A valley on Mount Halla on the southernmost resort island of Jeju is lined with trees turning autumn colors of red and yellow on Oct. 19, 2018. (Yonhap)
A large oil storage tank in Goyang, northwest of Seoul, likely exploded Sunday causing the facility to be engulfed in flames, firefighters said.
The local fire department said emergency service personnel are on site and trying to put out the flames. The storage tank is part of the oil pipeline system operated by the country.
“Because the explosion occurred when everyone was off, there are currently no reports of injuries,” a source said. He said the tank contained 77 million liters of gasoline. (Yonhap)
Here is more “pretend denuclearization” from the Kim regime:
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, right, talks with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo before their meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on Monday. [AFP/YONHAP]North Korean leader Kim Jong-un invited U.S. nuclear experts to verify the permanent dismantling of the Punggye-ri nuclear testing site during his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday.
The U.S. State Department reported in a statement that Kim had “invited inspectors” to visit the Punggye-ri testing site, where all of North Korea’s six underground nuclear tests took place starting from 2006, to confirm that “it has been irreversibly dismantled.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but I would hope the US Secretary of State would realize that this is not denuclearization. It has long been reported that the Punggye-ri nuclear test site is largely unusable now due to the mountain beginning to collapse. For all we know the North Koreans could have their slave labor teams busy drilling caverns into another mountain right now for a new test site.
If the Kim regime was serious about confidence building measures they would ship some nuclear material out of the country. Of course that would be real denuclearization when what they want is “pretend denuclearization“.
I find it interesting Viktor Ahn is being criticized for returning to South Korea after skating for Russia when South Korea has a number of foreign born athletes playing on their teams:
Viktor Ahn during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Yonhap
Korean-born Russian short-track speed skater Viktor Ahn has been branded an opportunist for returning to Korea.
Many Koreans do not approve of his move and have urged him to go back to Russia.
The skater, 33, whose Korean name is Ahn Hyun-soo, has reportedly come back to raise his daughter in Korea, according to Russia’s Interfax News Wednesday.
Korean media outlet Sports Kyunghyang reported Thursday that Ahn made the decision for his wife, who is said to be homesick. Ahn tied the knot with Woo Na-ri in 2014 and has one daughter.
“He was the one who received preferential treatment ― Ahn was singled out as a member of the national team thanks to his ‘faction,’ not his skating ability,” one netizen wrote. “But he began playing the victim as his faction lost power and left for Russia.” [Korea Times]
Here is an opinion piece from Professor Sung-Yoon Lee of Tufts University, that discusses how ROK President Moon Jae-in did not mention the role of US forces in Korea’s liberation after World War II and instead implicates the US military’s presence at Yongsan Garrison as being a continuation of Japanese colonialism:
Sung-yoon Lee
Consider South Korea’s presidential Liberation Day speeches. Curiously, the causal effect of the sacrifices of U.S. servicemen in vanquishing Imperial Japan and Korean liberation are not only assiduously accorded the silent treatment, but the role of the U.S. in Korea is occasionally frowned upon. President Moon Jae-in, giving his Liberation Day speech today outdoors in the sweltering heat of Yongsan, Seoul, the site of the pre-1945 Japanese military base and post-1945 U.S. military base, did mention the “ROK-U.S. alliance,” but only in the context of the recent relocation of the U.S. base.
Calling the grounds where he stood “the center of exploitation and subjugation,” Moon remarked that Yongsan, having “long been taken away from us,” now has been “returned to the arms of the people after 114 years” and has “finally become an integral part of our territory.” The implication that the U.S. military presence in Korea was an exploitative continuation of Japanese colonialism or, at least, an unwelcome usurpation of Korean sovereignty, was noteworthy. [The Hill]
This image provided by Seo Kyoung-duk, professor of Sungshin Women’s University, on Aug. 14, 2018, promotes a video clip on YouTube (https://youtu.be/5isUH0g_YEU) that he made to criticize Japan for its attempts to distort the history of its wartime sexual slavery. South Korea has designated Aug. 14 as national day for the former sex slaves, also known as comfort women. (Yonhap)
It appears someone’s pet monkey has gotten lose and is now threatening hikers on Mt. Bukhan just outside of Seoul:
A rogue monkey on Mt. Bukhan has attacked several hikers.
According to the Ministry of Environment Thursday, officials have been trying to capture the monkey since they received reports about it last week. The mountain is not a natural habit for the creatures.
A video clip, which has gone viral, shows the monkey wandering around the mountain. The person who posted it on YouTube on June 9 was almost attacked when he went near the animal.
He backed off and said: “This monkey is not afraid of humans at all.” [Korea Times via a reader tip]
You can read more at the link or view the Youtube video below:
In this July 8, 1951, photo, a North Korean solider, center, looks at Time magazine flanked by two U.S. soldiers in Gaesong during a ceasefire talks for the Korean War in Gaeseong. This is one of 14 Korean War-related photos at the National Institute of Korean History (NIKH) collected from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). / Courtesy of NIKH [Korea Times]
But the US would need to circumvent its own sanctions against the rogue nation.
The peace talks are set for The Fullerton Hotel Singapore on June 12.
A rack rate room goes for $415 that night but a super-luxurious suite, befitting a world leader, could go for as much as $6,000, the newspaper said.
The hermit kingdom reportedly requires that all of Kim’s lodging bills are picked up by another country.
The US is open to paying for Kim. But first, Trump’s team would have to get around its own economic sanctions against North Korea — by obtaining a waiver from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. [NY Post]
You can read more at the link, but it is amazing how shameless the Kim regime is about having other people pick up their tabs. They kind of remind me of this woman who recently made headlines in New York City.
Korean residents in the United States wait for South Korean President Moon Jae-in and first lady Kim Jung-sook outside the former Korean legation building in Washington on May 22, 2018. The presidential couple visited the building on its reopening day as an exhibition hall and a museum. The legation, opened in February 1889, was Korea’s first diplomatic mission in a Western country. (Yonhap)
