Category: Korea-General Topics

The ROK President was shown a lot of respect being seated in the front row with Presidents Biden and Macron:

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol attended the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in London on Monday, one of hundreds of world leaders who gathered here to honor the legacy of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.

Yoon and first lady Kim Keon-hee attended the funeral service at Westminster Abbey at 11 a.m. They were seated in the 14th row in the section reserved for foreign leaders, behind French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, and in the same row as U.S. President Joe Biden and his wife.

“President Yoon mourned the death of the queen, who demonstrated through practice the solidarity of liberal democratic nations during her 70-year reign,” the presidential office said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It appears that this typhoon is not going to impact South Korea as much as previously expected, but if it does veer and hit the country, President Yoon is setting himself up for criticism if he is not here when a natural disaster hits:

After forming in the ocean off the Philippines on Sept. 13, Nanmadol developed into a typhoon the following day and started moving north with a “weak” intensity and wind speeds of between 17 m/s and 24 m/s. The intensity grew to very strong on Sunday morning.

President Yoon Suk-yeol told his officials to remain wary of Nanmadol as he stepped on the presidential jet Sunday morning to leave for the U.K., his first stop on a weeklong official trip. 

Yoon instructed Interior Minister Lee Sang-min to prepare the country for the approaching typhoon, according to Lee Jae-myeong, the vice-spokesperson of the presidential office.

With much of the country’s essential industrial infrastructure still recovering from the impact of Hinnamnor, including a POSCO steel plant in North Gyeongsang Province, the president ordered the interior minister to “thoroughly prepare for the typhoon at all costs as the country has been under threats from back-to-back natural disasters.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It is going to be an upcoming week of poor weather across Japan and southern areas of South Korea:

Typhoon Nanmadol, currently passing the waters east of Japan’s Okinawa, is expected to grow stronger Saturday before coming closer to South Korea in the next couple of days, the state weather agency said. 

With a central atmospheric pressure of 920 hectopascals and a maximum wind speed of 53 meters per second, this year’s 14th typhoon was passing waters 520 kilometers east of Okinawa at 9 a.m., according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA).

Nanmadol, currently a “very strong” typhoon, was forecast to develop into a “super strong” one later in the day.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see if any big announcements in regards to resolving historical issues between the countries will be announced:

President Yoon Suk-yeol will hold his first-ever summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in New York next week on a trip that will include his attendance at the U.N. General Assembly and a separate meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden, his office said Thursday.

The meeting with Kishida will mark the first summit between the two countries in nearly three years since the last meeting in December 2019 and raises hope for improving relations frayed badly over wartime forced labor and other issues related to Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It seems to me that the mask mandates should be limited to places with high risk individuals such as nursing homes and hospitals:

After nearly two years since the indoor mask mandate was first implemented in Korea, experts are debating whether the government should review lifting the requirement, as a number of countries have lifted or eased the mandate.

To help curb the spread of the coronavirus, the government required mask wearing both outdoors and indoors starting from Oct. 13, 2020. The outdoor mask mandate was lifted on May 2 of this year, as the number of new infections showed a downward trend after the Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 wave peaked in March.

But the requirement to wear masks in indoor spaces such as offices, cafes, hospitals and public transportation has remained in place, with violators subject to a fine of 100,000 won ($72).

However, now that other countries such as Denmark and Singapore, along with states in the U.S., have removed or eased the mask requirement for indoor spaces, some are urging the Korean government to make similar adjustments.

“Ultimately, the indoor mask mandate, as well as the mandatory self-isolation rule for virus carriers should be scrapped,” said Jung Jae-hun, a professor of preventive medicine at Gachon Medical School. “There could be differing views (among experts and authorities) on when would be the right time to remove the measures, but Korea is at a stage to begin discussions on it.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Considering that the vaccine does not prevent someone from getting COVID, the news that many people now no longer want the vaccine should not come as a surprise:

Nearly 10 million soon-to-expire COVID-19 vaccine doses are likely to be discarded in Korea amid waning demand, in sharp contrast to the early days of the national vaccination campaign when the country grappled with a scarce supply. 

According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), as of Monday, there are a total of 14,208,000 stockpiled vaccine doses. They include 8.3 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, 2.7 million doses of Moderna, 1.98 million doses of Johnson & Johnson, 671,000 doses of Novavax and 609,000 doses of the SKYCovione, the country’s first domestically developed vaccine by SK Bioscience. 

Considering that about 100,000 shots are being administered per week, at the current pace, about 10 million doses are likely to go to waste by the end of this year with their expiration dates approaching. The shelf life of COVID-19 vaccines is usually between six months to a year.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

You would think all these people would have something better to do then make a fool of themselves over this issue:

 Scuffles plagued the site of a statue of a girl symbolizing victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery Sunday night as members of a right-wing organization raided the site and clashed with anti-Japanese activists guarding the statue.

The four-hour melee happened as members of New Freedom Solidarity held a surprise rally near the statue in central Seoul around 10 p.m. Sunday, demanding the breakup of a civic organization established to help victims of the sexual enslavement of Korean women during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule.

Clashes continued past midnight as the leader of the right-wing organization attempted to force his way near the statue and anti-Japanese activists tried to keep him away. One protester was taken to the hospital for exhaustion.

An anti-Japanese activist was also taken into custody for pushing a police officer at the scene.

Although police separated the two sides with police lines, they continued to clash with loudspeakers and caused inconvenience to people nearby before the conservative group finally left the area at around 2:10 a.m. Monday.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I feel for anyone that has to battle Chuseok traffic. I have had to do it once before and I said never again:

Most highways and roads were clogged with heavy traffic early Sunday, as people were traveling back home on the third day of the four-day Chuseok holiday.

Chuseok, the Korean autumn harvest celebration, is one of the country’s biggest traditional holidays and serves as a chance for family members to get together. Chuseok is celebrated on Aug. 15 in the lunar calendar, which fell on Saturday this year.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is all the more reason why all the COVID testing at the airports should be stopped, to prevent testing fraud:

The Korean Embassy in Vietnam has stepped up efforts to prevent a coronavirus testing-related scam, with such fraud cases on the rise targeting Korean tourists in the Southeast Asian country when they return to Korea.

According to the embassy and the Korean foreign ministry, Wednesday, two embassy staffers visited the office of Vietjet Air in Hanoi two days earlier and took issue with the budget airline’s rejection of Korean travelers’ negative COVID-19 test results, which left them exposed to rapid antigen test fraud. Vietjet Air is a Vietnamese low-cost carrier (LCC), based in the capital city of Hanoi. (………)

The embassy’s complaints came as more Korean travelers in Vietnam have fallen victim to the rapid testing scam, sparking an outcry among them and raising the need for the Korean government to step in. 

Until Sept. 2, all inbound travelers to Korea had to hand in negative PCR test results conducted within 48 hours or from rapid antigen tests within 24 hours preceding their departure for the country, but this rule has been lifted amid the overall recent downward trend in the number of daily new cases. However, a mandate to take a PCR test within one day after arrival in Korea remains unchanged. 

According to the embassy, Vietjet frequently rejected Korean passengers’ negative test results, even if they were valid, and on-site brokers received a premium to give them an emergency last-minute test. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.