These two may despise each other, but it appears each knows they now need each other if any legislation will ever pass in the Korean parliament:
President Yoon Suk Yeol called main opposition leader Lee Jae-myung on Friday and proposed that they meet at the presidential office next week, his office said.
Yoon proposed the meeting after congratulating Lee of the Democratic Party and other party members on their win in last week’s parliamentary elections, according to senior presidential secretary for public relations Lee Do-woon.
“The president proposed to Chairman Lee in the phone call that they meet in Yongsan next week if it suits him,” the senior secretary said during a press briefing, referring to the district where the presidential office is located.
“The president said they should first meet and start communication, and in the future meet frequently, drink tea, have meals together and talk by phone and discuss state affairs,” he added.
You can tell the Kim regime is trying to amp up the scary factor when they start calling things “super-large”:
North Korea conducted a “super-large warhead” power test for a strategic cruise missile and test-fired a new anti-aircraft missile this week, state media reported Saturday, further ratcheting up tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
The Missile Administration carried out the test of the warhead designed for the “Hwasal-1 Ra-3” strategic cruise missile, and test-launched its new anti-aircraft missile, the “Pyoljji-1-2,” in the Yellow Sea on Friday, KCNA said, noting that a “certain goal” was achieved through the test launch.
It is the first time that Pyongyang has named a missile “Pyoljji,” which means “meteor” in Korean.
HD Hyundai wins 640 bln-won warship contract in Peru This photo, provided by HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, shows a rendering of warships for the Peruvian Navy, which the South Korean shipbuilder will build jointly with Peru’s state-run Shipyard Marine Industrial Services under a 640.6 billion-won (US$463 million) contract, signed in Lima on April 16, 2024. (Yonhap)
With such short mandatory service times in Korea there is not much training V is going to receive to make him a very effective special operator. I wonder if he volunteered for this unit or the ROK military put him in it for publicity reasons?:
Photos of K-pop supergroup BTS member V in the gear of a counter-terrorism unit have been unveiled, a Facebook page on the South Korean military showed Thursday.
Images of V wearing pitch black Special Duty Team (SDT) attire were released Wednesday on the page, which serves as an anonymous bulletin board for military service members.
V enlisted in the military last December for his mandatory service and was accepted to join the military police during boot camp training, according to the Army.
The BTS member has since been assigned to the SDT, which focuses on counter-terrorism and other special operations, under the Army’s 2nd Corps.
It appears to be more about domestic politics in Japan than actually making any breakthrough with North Korea:
Why is Kishida so interested in holding a summit with Kim? According to expert analysis, Kishida needs a diplomatic breakthrough to change the bleak trajectory of his premiership, which has been plagued by domestic scandals. The approval rating of his Cabinet dipped to a dismal 20.1 percent in February 2024, right when public discussion of a Kim-Kishida summit ramped up. North Korea seems to agree with this analysis; Kim Yo Jong’s March statement claimed that Kishida was not serious about improving Japan-North Korea ties but only seeking a summit in a “bid for popularity.”
Another potential motivation for Kishida is that inter-Korean relations are facing serious challenges during South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s term, and North Korea-U.S. relations are relatively deadlocked. Meanwhile, the threat from a series of North Korean ballistic missile tests, particularly the April 2 test of an intermediate-range ballistic missile equipped with a hypersonic warhead, has pressured the United States and its allies.
Japan, as one of the United States’ traditional allies, intends to take advantage of this chaos as a chance to showcase its “bridging role” in terms of conflict mediation. Kishida may hope to reinforce regional peace and stability, similar to South Korea’s efforts under former President Moon Jae-in.
You can read more at the link, but North Korea has repeatedly said no to any summit with Japan that includes the abduction issue or missile tests. Those two issues are really the only thing the Japanese care to discuss with North Korea thus why there will be no summit.
Here is a wacky story out of Thailand of a female politician getting caught having an affair with her adopted son who is a Buddhist monk:
A man in his 60s in Thailand recently released a video of an affair between his wife in her 40s and his adoptive son in his 20s, sparking controversy, the British daily Daily Mail reported. His wife is a local politician in Thailand and his adopted son is a monk.
According to the Daily Mail, A (64), a Thai real estate developer, released a video of his wife B (45) and her adopted son C lying in bed naked at home.
The video has now been widely shared on Thai social media.
According to the released video, when A enters the room, B stands up naked in surprise and tries to take A’s cell phone away. His adopted son, Mr. C, is also lying naked. He jumps up and hides himself in one side of the room.
SK chairman’s divorce action This composite photo shows SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won (L) and his wife, Roh So-young, arriving at the Seoul High Court in the capital on April 16, 2024, to attend a hearing on their divorce proceedings. (Yonhap)
