The Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise is here again. Any bets on what provocations that North Koreans will launch in response?:
South Korea and the United States kicked off a major combined military exercise for its 11-day run Monday to bolster their joint defense readiness amid advancing North Korean military threats.
The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise, which runs through Aug. 29, got under way in the face of growing concerns over Pyongyang’s continued weapons development, highlighted by its launches of 37 ballistic missiles this year alone and heightened cross-border tensions from the North’s recent trash balloon campaign.
Based on an all-out war scenario, the UFS features main computer simulation-based command post exercise, concurrent field training and civil defense drills, according to the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
While the exercise will be similar in scale to the previous year, involving around 19,000 South Korean troops, it will include 48 field training events, such as amphibious landing and live-fire drills, up from 38 field events conducted last year. The number of brigade-level exercises will also increase to 17 this year, compared with four from the previous year.
You can read more at the link.
Here is the newest addition to the Odusan Observatory:
Oh Eun Jeong, a poet who fled North Korea in 2009, left behind a younger sister for whom she still longs. Oh, profiled by The Washington Post in 2018 as one of many young North Korean defectors thriving with new lives in the South, said that longing motivated her to write poetry. “I think about my sister every day,” she told Stars and Stripes by phone Aug. 8. “Knowing she’s still there while I’m here makes my heart heavy.” Oh and other former North Koreans now have a place to bring those sentiments. On Aug. 1, the South Korean Ministry for Unification unveiled a monument to those who escaped the North or lost their lives in the attempt. “This monument gives me a place to express that longing, even if I can’t be with her,” Oh said.
You can read more at the link.
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.
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.
You can read more at the link.
With all the corruption investigations surrounding him, Lee Jae-myung pretty much needs to remain the opposition leader in order to claim the investigations are all politically motivated:
The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) was set to hold a national convention to elect its new chief Sunday, with former Chairman Lee Jae-myung widely expected to win the race for a second term.
Lee, a former DP leader, has stayed overwhelmingly ahead of other candidates — former Interior Minister Kim Doo-gwan and Kim Ji-soo — winning nearly 90 percent of the combined ballots cast by registered party members in 17 rounds of primaries that concluded the previous day.
You can read more at the link.
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