Author: GIKorea

For anyone looking to take a tour of the JSA, the popular tours will restart this week:

Tours to the southern side of the truce village of Panmunjom will resume this week and visitors will be allowed to explore an expanded area, the South Korean defense ministry said Monday.
The popular tours to the Joint Security Area, which straddles the heavily fortified border, were suspended in October to facilitate efforts to demilitarize the buffer zone.
North and South Korea agreed during their historic April 27, 2018, summit in Panmunjom to allow visitors freedom of movement within the JSA from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 
That plan has been delayed because the U.S.-led United Nations Command, which oversees the area, and the two Koreas have not agreed on a joint code of conduct deemed necessary for security purposes.
South Korea decided “to resume field trips on the southern side” beginning Wednesday to mark the summit’s first anniversary, according to the defense ministry.
Past tours, which local officials have said drew some 100,000 visitors per year, were tightly controlled.
Visitors will now get to see more sites than had been previously allowed, including the blue footbridge where South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had a private chat and the pine tree that was planted to commemorate the meeting.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

So does anyone think this bill is intended root out corruption or people that don’t agree with the politics of the Moon administration?:

he ruling Democratic Party (DP) decided Monday to fast-track two bills on establishing a special investigative unit tasked with probing allegations of corruption by high-ranking officials.
Earlier in the day, the minor opposition Bareunmirae Party (BP) proposed a separate bill on limiting the authority of the probe unit and fast-tracking both its bill and a relevant measure proposed by it and three other parties last week.
The National Assembly faces heightened tensions as the DP and three minor parties agreed last week to fast-track four bills linked to electoral reform and the establishment of a unit to investigate alleged corruption by high-ranking government and public officials. (………)

The BP bill calls for setting up a panel to review the appropriateness of charges filed by the probe unit, a tool aimed at preventing it from wielding excessive authority for indictment. Under the four parties’ deal, the unit will be able to indict only judges, prosecutors and high-ranking police officers, an institutional tool that can keep prosecutors in check.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Study this photo. Note the truly evil eyes of Kim and Putin. Wonder what they are plotting to do to try to undermine the US and our way of life? pic.twitter.com/AYb3hKgHZ3

— David Maxwell (@DavidMaxwell161) April 26, 2019

The next round of cost sharing negotiations should be interesting:

U.S. President Donald Trump, after a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, demanded Saturday a drastic increase in Korea’s contribution to defense sharing costs next year.

“We are defending wealthy countries. They can well afford to pay us,” Trump said Saturday in a campaign rally at the Resch Center Complex in Green Bay, Wisconsin. “There’s one country, I don’t want to say it, I don’t want to embarrass anybody […] I called the country. I called and said, listen, no good.”

Given the context and Trump’s earlier statements, it was obvious he was referring to South Korea. 

“We are losing $4.5 billion. We can’t do this anymore,” Trump said. “He got very upset, angry […] He said, well, we will give you 500 million more, because the budget, you see, had already been set. I said, I want more. We argued. They paid us more than $500 million more for one phone call. I’m not bragging.”

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

There will be some naval action going in the waters off of Busan this week:

A large-scale multinational maritime exercise will begin in the country’s southern port city of Busan this week.

The Navy said on Sunday that South Korea, the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other partner countries will kick off a combined maritime security exercise in Busan from Monday to Thursday and in Singapore from May 9th to 13th.

The exercise involves 18 member countries of the maritime security expert working group of the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus), a defense dialogue mechanism involving ASEAN and other countries, including the United States.

The Navy said 12 countries will send 16 warships and six aircraft for the exercise, while six other countries will send only military personnel.

KBS World Radio

This is the largest conservative protest I can remember in quite some time if the 50,000 number is accurate:

The main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) took to the streets Saturday to launch an all-out protest against a joint move by ruling and other rival political parties to fast-track key bills, including an electoral reform.
LKP legislators and party members, wearing red T-shirts with the message, “We will fight till the end” written on them, gathered in central Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square for the demonstration.
The LKP put the estimate of attendees at Saturday’s rally at 50,000. 
LKP leader Hwang Kyo-ahn took the podium and made a resounding speech lashing out at the liberal Moon Jae-in government and the ruling Democratic Party (DP) as those who “try to use the fast-track to their own advantage” so as to gain an upper hand in next year’s parliamentary elections. 
“We’re waging a fair struggle so as to derail this barbaric fast-track action,” he said.
LKP floor leader Na Kyung-won also had her turn at the podium, condemning the move as “an act by the leftists that gravely undermines parliamentary democracy and the Constitution.”

“The leftists are trying to wipe out this country’s free democracy. They have humiliated the National Assembly that represents our people,” she shouted. “The electoral (reform) bill is a tool they need to extend their terms in power for as long as they want.”
Four parties, not including the LKP, agreed Monday to a package deal to fast-track bills on electoral reform, the establishment of a special unit to investigate alleged corruption by high-ranking public officials and enhancement of the police’s authority to conduct probes.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but if the 50,000 number is true the conservative protests are getting larger, but I believe that only if they get over 100,000 does it mean that the general South Korean public is turning on the Moon administration.

Although he has lived in Japan for 25 years, Pico Iyer doesn’t choose to learn more than a smattering of Japanese because he says needs mystery and “a sense of open space in life, something to offset the sense of the familiar.” https://t.co/0JpPZ4e03m

— New York Times Books (@nytimesbooks) April 23, 2019