The North Koreans like to use these family reunions to appeal to the emotions of South Koreans which then makes them useful bargaining chips by threatening to cancel them if they don’t get what they want from the ROK government:
A South Korean woman talks with a Red Cross official to see if she can meet with her family in North Korea in this undated file photo. (Yonhap)
South Korea began a process Monday to select those who will meet their long-separated family members in North Korea in late August.
The two Koreas agreed to hold their first family reunion event in nearly three years at the North’s Mount Kumgang resort from Aug. 20-26, a follow-up to the April 27 summit deal.
It would enable 100 South Korean people, mostly elderly ones, to get together with their families across the border, decades after being separated by the 1950-53 Korean War. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but these reunions have also in the past been a cottage industry for the regime to make money by holding them at the Kumgang Resort on the east coast of North Korea. I suspect the regime also is using the reunions to promote the resort in its efforts to get sanctions dropped and tourism reopened to Gumgang resort and other nearby facilities.
Part II of the third summit between Xi and KJU. Here's the same NK general who created controversy, defense minister Roh Gwang-chol, doing the same military salute at another summit. This is a big entourage: about twice the hangers-on that accompanied KJU to the 1st & 2nd summits pic.twitter.com/3O67f0f8jo
Salvation Army General Andre Cox speaks at a joint service celebrating the 110th anniversary of Salvation Army Korea at Yonsei University in Seoul on June 24, 2018. (Yonhap)
ROK Drop favorite Andrew Salmon writes in the Korea Times about if the Moon administration should pursue a trilateral security pact with the United States with the third country not being Japan, but North Korea:
But even if South Korea can defend itself against North Korea conventionally, there are broader reasons to maintain a Washington alliance.
This alliance goes beyond USFK. Its underpinning is a mutual defense treaty ― which, incidentally, does not even mention North Korea.
There is no multilateral security architecture in the region; no Northeast Asian NATO. We all know that _ for emotive rather than political reasons ― Koreans cannot ally with Japanese. This makes the U.S. South Korea’s only friend to turn to if things turn rough. It has no other ally. Period.
Speaking of the broader peninsula: What is more threatening? A superpower across the Pacific ― or a superpower next door? Could ― gulp! ― Seoul and Washington one day invite Pyongyang into a trilateral pact against external enemies?
This is not complete lunacy. After all, the late Kim Jong-il told the late Kim Dae-jung that he agreed to a long-term US presence on the peninsula to counterbalance a rising China.
I would respectfully suggest that Seoul considers these factors very carefully as it negotiates the upcoming issues of defense cost-sharing and wartime operational control with Washington.
These are big-picture issues here. There are big-boys’ rules to consider. In a situation where all possibilities are in play, there is more at stake than North-South rapprochement. [Korea Times]
You can read the rest at the link, but if this was to happen this would be a huge strategic victory for the US against Chinese hegemony in northeast Asia. Could you imagine a Foal Eagle exercise with US soldiers training with North Korean troops?
What I find interesting about this is that JTBC ran a fake news story that ultimately led to the impeachment of the South Korean president with no consequences; TV Chosun airs a far less significant fake news story and they are having legal action taken against them:
A scene from a TV Chosun broadcast on May 19 which claimed North Korean officials had demanded US$10,000 per reporter from overseas press during the shutdown of the nuclear test site at Punggye Village. (captured from TV Chosun)
A controversial false report by the TV Chosun network claiming North Korea demanded US$10,000 for coverage of the dismantlement of its Punggye Village nuclear test site was subsequent to heavy disciplinary action in the form of “legal measures” by the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC) broadcasting subcommittee for violation of objectivity. TV Chosun is a conservative network that began broadcasting under Chosun Ilbo on Dec. 1, 2011.In a meeting convened on June 21, the subcommittee heard opinions and accounts from TV Chosun information center deputy chief Jeong Seok-yeong and political desk chief Kang Sang-gu before reaching a majority decision to refer the matter to the KCSC plenary session.
On May 19, TV Chosun aired an “exclusive” on “News 7” claiming North Korea had demanded US$10,000 per person from US journalists for coverage of the dismantlement of the nuclear test site at Punggye Village.In his appearance before the subcommittee that day, Kang said that he himself had been the segment’s writer rather than Eom Seong-seop, the journalist who delivered the report.“I basically wrote the piece,”
Kang said.When asked by review committee members if TV Chosun had different journalists investigating stories, writing reports, and reading reports, Kang replied, “There are such cases in the interest of protecting sources.”TV Chosun claimed the report was based on interviews with two US journalists and North Korean officials. While it did not disclose the names of the US reporters, it described them as “reliable journalists.” But neither of them was actually present for coverage at Punggye Village. South Korean and overseas new outlets confirmed that no such money had been paid by members of the foreign press present at the dismantlement, including CNN’s Will Ripley. [Hankyoreh]
You can read more a the link, but TV Chosun is really the only conservative TV news station left in South Korea since the Moon administration used labor unions and violence to consolidate control over the other major news networks. This is clearly a shot across the bow by the ROK government to get them to moderate their coverage.
The cynic in me though does wonder if TV Chosun was setup or not by whoever gave them the information about the payments to North Korea?
I guess we will see how the Moon administration tries to end South Korea’s human rights act since the Kim regime through their state controlled media is demanding it:
North Korea’s state media on Sunday demanded the abolishment of South Korea’s human rights act and a foundation dedicated to its enforcement, arguing they only hamper efforts to improve cross-border ties.
The call came weeks after Seoul closed the office for the state-run foundation due to a yearslong delay in its official launch, which was caused by political hurdles. The government, however, pledged continued efforts for the launch.
“The North Korean human rights act, which the cohorts of (former President) Park Geun-hye manipulated, must be abolished, while the North Korean human rights foundation, an institution designed to plot against our republic, ought to be buried away,” said Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean propaganda website. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but ROK Heads may remember that last the Moon administration closed the ROK government’s office for human rights citing administrative issues.
Moon returns from Russia where he pitched his own Northern Strategy (the "Northern Silk Road") to Putin, Medvedev and the Russian lower house. SK railroad officials accompanied him to confer with Russian ones re connecting to the Trans-Siberian Railwayhttps://t.co/sio2gDj7ra
President Moon Jae-in (L) talks to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the State Kremlin Palace in Moscow on June 22, 2018, while having a summit there. (Yonhap)
There must be a political calculus behind this designation by the ROK government considering it has happened decades after the fact:
This undated photo provided by the defense ministry shows a German doctor examining a patient at a German hospital set up in Busan in 1954 after the Korean War. (Yonhap)
Germany has been belatedly classified among the participating nations in the Korean War, as South Korea has added the European country to the list of countries that provided medical assistance during the 1950-53 war, government officials said Friday.
The Ministry of National Defense has designated Germany as the sixth provider of medical support to the war-stricken South Korea 64 years ago, saying that Germans set up a hospital in Busan in May 1954 and engaged in medical assistance activities.
After the outbreak of the war on the Korean Peninsula, 21 countries contributed to the United Nations force that came to the aid of South Korea against North Korea, which was backed by China and the then Soviet Union.
Sixteen countries sent combat troops to South Korea, while four countries — Norway, Denmark, Sweden and India — sent medical units and Italy provided a hospital to the South.
In May 1953, two months before the ceasefire, Germany notified the U.N. headquarters of its intent to set up a field hospital in South Korea to support U.N. soldiers participating in the Korean War and sent a medical unit of around 80 staff the following year.
But the European country was not included among the Korean War providers of medical aid because its medical support activities began after the armistice treaty was signed on July 27, 1953. [Yonhap]
You can read the rest at the link, but President Moon decided to pursue this designation after a trip to Germany last year where he met with former German medical team members.
President Moon Jae-in, left, then the floor leader of New Politics Alliance for Democracy Party, greets former Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil at Seoul Asan Hospital in 2015. Yonhap
Former Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil died Saturday at age 92. Kim died at 8:15 a.m., an aide said.
Kim was taken to Soonchunhyang University Hospital in Seoul from his home in Shindang-dong, and he was already dead on arrival, hospital officials said.
He is believed to have died of old age.
Born in 1926, Kim graduated from the Korea Military Academy and played a key role in the 1961 military coup led by Park Chung-hee, who rose to president and ruled South Korea for 18 years.
Kim served as prime minister twice, first from 1971-1975 and then from 1998-2000.
He also served nine terms as a lawmaker and was considered one of South Korea’s most influential politicians in the 1980s-90s. He was known as one of the “three Kims,” together with former Presidents Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung. [Korea Times]
The modern Korean history that Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil was part of is simply incredible. He was even responsible for an agricultural first by creating Jeju’s first tangerine orchard in 1968.
