It will be interesting to see how reliable the drones will be in the mountains during the winter months if they do move forward with this plan:
The Defense Ministry says it plans to use drones to transport military supplies to mountainous areas.
A South Korean military official says starting this year, the military will begin testing drone transport of common military items like ammunition and first aid equipment.
Drones are far cheaper and can reach difficult or denied areas.
If the testing works out, all branches of the military would eventually adopt drone transport technology and the military would aim to commercialize it within five years. [KBS World Radio]
Here is the latest on the future of USFK according to Defense Secretary Mattis:
U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis says the fate of U.S. Forces Korea is not an issue to discuss with North Korea.
Mattis, who is attending the Asia Security Summit in Singapore, said the issue is not on the table for the North Korea-U.S., nor should it be.
He also vowed efforts to achieve complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization(CVID) of the Korean Peninsula.
During a speech at the security summit on Saturday, he said the U.S. will support unrelenting diplomatic efforts for this aim.
South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo also spoke at the summit and said the South will not pursue North Korea’s collapse or Korean unification through absorption or any artificial means, and vowed to gradually ease inter-Korean military tensions. [KBS World News]
"Democracy dies in darkness"https://t.co/9qHjbtRTag This time, it's Im Jong-seok, President Moon's Chief of Staff with the well-documented history of pro-North Korean activism, suing a conservative journalist & commentator for calling him "jusapa," a North Korean sympathizer.
U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim enters the Foreign Ministry in Seoul on June 1, 2018, to meet with Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha. Sung Kim, a former chief U.S. nuclear envoy, met with North Korean officials at the truce village of Panmunjom over the past few days for talks on North Korea’s denuclearization methods and timelines and ensuring the North’s regime security. The U.S. and North Korean delegations were led by Sung Kim and North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui, respectively. (Yonhap)
But the US would need to circumvent its own sanctions against the rogue nation.
The peace talks are set for The Fullerton Hotel Singapore on June 12.
A rack rate room goes for $415 that night but a super-luxurious suite, befitting a world leader, could go for as much as $6,000, the newspaper said.
The hermit kingdom reportedly requires that all of Kim’s lodging bills are picked up by another country.
The US is open to paying for Kim. But first, Trump’s team would have to get around its own economic sanctions against North Korea — by obtaining a waiver from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. [NY Post]
You can read more at the link, but it is amazing how shameless the Kim regime is about having other people pick up their tabs. They kind of remind me of this woman who recently made headlines in New York City.
The Butcher of the Cheonan recently met with President Trump and all indications are that the meeting went very well:
U.S. President Donald Trump has confirmed his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will take place in Singapore on June 12th.
His announcement came after he met with senior North Korean official Kim Yong-chol at the White House on Friday, local time.
He said the “big deal” will be on June 12th and that he believes the North Korean leader is committed to denuclearization.
Trump also said the issue of formally ending the Korean War will be on the table.
He explained he no longer wants to use the term “maximum pressure” on North Korea and looks forward to the day sanctions can be lifted.
Trump said there were “hundreds of new sanctions ready to go on” but they won’t be imposed “until such time as the talks break down.”
Kim Yong-chol, vice chairman of the North Korean ruling party’s central committee, visited the White House as Kim Jong-un’s special envoy and delivered Kim’s letter to Trump. [KBS World Radio]
You can read more at the link, but for those that don’t know Kim Yong-chol is the guy that Kim Jong-un trusts the most to do his dirty work. I actually listened to Trump’s press conference and wonder what was in Kim Jong-un’s letter that Kim Yong-chol delivered? I wonder because President Trump alluded to during the press conference how “the subject matter was very interesting” in the letter that he ended up having a two hour conversation with Kim Yong-chol about. You can see the press conference below:
ROK Drop favorite Dr. Tara O has another great guest posting up over at One Free Korea that I recommend everyone read. This time she discusses how the Moon administration has pre-emptively jailed journalist Byun Hee-jae for libel. Byun has been writing about the infamous tablet PC that ultimately led to the impeachment of former President Park. In the article Dr. O provides further information about how dubious the tablet PC was:
Samsung Galaxy Note 4 tablet PC on display in Seoul
Park was impeached, and Moon was elected. Unlike what has been written in English, Park was not impeached for corruption or bribery, but for charges that she gave away the “monopoly of state affairs,” and the tablet PC was seen as the “silver bullet.”
The tablet PC turned out to contain no evidence per the special prosecutors’ own forensic report and was not even Choi’s. The tablet PC also did not contain Korean document editing-capable software. The report, however, was not released to the public until a year later, long after the impeachment had concluded and the public fervor had died down.
Sohn stated afterwards that “even if there was no such thing as the [insignificant] tablet PC . . . , [it wouldn’t have mattered]” implying that Park would have been impeached anyway, although it was his TV program that incited people. JTBC, popular among the youth, has made other erroneous claims and sensationalized reporting on the Sewol Ferry sinking, Theater High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD), and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). [One Free Korea]
I recommend reading the whole article at the link, but a commenter left a link to another article that shows how Byun’s independent journalism site, Media Watch was likely targeted by the Moon administration for libel because of its dogged pursuit of the tablet PC story:
According to Mediawatch.kr, NFS’s forensic report does NOT even mention the name of Choi Soon-sil, much less pinpoint Choi as the user of the tablet PC that JTBC reported was owned and used by Choi.
Na’s testimony should have prompted an avalanche of reports covering this bombshell of a testimony—at least as torrential as those that gushed out of JTBC when it reported that NFS’s forensic report proved JTBC’s claim that Choi was the user of the tablet PC.
Instead, what happened was (1) a deafening silence on the part of JTBC and other MSM outlets, none of which reported this stunning revelation, and (2) the jailing of Byun Hee-jae, the founder of Mediawatch.kr, the only news outlet that has provided an extensive coverage of the testimony.
Mediawatch has doggedly pursued the JTBC’s disingenuous and illegal activities involving the tablet PC. Na’s crucial testimony was covered only by Mediawatch.kr and Jayoo.co.kr, a small internet news outlet which briefly mentioned Na’s testimony in its coverage of the arrest warrant for Byun Hee-jae, and a Youtube channel run by an investigative reporter U Jongchang formerly of Chosun ilbo, who also attended the court proceedings along with Yi Huiu of Mediawatch and Kim Piljun of JTBC. [Tepyung.com]
Once again I recommend reading the whole thing at the link.
Remember that the actions being taken to silence journalists reporting about the dubious tablet PC is being done in concert with the arrest of Druking, the blogger who helped the Moon administration to manipulate online opinion before the election. So he has been effectively silenced as well about disclosing any other actions that may have occurred prior to the election to help President Moon get elected.
Once again I wonder if we will ever see the major US media report on any of this? Probably not they are too busy reporting on more important topics like Roseanne and Samantha Bee.
The Koam-Tapchon marine railway bridge is opened to traffic on May 30, 2018, during a ceremony on its completion in this photo from the North’s Korean Central News Agency. The bridge, built in the country’s eastern coastal area, is aimed at developing the railway transport and fishing industry, the report said. (Yonhap)
