Author: GIKorea

It looks like the U.S. negotiators were not about to drop even limited sanctions for little to nothing in return:

North Korea’s top nuclear envoy on Monday said it was up to the United States to decide whether the two sides will hold further denuclearization talks, pending sufficient change from Washington on its position. 

En route home to Pyongyang after much anticipated working-level discussions with the United States fell apart on Saturday, North Korea’s chief nuclear negotiator Kim Myong-gil told reporters at Beijing’s Capital International Airport that his recent exchange with the U.S. delegation was “sickening,” making clear his dissatisfaction with the United States’ unchanged position on denuclearization.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but I continue to believe that the North Koreans if they don’t get the limited sanctions dropped before the New Year, will create a “crisis” in order to get the deal they want.

Via a reader tip comes news that the person suspected of the infamous Hwaseong murder and rapes over two decades ago has confessed:

The prime suspect of the infamous serial killings in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, has confessed to five more murders besides the nine known cases, police said Wednesday. Lee Chun-jae, 56, also said he committed or attempted to commit about 30 sexual assaults that did not involve murder.

Lee was recently identified as the prime suspect of the nine serial killings that took place in and around Hwaseong from 1986 to 1991, after advanced DNA technology linked him with three of the cases. He is currently serving a jail sentence for a separate murder.

Since the identification, the police have questioned him over nine times. Lee first denied the allegations but confessed last week, according to the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but incredibly for all the rapes and murders he has now confessed to he can not be charged with because the statute of limitations has passed. He will however remain in jail for the murder of his sister-in-law which unknowingly stopped the Hwaseong murders. He raped and murdered his sister in law because she convinced his wife to leave him.

It will be interesting to see how this race turns out next year after narrowing losing in 2018:

When newly elected members of Congress traveled to Washington for freshman orientation in late November, Young Kim, 56, flew from her Orange County home to join them. Not all of the ballots in California’s 39th Congressional District were counted, but Ms. Kim believed her narrow lead was solid. After shaking hands with other members at white-tablecloth lunches, she posed for her official portrait and a group photo of all new members. Ms. Kim was expected to be one of two Republican women of color and the first Korean-American woman in Congress.

Several days into her rookie duties in late November, with all of the 244,393 ballots in the district counted, the race was officially called: She lost the election. Gil Cisneros, her Democratic opponent and a former Republican who ran on preserving Obamacare, captured 51.6 percent of the vote. Ms. Kim would not be a member of the 116th Congress.

Less than six months later, Ms. Kim announced she would try again. Now, the rematch between Ms. Kim and Mr. Cisneros will test how blue the 2018 wave in Orange County really was. Republicans hope that after the narrow loss, they can reclaim the district and two others in the county, which encompasses the birthplace of Richard Nixon and has long been a bastion for conservatives.

“This district is not as far left as many political pundits in Washington would like people to believe,” Ms. Kim said in an interview. Soon after the loss, Ms. Kim began discussing the possibility of running again with her husband, who is also active in local politics, and their four adult children. It was almost a given that she would try again. “Winners don’t quit,” she said. “That’s why I got back in — we know we can.”

New York Times

You can read more at the link.

President Moon must be feeling pretty confident that in the short term the Kaesong Industrial Complex will reopen:

President Moon Jae-in vowed Friday to invite foreign companies to set up affiliates at the Gaeseong Industrial Complex (GIC) in North Korea if operations there are resumed.

“If operations at the Gaeseong complex resume, I will try to make it a place that houses multinational companies,” President Moon said at the start of a luncheon with businesspeople at Cheong Wa Dae, according to press pool reports.

The President appeared to be responding to remarks by Kim Ki-mun, head of the Korea Federation of Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), calling for the complex to be reopened to help small local businesses. Many of these are in a dire financial straits due to their investment in the complex, and a lack of new growth engines.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but Moon is probably betting that if large multinational companies set up shop in Kaesong that the Kim regime will be less likely to exhort South Korean businesses operating there like they have in the past.

For multinational corporations they will have to make a decision on whether they want their products built by near slave labor or not?

The South Korean left has responded to the massive rally against the allegedly corrupt ROK Justice Minister with a rally of their own:

Activists and citizens held a rally in southern Seoul on Saturday in support of Justice Minister Cho Kuk and his drive to reform the prosecution amid a probe into corruption allegations surrounding his family.

The candlelight vigil started at around 6 p.m. at an intersection near Seocho Station, where the prosecution’s office is located, for the third such weekly rally.

Participants chanted slogans — “Reform the Prosecution” and “Protect Cho Kuk” — as they condemned the prosecution’s widening probe into Cho’s family as an attempt to deter the minister from reforming the elite investigation agency.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the Korean left is claiming 3 million people showed up which judging by this picture is widely inaccurate.

Here is the latest on the efforts to stop the spread of swine flu in South Korea:

South Korea is using helicopters to disinfect the border area to combat the spread of African swine fever (ASF) after it found a wild boar carcass infected with the deadly virus in the demilitarized zone.

According to the Ministry of National Defense, the government has started to disinfect the entire border area north of the civilian-restricted zone, starting with the DMZ in Yeoncheon County, Gyeonggi on Friday, where the infected wild animal was found.

It notified North Korea of the measures and is conducting fumigation with approval from the United Nations Command. Seven fumigation helicopters from the Korea Forest Service will disinfect the area over the next seven days with soil disinfectants such as quicklime. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.