Tag: South Korea

If you are a foreigner and pass away in South Korea, there is a high probability your loved ones will not know how you died:

The government has failed to establish the causes of more than 40 percent of deaths of foreign nationals who died in Korea in recent years, a Ministry of Justice report shows.

According to the report disclosed Saturday by Rep. Cha Gyu-geun of the minor opposition Rebuilding Korea Party, 15,325 foreign nationals died in Korea between 2018 and 2022.

A total of 7,698 of them, or 50 percent, were confirmed to have died of disease, followed by car accidents (211), natural causes (177), falling (155), self-harm (152), natural disasters (71), drowning (61), homicides (19) and addiction (10).

Most notably, a staggering 44.2 percent, or 6,771 deaths, were attributed to “other” causes, meaning the reasons were unclear. This figure is significantly higher compared to the number of deaths among Korean nationals.

According to data released by Statistics Korea, the No. 1 cause of death of Koreans in 2022 was cancer, followed by heart disease, COVID-19 and pneumonia. “Others” are not among the top 10 causes listed.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the Korean left has found a new angle to go after President Yoon’s wife after all their previous efforts failed. This one seems pretty weak as well if the only evidence they have is a innocuous text message exchange with the First Lady and testimony from a disgraced pollster:

The presidential office flatly denied claims by an election broker Tuesday that he frequently communicated with President Yoon Suk Yeol and first lady Kim Keon Hee during Yoon’s campaign for the People Power Party (PPP) presidential nomination in 2021.

Myung tae-kyun, a shadowy figure who ran a public opinion polling agency, claimed in media reports that he met Yoon and his wife in June 2021 and advised them regularly for about six months until the end of the presidential primary in November of that year.

“It is an absurd claim that Myung spoke to the president and first lady on speakerphone every day for six months,” a senior presidential official said in a release.

The official also clarified that the text messages exchanged between Myung and Kim were part of a private conversation before Yoon joined the PPP in July 2021.

One message shows Kim saying, “Please forgive our brother (oppa in Korean) for speaking carelessly.” 

The official explained that the “brother” referred to in the message was Kim’s biological brother, not Yoon.

Myung has been implicated in a political scandal involving allegations of the first lady’s interference in PPP candidate nominations ahead of the April general elections.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but if Myung was have speakerphone conversations every day for six months you would think he would have more evidence of such a close relationship.

I have to wonder what job these two Filipinas were illegally working at in Busan?:

Two Filipinas, who were apprehended after leaving the Seoul metropolitan government’s pilot program for foreign domestic helpers without permission, have returned home, the South Korean justice ministry said Monday.

The workers were forced to leave Thursday following several weeks of unauthorized absence from their jobs, according to the ministry. 

They reportedly did not contest the immigration authority’s notification of deportation and expressed a desire to return home during the investigation.

After their departure, the workers were banned from reentering South Korea for a specified period.

They arrived in South Korea on Aug. 6 as part of a six-month project led by the Seoul city government to assign foreign nannies to households with kids or newborns to help with child care and housework, and began working on Sept. 3 after about a month of training.

They, however, left their quarters on Sept. 15, the second day of a five-day Chuseok holiday. They were supposed to return to work by Sept. 18 but did not.

The Busan immigration office and police found they illegally got jobs in Busan and arrested them at their residences early this month.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the ROK government may have come up with their response to North Korea’s trash balloon attacks even though they deny it:

 North Korea said Sunday it has ordered its artillery corps near the border with South Korea to fully prepare to shoot after the North threatened a “horrible disaster” over the alleged flight of drones over its capital.

North Korea claimed the South had sent unmanned drones over Pyongyang three times this month. 

In a statement carried by its state media, Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of the North’s leader Kim Jong-un, said the North was ready to take a “strong corresponding retaliatory action” in case drones carrying anti-Pyongyang materials are flown again into the North, warning that the “attack time” can come at any time.

In response, South Korea’s defense ministry said any attempts by the North to harm its people would result in the end of the Kim regime. 

On Friday, North Korea’s foreign ministry claimed that South Korean drones carrying leaflets were detected in the night skies over Pyongyang on Oct. 3, as well as Wednesday and Thursday of this week, and threatened to respond with force if such flights occur again. South Korea’s Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun initially denied that the military had sent any drones across the border, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff later said it could not confirm whether the North’s claims were true.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I wonder if the activist group Fighters for a Free North Korea flew this drone with a wink and a nod from the ROK government?

This is really just symbolic because the road and railway lines are not being used anyway:

North Korea’s military said it will cut off all roads and railways connected to South Korea starting Wednesday and build “strong defense structures” in the areas in response to South Korea-U.S. military maneuvers.

“A project will be launched first on October 9 to completely cut off roads and railways connected to” South Korea and “fortify the relevant areas of our side with strong defense structures,” the general staff of the North Korean People’s Army (KPA) said in a report carried by the Korean Central News Agency, noting the measures will “completely separate” North Korea’s territory from that of South Korea.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but North Korea is probably betting that whenever another leftwinger gets elected to President of South Korea they will pay to rebuild these road and rail links anyway.

The Korea Times has an article published that discusses what little options South Korea has to deter North Korea’s trash balloons:

Complicating matters for them is the apparent shift in North Korea’s intentions behind the balloon launches. Initially, Pyongyang claimed the balloons were in retaliation against anti-North Korean leaflets sent by South Korean civic groups, many of which consist of defectors from the North.

“The regime has continued the balloon campaign even after the leaflet launches stopped. This suggests that the balloons are now a tit-for-tat response to South Korea’s use of loudspeakers along the border,” Yang said.

In late July, South Korea resumed propaganda broadcasts across the border in response to the balloon launches. These broadcasts operate simultaneously from fixed loudspeakers in the border regions at full volume.

A military official said that the broadcasts are still operating from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. but declined to provide further details, citing operational secrecy.

“Instead of blasting the broadcasts day and night, our military should use the broadcasts more flexibly depending on the North’s behavior, such as switching them on only when it launches the balloons and turning them off when it remains silent for days,” Cho said.

Yang suggested that an ideal scenario would be for both Koreas to agree to a moratorium on psychological warfare, although this seems unlikely given their hawkish stances and the absence of a communication channel.

The professor also mentioned the possibility of international organizations such as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) — where both South and North Korea are member states — mediating to ease tensions caused by the balloons.

He added, “Unless the government takes swift action, we are going to see thousands of more balloons since conditions are becoming more favorable for North Korea’s balloon launches, with winds blowing southward in the fall.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but I don’t think North Korea has any intentions of stopping the trash balloons. It is a low cost gray area provocation for them that is providing them valuable military intelligence on where these balloons are landing while disrupting South Korean society. This disruption is putting pressure from the public on the Yoon administration to do something when there is really not much they can do.

It looks like Korean companies will be busy in the coming years supporting infrastructure upgrades in the Philippines:

 South Korea signed an agreement Monday to provide US$2 billion in financial assistance to the Philippines to support major infrastructure projects during President Yoon Suk Yeol’s state visit to the nation, Yoon’s office said. 

The finance ministry signed the memorandum of understanding (MOU) in Manila to offer the assistance through the Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF), the low-rate loan program to support infrastructure projects in developing countries.

Under the agreement, the Seoul government will allocate $905 million worth of EDCF funds for the construction of the first section of the Laguna Lakeshore Road Network, which spans 37.5 kilometers of roads and embankments along Laguna Lake, near Manila. 

Additionally, $1 billion will be allocated for the construction of a 13-km bridge connecting the three central Philippine islands of Panay, Guimaras and Negros.

It marks the largest EDCF project with the Southeast Asian nation. Bidding for these projects will be open to South Korean companies.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but Asian countries should probably look more to Korea or Japan for economic assistance rather than China. When China gives out economic assistance they try to bury countries into debt traps to get major concessions out them such hosting military bases or cutting ties with China.

Just another example of Korea’s expanding cultural influence even within the Catholic religion:

A mosaic depicting the Virgin Mary dressed in the traditional Korean outfit of “hanbok” was unveiled in the Vatican Gardens on Friday, marking the first time a Korean artwork has been installed in the historic site.

The “Korean Virgin Mary of Peace” mosaic, measuring 100 by 150 centimeters, was installed as part of a collection of Virgin Mary mosaics from around the world on the “Bastione Maestro,” a wall that serves as the border of Vatican City. 

The mosaic, which shows the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus dressed in hanbok, is intended to symbolize a hope for peace and an end to war, according to artists Shim Soon-hwa and Yun Hae-young, who created the piece.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.