한국 Lemmy 커뮤니티 / Korea Lemmy community

In an unexpected move, the US Department of Energy recently designated South Korea as a “sensitive country,” placing it alongside adversaries such as China, Russia and North Korea.

Does it mean it will be easier for rich people to hog houses outside of Seoul and drive prices up there without them needing to live there?

Several high-ranking executives at Samsung Electronics have recently left the company, despite initially joining with high expectations of strengthening future businesses and management practices.

Industry officials are pointing at Samsung’s corporate culture and human resources policies, which they believe could hinder the company in the global competition to secure top talent.

Koreans' total spending on private education hit an all-time high in 2024, as parents spared no expenses for their children to survive in the pervasive competition that shows no signs of letting up despite a population decline, government data showed, Thursday.

According to the data, compiled jointly by Statistics Korea and the Ministry of Education, the total spending on private after-school classes for primary, middle and high school students reached 29.2 trillion won ($20.07 billion) in 2024.

The 2024 figure shows Korea once again broke its own record concerning private education expenditures for the fourth consecutive year.

“Even after the first hearing, he continues to show no remorse, making outrageous remarks like ‘Korea is a U.S. vassal state’ to the press,” Seo wrote on social media Monday. “We must send a clear message through strong punishment.”

Impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol was released from jail Saturday, a day after a court's ruling that allowed him to stand trial without physical detention over his failed bid to impose martial law in December.

However, impeachment and criminal trials against Yoon will continue.

Two South Korean fighter jets accidentally dropped eight bombs on a village near the inter-Korean border during a live-fire drill Thursday morning, injuring at least 15 people and damaging several buildings.

Two people were seriously injured, while 13 sustained minor injuries, according to fire authorities at around 2 p.m. Of the 13, 10 people were transported to a nearby hospital for treatment.

One person, 60, was seriously injured via shrapnel embedded in their neck, and was transferred to Uijeongbu St. Mary's Hospital, where they underwent surgery. Another person suffered a shoulder fracture.

Five of the 13 injured were identified as soldiers, military officials later added. Two others were foreign nationals: one person from Thailand and one from Nepal.

As all eight of the bombs detonated, seven civilian facilities, including homes, a cathedral and a greenhouse, were damaged, fire authorities said. Authorities continued to assess the extent of the damage throughout the afternoon. Residents were told to evacuate the area.

Police will deploy all available resources to prevent any potential civil unrest on the day of the Constitutional Court’s ruling on the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol, which is expected later this month.

The plan follows a January incident at the Seoul Western District Court, when far-right conservative protesters supporting Yoon stormed the building, leading to physical confrontations with police and damage to property. As the nation is sharply divided over the president’s impeachment, concerns are rising that those who are against the verdict may turn violent.

Previously, when Park Geun-hye's impeachment was confirmed on March 10, 2017, a protest by her supporters resulted in four deaths. The deaths were attributed to pushing by the crowd, heart problems and a falling speaker.

Damn, that would make things so much easier. In Sweden at my company we always had written language English but once we hired a bunch of foreigners suddenly without even coordinating it we all switched to verbal English communication too. There was always someone in the group who didn't speak Swedish.

Here in Korea, it's tough no matter if it's a small company like mine or a big one. When I worked at a customer, a big automotive supplier, the German guy who was high up in the company told me that he would hire me but the company is just not ready to hire people who don't speak Korean. He himself didn't speak it but he had a personal translator/assistant who would translate all his written and verbal communication.

• 9 of 13 Korean presidents were either exiled, removed by coup, forced to resign, assassinated, arrested or impeached
• South Korea didn't have a peaceful transition of power until 1987

These are some of the most loaded, but technically true, sentences you can make.

(By the way, this post is in no way meant to bash South Korea, I just think dramatic history is cool)

Note - This list skips presidents who were only in power during transition

• Syngman Rhee (1948-1960) - Exiled
• Yun Po-sun (1960-1962) - Removed by coup
• Park Chung Hee (1963-1979) - Assassinated
• Choi Kyu-hah (1979-1979) - Forced to resign
• Chun Doo-hwan (1980-1987) - First peaceful transition, but still imprisoned
• Roh Tae-woo (1988-1993) - Imprisoned
• Kim Young-sam (1993-1998) - First peaceful transition to opposition party
• Kim Dae-jung (1998-2003) - Peaceful transition (was sentenced to death before winning the election)
• Roh Moo-hyun (2003-2008) - Suicide a year after leaving office
• Lee Myung-bak (2008-2013) - Imprisoned
• Park Geun-hye (2013-2017) - Imprisoned
• Moon Jae-in (2017-2022) - Peaceful transition
• Yoon Suk Yeol (2022-Present) - Impeached

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_South_Korea

A total of 30 military service members, including 17 generals, have been under investigation over their alleged involvement in President Yoon Suk Yeol's failed bid to impose martial law on Dec. 3, a lawmaker said Wednesday, citing a defense ministry report.

Authorities have so far notified 17 generals and 13 field grade officers that they are under investigation over Yoon's short-lived declaration of martial law, according to the ministry report submitted to Rep. Ahn Gyu-back of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK).

Government rolls out sweeping aid package, including record W366tr in policy funding
Acting President Choi Sang-mok speaks at a Cabinet meeting held at the goverment complex in Seoul on Tuesday. (Ministry of Economy and Finance) Acting President Choi Sang-mok speaks at a Cabinet meeting held at the goverment complex in Seoul on Tuesday. (Ministry of Economy and Finance)

The South Korean government declared an "all-out" efforts in response to escalating global tariff tensions on Tuesday, unveiling a substantial support package for local businesses under growing pressure.

"With the new Trump administration triggering a tariff war, South Korea faces increasing uncertainty on the exports front," acting President Choi Sang-mok said in a Cabinet meeting. "We are now launching an all-out efforts on trade. From this point, how a country responds to the US-led trade war will shape its future."

The government said Monday it has temporarily suspended the local service of Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) app DeepSeek over concerns about its data collection practices.

The Personal Information Protection Commission said the service was suspended at 6 p.m. Saturday and will be resumed after "improvements and remedies" are made in line with Korea's personal information protection laws.

The measures comes after multiple government ministries and agencies blocked internal access to the AI service amid concerns about the startup's data management practices.

The commission sent a formal inquiry to DeepSeek last month seeking clarification on the service's data collection and management methods.

DeepSeek has since assigned a representative in Korea and acknowledged shortcomings in considering local protection laws while also expressing its will to actively cooperate with the commission. (Yonhap)

We watched the Netflix show "Culinary Class Wars" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culinary_Class_Wars and the winner of it, Napoli Mafia, created a mozzarella burger for the Korean McDonalds which is called Lotteria.

I walk by it often and after seeing the advertisement I went in to try it. But it was sold out already. I tried a couple of more times but it's always sold out.

But even the normal mozzarella burger is sold out. So they ran out of mozzarella for weeks now, while they have a bug advertisement campaign where they pay this guy probably a lot of money. Good for him :)

South Korea announced on Tuesday a record $1.8 billion (2.6 trillion won) investment in its shipbuilding sector — a 40% increase from last year — to strengthen its lead in green and digital ship technologies. The funding will focus on eco-friendly ships (1.7 trillion won), digital transformation of shipyards (700 billion won) and autonomous vessels (200 billion won). New R&D projects include ammonia-powered ships, electric propulsion systems, wind-assisted technology and AI-driven welding robots.

This year I feel I'm back in Sweden (where I came from to Korea) because the whole winter it's under 0 degree Celsius and often -10 degree. I like it a lot to be honest, it's better to have white snow everywhere than just gray and wet.

Korea has granted refugee status to 1,544 asylum-seekers since the system’s introduction nearly 30 years ago, officials said Monday, translating into an acceptance rate of just 2.7 percent.

Between 1994 and 2024, 122,095 people applied for asylum in the country, with approximately 57,090 completing their cases through ministry reviews or litigation, according to the Ministry of Justice.

This figure is far lower than the average of more than 20 percent among member states of the OECD.

That's kind of funny, yes if you use their website you're sending your data to china, but they also literary give you the model so you can run it on your own hardware.

Anyway that's what I'm doing, running the 14B DeepSeek-r1 model on my RTX 3060, it fits nicely into the 12 GB VRAM and is reasonably fast. The accuracy, nja it's so so.

And my sincere condolences to everyone stuck in a traffic jam, yesterday's weather has been brutal.

SEOUL, South Korea -- The tail of a passenger plane with 176 people on board caught fire before takeoff at an airport in South Korea Tuesday night, news reports said. All passnagers and crew weer safely evacuated.

The Air Busan plane at Gimhae International Airport in the southeastern city of Busan was bound for Hong Kong, Yonhap news agency reported. The 169 passengers and seven crew members were evacuated using an inflatable slide, the report said, adding that three people were injured but their condition wasn’t serious.

It's the time of the year again where we make Lunar New Years Dumplings at my parent's in law's place again. Every year I'm getting better at shaping them. This year they are with pork and beef mixed and half of them are with cabbage and the other half with celery.

I started drinking coffee in Germany where there is the idiom: "Kalter Kaffe"

The idiom "Kalter Kaffee" in German literally means "cold coffee," but figuratively, it refers to something that is old news, outdated, or not interesting anymore. It’s often used to dismiss information or topics as no longer relevant.

Anyway it's something undesirable.

But I get the appeal, I like the fruitiness of a coldbrew, especially with tonic water during the summer. It's refreshing and cooling down your body.

What I really can't get behind is how much Koreans love their Ice coffee, especially during the winter.

Right now I'm sitting in a cafe in the morning and sip on my hot cafe latte warming up my fingers while it's freezing outside, windy and everyone has a big winter coat on.

But then at the same time every person who comes in orders a Ice Latte, which is a cafe latte full of ice cubes. They wait to get it and then go oouside to drink it in the freezing cold on their way to work or wherever they go.

So I don't get it, once coffee is cold I always throw it away and brew a new one because it tastes terrible.

This is one of those cultural clashes I can't get over.

Presidential security guards forced to sing a song glorifying Yoon at his birthday (audio included)

새로운 대한민국 위해서 하늘이 우리에게 보내주신 대통령이 태어나신 뜻깊은 오늘을 우리모두가 축하해

"We all celebrate this meaningful day when the president sent by heaven to us for the new Republic of Korea was born."