After the U.S. Presidential debate debacle, the ROK and Japan are probably accelerating the institutionalizing of various parts of their combined cooperation:
Former U.S. President Donald Trump caused friction with both allies during his time in office by demanding greater payment for their hosting of U.S. troops while holding one-on-one meetings with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
Under Biden, Washington is seeking to solidify its system of alliances, both with increasingly sophisticated exercises and diplomatic agreements, Graham said. “It’s obviously a U.S. attempt to try and mesh their alliances as positively as possible, not just given the challenge of their adversaries, but also the uncertainty around a second Trump administration,” he said. “They’re trying to institutionalize as many of these habits of cooperation while they can.” Tensions with North Korea are at their highest point in years, with the pace of Kim Jong Un’s weapons programs intensifying, despite heavy international sanctions.
Stars & Stripes
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Considering how densely populated Busan is, is depopulation really a bad thing?:
Busan, South Korea’s second-largest city, appears to have entered a phase of extinction due to low birthrates and superaging population, becoming the nation’s first metropolitan city to do so, said a research paper published on Friday.
The paper from the Korea Employment Information Service estimated Busan’s ratio of the population aged 65 or older at 23 percent as of March this year, making it the only metropolitan city to become a superaging society.
The southeastern port city’s extinction risk index calculated by dividing the number of female population aged 20 to 39 by the number of population aged 65 or older was 0.490, it noted. An extinction risk index of over 1.5 is classified as a low extinction risk and an index of 1.0 to 1.5 is considered normal. But regions registering an index of 0.2 to 0.5 are considered to be in danger of extinction, while a figure of less than 0.2 is classified as high extinction risk.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
I feel bad for the bus driver in this incident who only hit this car because it was parked in the bus lane while the couple inside were arguing:
A highway bus driver and a woman’s husband who hit a woman in her 50s who got out of the car while fighting on the highway were sentenced to imprisonment.
According to the legal community on the 27th, the Daejeon District Court’s Criminal Chamber 9 (Judge Ko Young-sik) sentenced A (59) to one year in prison and her husband B (66) to two years in prison on charges of professional negligence.
Earlier on March 19th last year, A was put on trial on charges of hitting and killing a woman in her 50s, C (65), who was standing behind a stopped vehicle while driving an express bus in one of the four lanes on the 293.2km one way toward Seoul on the Gyeongbu Expressway in Nami-myeon, Seowon-gu, Cheongju, Chungcheongbuk-do.
Maeil Business News
You can read more at the link.
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