Melissa chan welcome to news asia thank you for joining us south korean boy band b t as has fans around the world and their stardom scenes unstoppable except it might come to a sudden halt because of south koreas mandatory military service where theyd spend 18 months out of the spotlight training for potential war on the Korean Peninsula fans say they should be exempt while others say they need to do their duty frank smith reports. So korean boy band b. T. S. Reigns supreme over billboard charts as their fans their army fallen over their good looks and slick moves but as they move through their twenties an ominous obligation approaches a minimum one and a half years mandatory military Service Required of every healthy south korean male between 18 and 28. The issue of mandatory military service for entertainers like b. T. S. Is complicated by the fact that high achieving south korean athletes have seen their army obligations reduced after winning a gold medal in the 2800 games soccer stars on whom in was required to do just 3 weeks of Marine Corps Training completed earlier this year although he will also have to perform some extra community service. So the green boy band b. T. S. Reigns supreme over billboard charts as their fans their army fallen over their good looks and slick moves but as they move through their twenties an ominous obligation approaches a minimum one and a half years mandatory military service reality of a little bit yes a stain is doing Public Relations informing other countries about south korea they should be exempted from military service because they promote south korean culture there are many of them and south korea so why are they trying to take e. T. S. Which play such an Important Role for the country. She spent 21 months in the army in warns of a declining population in the ongoing threat of north korea. We can only maintain National Security when we have a Strong Military defense such preferential treatment increases the number of people entering the military will decrease. The military will be shaken and it will be a threat to National Security you know and they dont want to know what im about. So threes National Assembly has tabled a bill that would offer certain artists the opportunity to delay the service for 2 years shane argues a clear policy is needed but a special deal for b. T. S. Would be unfair. No matter how do it but without coming out and they pulled out because bt has worked in Entertainment Company i dont think its right for them to get exemptions while performing. B. T. S. Doesnt generate interest in our country but i think giving preferential treatment to b. T. S. Discriminates against other men in the northern part of the how do we double that would have to go. To the recent survey showed that most south korean support some type of deferral for a k. Pop idols that contribute to south korea is International Reputation a decision has to be made soon because for b. T. S. Time is running out. Joining us is frank smith out of seoul frank tell us more about this mandatory military service in south korea how long has it been in place well they started mandatory military service here conscription back and 957 thats just screen years or 4 years after their korean war ended it was based actually on a 948 law and it starts out with about 5 weeks of basic training or boot camp and recruits can either enter the army the room corps the navy or the air force the terms of service the length of Service Berries a little bit if you enter the d navy or the air force you have to do a month or 2 longer and presumably its in place because of the threat from north korea what are those months of Training Like are some soldiers actually patrolling the border between north and south korea for example. Well military service in south korea is generally considered in 2 different ways its blurry and its also stressful if youre deployed near the d. M. Z. The Demilitarized Zone its the heavily most heavily fortified border in the world there are Something Like 700000 north korean troops just on the other side of that border in terms of the borini end of things former president of south korea no one said serving military service was really kind of a waste of time and since then as preciously liberal administrations here in south korea have tried to find ways of reducing the terms of service and making it a little bit easier for conscripts to serve here at some incredible statement from south korean politicians there how much public support is there from military service then and it sounds like from your report that enough people are comfortable with exemptions for example im thinking of mandatory military service in israel and how trying to get out of it is really not socially acceptable but it seems like in south korea thats different. Raul its not that different if youre trying to get out of it the public is quite strongly against that type of thing what it is interested in at about the 60 percent level is providing exemptions for people that d are you know doing extraordinarily thrones in the name of the country i give the example of the athlete son who men during the report there its also extended to classical musicians and other types of artists but that environs only really a delay and there is also strong support for our turn out of service here in south korea previously Conscientious Objectors were jailed there were once up to 500. 00 Conscientious Objectors behind bars in south korea theyve been released in recent years and now theyre moving to an alternative service which you know is langar than the mandatory 18 months of active military duty here frank very quick question what are the chances that south korea would move to a professional army and away from mandatory military service well i think we really have to look at the relationship between south korea and north korea and north korea still presents a military threat to south korea and there are periodic flare ups in the tension on the Korean Peninsula given that that continues were not going to see you know a career professional army here in south korea until there is really a calming down of tension and knots better relations between north and south korea thanks matthew thank you. For 2 weeks now vietnam has been dealing with heavy rains floods and landslides caused by a series of Tropical Storms and the extreme weather is taking a heavy toll with more than 100 People Killed and at least 30 missing central provinces have been worst hit and theres no sign yet that conditions will ease the floods have compounded the suffering of people already struggling from the coronavirus endemic. An onslaught that simply wont let up vietnam has seen weeks of trench rain as excessive storms churned 3 Southeast Asia the relentless downpours have triggered the countrys worst flooding in years in central provinces the water level just keeps on climbing i mean ive never seen such a terrible flood before im scared and i dont know where to go if it gets worse. People are seeking safety on rooftops the floods of inundated almost 200000 homes destroyed crops and killed livestock devastated communities now face shortages of food and clean water. I havent eaten since yesterday the floodwaters at roof level we have nothing no food no phone nothing. As the situation becomes increasingly desperate mobilizing all resources to prevent further loss of life. Weve sent a dozen emergency teams to the most severely affected communities. One that will carry out the search and rescue mission to the best of our abilities. And that mission is a daunting one dozens of people remain missing and another Tropical Storm is expected to hit vietnam in the coming days. Remember this past spring when so many of us went under lockdown and traffic cleared up which meant the pollution levels fell no place felt that so palpably than delhi but in the indian capital like other places things have quickly returned to their old ways. After months of absence people in indias capital are feeling it again irritated eyes and throats that smells Poor Visibility smog has returned to delhi and also even for people. Active people like me were coming through and the noticing a change of elvis a bit and its getting harder to believe that after months of clearer healthier air because of the coronavirus lockdown with traffic industry and most social life suddenly stopped the environment recovered and people breathed easier. That seems over now one might say it was only a matter of time smog in these parts has several causes theres the exhaust from all those engines and boilers. Farmers burning off stubble on their fields after the harvest. And the winds and rains of the monsoon are gone. The locked down is also a thing of the past india has now clocked over 7000000 coronavirus cases and people are realizing that pollution and the pandemic are forming a vicious circle. We have this double problem of pollution and coronavirus people were already scared of the corona virus and now secondly this pollution so what should we do. Doctors say pollution and covert 19 are a dangerous combination the pollution and really damage really cause inflammation in the lungs and that sort of cause it and wont let them run their cause inflammation. Respited theyre more nuanced and get complicated for those facing the double threat of covert 19 and unhealthy air this may be an especially difficult when sure. Thats it for today theres always more on dot com for slash asia we leave you now with pictures from thailands protests people have hit the streets every day for almost a week thanks for watching and with you tomorrow. Combating the corona pandemic. Where does research stand. What are scientists learning. Background information and. Our corona. Over 19 special next on d w m ms. So many push. Ups right now in the us right now Climate Change me different story. Bases much less the wings on just one week. How much worse can really get. We still have time to. Get. Such a. Good subscribed the only news like this. How dangerous is the air around us. Every time we speak every time we laugh or seeing. Them its particles and once theyre there they linger we know that this is a key where the corona virus can spread. Scientists are still suffering how dangerous these doses of airborne virus can be and what we can do to avoid them. Opening a window is one way to keep their fresh but by keeping the air moving with systems like air conditioning are we decreasing the risk or merely spreading it. What do we need to do to breathe easily indoors. And this is the covert 19 special who are welcome to show up in berlin open the window its the one piece of advice were all hearing now thats a bit more complicated in the winter doesnt work in all rooms and certainly doesnt work on airplanes theyve used in the industry says cabin air is sufficiently filtered and circulated though some experts say questions remain. For air travelers social distancing already starts to get difficult at the boarding gate and it gets even trickier on the plane spacing out just isnt possible unless you can afford to buy an extra seat. With only 50 centimeters distance between each person the risk of infection is obvious and healing the droplets in aerosols from an adjacent passenger seems unavoidable scientists have long been aware of the dangers of infection on planes mostly because of studies of other coronaviruses air is not displaced in aircraft inlets in l. Its hard to small for that cabin air can only be mixed. Over at the Hamburg University of applied Sciences Professor dr schulte says viruses may stay in the cabin air for up to 15 minutes exposing passengers to infection risk. The i want us to want to look for the Aviation Industry makes 3 climbs firstly filters an aircraft to make the air as clean as an operating room for them secondly the air is completely exchanged every 2 to 3 minutes thirdly the air only moves from top to bottom in the cabin all of 3 are just not sure. It could be that current Safety Standards and filtration techniques are not as good as many may think meaning the possibility of catching coronavirus when flying could be more up to chance than anything else. Lets take a closer look at ventilation and the virus joining me now is paul linden hes professor of fluid mechanics at Cambridge University paul its good to have you on the show. With the obvious question winter is approaching in northern in the Northern Hemisphere whats the best thing that someone should keep in mind about ventilation in rooms well its obviously a challenge the winter because. You have to see is to close up buildings and ventilation is reduced to keep warm so the best thing to do is to make sure that as much ventilation as possible is achieved open a window if you possibly can. And if you have a mechanical system make sure as much fresh air coming in as possible what about fans or if i just have fans that are standing around the room does that help keep things ventilated is that help me at all no it doesnt it will just mix up whats already there and thats probably not the best thing because if there is virus particles in the air in the air and start all around your chances of breathing them are increased so i wouldnt recommend using fans. Ok so the best option and it seems to be is to keep the window open even though its when its winter early to open a periodic lee. Of course thats going to mean that people are going to be colder rooms are going to be colder is this really a choice now that we have between Climate Control and being safe with the virus is it such a black and white choice pretty much i would say it is thats right and. Its well known that during the spanish flu. Classes in the u. S. Even in the midwest in the winter were held outside so. I think it is a it is a tradeoff between staying warm and staying safe thats going to mean quite a change for the industry the Climate Control back conditioning industry yes absolutely it will and i mean conventional systems use a certain amount of research elated air and they supplement that with some fresh air when its pumped so dr through the building and again you want to make sure that the proportion of pressure air is as high as possible and that will you know Climate Controlled situation mean of course more energy is used to keep that to warn that iraq. So it will be a tradeoff they have between between energy costs and. The amount of fresh air that you can provide and then one of your studies you mention Carbon Dioxide of course being an indicator as well does this mean that we can expect that Carbon Dioxide measures will be a more common feature in rooms. Yeah i believe thats a very sensible thing to do Carbon Dioxide is essentially within a building produced by people exhaling. And so levels that are above the background outside values of about 400 something past a 1000000. Indicate indicative of. Its being in someones lungs and then breathed out again and so measuring that gives you an estimate in fact you can relate the risk of infection directly to. The concentration of Carbon Dioxide help me understand your picture when i enter room breathing speaking laughing with without a mask what am i seeing and what are you seeing if youre able to see these these plumes or whatever you call them. Yes so from an individual you give off heat. Every person gives off about 80 watts bit like a blush really bright light bow and that heat rises from your body in what we call a turbulent plume. And that will rise up towards the ceiling and you know that in most rooms the air in the ceiling is warmer than the air in the floor also plumes arise from equipment like a computer or other things and and when you breathe out you also agree that warm air that warm air is directed of course in in Different Directions so if you breathe through your nose its directed downwards if you breathe if you talk and is Goes National was horizontally and of course it depends on sounds that you make some sounds inject air further and do you speak the further it goes so theres a very complex dynamical process going on and its invisible thats quite right we have techniques that make it possible to visualize this and we use those techniques which essentially look at the way the refractive index of the air changes its a bit like watching the a shimmer above a toaster you look at your toaster one that you see that is the same process and we can visualize that we can see where this goes and what we do see is that if you wear a mask for example that the air that you exhale even when youre speaking were even blocking and coughing tends to basically leak around. The edges of the last nights sleep around the nose where it doesnt it properly and that then gets carried out with the plume in your body and thats a good thing so that so wearing a mosque generally confines your breath to to be taken up with the hot air rising from you is more complicated if you. Near around on the other hand because then you have a wake behind you just as you would. A way behind a ship and and that weight carry you carry your breath in the wake behind you so you can spread it around quite significantly so those flows are much more vigorous than the flow produced by your ventilation system an issue very close to say an open window you probably dont perceive the around you. So those floods are a run to the weak the flow from your heat from your body when you speak when you breathe in and now theyre much stronger and theyre and so its a complicated interaction between