Author: GIKorea

I learn something new every day, the importation of sex dolls in South Korea used to be illegal until a recent Supreme Court ruling allowed their importation. Now activists are protesting to stop their import:

More than 200,000 people have signed a petition against the import of life-size sex dolls into Korea.

As of Wednesday, more than 210,000 people signed the petition on the Cheong Wa Dae website, a month after the Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision to allow the import of such dolls.

“They are not ordinary sex toys,” the petitioner wrote. “A life-size sex doll resembles a woman’s body in every detail. It can even be customized to fit an individual’s needs for hairstyle, facial structure, birthmarks or anything.

“Nowadays, deepfake celebrity porn videos can easily be found online. There’s no guarantee that sex dolls won’t be used for such purposes. People may be shocked to find sex dolls that look just like them. If that happens, who will take responsibility for the damage?”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

#SouthKorea's ruling party's think tank Institute for Democracy published a report stating not reaching an agreement w Japan is advantageous to the party in next year's election.https://t.co/G0yhvRg2ol

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) July 31, 2019

North Korea says they did not test a missile, but instead a large caliber rocket system this week:

 North Korea said Thursday it tested a new rocket system in launches conducted the previous day, raising questions about South Korea’s assessment that the communist nation is believed to have fired short-range ballistic missiles.

Leader Kim Jong-un “guided a test-fire of a newly developed large-caliber multiple launch guided rocket system on July 31,” the Korean Central News Agency said.

“The test-fire scientifically confirmed that the tactical data and technical characteristics of the new-type large-caliber guided ordnance rocket reached the numerical values of its design, and verified the combat effectiveness of the overall system,” the KCNA said. 

“After learning about the result of the test-fire, (Kim Jong-un) said that it is very great and it would be an inescapable distress to the forces becoming a fat target of the weapon,” it added.

The KCNA did not mention any country as its potential target, but the report appears to be referring to Seoul, which is apparently within the range of the weapon.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the “fat target” North Korea is referring to could not only be Seoul, but Camp Humphreys as well.

Another North Korean soldier has defected:

 A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea in a midnight river crossing in the border area known as the Demilitarized Zone, South Korea’s military said Thursday.

The defection comes at a sensitive time. Efforts by Seoul to improve relations between the two Koreas have been stymied amid stalled U.S.-North Korean nuclear talks.

The soldier was spotted via a thermal observation device in the Imjin River at about 11:38 p.m. Wednesday after crossing a central section of the Military Demarcation Line that divides the peninsula, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The river was swollen from rainy weather, making it difficult for local troops to determine the object in the river was a person until the soldier emerged from the water just before midnight, officials told reporters at a briefing.

The local military unit then sent a team and took the individual safely into custody, they said, adding that no unusual North Korean military movements were detected in the area.

“The man is an active-duty soldier who expressed his desire to defect to the South,” officials said. “Related procedures are underway.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but that is quite a swim getting across the Imjim River during monsoon season. According to Yonhap this was the first defection across the Imjim River since 2010.

I wonder if the Moon administration is trying to use the threat of these sanctions as way to pressure the Trump administration to help resolve the current trade dispute with Japan?:

South Korea is seeking an annual $350 million in trade sanctions against the United States in an Obama-era dispute over tariffs on steel pipes, it said in a World Trade Organization (WTO) filing published on Tuesday.

South Korea went to the WTO in 2014 to challenge U.S. tariffs levied on oil country tubular goods (OCTG), a type of steel piping used in the energy industry.

Washington said its tariffs aimed to stop South Korea exporting the product at unfairly cheap prices. After South Korea won a partial victory at the WTO, the United States had until July 12 to comply with that ruling.

South Korea said the United States had failed to do so and it was seeking sanctions equal to the level of trade harm done.

“Based on available data, this level is estimated at $350 million annually. This amount will be adjusted by applying the annual growth rate of the OCTG market of the United States,” it said in the sanctions request published by the WTO.

South Korea plans to impose the sanctions by putting tariffs on certain types of U.S. goods, which it said it would announce at a later date.

Reuters

You can read more at the link.

#North Korea's State Security monitors the social media of #defectors , pressures those with families in the north to not to post anti-North Korean regime information.https://t.co/ETVWYaZBai

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) July 30, 2019

A 2% drop in air travel to Japan is really not that impressive, but airlines are getting themselves prepared in case it gets worse:

Korean airlines are suspending flights and reducing the size of planes on Japanese routes as demand for seats plummets in the wake of a diplomatic-trade dispute between the neighbors.

Asiana Airlines said Tuesday that it will use smaller airplanes on flights to three major Japanese cities – Osaka, Okinawa and Fukuoka – due to the growing boycott in Korea of things Japanese. 

While Airbus 330 planes were used on those routes, the smaller Airbus 321 or Boeing 767s will be used starting mid-September, the company said. 

“While A330 planes can carry some 290 passengers, A321 planes offer 174 seats,” a spokesperson for Asiana said. “Reservations for flights to Japan have fallen by roughly 2 percent year on year at this point, but we decided to change airplane models in case the [diplomatic-trade row] lasts longer.”

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

It seems besides the strategic messaging to Washington, that the Kim regime is continuing prove that their new missile can accurately fly at different trajectories:

North Korea on Wednesday launched two short-range ballistic missiles from its eastern coast, the second such test in six days. 

According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the missiles were fired at 5:06 a.m. and 5:27 a.m. from an area around Kalma near Wonsan, Kangwon Province. Both projectiles flew around 250 kilometers (155 miles) at an altitude of approximately 30 kilometers before landing in the East Sea, a JCS spokesman said. 

The first missile to be fired was spotted by Korea’s Master Control and Reporting Center (MCRC) and a Navy vessel equipped with the Aegis Combat System, while the second was detected by the MCRC, the ship and early warning radar. 

While it is not yet known what kinds of rocket were launched Wednesday, they may be similar to those fired on July 25, which are believed to be domestically produced variants of the Russian-made 9K720 Iskander missile system, code named KN-23 by South Korean and U.S. intelligence. (…..)

The significant feature of Wednesday’s test was the missile’s low peak altitude of 30 kilometers. South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo at a security forum Wednesday said that South Korean and U.S. intelligence saw in the North’s newest tests “different indicators” than before.

Analysts said Pyongyang may have deliberately chosen to test a variety of trajectories for its KN-23 missile system since May in order to send a message to Seoul and Washington that it possesses the capacity to evade their most sophisticated antimissile defense systems.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but the article once again discusses how the KN-23 can fly lower than the engagement altitude of THAAD. The ROK military rightfully countered that they have Patriot missile batteries that can engage this threat.  

THAAD was never meant to be a magic bullet that engages all threats on the peninsula. THAAD engages targets at higher altitudes than Patriot. One of the main reasons it was deployed was because of the threat of lofted trajectory missiles that North Korea was testing that the Patriot batteries could not engage.