This news is not going over well with the Kim regime:
From left are Choe Ryong-hae, vice chairman of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, State Security Minister Jong Kyong-thaek and Pak Kwang-ho, director of the party’s propaganda department. Yonhap
The outlook for a second Washington-Pyongyang summit is dimming amid an escalation of diplomatic tit-for-tat, after the U.S. imposed sanctions on three ranking North Korean officials Monday.
The U.S. Treasury Department cited “serious human rights abuse and censorship” as reasons for the sanctions on the North’s de facto No. 2 figure, Choe Ryong-hae. The two others are State Security Minister Jong Kyong-thaek and Pak Kwang-ho, director of the Workers’ Party’s propaganda department.
The decision drew a strong backlash from the North, as this is the first time the U.S. has imposed human rights sanctions against the regime since the leaders of the two countries met in June to discuss peace and denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.
You can read the rest at the link, but as expected the North Korean state controlled media is blasting this decision to sanction the three regime officials.
I think these sanctions are just a further warning to the Kim regime that the Trump administration is losing patience with their denuclearization delay games.
South Korea unfortunately has a long history of people setting themselves on fire during protests:
A taxi driver has died after setting himself on fire in protest of the launch of a commercial carpool service app.
Police say a 57-year-old known only by his surname Choi, sustained severe burns and later died after pulling his taxi over near the National Assembly Monday afternoon and setting himself on fire.
They say he initially tried to drive through the main gate of the assembly, but turned around after a guard noticed a strong gasoline odor and requested an inspection.
He reportedly called a senior official of his union earlier in the day to make his plan known.
Last Friday, Kakao Mobility, the transportation service arm of Kakao Corporation, launched its pilot carpooling service involving a group of randomly selected users.
You can read more at the link, but as I have maintained on this issue, instead of trying to get the government to give them special treatment, the taxi companies should improve their business model to compete with the ride sharing apps instead.
Do people actually think a name change of an exercise really matters in regards to whether Kim Jong-un will get upset?
South Korea and the United States are considering renaming their major annual combined exercises, apparently as part of efforts to support ongoing diplomacy with North Korea, a military source in Seoul said Monday. The allies have been in consultation on their overall plans for next year’s exercises, such as the springtime Key Resolve and the summertime Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG), as they explore ways to prevent them from negatively affecting ongoing peace efforts. “The South and U.S. have been coordinating their plans for next year’s training, and they have also been mulling the possibility of renaming them,” the source told Yonhap News Agency on condition of anonymity. “But nothing has been decided yet. Sooner or later, there will be an official announcement regarding the plans for the exercises and their names,” he added. The allies have reportedly been considering changing Key Resolve into the ’19-1 Exercise and UFG into ’19-2 Exercise. Such a change, if finalized, would reportedly be one of the first major alliance decisions since current U.S. Forces Korea Commander Gen. Robert Abrams took office on Nov. 8.
You can read more at the link, but the North Koreans will use any US-ROK exercise as an excuse for complaint or provocation if the sanctions are not dropped. They can call a joint exercise “Pink Unicorns 2019” and the Kim regime will be complaining if sanctions are not dropped by then.
So ROK Heads it is time for you to do your civic duty and help US and ROK planners with a name change that will not offend Kim Jong-un. So who has some great ideas on what to name US-ROK military exercises?
Yes, but is this the #SouthKorea that is doing its best to undermine sanctions on #NorthKorea and is absolutely determined to support #KimJongUn? President #MoonJaein is no friend of the US. Trade breaks for him should be out of question. https://t.co/wR4Zmilz5c
Xmas tree at presidential officePresident Moon Jae-in and his wife, Kim Jung-sook, pose in front of a Christmas tree set up at the presidential office in Seoul on Dec. 7, 2018. (Yonhap)
The Moon administration in South Korea has decided to increase funding for North Korea spending next year:
President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shake hands after signing a set of agreements at their summit in Pyongyang in September. / Korea Times file
The government has allocated 1.1 trillion won ($977 million) for inter-Korean affairs for next year, according to the unification ministry, Monday.
This is up 15 percent from the 959 billion won fund this year, reflecting the reconciliatory mood that developed between the Koreas, as the leaders held three summits and reached agreements to promote peace.
“The budget was drawn up to give an impetus to carrying out agreements reached between the South and North and develop sustainable inter-Korean ties,” a unification ministry official said.
The budget includes 5.9 billion won that was set up to enable video meetings between family members separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.
You can read more at the link, but what is interesting about this announcement of $977 million set aside for Kim Jong-un is that the cost sharing talks between the US and the ROK restart again this week. The US has been asking South Korea to increase their funding for USFK from the $850 million a year it currently pays. South Korean negotiators say that crossing the one trillion won mark is “psychologically important” to not cross. However it was clearly not important when they decided to budget over one trillion won for North Korea spending next year.
So as it stands now the ROK government is willing to pay Kim Jong-un more than USFK.
This shouldn’t come as any surprise because the former Roh Moo-hyun administration that current President Moon Jae-in was the Chief of Staff for also paid then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il more money than they were willing to fund the US-ROK alliance. I would hope US negotiators at the cost sharing talks this week would at least bring this fact up.
Banning Chinese products that could be cybersecurity risks should have been something done 10 years ago, but I guess better late than never:
Japan is set to ban government use of telecom products from Huawei and ZTE over national security concerns surrounding the Chinese companies.
Relevant government agencies will likely reach an agreement as early as Monday to ban the companies from taking part in government procurement, according to local media.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the move was aimed at preventing cyberattacks and the leaking of confidential information.
“Ensuring the cyber security of government agencies has become increasingly important. We will deal with the matter from various perspectives,” he said.
Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya also pledged efforts to ensure security.
The move comes days after Meng Wanzhou, 46, the chief financial officer and daughter of founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested in Vancouver, from where she may well be extradited to the United States. She is suspected of violating U.S. sanctions against Iran.
It will be interesting to see if Canada gives into the thug like threats being directed at them by China. We saw these same type of threats thrown at South Korea when they did not give in over China’s demands to not deploy the THAAD battery. China responded by stopping tour groups from going to South Korea and putting unofficial sanctions on Korean companies. They will likely do the same to Canada to try and bully them to release Meng:
Meng Wanzhou, Executive Board Director of the Chinese technology giant Huawei,
China warned Canada on Saturday that there would be severe consequences if it did not immediately release Huawei Technologies Co Ltd’s [HWT.UL] chief financial officer, calling the case “extremely nasty”. Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s global chief financial officer, was arrested in Canada on Dec. 1 and faces extradition to the United States, which alleges that she covered up her company’s links to a firm that tried to sell equipment to Iran despite sanctions. The executive is the daughter of the founder of Huawei. If extradited to the United States, Meng would face charges of conspiracy to defraud multiple financial institutions, a Canadian court heard on Friday, with a maximum sentence of 30 years for each charge. No decision was reached at the extradition hearing after nearly six hours of arguments and counter-arguments, and the hearing was adjourned until Monday. In a short statement, China’s Foreign Ministry said that Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng had issued the warning to release Meng to Canada’s ambassador in Beijing, summoning him to lodge a “strong protest”.
Why would a president, who's responsible for providing security & protect people/way of life, get rid of defenses & its surveillance (ability to monitor the adversary's threats & verify its adherence to military agreement)? Give up its border NLL? https://t.co/vIGMX8x1ga
If it was in fact a ruse it seems disclosing that fact now is not a good idea in case the President has to return to fire and fury rhetoric:
Outgoing United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley said she used President Donald Trump’s unpredictability and bellicose rhetoric to persuade other world leaders they had to crack down on North Korea or the U.S. would take military action. “I bounced it off the president’s rhetoric, saying, ‘I can’t stop him. I’m not gonna be able to control him. We’ve gotta get this done,'” Haley told The Atlantic magazine in an interview published Friday. “The president had really strengthened his rhetoric at that point,” Haley said, presumably referring to Trump’s threat to unleash “fire and fury” on the North Korean regime. “All of that was very, very helpful, because I would say, ‘You know, I don’t know what he’s gonna do,'” she recounted. ” … I said, ‘He very well could use military action.’” Haley said she knew Trump’s harsh rhetoric was a ruse. Asked if the U.S. was really close to war with North Korea, she said no. “Having said that, if they had launched something, if it had come near the U.S., the president totally would have. But at the time, were we gonna instigate something? No,” she told The Atlantic.
