On the Korean Peninsula

South Korean activists refuse to be moved by pro-North Korea president Moon Jae-In's efforts to limit their activism:

A South Korean group launched hundreds of thousands of leaflets by balloon across the border into North Korea overnight, an activist said Tuesday, despite repeated warnings from the North that it will retaliate against such actions.

Activist Park Sang-hak said his organization floated 20 huge balloons carrying 500,000 leaflets, 2,000 one-dollar bills and small books on North Korea from the border town of Paju on Monday night.

Park, a former North Korean who fled to South Korea, said in a statement that the leafleting is “a struggle for justice for the sake of liberation” of North Koreans.

The North Koreans want them to know that two can play at that game:

North Korea is reinstalling loudspeakers in the demilitarized zone that will blare propaganda across the border, the South Korean military said Monday. 

The two sides dismantled their walls of loudhailers after President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un met in Panmunjom 2018.

Oh, I'm sure that will erase decades of horror. Oh, wait! It won't:

South Korea is set to demand UNESCO remove historical sites related to Japan’s industrial revolution from its World Heritage list, South Korean media reported late Sunday.

The South Korean government has criticized a Tokyo exhibit introducing the Japanese sites, saying that it fails to show that Koreans were coerced to work at some of them during World War II despite a pledge by the Japanese government to make that fact clear.

The Culture, Sports and Tourism Ministry will send a letter to the U.N. agency by the end of this month to lodge the demand, Yonhap News Agency said, citing Jeon Yong Gi, a lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Party of Korea.

South Korea contends that the Tokyo exhibit includes contents about the island of Hashima, in Nagasaki Prefecture, that “directly contradict” Japan’s commitment to demonstrate that there were “a large number of Koreans and others who were brought against their will and forced to work under harsh conditions.”

The Foreign Ministry in Seoul also said in a June 15 statement that the exhibition’s contents “completely distort historical facts.”

I'm sure it did as Japan is reluctant to own up to its historical mistakes but the answer should be to inform others with a massive campaign, not (as some Americans are doing) blotting it out.




Uh-oh:

Korea will face a shortage of more than 55,000 in 30 years' time if medical school admissions remain capped at the current level, according to a study.

Seoul National University's Hong Yun-chul in the study published Monday said there will be a shortage of up to 55,260 doctors by 2054 if the cap on medical school admissions remains at 3,058 students. If the cap is raised by 1,500 in 2021, Korea would still face a shortage of 27,755 doctors by 2048.

Based on population trend data from Statistics Korea, the number of medical treatments received by Koreans and the number of days of hospitalization will peak in 2043 and 2059.

Just like Canada.