youth Association, a violent anti-communist group, to the island to suppress them. Tens of thousands of people died as a result.
The KCTU did not mind when the Korean left was demanding the prosecution and jailing of former conservative Presidents Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak, but don’t like it when their political leader Lee Jae-myung is being prosecuted. Ironically they are condemning President Yoon for the prosecution when during the last administration he was the chief prosecutor that put President Park in jail which they championed. So what you can take from all this is that they only want conservatives prosecuted:
Members of a major South Korean umbrella union rallied in downtown Seoul on Saturday to condemn the Yoon Suk-yeol administration, jamming traffic in the neighborhood.
Some 13,000 union members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, one of the country’s two major umbrella labor organizations, held multiple rallies in Daehangno, Saejongno and Jongno, in protest against “prosecution-backed dictatorship.”
During the rallies, the protestors said the country’s civil livelihood, democracy and labor fell to the worst conditions under the Yoon administration in less than one year of his presidency.
You can read more at the link, what is further hypocritical about the KCTU is that they are calling the Yoon administration a “dictatorship” while their union and the political left has been linked to North Korean spies. North Korea is a real dictatorship which the KCTU says nothing about.
Former President Lee Myung-bak has made his first official event one where he paid his respects to the 46 sailors murdered by North Korea during the sinking of the Cheonan:
Former President Lee Myung-bak checks graves for sailors killed in North Korea’s sinking of a South Korean warship in 2010 at a national cemetery in Daejeon, Wednesday. Yonhap
Former President Lee Myung-bak visited a national cemetery in the central city of Daejeon on Wednesday to pay respects to sailors killed in North Korea’s sinking of a South Korean warship in 2010.
The visit was Lee’s first official activity after he was released from prison on a special pardon by President Yoon Suk Yeol in December. The sinking of the warship Cheonan, which killed 46 sailors, happened when Lee was in office, and he pledged to visit the cemetery every year, even after leaving office.
“I will pray for national prosperity and the security of the Republic of Korea while honoring the sacrificial spirit on the front line of freedom,” Lee wrote in the visitors’ book at the cemetery, about 140 kilometers south of Seoul.
Lee chose the visit to the national cemetery as his first official activity since his pardon to keep his promise to visit the cemetery every year while he is alive, Hong Sang-pyo, Lee’s aide and former presidential secretary for press affairs, said.
This should come as no surprise that Koreans want to work less hours, who wouldn’t want less hours if it meant the same pay? I would like to read what the results of this survey would be if the employees were told they would make less money if working the lesser hours. I think the results would be very different:
While the government has been pushing to extend a mandatory 52-hour cap on the country’s 40-hour basic workweek, a recent survey showed that people actually wish to work less than 40 hours per week.
The Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA) unveiled the results of its survey on work-life balance, Sunday, after interviewing 22,000 people aged between 19 and 59 from Sept. 20 to Oct. 7 last year.
The results showed that people wished to work 36.7 hours a week on average: regular employees wished to work 37.63 hours a week, while temporary and daily employed workers wished to work 32.36 hours a week.
This survey was done in response to the government’s proposal to add flexibility to the current 52 hour work week cap:
Billing the plan as offering flexibility beyond the mandatory 52-hour cap on the workweek, introduced by the previous Moon Jae-in administration, the ministry said it is seeking to extend the maximum weekly work hours to 69 during times of heavy workload.
The ministry noted that workers will be granted longer vacations in return for overtime worked. But many labor and civic groups have raised doubts about this.
To me this seems like big business trying to get government to help them avoid paying overtime wages during periods of heavy workload. The companies are offering extra vacation days in exchange that the article explains many Korean workers are not allowed to take the vacation days they already have off.
This was the big news over the weekend in Korea and another one of these only in Korea stories:
Chun Woo-won
Earlier this week, Chun Woo-won, a grandson of former authoritarian President Chun Doo-hwan, shocked many with revelations about his family’s extravagant lifestyles paid for with money from slush funds. On Friday, the grandson again caught many by surprise by using drugs live on a YouTube broadcast from his New York apartment.
The former president died in November 2021 aged 90. Convicted of treason and bribery, he refused to comply with a forfeiture order ― almost 92.5 billion won ($70.5 million) of the money in question remains unrecovered.
The grandson wrote he would “reveal everything” on his Instagram account around 4 p.m. Thursday (local time), and began livestreaming around 5 p.m., according to news reports.
First, Chun apologized for what his family had done and said that he is also a criminal and should be arrested. Then, he mentioned the names of drugs and appeared to use them. He appeared to quickly lose control of his body, shaking badly and rolling on the floor.
The livestream, which had been on for an hour-and-a-half was stopped when authorities entered his apartment and dragged him out. The video has since been removed from YouTube.
You can read more at the link, but I think anyone with half a brain knew the Chun family had long been hiding money considering the luxurious lifestyle they had been living. Based on what he says in the video it appears most of this money is likely in the U.S. where he resides. Hopefully this guy gets the drug rehab and mental help he clearly needs.
Today is a good day of how colorful the news in South Korea can be: A grandson of a military dictator going on Instagram to expose his family & police raiding the defense ministry over claims a fortune teller influenced the relocation of the presidential residence.
Removing this mandate I think will eventually lead to more people in South Korea taking off their masks in public compared to current levels:
South Korea will end the mask mandate for public transportation next week, the government announced Wednesday, lifting one of the last-remaining COVID-19 restrictions amid a stable virus situation.
Vice Interior Minister Han Chang-seob said during a government COVID-19 response meeting that the lifting will go into effect Monday. The decision came as South Korea’s daily virus tally continues its downward trend, reaching 11,401 cases Tuesday.
