Tag: South Korea

Is this posturing or this a sign of breaking of will within the Yoon the administration against the striking Korean doctors:

Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong said Sunday that the government could revisit its medical school admission quota plan for 2026 if the medical community offers a rational alternative.

In an interview with KBS, Cho said, “For 2026, if the medical community presents a reasonable alternative, we can review the admissions numbers with a fresh perspective.”

“The government has proposed an increase of 2,000, but since the medical community has criticized this as unscientific and lacking evidence, we are asking what they believe would be a scientifically based and well-founded admission number,” Cho added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but at this point President Yoon might as well stick this out and make increasing the number of doctors in Korea part of his lasting legacy even though his poll numbers are getting burned by it now.

At this point you just have to assume that any Chinese made electronic device has the ability to spy on you and that includes the Chinese made smartphone in your pocket:

South Korea’s military has been forced to remove more than 1,300 surveillance cameras from its bases after learning that they could be used to transmit signals to China, Yonhap news agency reported.

The cameras, which were supplied by a South Korean company, “were found to be designed to be able to transmit recorded footage externally by connecting to a specific Chinese server”, the outlet reported an unnamed military official as saying.Korean intelligence agencies discovered the cameras’ Chinese origins in July during an examination of military equipment, Yonhap said.

While some of the cameras were near the border with North Korea, they weren’t monitoring it and were instead focused on training bases and fences, the official said.

South China Morning Post

You can read more at the link.

Automakers that made bets on hybrid cars are seeing great sales compared to the EV market which appears to have plateaued until battery technology and charging infrastructure makes significant advancements:

Exports of hybrid cars produced domestically this year are close to the highest ever, the report showed.

According to the Korea Automobile Mobility Industry Association (KAMA) on the 16th, a total of 279,165 hybrid cars were exported from January to August this year by domestic automakers such as Hyundai Motor, Kia, GM Korea, and KG Mobility. This is an increase of 32.5% from 216,629 units in the same period last year, the highest performance in the January-August period ever. If the current trend continues until the end of the year, it is expected to exceed the annual export volume of 313,071 hybrid vehicles recorded last year.

Exports of hybrid vehicles have been steadily increasing over the past five years. It reached 124,503 units in 2020 and surpassed 300,000 units for the first time last year.

Among eco-friendly cars, electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) have been suffering from sluggish export performance this year, but hybrid vehicles are the only ones with good performance. Amid the prolonged phenomenon of electric vehicle catharsis (temporary slowdown in demand), its value as a substitute seems to be a significant impact. Electric vehicle exports from January to August this year were 179,203 units, down 23.2% from 233,276 units in the same period last year. PHEV exports also fell 30.6% year-on-year to 34,893 units.

Maeil Business Newspaper

You can read more at the link.

This is what the doctor strike in South Korea is causing, pregnant women stuck in ambulances for six hours trying to find a hospital that will take them:

It is known that the pregnant woman asked 119 for help, saying, “The amniotic fluid is leaking,” but she was treated after waiting for six hours in an ambulance without finding a hospital. Fire officials knocked on the doors of 75 hospitals but were rejected.

According to the Chungbuk and provincial fire departments on the 15th, a report came into 119 at 11:25 a.m. the previous day that “a 25-week-old pregnant woman’s amniotic fluid burst” in Cheongju.

The 119 paramedics decided that it was an emergency situation where the pregnant woman was bleeding, and began looking for hospitals to accept patients.

The fire authorities requested 75 large hospitals, starting with Chungcheongbuk-do, from Incheon to Incheon, Gyeonggi-do, Jeolla-do, Gyeongsang-do, and Jeju-do, but all refused to transfer due to “no obstetricians” and “lack of newborn hospital rooms.”

Maeil Business Newspaper

You can read more at the link, but fortunately the woman and baby end of being saved.

It looks like MCST got caught pushing out unverified reports as facts:

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) recently released a webtoon based on the “North Korea Human Rights Report” that included the claim, “30 North Korean middle school students were publicly executed for watching South Korean dramas.”

However, the Unification Ministry, which published the actual human rights report, stated that no such information is included, raising suspicions that the MCST might have fabricated the news.

According to Rep. Yoon Hu-duk of the opposition Democratic Party of Korea, who is also a member of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee, the MCST published a webtoon titled “Talking About the Lives of North Korean Residents Through the 2024 North Korea Human Rights Report” on July 30. The webtoon appeared on the “Korea Policy Briefing,” the official government website that introduces government policies.

In the webtoon, characters claim that “North Korea publicly executed 30 middle school students for watching South Korean dramas on USBs carried by balloons,” and “Not only that, but just recently, 30 teenagers around the age of 17 were sentenced to life imprisonment and execution for similar reasons.”

However, the 2024 North Korea Human Rights Report, which the MCST cited as the basis for the webtoon, does not contain such information.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It seems like the consensus in South Korea to develop their own nuclear deterrent continues to grow:

Defense minister nominee Kim Yong-hyun said Monday that South Korea’s nuclear armament could be among the options considered to respond to North Korea’s nuclear threats amid high public support for the idea of their country going nuclear.

“That is included among all possible options,” Kim said in a parliamentary confirmation hearing, in response to a question on the possibility of securing room for nuclear armament.

Speaking to reporters last month, Kim said that he was open to all means to respond to North Korea’s nuclear threats, while stressing that the alliance with the United States remains the basis in dealing with such threats.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

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.