North Korea has continued its war against the fish in the East Sea:
North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) toward the East Sea on Monday, hours before a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier staged joint drills in waters south of Jeju Island, according to South Korea’s military.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the launches from the Chunghwa County area in North Hwanghae Province between 7:47 a.m. and 8 a.m. The missiles flew some 370 kilometers before splashing into the sea, it added.
Pyongyang’s latest provocation came as South Korea and the United States kicked off the Ssangyong (double dragon) amphibious landing exercise last week. It is scheduled to end next Monday.
The USS Nimitz aircraft carrier strike group also trained together with the South’s major warships in waters south of the peninsula Monday, according to the Navy here.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
It is pretty ridiculous that six years after first being installed the environmental review for the THAAD base in Seongju still is just about to be complete. This shows that this was really not an environmental review, but instead a political review by the prior administration to keep the site temporary:
The government is anticipated to take steps to turn the THAAD base into a permanent installation as early as July, when the Ministry of Environment is expected to draw conclusions on its ongoing environmental impact assessments.
Once the environment ministry gives the green light, the U.S. army will be allowed to initiate a process of building infrastructure and facilities for the THAAD base.
While concerns are rising that Seoul’s moves may draw fierce protests from Beijing, analysts viewed that China now has fewer retaliatory options compared to the ones it had in 2017, considering its economic slowdown and escalating competition with Washington.
“China will increase threats as the [South] Korean government continues to turn the THAAD unit into a permanent base, but it is unlikely to impose stronger sanctions than the ones we’ve seen in 2017,” said Kang Joon-young, a professor of Chinese studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.
“Amid escalating rivalry with the U.S., China seems to be less willing to become enemies with its neighboring countries. And North Korea’s evolving nuclear threats justify the South Korean government’s rationale for pursuing stronger self-defense,” he added.
Korea Times
You can read more at the link.
The KCTU did not mind when the Korean left was demanding the prosecution and jailing of former conservative Presidents Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak, but don’t like it when their political leader Lee Jae-myung is being prosecuted. Ironically they are condemning President Yoon for the prosecution when during the last administration he was the chief prosecutor that put President Park in jail which they championed. So what you can take from all this is that they only want conservatives prosecuted:
Members of a major South Korean umbrella union rallied in downtown Seoul on Saturday to condemn the Yoon Suk-yeol administration, jamming traffic in the neighborhood.
Some 13,000 union members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, one of the country’s two major umbrella labor organizations, held multiple rallies in Daehangno, Saejongno and Jongno, in protest against “prosecution-backed dictatorship.”
During the rallies, the protestors said the country’s civil livelihood, democracy and labor fell to the worst conditions under the Yoon administration in less than one year of his presidency.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, what is further hypocritical about the KCTU is that they are calling the Yoon administration a “dictatorship” while their union and the political left has been linked to North Korean spies. North Korea is a real dictatorship which the KCTU says nothing about.
Having remote launchers in theory will further increase the already large area that the THAAD battery in Seongju can defend against North Korean ballistic missile attack:
The U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) said Friday it has conducted the first training on the deployment of a “remote” launcher of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system in South Korea.
The U.S. military made public a set of photos of Sunday’s training, hours after the North’s state media reported the country had carried out drills involving an underwater nuclear attack drone and cruise missile launches earlier this week.
“The training of our THAAD forces enhanced the units’ combat readiness, combined defense posture within the alliance, demonstrates the ironclad commitment to support and defend the ROK and further strengthens the security and stability on the Korean Peninsula,” the USFK said in a press release. ROK stands for South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea.
The drills took place in conjunction with the regular South Korea-U.S. Freedom Shield (FS) exercise that concluded its 11-day run Thursday.
The employment of the remote launcher came in line with the U.S. military’s upgrade program designed to streamline and integrate its THAAD and Patriot missile defense systems into a single program for enhanced and more flexible security operations.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
Sounds like more North Korean propaganda to try and strike fear in South Korea and impress their own domestic audience with something that probably doesn’t even work:
North Korea has tested a new nuclear-capable underwater attack drone, state media reported on Friday, as leader Kim Jong Un warned joint military drills by South Korea and the U.S. should stop.
During the test, the new North Korean drone cruised underwater at a depth of 80 to 150 metres (260-500 feet) for over 59 hours and detonated a non-nuclear payload in waters off its east coast on Thursday, North Korean state news agency KCNA said.
Reuters
You can read more at the link, but North Korea claims they can make underwater nuclear tsunamis to destroy naval fleets.
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