Category: Korea-General Topics

This seems like a logical thing for the government to do in response to the strike by Korean doctors:

Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo enters the venue of a briefing held in Seoul on Sept. 2, 2024. (Yonhap)

 The health ministry said Monday it plans to deploy military physicians to hospital emergency rooms amid growing concerns over a possible disruption of emergency care during the Chuseok holiday due to a prolonged walkout by junior doctors.

Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo told reporters the government would send some 250 military and public health doctors to cope with emergency care before and after the holiday that runs from Sept. 14 through 18.

“We are reinforcing the staff by utilizing military and public doctors, while recruiting nurses and contract doctors,” Park said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Maybe the Korean government’s focus on trying the raise the national birth rate might be having some success if this small statistical is an indication of things to come:

The number of babies born in South Korea rose for the first time in more than eight years in the second quarter of 2024, data showed Wednesday, as the country is grappling with its ultralow birth rate.

A total of 56,838 babies were born in the April-June period, up 1.2 percent from a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.

It was the first time since the fourth quarter of 2015, when the number went up 0.6 percent.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The Yoon administration has already used up so much political capital pushing through the increase in the medical school quota, I can understand why they are upset with the party leadership trying to get them to suspend it:

President Yoon Suk Yeol has postponed his planned dinner with ruling People Power Party (PPP) leaders until after the Chuseok holiday, his office said Wednesday, amid differences with the PPP leader over the issue of the medical school quota increase.

Yoon had planned to host a dinner Friday with PPP leader Han Dong-hoon, floor leader Choo Kyung-ho, five Supreme Council members and the party’s policy chief, but the presidential office said the meeting has been put off to prioritize the issues of people’s livelihoods. (…….)

The postponement comes after Han proposed deferring the medical school quota increase for 2026 to help break an impasse over the government’s medical reform plans.

The presidential office reportedly balked at the idea, saying the government stands by its plan to increase admissions by 2,000 seats every year for the next five years.

Han took to Facebook on Tuesday to publicly propose the deferral of one year, noting a sudden increase in the number of students, including the approximately 3,000 current students who need to retake classes next year, could put a strain on medical schools.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the medical school quota increase the government is implementing to increase the number of doctors in rural areas. However, current doctors have been protesting and striking to stop the quota increase which has put a strain on the nation’s medical system. They do not want the added competition from more doctors and are doing everything in their power to stop it and it appears the PPP’s leadership might be getting influenced by them.

The overtourism of Jeju Island must have gotten really bad in recent years for it to now drop below Gangwon-do as the most perferred domestic travel destination for South Koreans:

Korea’s southern resort island of Jeju is losing its luster as a leading travel spot for Koreans despite the post-pandemic recovery of domestic travel demand, a survey released Tuesday showed.

Instead, Gangwon Province on the eastern mountainous coast of the Korean Peninsula, known to offer similar travel purposes as Jeju, is emerging as a trending destination.

According to Consumer Insight’s monthly report Tuesday, Koreans’ interest in travel to Jeju Island stood at 29 percent in July, marking the lowest since the survey started in 2016.

“Interest” refers to the percentage of respondents who said their desire to visit a specific destination has grown compared to the year before.

After dropping 9 percentage points from 41 percent to 32 percent in May, the figure fell again by 4 percentage points from 33 percent to 29 percent from June to July. (…….)

However, the downward trend for Jeju is exceptional. Interest plunged by 18 percentage points between 2022 and 2023 and continued to fall from January to July this year from 41 percent to 29 percent.

The drop in Gangwon Province was relatively small, with decreasing by 12 percentage points from 55 percent to 43 percent during the same period.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I have to assume alcohol must have been involved in something this tragic happening:

A woman reported missing by her family was found dead in the back of a police vehicle in Hadong, South Gyeongsang Province, Saturday.

In an unexpected turn of events, local police revealed Sunday that she appeared to have entered the empty, parked car for unknown reasons and was unable to get out for 36 hours amid blistering heat, leading to her death.

The backseat doors of police vehicles cannot be opened from the inside, a feature designed to prevent suspects from escaping. The front seats are also separated from the back by a partition, the Hadong Police Station explained.

Surveillance footage shows the victim entering the unlocked vehicle in the police station’s parking lot through a back door at around 2 a.m. Friday. The car had remained unused until the time of her discovery, at around 2 p.m. Saturday, by a police officer.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Here is what President Yoon recently had to say about North Korea’s gray zone attacks:

President Yoon Suk Yeol called for bolstering readiness against North Korea’s “gray zone” provocations and hybrid warfare as South Korea and the United States kicked off their annual joint exercise on Monday. (…….)

Yoon warned that the North might seek to create social instability through violence, propaganda and agitation at the early stages of a conflict.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but isn’t Yoon basically describing the Korean left? Violence, propaganda, and agitation is what they specialize in.

The past month has been hot in Korea, I mean really hot:

Seoul, Busan and many other parts of the country have been breaking records for the longest streak of consecutive tropical nights, with Seoul having 28 such nights as of Sunday, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA). 

As the intense heat is forecast to persist for the time being despite forecasts of heavy rain across the country early this week, the regions are expected to continue setting new records every day.

The KMA said Seoul’s lowest temperature from Saturday night to Sunday morning was 27 degrees Celsius, marking the 28th consecutive tropical night since July 21.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but I have always said August is one of the worst times to visit Korea due to the heat and humidity.

It has been a rough month for EV’s in South Korea with yet another car catching fire:

Customer concerns about electric vehicles (EVs) have intensified following a recent fire report involving an all-electric Model X luxury SUV from Tesla, the most beloved EV maker in Korea.

The incident further fueled the widespread fear of EVs here, after Mercedes-Benz’s EQE EV burst into flames earlier this month. Drivers have since rapidly lost trust in the once-reliable German carmaker after it became known that the vehicle was equipped with a less-reliable Chinese battery.

The recent fire involving a Model X resulted in the vehicle being completely destroyed after approximately four hours of firefighting efforts. The vehicle was parked on a road in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, on Friday afternoon.

Tesla used a battery from Japan’s Panasonic for its EV. This heightened fears that batteries from famous non-Chinese firms are also not safe either.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.