Author: GIKorea

Is this the pretext North Korea’s looking for to restart long range missile testing? I guess we will see:

North Korea said Monday that “reckless remarks” by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made it clear that Washington has no intention of resuming nuclear talks, and warned that it is now compelled to pay back “the pains the U.S. has imposed on our people.”

After a teleconference of foreign ministers of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations last week, Pompeo told reporters the international community must remain united in urging North Korea to return to nuclear talks and in continuing to apply pressure on its nuclear and missile programs.

Pompeo’s remarks showed the U.S. has no strategy to stop “a countdown of confrontation,” North Korea said in a statement attributed to its new Foreign Ministry department director general in charge of negotiations with Washington.

The statement said Pompeo’s comments “seriously impaired the signboard of dialogue put up by the U.S. president as a decoy to buy time and create the environment favorable for himself.” It referred to a recent personal letter that President Donald Trump sent to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which North Korea said was aimed at maintaining good relations and offering cooperation in fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

Associated Press

You can read more at the link.

It took the EU quite a while to figure this out, but this is why President Trump had been pushing back against Chinese disinformation and propaganda by calling it the “China Virus”:

The European Union’s top diplomat has fired a warning shot at China’s “politics of generosity,” amid a growing sense of unease over Beijing’s targeted strategy to help certain European countries with medical supplies to fight Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

In an unusual choice of language, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called on EU countries to stand ready for a “struggle for influence” in a “global battle of narratives.” (………..)

But two recent developments have changed the EU’s thinking, according to a diplomatic source briefed on the matter, driving EU officials closer to the rhetoric of regarding China as a “systemic rival,” a phrase first used under von der Leyen’s predecessor, Jean-Claude Juncker.

First, there is the sense that China’s leadership prefers to deal directly with European countries, rather than through the EU. Von der Leyen was the only major European leader who did not receive a phone call from Chinese President Xi Jinping.

While Xi has phoned French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spain’s King Felipe over the past week, it was left to Premier Li Keqiang to make the call to Von der Leyen.

Second, the EU was startled by the reaction of Serbia, which is on course to begin accession talks at some stage to join the EU. When the EU hastily enacted an export ban on medical equipment, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic lambasted EU solidarity as a “fantasy,” turning instead to Xi, whom he called a friend and a brother.

While the EU urgently arranged $8.1 million in aid for Belgrade, China moved swiftly to solidify ties with Serbia, with Xi calling Vucic last week to pledge medical support and heap praise on the “ironclad friendship” between the two countries.

At the same time, Chinese diplomats stepped up what critics describe as a disinformation campaign on Twitter.

The Chinese Embassy to France, for instance, posted a series of tweets claiming the US government had covered up a coronavirus outbreak last year as flu cases, deflecting claims that Covid-19 originated in China.

“Following the surprise closure last July of the largest American research center for biochemical weapons, Fort Detrick base in Maryland, a series of pneumonia or similar cases have occurred in the United States,” one of the tweets claimed.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, the other thing that hardly anyone in the international media mentions is how the Chinese government is likely not telling the truth about how many of their people have been infected and killed by the coronavirus.

They are doing this to make it look like the Chinese government’s so called “competent” handling ended the virus threat in China while making the U.S. government look incompetent. This is being done for domestic political purposes, but also international reasons to differentiate their governmental model compared to the U.S. and build their influence.

I doubt we will see much change in the international media’s coverage of China because they incredibly hate President Trump more than Chinese President Xi.

Here is another article about foreigners spreading the coronavirus:

Another foreigner has been caught ignoring the self-isolation rules that are being implemented to prevent the spread of coronavirus. 

Busan City said Sunday a German student, 25, had ignored the instruction after entering the country on March 20. The student, enrolled at Pusan National University, is being treated at the school’s hospital after testing positive for coronavirus on March 28. 

The student, whose identity was withheld, entered the country through Gimhae International Airport on March 20, without symptoms of coronavirus infection. Before coming to Korea, he briefly visited the United States and Japan, according to the city. 

Despite being devoid of suspicious symptoms, he was subject to mandatory two-week self-isolation in his dorm room. But he ignored this. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It looks like soon Americans will begin getting tested with Korean made coronavirus test kits though there appears to be some confusion of when the approval will officially be given:

The foreign ministry reconfirmed Monday that three South Korean coronavirus test kits can be exported to the United States as they were given pre-emergency use authorization numbers from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

On Saturday, the foreign ministry issued a press release that the three unidentified companies have gained preapproval in the FDA’s emergency use authorization (EUA) process and that their diagnostic devices can be sold in the U.S. market.

But the announcement created confusion as it turned out that none of the test kit manufacturers that applied for EUA approval knew about the authorization. Some newspapers accused the ministry of making the announcement in a hurried manner to show it is the result of President Moon Jae-in’s diplomacy toward the U.S.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is some important context about the coronavirus statistics that very, very few in the media ever mention; they are not accurate and should not be trusted:

In between the rushes, data fatigue would sink it and I would promise myself I’d be better … until another surge of coronavirus figures hit the streets. 

Then one morning, in what can only be described as a moment of revelation, my rational brain punched through the haze and made me look at what I’d become.

I had elevated numbers and statistics to a position of power and influence. But worse, I had awarded them a legitimacy that they neither earned, nor deserved.

Numbers and statistics had become my master and I their slave. I had begun to follow them as if they were worthy of my trust and deserving of my full attention. (………….)

“The statistics that we see in print or online depend entirely on the number of confirmed cases, but as every international expert agrees, in most countries the number of undocumented cases of infection far exceeds the number of ‘confirmed cases.’

“We do not report all the cases. In fact, we only usually report a small proportion of them. If it were possible to identify every case of infection, only then would we be able to arrive at an accurate rate of case fatality”. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the coronavirus is highly contagious and likely has infected far many more people than the reported cases. From the article one scientific study concluded that 86% of the people infected in the Wuhan province of China went undetected.

However, I expect the media to continue to highlight inflated mortality rates to keep people in panic and thus continuing to tune into their news reports and clicking their articles.

It will be interesting to see how much of a grip the coronavirus gets in a tropical location like Okinawa:

The 18th Wing has confirmed its first case of coronavirus, according to a message posted Saturday on Kadena Air Base’s official Facebook page.

“The member is active duty Air Force and has been in restriction of movement status for 15 days since returning from overseas travel,” the message said.

“18th Wing leadership and medical teams are tracking this situation very closely and have determined the only close contacts to be immediate family members who are also in restriction of movement status.“

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.