Author: GIKorea

Somebody had to be held responsible for this dereliction of duty and it ended up being a ROK Marine Corps 2-Star General:

The border crossing near the western island of Ganghwa by the 24-year-old man, surnamed Kim, became known after North Korea reported Sunday that a “runaway” returned home in the border city of Kaesong with coronavirus symptoms and that the entire city was blocked off to prevent the spread of the virus.

South Korean officials said Kim had been under investigation over allegations he raped a female defector.

According to the JCS’ probe results, Kim was caught on the military’s surveillance equipment seven times — five on its monitoring cameras, twice on thermal observation devices (TODs) — including his arrival in the North, but troops failed to identify him as a person trying to cross the border.

The defector passed through a drainage tunnel running underneath barbed wire fences to evade South Korean border guards before reaching the shore and swimming a few kilometers to North Korea. 

The fences set up inside the drainage tunnel were in poor condition, allowing the defector to pass through them easily, they said. It took just around 10 minutes for Kim to pass through the channel and reach the river separating the two Koreas.

The JCS will seek disciplinary measures against those accountable, including the dismissal of Maj. Gen. Baek Gyeong-sun as commander of the Marine Corps’ 2nd Division in charge of border security at the area, officials said. 

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the Moon administration is willing to just let this one go down the memory hole. Will anyone remember this a few weeks from now? Probably not:

New Zealand said Thursday it has expressed disappointment that South Korea’s government did not cooperate with a police investigation into allegations that one of its diplomats sexually assaulted a local embassy employee when he was stationed in Wellington.

The male employee has accused the Korean diplomat of groping parts of his body over three different occasions in 2017. The case has drawn fresh attention after New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern raised the issue in a phone call with President Moon Jae-in earlier this week.

“The New Zealand government has expressed its disappointment that the Korean government did not cooperate with earlier requests from New Zealand Police in respect of this case,” a spokesperson at New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in emailed comments to Yonhap News Agency. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This is what the Korean left has wanted to acheive for years, a rubber stamp national assembly:

Concerns are growing over the frequent railroading of controversial bills by the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) without enough time for them to be discussed at the National Assembly, with the ruling party giving the excuse that the bills are related to “urgent issues.”

Calling such moves “autocratic,” opposition parties claim the ruling bloc is ruining democracy by taking advantage of its supermajority status, holding 176 among the Assembly’s 300 seats.

At a plenary session of the Assembly, Thursday, the DPK passed two of three real estate bills, which are aimed at enhancing tenants’ rights in the wake of soaring housing prices, with the remaining one likely to be passed at an upcoming plenary session to be held next Tuesday. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but this issue is just another example of the unintended brilliance of the filibuster concept in the U.S. Senate that forces a large consensus to get bills passed. Maybe Korea needs a filibuster rule added to their National Assembly.

Here is where South Korea is going to fit in during the Presidential campaign:

Democratic Party has accused President Donald Trump of “extorting” South Korea by pressuring the Asian ally to pay more to keep American soldiers stationed on the Korean peninsula. The allegation was written in the Democratic Party’s election platform, and marks the opening salvo in the 2020 U.S. presidential race. South Korea now finds itself caught in the middle of the political slugfest.
Sam Len reports. 

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link, but notice that the Democratic response does not offer how much South Korea should be paying.

Here is what the Moon administration is claiming in response to the UFP providing a document showing that new National Security Advisor Park Jie-won signed a secret agreement before the 2000 Intra-Korean summit to offer the Kim regime a $3 billion payday:

Cheong Wa Dae said Wednesday the government has no document related to an alleged under-the-table agreement with North Korea in 2000 signed by Park Jie-won, newly appointed head of South Korea’s state spy agency.

It was countering political attacks made by the main opposition United Future Party (UFP) that Park had signed the accord, ahead of the inter-Korean summit talks, to offer US$3 billion in financial support to Pyongyang. Park was one of the closest aides to then President Kim Dae-jung, who had a historic meeting with the North’s leader Kim Jong-il.

The UFP made public a copy of what it claims to be a secret agreement. Park has flatly denied that he had signed such a document.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but notice how the Moon administration is not claiming the document is a forgery, just they can’t find a record of it.

The Japanese government should just ignore something like this since it is in a private garden and not sponsored by the ROK government. Responding to this just drives further attention to it:

The foreign ministry said Tuesday that international courtesy for foreign leaders should be taken into consideration, after a local botanical garden reportedly installed a pair of bronze statues of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bowing on his knees before a wartime sexual slavery victim.

The garden in the eastern county of Pyeongchang plans to unveil the statues next month, according to local media reports. Its sculptor told local media that Japan must atone for wartime atrocities until South Korea accepts and forgives it. 

Japan has bristled at the statue, with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga telling reporters Tuesday that the installation of such a statue, if true, is “unacceptable” and would “decisively affect” the relations between the two countries.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but if Japan is so upset about this then a private individual in Japan should make a statue of President Moon Jae-in bowing in forgiveness to a Vietnamese woman for the atrocities some ROK troops committed during the Vietnam War.