It looks like North Korea’s former Foreign Minister who led the diplomatic outreach between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump may have been executed:
Former North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho appears to have been executed last year, a Japanese newspaper reported Wednesday.
Ri seems to have been executed around between the summer and fall of last year, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported, citing unnamed multiple sources.
Four or five officials from North Korea’s foreign ministry appear to have been executed successively around the time of Ri’s death, according to the report.
It added that some unspecific issues related to the North Korean Embassy in Britain might have been the reasons behind their executions, saying that all of them, including Ri, worked in the diplomatic mission. (….)
Ri, who was appointed as the North’s top diplomat in 2016, played a key role in negotiations with the U.S. for the 2018 and 2019 summits between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and then U.S. President Donald Trump. The Hanoi summit in early 2019 ended with no deal. Ri is known to have left office in 2020.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
Former President Moon is not happy about the criticism his administration has received from the current President:
Former President Moon Jae-in has said his administration established a system to counter North Korean drone infiltrations, according to officials of the main opposition Democratic Party.
Moon made the remarks when DP leaders visited his home in the southeastern city of Yangsan on Monday, apparently in response to criticism from President Yoon Suk Yeol that the North’s recent drone infiltration revealed how Seoul’s military readiness and exercises have been “greatly lacking” over the years.
“Former President Moon said the government had introduced radars and prepared substantially with regard to countering drones,” a DP official who met Moon on Monday told Yonhap News Agency.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but I have seen no one criticizing the detection capability. Clearly the ROK military did a good job detecting the drones which Moon’s administration should be given credit for acquiring. However, the inability to shoot them down to include crashing one of their own aircraft is what the criticism of the ROK military has been about.
This is quite a high rate of positives coming in which makes you imagine how many people must be infected right now in China:
Seen here is the arrival hall of Incheon International Airport’s Terminal 1, west of Seoul, on Jan. 3, 2023. According to quarantine authorities, 61, or 19.7 percent, of 309 travelers from China were found to have been infected with the virus in COVID-19 tests at the airport the previous day, when South Korea began to require a PCR test for all entrants from the neighboring country.
Yonhap
It appears the ROK needs to work on their quarantine procedures because one infected Chinese traveler was able to escape by getting on to a bus:
A man of Chinese nationality has escaped a quarantine facility, Tuesday night, where he was placed in isolation after testing positive for COVID-19 upon arriving in Korea earlier in the day.
Korea Times
The Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency said Wednesday that the 41-year-old Chinese national, who had tested positive in a PCR test upon arriving at Incheon International Airport, disappeared from a hotel on Yeongjongdo Island at around 10 p.m. Tuesday. The hotel is currently being used as a government-designated isolation facility for foreign nationals.
The man allegedly ran away after arriving at the hotel with other virus carriers via a government-provided bus. Footage from surveillance cameras showed that he was last spotted near a large retailer located about 300 meters from the hotel, but his whereabouts are still unknown.
It is going to be interesting to see if China’s COVID surge leads to a surge of infections in other nations in the region like Korea and Japan.
This is actually what I think the Kim regime wants to happen to justify their long expected nuclear test:
President Yoon Suk Yeol ordered aides to consider suspending a 2018 inter-Korean military tension reduction agreement if North Korea violates the South’s territory again, an official said Wednesday.
Yoon’s remark came after five North Korean drones infiltrated South Korean airspace last week, raising serious questions about South Korea’s readiness posture.
On Wednesday, Yoon was briefed by the presidential National Security Office, the defense ministry, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Agency for Defense Development on the country’s anti-drone preparations.
“President Yoon Suk Yeol instructed the National Security Office to consider suspending the Sept. 19 military agreement in the event North Korea carries out another provocation violating our territory,” senior presidential secretary for press affairs Kim Eun-hye told reporters.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but cancelling the agreement would mean the guard posts, landmines, tank traps, propaganda speakers, etc. could all be reinstalled along the DMZ that prior President Moon had removed. The Kim regime can spend this as a South Korean provocation against peace on the peninsula that they respond with a nuclear test too.
This is a good scientific achievement by the ROK:
South Korea’s unmanned space vehicle Danuri has sent back photos of Earth and the moon after reaching the moon’s orbit last month, the state space research center said Tuesday.
The orbiter began performing three rounds of lunar orbit insertion (LOI) maneuvers Dec. 17 to lower its speed and commit itself to the gravity of the moon before entering the selenocentric orbit on Dec. 27.
The first photo was taken Dec. 24 some 345 kilometers above the moon, when Danuri was carrying out its second round of LOI, and the second one was taken four days later while rotating around the satellite of Earth, according to the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI).
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
Not a good look for President Yoon that he is getting out in front of the U.S. on the discussion of conducting Joint nuclear exercises:
The White House statement came hours after Biden, responding to a reporter’s question as he exited Marine One, said he was not discussing joint nuclear exercises with South Korea.
The president’s short denial at the White House follows Yoon’s interview with the Seoul-based Chosun Ilbo newspaper on Sunday, in which Yoon said South Korea was holding “considerably positive” discussions with the U.S. about “joint exercise concepts” related to nuclear weapons.
“Nuclear weapons are the U.S.’s, but South Korea and the U.S. should work together in planning, information sharing, exercises and training,” Yoon said.
Biden’s response prompted a spokeswoman for Yoon, Kim Eun Hye, to clarify Tuesday that the U.S. and South Korea are discussing ways to deter North Korea from using nuclear weapons, including sharing information and joint planning with concern to U.S. nuclear assets, according to a statement from the South Korean presidential office.
The reporter’s question to Biden about talks on a joint nuclear exercise lacked important context, which led the U.S. president to respond with “no,” according to Kim’s statement.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
