Day: June 21, 2024

The government on Friday ordered low-cost carrier T’way Air to come up with measures to address repeated safety and flight delay issues.

The Ministry of Land Infrastructure and Transport said it has conducted a special inspection of T’way Air and has ordered the airline to implement safety measures by next month.

The airline experienced four flight delay incidents last week alone, affecting hundreds of international passengers on flights between South Korea and overseas destinations, including Japan and Thailand, due to maintenance problems.

Air safety authorities also plan to implement special safety management for T’way Air, which plans to soon launch four routes to Europe, and low-cost carrier Air Premia, which is expanding its long-haul routes, particularly to North America.

T’way Air will begin flights to Rome, Paris, Barcelona and Frankfurt, Germany, later this year. Air Premia is scheduled to launch flights to Seattle and Honolulu next year.

T’way will take over the European routes from domestic
industry leader Korean Air Co. as part of conditions set by the European Union over Korean Air’s envisioned merger with No. 2 player Asiana Airlines Inc.

Further, the ministry plans to conduct a thorough investigation into the delay and cancellation incidents of T’way Air and Air Premia during the summer season and impose penalties, such as fines, if they fail to fulfill consumer protection obligation measures.

The ministry noted that consumer dissatisfaction within the air travel industry has increased of late, and it plans to push for the enhancement of safety operations of the airline industry.

A spokesperson of the European Union Aviation Safety Agency has told Yonhap News Agency that the organization will be “ready to react appropriately” against possible flight delay and maintenance issues of the European operation of T’way Air.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

Medical professors serving as senior doctors at Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH) and its affiliates decided Friday to end an indefinite walkout, officials said.

On Monday, hundreds of senior doctors at SNUH in Seoul and its three affiliates began an indefinite walkout in protest against the government’s increase of the medical school admission quota.

Holding a vote on whether to continue the walkout through next week, 73.6 percent of 948 professors said they should halt the operations suspension and seek a “sustainable way of protest,” according to its emergency response committee.

Some 20.3 percent voted for continuing the walkout.

The walkout came as a majority of junior doctors have walked off the job since late February against the quota increase, and some community doctors affiliated with the Korean Medical Association (KMA) held a one-day strike on Tuesday.

The KMA, a main doctors’ lobby group, has threatened to launch an indefinite strike next week to press the government further.

Sour
ce: Yonhap News Agency

South Korea summoned the top Russian envoy in Seoul on Friday to lodge a protest over a new treaty signed with North Korea that calls for immediate military assistance if either is attacked.

First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Hong-kyun called in Russian Ambassador Georgy Zinoviev to deliver Seoul’s position on the “comprehensive strategic partnership” treaty inked between Moscow and Pyongyang at their leaders’ summit Wednesday.

The treaty provides for military and other assistance from one side to the other “with all means” at its disposal and “without delay,” if either of the two gets invaded or put in a state of war.

Article 4 of the treaty is seen as warranting automatic military intervention in the event of an attack on either country, a provision that restores the Cold War-era alliance 28 years after their mutual defense treaty was scrapped in 1996.

Kim was expected to stress that Russia’s military cooperation with the North is a clear violation of the U.N. Security Council resolutions banning activiti
es that would help Pyongyang’s arms buildup.

He was also expected to make it clear to Russia about the possibility of Seoul providing Ukraine with arms support in response to Moscow’s signing of the treaty with the North, as announced the previous day by the National Security Council.

South Korea’s presidential office condemned the pact as a threat to national security in violation of U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolutions. It warned of a negative impact on its relations with Moscow.

Chang Ho-jin, South Korea’s top security adviser, said after holding a National Security Council meeting Thursday that Seoul will reconsider its stance on the arms supply to Ukraine. South Korea has so far maintained a policy of only providing nonlethal aid to Kyiv.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was on a state visit to Vietnam, warned that it would be a “very big mistake” if South Korea provided lethal weapons to Ukraine.

Attending a U.N. session in New York on Thursday (local time), Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul sa
id it was “deplorable” that Russia violated the resolutions that it itself has agreed to adopt as a permanent UNSC member.

Cho called on the international community to stand united against “any direct or indirect” cooperation that would help the North’s military buildup that constitutes a violation of UNSC resolutions.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

The influential sister of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un hinted on Friday about launching more trash-carrying balloons into South Korea as she condemned “human scum” for sending what she described as “dirty wastepaper and things.”

On Thursday night, a North Korean defectors’ group sent 20 balloons carrying some 300,000 leaflets, U.S. dollars and USB sticks containing a hit K-drama and songs across the border in the border city of Paju — the latest in a series of tit-for-tat leaflet campaigns between the two Koreas.

North Korean defector Park Sang-hak, who has been leading an anti-Pyongyang leaflet campaign, has vowed to continue sending propaganda leaflets to the North until North Korean leader Kim Jong-un apologizes for the North’s sending of trash-carrying balloons to the South.

“It is natural that there would be something trouble to happen as they did again what they had been urged not to do,” Kim Yo-jong said in a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency, an indication t
hat the North will launch more trash-carrying balloons to South Korea.

North Korea sent more than 1,000 trash-carrying balloons toward the South in recent weeks in retaliation for South Korean activists’ leaflet campaigns.

In retaliation, South Korea resumed loudspeaker broadcasts on June 9 for the first time in six years. But it did not turn on the loudspeakers the next day in an apparent bid to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control.

For years, North Korean defectors in the South and conservative activists have sent anti-Pyongyang leaflets to the North via balloons to help encourage North Koreans to eventually rise up against the Kim family regime.

North Korea has bristled at the propaganda campaign amid concern that an influx of outside information could pose a threat to the North Korean leader.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

The top diplomats of South Korea and the United States “strongly” condemned on Friday the agreement between Russia and North Korea to expand military and economic cooperation in their new bilateral partnership treaty, calling it a serious threat to peace and security.

Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul spoke by phone with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and discussed ways to respond to the outcome of the summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the foreign ministry said.

The phone talks came as tensions are rising after Moscow and Pyongyang signed the treaty seen as a restoration of their Cold War-era alliance at their talks in Pyongyang earlier this week.

The treaty states that if either of the two gets invaded or put in a state of war, the other side will provide military and other assistance “with all means” at its disposal and “without delay.”

Cho and Blinken said that the agreement to strengthen mutual military and economic cooperation through the treaty
“poses a significant threat to the security of both South Korea and the United States,” and “seriously undermines peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the region,” the ministry said in a release.

“They strongly condemned this agreement,” it said.

Cho called for Seoul and Washington to work closely together and take the initiative for a stern response from the international community. Cho explained to Blinken countermeasures Seoul will take, such as additional sanctions on North Korea and export controls against Russia.

Blinken said that Washington will “consider various ways to respond” to the threats posed by Moscow and Pyongyang in relation to the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and beyond.

Blinken also said that the U.S. “actively supports South Korea’s fair actions” against security threats.

The two sides also agreed to make efforts to strengthen the extended deterrence and the trilateral security cooperation with Japan in order to better cope with the North’s nuclear and mi
ssile threats.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

Former Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup refused to take his oath Friday as he was questioned by a parliamentary committee over a military probe into the death of a young Marine.

During a legislation and judiciary committee session held unilaterally by the main opposition Democratic Party (DP), former Vice Defense Minister Shin Beom-chul and Lim Seong-geun, former commander of the 1st Division of the Marine Corps, also refused to take the oath of witness.

Opposition lawmakers strongly rebuked the officials, saying their refusal is akin to admitting to their crimes and declaring that they will lie during the session.

The DP has been seeking to pass a special investigation bill over the Marine’s death after a similar bill was scrapped during the previous National Assembly.

The bill calls for the special counsel to look into allegations that the presidential office and the defense ministry inappropriately interfered in the Marine’s investigation into the death of Cpl. Chae Su-geun, who was killed during a searc
h mission for victims of heavy downpours in July 2023.

Source: Yonhap News Agency