A mural depicting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un looms over a passerby near the Koreatown neighborhood in Los Angeles, Thursday. Earlier in the day, U.S. President Donald Trump canceled a planned summit with Kim Jong-un. [Korea Times]
Just another example of something I can point to the next time someone tries to tell me that South Korea is a conservative Confucian country:
South Korea held its first ever drag parade this weekend, a small but significant step for rights activists in a country that remains deeply conservative when it comes to gender and sexuality.
Dozens of drag queens and kings marched through Itaewon on Saturday, a suburb of Seoul best known for its nightlife and a nascent but vibrant gay scene.
Carrying rainbow flags, they cheered and strutted their best outfits, receiving shouts of support and the odd baffled look from those they passed.
While homosexuality is not illegal in South Korea, same-sex marriage is not recognised and people cannot legally change their birth gender.
The country is home to a large evangelical Christian community and LGBT people feel pervasive pressure to stay closeted.
“When it comes to South Korea, human rights guarantees for sexual minorities are insufficient,” Yang Heezy, a drag queen and the organiser of Seoul Drag Parade, said.
“Today’s drag parade and more queer culture festivals should take place to bring attention to sexual minorities and help those who are not from those minorities learn more,” he added, sporting a flame red wig and floral dress. [South China Morning Post]
The North Koreans don’t need economic aid for the US considering that President Moon is figuratively willing to drive the Bank of Korea armored truck directly to Kim Jong-un’s palace. They just need the US to drop the sanctions on the Kim regime so the payoff aid can be legally delivered to North Korea:
North Korea on Sunday fumed at U.S. reports that the country is seeking economic assistance from the United States in return for denuclearization.
The ruling Workers’ Party’s official newspaper Rodong Sinmun commented that Fox News TV, CBS and CNN were “as impudent as to make rubbish that if the DPRK meets the requirements of the U.S., it can get ‘large-scale non-governmental economic aid.'”
“This is nonsense of hack media on the payroll of power,” according to its commentary carried in an English dispatch by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
“U.S. media is still building up public opinion that the DPRK comes to the negotiating table with the U.S. in a hope to get ‘economic aid,'” the report said using the initial of the North’s full name, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “We can not but make the fact clear. It is the U.S. that asked for DPRK-U.S. talks first,” the North claimed.
“As far as the ‘economic aid’ … is concerned, the DPRK has never expected it.” [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but most of the US media is completely uninformed about North Korea
There is a new curfew policy that was recently implemented by the 2nd Infantry Division:
A 2nd Infantry Division policy memo published Tuesday says soldiers are required to be on base, at a residence or inside a hotel room by the new deadline, instead of the U.S. Forces Korea standard of 1 a.m. followed until Monday.
The curfew, which officials called a “readiness recall,” still ends at 5 a.m.
2ID did not identify any specific incident that sparked the change to the policy, but said readiness of the unit’s 12,000 troops was its main concern. South Korean police outside of Camp Casey and Camp Humphreys said Wednesday they had not noticed a significant increase of incidents involving U.S. personnel.
“The recall readiness time was moved one hour earlier in order to ensure that the division is consistently and completely in compliance with the U.S. Forces Korea readiness recall policy,” 2ID spokeswoman Lt. Col. Junel Jeffrey told Stars and Stripes Wednesday. [Stars & Stripes via a reader tip]
You can read more at the link, but the change by one hour to a midnight curfew is not the biggest issue I see with this memo. The policy memo also states that commander must account for 100% of personnel to the 2ID command staff on non-duty days by 12:30 AM.
It seems to me requiring servicemembers to sign in to the CQ desk each night would be the easiest way of doing this. However, a 12:30 AM report time hardly gives units any time to consolidate a report after curfew which means people would likely need to sign in earlier than the curfew time.
I would be interested to hear from 2ID servicemembers in the comments section on how they saw units meeting this requirement over the long holiday weekend.
BREAKING: A team of U.S. officials led by Sung Kim crossed into North Korea today to hold summit preparation talks, despite uncertainty surrounding the June 12 Trump-Kim meeting. The North Korean delegation is led by vice foreign minister Choe Son Hui. https://t.co/eLPZiB68cCpic.twitter.com/XwRwNqYtxo
Protesters stage a rally in front of the Government Building in downtown Seoul on May 24, 2018, to demand the government introduce measures to fully display the ingredients of genetically modified organism (GMO) food products. (Yonhap)
According President Moon, Kim Jong-un is committed to denuclearizing:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has reaffirmed his willingness to denuclearize and hold a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Sunday.
“Chairman Kim Jong-un has once again clearly expressed his commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula following his pledge in the Panmunjom Declaration and expressed his willingness to end the history of war and confrontation through the success of the North Korea-U.S. summit,” Moon said of his latest summit with the North Korean leader held Saturday.
“We two leaders agreed the June 12 North Korea-U.S. summit must be successfully held,” he told a nationally televised press conference.
The latest inter-Korean summit was held on the North Korean side of Panmunjom, a border village that sits directly on the Military Demarcation Line that divides the two Koreas. The first Moon-Kim summit was held on the South Korean side of Panmunjom on April 27.
Trump on Thursday (Washington time) called off his scheduled summit with Kim, citing the North’s tremendous anger and open hostility, only to suggest later the meeting would go ahead as planned.
“While explaining the outcome of my summit with U.S. President Trump held last week, I relayed the message that President Trump is firmly willing to end his country’s hostile relationship with North Korea and enhance economic cooperation should Chairman Kim make a decision on complete denuclearization and implements it,” Moon said.
The South Korean president visited Washington on Monday-Wednesday. He said his surprise meeting with Kim came at a suggestion from the North Korean leader, who on Friday expressed hope to meet for candid dialogue.
“Also, as both Chairman Kim and President Trump sincerely wish for the success of the North-U.S. summit, I stressed the need for the two sides to remove any misunderstanding through direct communication and to hold enough dialogue on agenda issues that need to be addressed at their summit,” President Moon said, adding, “Chairman Kim also agreed.” (……..)
“Chairman Kim Jong-un once again clearly affirmed that his commitment to complete denuclearization remains firm yesterday. What remains uncertain to Chairman Kim Jong-un is whether he can trust the U.S. promise to end their hostile relationship and guarantee North Korea’s security once the North denuclearizes,” the president added. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but if Kim Jong-un wants to ensure a deal stays in place then he needs to have President Trump ratify a treaty with the Senate. If a deal is struck that is not ratified by the Senate then the next President can come in and not follow it. That is what President Trump did with the Iran deal. It would be interesting though in an election year for Congress how they would approach the ratification of a treaty with North Korea.
The South Korean ambassador to the US, Cho Yoon-je recently published an article in the Washington Post pretty much saying this time things are different with North Korea:
Cho Yoon-je
When North Korea announced last Wednesday that it was postponing high-level inter-Korea talks and might reconsider taking part in the planned summit with President Trump, pundits were quick to say North Korea was up to its old tricks. But my memory went back to a different moment. I recalled my days as a young economist at the International Monetary Fund in the late 1980s when Washington was debating the gloomy prospects of the Cold War. It was impossible to imagine that anything like peace could emerge during that dark time.
Today, the same pall is hovering over Washington regarding the seemingly dimmed hopes for the denuclearization of North Korea. One Korean expert pointed out to me that such skepticism in Washington is based on long-established habit; the world has tried everything, he noted, and Pyongyang has not given up its nuclear weapons no matter what. It is hard to argue against this viewpoint given North Korea’s record. And yet I would still contend that this time is different. That is why we must still give hope a chance, even though there are miles to go and the road will be bumpy.
Back in the 1980s, many in the West initially regarded the Soviet Union’s policies of economic reform and political openness, as well as its stated intention of nuclear arms reduction, with pronounced skepticism. Now we feel that same pessimism once again, this time in respect to North Korea. Some are advising Seoul and Washington that they should, instead, recall the opportunities that presented themselves in the second half of the 1980s. The grim history of the Cold War did not stop Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan from reaching for a chance at peace. [Washington Post]
You can read the rest at the link, but so far I have not seen anything different from the Kim regime so far. Everything so far has been spectacle and little substance which about sums up all past negotiations and agreements with the Kim regime.
Also an important fact that Mr. Cho failed to mention in his article is Reagan’s famous words of “Trust by Verify”. I seriously doubt the Trump administration is going to sign up for any denuclearization deal with the Kim regime that does not have strong verification protocols. When I see the Kim regime agree to nuclear material to be removed from the country and the Yongbyon nuclear plant irreversibly shut down under the supervision of international inspectors then I will say this time is different.
