A flight of South Korean F-4 fighters puts on an air show above Wolmi Island off Incheon, west of Seoul, on Sept. 14, 2018, to rehearse for an event the next day to celebrate the 68th anniversary of the Incheon Landing Operation in the 1950-53 Korean War. The 1950 operation, commanded by U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, turned the tide of the war against the invading North Korea. (Yonhap)
While the Moon administration continues to play nice with North Korea, the Trump administration continues to add new sanctions over the Kim regime’s nuclear program:
This AP file photo shows U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. (Yonhap)
The United States on Thursday sanctioned two companies in China and Russia for allegedly facilitating North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
The Department of the Treasury also sanctioned a North Korean individual in the latest set of sanctions aimed at denuclearizing the regime.
Thursday’s action particularly targets the revenue earned for the Pyongyang government by North Korean IT workers overseas.
The Treasury said it is sanctioning China Silver Star, which is “nominally a Chinese IT company, but in reality … managed and controlled by North Koreans.”
Also being sanctioned is the firm’s CEO, Jong Song-hwa, and its Russia-based front company, Volasys Silver Star.
“These actions are intended to stop the flow of illicit revenue to North Korea from overseas information technology workers disguising their true identities and hiding behind front companies, aliases, and third-party nationals,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but it appears that the Trump administration is not ready to sign up for “pretend denuclearization“.
Here is the latest on the opening of the Inter-Korean office at Kaesong:
This photo provided by the unification ministry shows a four-story building that will be used for the liaison office in the North Korean border town of Kaesong. (Yonhap)
South and North Korea launched their joint liaison office on Friday, securing a platform for round-the-clock communication that is expected to help foster cross-border exchange and ease tensions.
The liaison office was launched in the North’s border town of Kaesong, with around 50 people each from the two Koreas attending the opening ceremony.
The move is a follow-up on an agreement that the leaders of the two Koreas reached in their April summit to run such an office on hopes that the office will serve as a communication channel to help facilitate inter-Korean cooperation on various fronts.
“The inter-Korean joint liaison office is a channel for round-the-clock communication in the new era of peace,” South Korea’s Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon said in a congratulatory speech. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link but according to the article South Korea will have around 20 people working there.
Today is the 68th anniversary of the Incheon Landing Operation that was the key pivotal battle that changed the course of the Korean War. With the Moon administration committed to playing nice with North Korea, it will be interesting to see if President Moon attends any of the memorial events?
Lieutenant Baldomero Lopez of the Marine Corps is shown scaling a seawall after landing on Red Beach. Minutes after this photo was taken, Lopez was killed when smothering a live grenade with his body. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
You can read more about the battle at the below link:
Kim Jung-hun, a firefighter from the southwestern city of Jeongeup, flexes his muscles while holding an electric saw in a bodybuilding contest of the World Firefighters Games Chungju 2018 in the city some 150 kilometers southeast of Seoul on Sept. 11, 2018. The games, regarded as the Olympics of firefighters, will continue to Sept. 17, with some 6,000 people in the profession from more than 50 countries participating. (Yonhap)
Of course the Moon administration is going to downplay the cost of the money they plan to give to North Korea:
The Unification Ministry is rejecting suspicions it is downplaying the costs of implementing April’s inter-Korean Panmunjeom Declaration.
A ministry official told reporters Wednesday that the practice of submitting estimated next-year budget requests was established by the Roh Moo-hyun government in 2007, and that this government is simply following precedent. He was responding to the concerns raised by some opposition lawmakers that the total cost of implementing the Panmunjeom Declaration may be far higher than the Moon administration’s 471-billion estimate, and say that requesting funds in year-by-year amounts may be a way of minimizing perception of that total cost.
Earlier this week, the government told lawmakers that it will require an additional 298-point-six billion won next year to implement the agreement.
Estimated costs include operating the inter-Korean liaison office, holding family reunions, and a range of infrastructure projects to modernize North Koreas roads and rails. [KBS World Radio]
What is funny is that the Moon administration is claiming they are following precedent set during the Roh Moo-hyun administration. Current President Moon was the Chief of Staff for former President Roh, so essentially his administration is following a precedent of downplaying Inter-Korean cooperation costs he helped to create.
Anchor: New jobs figures released Wednesday show a bleak situation. Unemployment reached its highest point last month since the Asian financial crisis nearly 20 years ago.
Our Park Jong-hong has this report.
Report: The latest figures show South Korea’s jobless rate rose slightly in August to four percent due to a fall in employment in the retail and manufacturing sectors.
Young adults aged 15 to 29 who were out of a job last month stood at ten percent, up six-tenths of a percentage point from the previous year and the highest since 1999.
The number of employed went up by a mere three-thousand compared to August last year to 26-point-nine million.
This increase in jobs last month is the smallest since January 2010, when ten-thousand jobs were cut.
For the second month in a row, the number of newly added jobs has stayed below ten-thousand per month.
An official at Statistics Korea, which compiled the report, said one main reason behind the dismal figures is the struggling business at automakers and shipbuilders which is spilling over to related sectors like retail. [KBS World Radio]
