Leave it to the North Koreans to look for any opportunity to make a buck:
South Korean reporters at Incheon International Airport, Monday. / Yonhap
North Korea is demanding that each foreign reporter pay $10,000 for a visa to cover the planned dismantlement of a nuclear test site in Punggye-ri, Seoul government officials said Monday.
South Korean reporters were exempt, the officials said. But people familiar with the situation said the rule could be overturned anytime given the reclusive state’s unpredictability.
The North has invited an unspecified number of reporters from South Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and the U.K. to the dismantlement ceremony scheduled for sometime between Wednesday and Friday.
In the South, news wire News1 and broadcaster MBC were selected to cover the event. The two companies selected four staff ― two writers and two photographers from News1 and two reporters and two cameramen from MBC ― respectively. They arrived in Beijing in the afternoon of Monday. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but the reporters will take a North Korean plane to Wonsan where their lodgings are at. From Wonsan they will take a train to the test site. I wonder if this $10,000 visa includes transportation and lodging? A suspect that will be a separate charge. Would anyone be willing to use their credit card in North Korea to pay for it?
After the media first made it look like the closure of North Korea’s nuclear test site was a big deal, it appears the media is now beginning to understand they are being used by the Kim regime for another purpose:
Foreign journalists will be allowed to journey deep into the mountains of North Korea this week to observe the closing of the country’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site in a much-touted display of goodwill before leader Kim Jong Un’s planned summit with President Donald Trump next month.
Expect good imagery, but not much else.
The public display of the closure of the facility on Mount Mantap will likely be heavy on spectacle and light on substance. And the media will be spending much of their time in an unrelated tourism zone that North Korea hopes will be the next big thing for its economy if Kim’s diplomatic overtures pay off in the months ahead.
For sure, the closure is a milestone, marking an end to the world’s last active underground testing site and offering some important insights into Kim’s mindset as he sets the stage for his meeting with Trump. [Associated Press]
You can read more at the link, but as I have long said the closure of the nuclear test site is largely meaningless because if they decide they need to conduct more tests they can just dig another shaft at a time of their choosing.
What is interesting though is that according to the article the media is going to be kept in Wonsan. This is because Kim plans to use the media to showcase has plan to expand South Korean tourism into Wonsan to increase foreign currency. So basically these journalists going to North Korea get to see a largely meaningless dog and pony show and then promote the Kim regime’s major foreign currency initiative.
The dismantling of the nuclear test site in North Korea is not a significant measure because it is easily reversible. The Kim regime at a time of their choosing can easily go and drill more shafts into another mountain if they want to do more nuclear testing. This is just another example of how the Kim regime tries to give up little to nothing in return for aid and the dropping of sanctions:
North Korea on Sunday stressed the importance of its dismantling the Punggye-ri nuclear test site this week and called it a “significant measure” amid reports the North has disregarded South Korea’s roster of journalists planning to cover the dismantlement.
The decommissioning of the site is “a very meaningful and significant measure” undertaken voluntarily by the North to achieve the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula based on the spirit of an agreement reached at a historic inter-Korean summit, North Korea’s propaganda website DPRK Today said.
DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s official name. The leaders of the two Koreas met on April 27 at the truce village of Panmujom on the inter-Korean border.
DPRK Today referred to the May 12 announcement by the North’s foreign ministry that it will hold a ceremony for the dismantling of the nuclear test site between Wednesday and Friday and invite journalists from China, Russia, the United States, Britain and the South to cover it.
On Saturday, another North Korean propaganda website, Uriminzokkiri, carried a commentary in which the North said it does not give the slightest consideration to “a mental patient’s grumble” in the South. “The international community as well as the United States and South Korea is giving a great deal of support to the dismantlement,” it said.
In the commentaries carried by the two propaganda websites, the North lambasted conservative forces in the South, including the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, for underestimating the planned closure of the site. Pyongyang apparently aims to stress the importance of the dismantlement by raising the issue again.
South Korea’s unification ministry handling inter-Korean affairs said Friday the North had not responded to the list of South Korean journalists chosen to attend the ceremony. [Yonhap]
South Korea's Unification Minister confirms what we already knew — that the Ningpo 13 came to SK of their own free will. Now let the SK government do its duty to protect their privacy & safety. 조명균 ˝탈북 여종업원, 자유의사로 한국 왔다˝ https://t.co/L1As6VMm92
Considering the current attitude towards defectors that the current South Korean government has it will be interesting to see what their response to this is:
Two North Koreans defected to South Korea early on Saturday and were found in the Yellow Sea, Seoul-based news agency Yonhap reported, citing a government source.
Yonhap said that South Korean military spotted two people in a boat near the inter-Korean sea border, one of whom was a military officer, and they showed willingness to defect to the South.
South Korea’s unification ministry was not immediately available for comment.
The defection came after North Korea declined to accept a list of South Korean journalists hoping to observe the closure of its nuclear test site on Friday, raising new questions about the North’s commitment to reducing tensions in the region. [Business Insider]
Kim Yo-jong sure did a good job not showing she was eight months pregnant during her visit to South Korea:
Kim Yo-jong during her visit to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang in February (left) and during the North Korea-China summit in Dalian on May 8
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s younger sister gave birth to a baby not long after she visited South Korea in February to attend the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
Kim Yo-jong was already about eight months pregnant when she came to Seoul on Feb. 9. She is believed to have given birth before the inter-Korean summit on April 27, intelligence authorities here said.
During the summit the signs of her pregnancy were already gone and she wore tight-fitting clothes.
She also accompanied her brother to a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Dalian on May 8-9.
Intelligence authorities believe she had her first child in 2015. Her husband is thought to be the son of a low-ranking Workers Party official and a classmate of hers at Kim Il-sung University.
The North Korea Strategic Information Service Center, a defector group, has identified him as U In-hak.
Kim Yo-jong is increasingly playing the role of her brother’s chief secretary, but it remains to be seen whether she will be by his side at the North Korea-U.S. summit in Singapore next month. [Chosun Ilbo]
I have been saying this for years that any North Korea deal should include the return of the USS Pueblo. I am glad to see someone in Congress thinks so as well:
North Korea has displayed the captured U.S. spy ship Pueblo in Pyongyang and has retained the ship for more than five decades. File Photo by KCNA/EPA
As the White House prepares President Donald Trump for his meeting with North Korea‘s Kim Jong Un, a movement is building in Congress to return a U.S. Navy spy ship.
Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, of Colorado’s Third District, sent a letter to Trump last week, ahead of submitting a resolution in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, seeking the return of the USS Pueblo to the Navy, Voice of America reported.
In the resolution, Tipton said the ship did not violate the territorial waters of North Korea at the time of its capture on Jan. 23, 1968.
One crewmember, Duane Hodges, was killed during the attack and 82 others were held in North Korean captivity for 11 months.
In his letter to Trump, Tipton said he requests the president raise the issue of the Pueblo during his summit with the North Korean leader.
“The House of Representatives would welcome the return of the USS Pueblo as a sign of good faith from the North Korean people to the American people,” the resolution read. [UPI]
You can read more at the link, but since its capture the USS Pueblo has been used as part of the standard propaganda tour around Pyongyang for both domestic and international visitors. You can read more about the USS Pueblo Incident at this link.
