It looks like the North Koreans are building up the preparatory rationale for another provocation cycle in the coming months:
North Korean leader’s sister Kim Yo-Jong on Wednesday slammed South Korea’s foreign minister over her recent remarks on Pyongyang’s antivirus measures, saying that she will “pay dearly” for them and warning the already frozen inter-Korean relations could get worse.
Last week, South Korea’s Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told a forum in Bahrain that the North has been unresponsive to Seoul’s calls for cross-border antivirus cooperation, adding that Pyongyang’s claim that it has no coronavirus cases is hard to believe.
“It can be seen from the reckless remarks made by her without any consideration of the consequences that she is too eager to further chill the frozen relations between the north and south of Korea,” Kim said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
“We will never forget her words and she might have to pay dearly for it,” she said.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
The spread of COVID continues to worsen in South Korea:
South Korea’s new virus cases neared 700 on Wednesday on soaring community infections in the greater Seoul area despite toughened social distancing measures.
The country reported 686 new virus cases, including 662 domestically transmitted ones, raising the total caseload to 39,432, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
Of the 686 new virus cases, 524 were reported in the greater Seoul area, covering Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, just west of Seoul.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
The problem Moon had not meeting the turn over timeline was that his own political outreach to North Korea that led to the suspension of joint exercises delayed meeting the conditions needed for this hand over:
South Korea is unlikely to reclaim its wartime operational command from the US by May 2022 as South Korean President Moon Jae-in has pledged, experts told The Korea Herald.
Experts said little time is left in Moon’s tenure and the transfer will be delayed even after Seoul greets a new US military chief, as announced Friday. The new chief will replace Gen. Robert Abrams, commander of the United States Forces Korea who said it would be “premature” to set a date for the handover.
The two allies skipped joint drills this year over coronavirus concerns, which would have tested Seoul’s readiness.
“The new US commander will see the issue in a similar way. And the Biden administration will likewise highlight conditions to be met. There is little room for political maneuvering to expect otherwise,” said Choi Kang, vice president of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.
Korea Herald
You can read more at the link.
What I find interesting about this pick for Secretary of Defense is that I can still remember all the complaints about the militarization of the government when General Mattis was selected as Secretary of Defense. Will these same people be out there criticizing General Austin for the same reason?:
President-elect Joe Biden will nominate retired four-star Army general Lloyd J. Austin to be secretary of defense, according to four people familiar with the decision. If confirmed by the Senate, Austin would be the first Black leader of the Pentagon.
Biden selected Austin over the longtime front-runner candidate, Michele Flournoy, a former senior Pentagon official and Biden supporter who would have been the first woman to serve as defense secretary. Biden also had considered Jeh Johnson, a former Pentagon general counsel and former secretary of homeland defense.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
This is one of the benefits of having the COVID pandemic under control, the South Koreans can watch other nations be guinea pigs before conducting mass vaccination of their own people:
Health authorities said the government decided to up the vaccine supply from 30 million people to 44 million to better fight the virus, but it won’t be in a hurry to inoculate people due to uncertainty over the vaccines’ safety and efficacy.
“As the outbreak in South Korea has remained within a manageable level, I think the government doesn’t have to hastily deploy vaccines like European nations and the United States as efficacy and safety concerns remain,” Lee Hoan-jong, an emeritus professor of Seoul National University, said during the briefing.
“We can secure enough vaccines to deploy them in different groups after closely monitoring potential side effects that may be discovered two or three months after vaccination in other countries.”
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
Not a good look:
The U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) is facing criticism over a dance party held at one of its bases last week at which participants did not wear face masks amid South Korea’s heightened social distancing scheme to stem the resurgence of new coronavirus cases.
The party took place at Flightline Tap Room at Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, on Friday, with dozens of people dancing side by side without wearing masks, according to officials.
On the same day, South Korea’s daily number of new COVID-19 cases reached a near nine-month high of 629, with authorities urging citizens to cancel non-vital face-to-face gatherings.
The Seoul government has requested the U.S. military to follow antivirus measures. The U.S. military said Monday that the bar was “closed effective immediately, per command directive.”
“The facility has been closed, and we are looking into the matter,” a USFK official said.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but I think these may the pictures causing the criticism that I pulled from the Flightline Tap Room’s Facebook page for a salsa party:
