The Moon administration has agreed to conduct their third inter-Korean summit this year, but this one will be held in Pyongyang:

South and North Korea agreed Monday to hold a summit meeting between their leaders in Pyongyang in September.

The agreement was made during high-level talks on the northern side of Panmunjom that separates the two Koreas. They, however, did not unveil the date of the meeting.

“We agreed to hold an inter-Korean summit within September in Pyongyang” the two Koreas said in a joint press statement issued after the meeting.

North Korea’s chief delegate, Ri Son-gwon, hinted after the meeting that the two sides agreed on a date but decided not to announce it, only to emphasize that the summit will take place “within September.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the number topic I would guess they are going to talk about is how to get around the UN sanctions since the Kim regime is not going to denuclearize and the Trump administration is refusing to drop sanctions until they do.  If such talks are being conducted, hold the summit in Pyongyang makes sense because there is less possibility of intelligence gathering there to determine what their joint strategy is going to be.

Considering how Koreans tend to keep embarrassing things like this quiet, I am not surprised how sexual abuse like this was allowed to go on for so long:

When Kim Eun-hee was 10 years old, a primary school child with dreams of tennis stardom, her coach raped her for the first time. Then he did it again. And again. And again.

The South Korean was too young to even know what sex was. But she knew she dreaded the repeated orders to come to his room at their training camp, and the pain and humiliation.

“It took me years to realize that it was rape,” Kim said. “He kept raping me for two years. … He told me it was a secret to be kept between him and me.”

Now 27, Kim has spoken to international media about her experiences for the first time, and revealed how female athletes in South Korea have silently suffered sexual abuse by their coaches.  (……..)

In a highly competitive society where winning is everything, many young athletes forgo schooling or live away from families to train with their peers and coaches full time, living in a dorm-like environment for years.

The training camp system — akin to models used by communist sporting machines such as China — is credited with helping the South punch well above its weight on the global sporting stage.

But it has proven to be the setting for abuse in several sports — especially of underage athletes whose existence is controlled by their trainers.

“The coach was the king of my world, dictating everything about my daily life from how to exercise to when to sleep and what to eat,” said Kim, adding that he beat her repeatedly as part of “training.”

The coach was eventually dismissed after some parents complained of his “suspicious behavior,” but he was simply moved to another school with no criminal inquiry. Many victims are forced into silence in a world where going public often means the end of any aspirations to stardom.

“This is a community where those who speak out are ostracized and bullied as ‘traitors’ who brought shame to the sport,” said Chung Yong-chul, a sports psychology professor at Sogang University in Seoul.

A 2014 survey commissioned by the Korean Sports & Olympic Committee showed that around 1 in 7 female athletes had experienced sexual abuse in the previous year, but 70 percent of them did not seek help of any kind.  [Japan Times]

You can read much more at the link.

The Unbelievable Story of North Korea's Most-Celebrated Propagandist – The Atlantic https://t.co/uRaHQ0nbJB

— DPRK Watch (@dprkwatch) August 11, 2018

People cross the Han River during an event in Seoul on Aug. 10, 2018, in a boat made of corrugated cardboard, plastic wrap and adhesive tape. (Yonhap)

Considering that this soldiers remains were recovered in 1995, in makes me wonder how long it will take DPAA to identify the 52 remains recently returned by North Korea.  Regardless welcome home PFC Joe Elmore:

The remains of a Kentucky soldier who disappeared after a 1950 Korean War battle with high casualties will be returned home for a burial with full military honors.

Army Pfc. Joe S. Elmore’s remains were originally thought to be of a British soldier when they were discovered in North Korea in 1995, but they could not be identified. The remains were later buried in South Korea.

Nearly 20 years later, the remains were disinterred and transported to The Defense Department’s POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which seeks to identify missing and unidentified American soldiers. The agency used DNA and anthropological analysis to match the remains to Elmore.

Elmore was 20 when he was killed during a battle on Dec. 2, 1950, in Hamgyeong Province, North Korea. He will be given a military funeral in Albany, Kentucky, on Aug. 18.

The POW/MIA Accounting Agency said in a release that Elmore was among about 2,500 U.S. soldiers that were attacked in late November by overwhelming Chinese forces near the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea.  [SF Gate]

You can read more at the link.

I don’t think the North Koreans have to worry about giving up their nuclear science when few people think they will ever actually denuclearize in the first place:

North Korea will not give up its nuclear science even in the event of denuclearization, the country’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho said, according to Iranian media reports.

Speaking in Tehran, Thursday, Ri speculated the U.S. will remain hostile toward North Korea even after their leaders held a summit in June and said his country needs a safeguard.

Ri, who arrived in Iran on Tuesday, made his remarks as Pyongyang and Washington accuse each other of dragging their feet in implementing the agreement reached at the summit on the North’s denuclearization.

His remarks also came after the government of U.S. President Donald Trump issued a fresh round of nuclear sanctions against Iran, Tuesday.

The Trump administration previously broke the 2015 nuclear deal among Iran and the six major powers _ the U.S., China, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and Germany. The Tuesday sanctions heightened Iran’s distrust toward the U.S. nuclear policy.  [Korea Times]

For the Korea Times’ benefit I will need to educate them on the Iran Nuclear Deal.  The deal was never ratified by the US Senate which means all it was, was a personal promise from then President Barack Obama to the Iranians.  He is no longer the President which means the current President is not obligated to keep Obama’s personal promise.  The Iranians and the six other nations involved with this deal all knew this, but figured Hillary Clinton would be the next President, thus keeping the deal in place for an extended timeframe.

That is why I have always said that any denuclearization agreement reached with North Korea should be ratified by the Senate because then the US is obligated by treaty to follow it.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

#breaking Warning from North Korea: “high-level officials within the U.S. administration are making baseless allegations against us and…intensifying international sanctions… there is no guarantee that the hard-won atmosphere of stability on the Korean Peninsula will continue” pic.twitter.com/sEhPkJOPRD

— Will Ripley (@willripleyCNN) August 10, 2018

Jenny Jin of the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency speaks in an interview with Yonhap in Washington on Aug. 8, 2018. The forensic scientist of Korean descent is in charge of identifying the remains of U.S. soldiers killed during the Korean War repatriated by North Korea. (Yonhap)

It looks like President Moon and Kim Jong-un need to have another meeting to determine their next step to get around sanctions since the Trump administration will not drop them for little to nothing in return as they had hoped:

The two Koreas have agreed to hold high-level talks Monday to prepare for another summit between their leaders, even as nuclear talks between the North and the United States have stalled.

Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon will lead the South Korean delegation to the meeting on the northern side of the truce village of Panmunjom, which straddles the heavily fortified border, the ministry said Thursday.

The North offered to hold the talks but has yet to announce its chief delegate, a ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with department policy. The two sides planned to discuss preparations for another summit as well as review the implementation of agreements made during the first one on April 27.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met again in a more informal summit in late May. Both of those meetings – which were the first inter-Korean summits in more than a decade – were held in Panmunjom.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.