These systems that send out emergency notifications over text message may be more trouble than they are worth:
These images show mobile phone alerts sent out in the wake of North Korea’s launch of what appeared to be a space launch vehicle on May 31, 2023. (Yonhap)
The Seoul city government on Wednesday erroneously sent out an emergency alert advising citizens to prepare for evacuation after North Korea’s launch of what appeared to be a space launch vehicle.
The mobile phone alert was sent to all Seoul citizens at 6:41 a.m., shortly after the Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea fired what appeared to be a space launch vehicle. But the interior ministry retracted it at 7:03 a.m., saying the alert was sent by mistake.
“We inform that the alert warning issued by the Seoul Metropolitan City at 6:41 a.m. was an erroneous issuance,” the interior ministry said in a separate mobile phone alert.
A ministry official said that Seoul is not an area where an alert has been issued.
The Seoul city government said it was looking into why the alert was set off.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but at least people in Seoul are so desensitized to North Korean missile launches that they did not go into a mass panic like what happened in 2018 when a similar false text message missile alert was issued in Hawaii.
North Korea much anticipated space launch of supposedly domestically produced reconnaissance satellite ended in failure:
An apparent part of a purported North Korean space launch vehicle is seen in waters some 200 kilometers west of the southwestern island of Eocheong on May 31, 2023, in this photo provided by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (Yonhap)
North Korea fired what it claims to be a “space launch vehicle” southward Wednesday, but it fell into the Yellow Sea after an “abnormal” flight, the South Korean military said, in a botched launch that defied international criticism and warnings.
The North confirmed the failure, saying its new “Chollima-1” rocket carrying a military reconnaissance satellite, “Malligyong-1,” fell into the sea due to the “abnormal starting of the second-stage engine,” according to its official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). It plans to conduct a second launch as soon as possible, the KCNA said.
Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the launch from Tongchang-ri on the North’s west coast at 6:29 a.m. and the projectile fell into waters some 200 kilometers west of the South’s southwestern island of Eocheong following its flight over the waters far west of the border island of Baengnyeong.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but what is most interesting about this failed launch is that North Korea’s state media the KCNA actually admitted to it at least in their English language reporting. The KCNA also said that North Korea vowed to launch the rocket again. However, the last time they had a major failure of a space launch was all the way back in 2012 and it took them 8 months before they successfully launched again.
Overall though this is pretty embarrassing for the Kim regime considering South Korea just last week put 8 satellites into orbit using a domestically produced rocket. With that said these failed launches are not always failures if you know what went wrong and can fix it on the next launch. We will see probably in the coming months if North Korea learned from this failure.
North Korea is making it clear they are never going to come clean on Japanese abductees. This likely because the unaccounted for abductees provided language training to North Korean operatives still within Japan:
Photos of Megumi Yokota, who was abducted from Japan by North Korea in 1977, are displayed at Shinjuku Station in Tokyo, May 9, 2018. (Stars and Stripes)
North Korea is willing to hold talks with Japan on improving their relationship but considers further discussions over abducted Japanese citizens “a waste of time,” according to North Korean state media.
Nothing prevents the two nations from meeting, provided Japan makes “a new decision from a broad perspective of recognizing each other” and “seeks a way of improving the relations,” North Korean vice-minister of foreign affairs Pak Sang Gil was quoted as saying by the Korean Central News Agency on Monday.
The abduction issue, still a sticking point in Japan, is already resolved, Pak said.
In 2002, North Korea admitted for the first time to abducting Japanese nationals in the 1970s and ‘80s and apologized at a summit meeting with Japan, according to Japan’s Foreign Ministry. Five abductees returned to Japan in October of that year, but another 12 remain unaccounted for.
Japan continues to investigate more than 800 people who might have been abducted, according to Japan’s Cabinet Office.
“Without the resolution of this issue, there can be no normalization of relations between Japan and North Korea,” the Foreign Ministry website states.
North Korea said it has returned all living abductees; the remainder are either dead or never entered the North.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
This is interesting, should a reporter be investigated after personal information about a public official is leaked to him? In Korea the answer is yes:
A police investigator shows his ID before protesting labor union members of MBC at the broadcasting network’s headquarters in western Seoul on May 30, 2023. (Yonhap)
Police attempted to raid the headquarters of MBC TV on Tuesday in connection with an investigation into the alleged leak of personal information of Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon, sparking a two-hour standoff with unionized reporters.
Investigators are looking into allegations that an MBC reporter, surnamed Lim, was involved in the leak of Han’s personal information, such as copies of the residence registration document and real estate contracts.
Unionized MBC workers blocked the investigators, holding banners denouncing the investigation as oppression of the press. They held banners reading “Turn back! It’s unfair control of broadcasting” or “The beginning of the Yoon Suk Yeol government’s oppression of MBC.”
With assistance from the company, police investigators succeeded in reaching Lim’s desk inside the building in western Seoul but decided not to execute a search warrant, concluding nothing was subject to seizure.
Earlier in the day, investigators from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency raided Lim’s home as well as the National Assembly Secretariat, and seized evidence, including Lim’s mobile phone.
The investigation began after a member of Seoul’s Gangseo Ward Council filed a complaint accusing a person of violating the Personal Information Protection Act after that person handed him information on Han and his family, which included copies of their residence registration document and real estate contracts.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
It makes me wonder how many other underground Christian groups are operating in North Korea?:
st as they had every Sunday at 5 a.m., the five Christians gathered at the farmhouse for prayer and Bible study. But this time the police were waiting for them.
Tipped off by an informant, authorities arrested the believers on charges of believing in God, a crime in a country where all religion is illegal – except for the reverence everyone is required to show for the country’s leader Kim Jong Un, and its past leaders, his father and grandfather.
Sources told Radio Free Asia’s Korean Service that the Christians, arrested on April 30, are relatives who met weekly at the farmhouse in Tongam village, outside Sunchon city in South Pyongan province, in central North Korea.
“At the site of the worship service, the police retrieved dozens of Bible booklets and arrested all in attendance,” a resident of the province told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
Radio Free Asia
You can read more at the link.
The island of Guam was hit recently by a massive typhoon that caused the Korean tourists on the island to be trapped there for almost a week. They are now being evacuated from the island:
South Korean tourists stranded on Guam will return home as the international airport on the island resumed operation Monday afternoon after closure due to a powerful typhoon, airline officials said.
The country’s four carriers — Korean Air Co., Jeju Air Co., Jin Air Co. and T’way Air — said they have resumed flights to bring back Korean tourists starting Monday, as the Guam airport reopens at 2 p.m. (Korean time) or 3 p.m. (local time) on the same day.
The carriers plan to send a total of 11 passenger jets to Guam on Monday to bring about 2,500 Korean travelers home, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.
Those planes are expected to arrive at the airport in Guam from Monday to Tuesday.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
