A Rocket has not been launched by North Korea in 9 months. Likewise, no Nuclear Tests. Japan is happy, all of Asia is happy. But the Fake News is saying, without ever asking me (always anonymous sources), that I am angry because it is not going fast enough. Wrong, very happy!
This photo released by the Korea Railroad Corp. (KORAIL) on July 20, 2018, promotes the Summer Santa Claus Village at the Buncheon Railway Station in Bonghwa, North Gyeongsang Province. (Yonhap)
A temperature map of Yeongcheon and surrounding areas. The red dot at the center of the dark red area is Yeongcheon, where the temperature reached 40.3C at 3:27 p.m., Tuesday, the hottest temperature on the Korean Peninsula since 1907. / Captured from KMA website
Remember July 24, 2018. The Korean Peninsula had its hottest day ever.
The midday high in a small town (Shinryoung-myeon) in Yeongcheon, North Gyeongsang Province, reached 40.3C (at 3:27 p.m.), melting down the previous record of 40C set in Daegu on Aug. 1, 1942, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA).
The KMA has been collecting weather data since 1907. [Korea Times]
Here is the latest so called progress on the North Korea denuclearization issue:
Shown is a file photo of North Korea test firing a rocket at its Sohae Satellite Launching Station, the country’s main such location since 2012, on Feb. 7, 2016. U.S. website 38 North said on July 24, 2018, that new satellite imagery from July 20 shows key facilities are being dismantled at the station in line with a promise made by the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, at his historic summit with U.S. President Donald Trump. (Yonhap) (END)
North Korea has started dismantling some facilities at its main satellite launch station, seen as the testing ground for its intercontinental ballistic missiles, according to expert analysis of recent satellite images.
If confirmed, the analysis by respected US-based website 38 North could signal a step forward after last month’s landmark summit between Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump, although some experts questioned the significance of the gesture.
After the summit, Trump had declared the North Korean nuclear threat was effectively over, and US media reports suggest he is privately furious at the lack of any subsequent progress on the denuclearisation issue. [AFP]
Before anyone gets excited by this news, it is important to note that the satellite launch site has nothing do with North Korea’s nuclear program. I have always believed that the Kim regime would be more willing to make concessions over their ICBM program and market it as being a step towards denuclearization in return for US concessions. That appears to be what they are doing.
Additionally this concession at their satellite launch site does not really effect their ICBM program anyway:
Melissa Hanham, senior research associate with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, said that while dismantling the engine test site was a “good move”, it amounted to “the bare minimum” that could be done at Sohae.
“Unless they dismantle the whole site, it will remain North Korea’s premier location for space launches,” Hanham said on Twitter.
“North Korea does not need the Sohae engine test stand anymore if it is confident in the engine design. As (Kim Jong Un) said himself, North Korea is moving from testing to mass production,” she said, adding that observers should look for signs of new sites where more missiles could be built.
So basically North Korea is dismantling something it doesn’t really need right now that they can then reconstruct when needed in a matter of days. Is this something I am supposed to be excited about?
It was only a matter of time before the resurgent leftists in South Korea went after another one of their boogeymen, Kim Hyun-hui:
The bereaved family members of the victims of the KAL 858 bombing hold a news conference on their filing of a lawsuit against its culprit Kim Hyun-hui in front of the Seoul Central District Court on July 23, 2018. (Yonhap)
The bereaved family members of the victims of the mysterious mid-air bombing of a South Korean passenger jet in 1987 on Monday sued the culprit, Kim Hyun-hui, a female North Korean former terrorist, for libel and obstruction of business, while calling for reinvestigation of the case.
Prior to filing the suit with the Seoul Central District Court, they claimed at a news conference, “There was no objective evidence to verify that Kim is a North Korean terrorist or that the plane in question was blown up.”
In particular, Kim Ho-soon, head of the group, insisted the group’s own probe has found that Kim was not a North Korean spy but an agent from the South Korean spy agency under the Chun Doo-hwan government.
According to the official findings of South Korean government probes into the disappearance of Korean Air Flight 858 in 1987, Kim and another North Korean agent planted timed bombs on the plane and exploded it near Myanmar, killing all 115 people on board. Kim made a failed attempt to commit suicide shortly before being arrested. She was sentenced to death at a Seoul court in 1990 and pardoned later that year. She is now living in South Korea as a housewife.
Then, North Korea strongly denied the charges that made the U.S. blacklist the North as a terror-sponsoring state in 1988.
But the family members have long raised suspicions that the incident was possibly arranged by the South Korean government two months ahead of the presidential elections, and the government of leftist President Roh Moo-hyun re-examined the case in 2004, with no reversible outcomes.
“The announcements made by the government on the incident at that time were dependent wholly on Kim’s confession,” they asserted in the suit, while demanding a reinvestigation. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but the statement that the ROK government’s findings were also based on Kim’s confession is completely untrue. There was far more evidence of North Korea’s responsibility for the bombing than just Kim’s confession. I recommend readers read my prior posting on this topic at the below link:
I would not be surprised at all if left wing lawyers are the ones behind this libel lawsuit against Kim Hyun-hui. During the presidency of former leftwing President Roh Moo-hyun she was constantly being attacked by leftists with the same claims that she was not a terrorist, but instead a ROK government secret operative that intentionally bombed the plane.
It seems like total absurdity that someone would think the ROK government would bomb and murder 115 of their own citizens, but remember South Korean leftists still think the ROK government murdered their own sailors by intentionally sinking the ROK naval ship the Cheonan in 2010 instead of a North Korean torpedo. This is the lengths that South Korean leftists will go to defect blame on their political opposition instead of holding the real culprits, the Kim regime, responsible for the murder of these ROK citizens.
I would love to know what the Kim regime’s internal timeline is for when they expect sanctions to be dropped?:
North Korean state media urged the country’s people to be ready for “belt-tightening” Monday amid signs of stalled denuclearization talks with the United States.
The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, reminded them of the harsh period of Arduous March in the 1990s, when the country suffered from extreme poverty and massive starvation in the wake of the collapse of socialism in Russia and Eastern Europe.
“Even if (we) have to travel a long distance through snowstorms with our belts tightened, we will go straight to the people’s road which was proved as immortal in the process of the 70-years-long struggle and to the road of socialism,” the newspaper said.
The call comes as concerns are growing about the denuclearization talks between the North and the U.S. The slower-than-expected progress clouds the prospects for any immediate sanctions relief, which Pyongyang might be pursuing to bolster its anemic economy in return for giving up its nuclear weapons.
The call for belt-tightening might be intended to tamp down expectations among its people that have been high since North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, followed by his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, observers said. [Yonhap]
No surprises here since I would not be surprised that the Chinese and Russian operatives are actively helping them smuggle the oil:
China and Russia have reportedly put the brakes on the United States for trying to persuade the international community to stop selling refined oil to North Korea this year.
According to international news agencies, including the Associated Press and Reuters, Beijing and Moscow on Thursday blocked Washington from getting the United Nations to publicly blame the North for smuggling more petroleum products beyond the limit imposed by UN sanctions.
Their actions and claim that time is needed to investigate the U.S. allegations automatically delay any U.S. action for six months.
Last week, the U.S. requested the UN Security Council’s North Korea sanctions committee to publicly rebuke the North for violating the quota and enact a ban so countries could not export more petroleum products to the regime for the rest of the year.
U.S. documents sent to the UN committee claim that refined oil was illegally shipped to North Korea through at least 20 ships on 89 occasions between January and May, allowing the regime to secure at least 759-thousand-793 barrels so far this year, above the annual limit of 500-thousand barrels. [KBS World Radio]
I think deep down most South Koreans know this guy is right, but prefer the current fantasy that things will be different this time with Kim Jong-un:
Hong Joon-pyo, the former chief of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP), has reiterated his opposition to the government’s North Korea policy.
Writing on Facebook on Saturday, the conservative politician, who is visiting the U.S. at the moment, argued that North Korea’s attitude has not changed at all.
He said that in order to seek a breakthrough in the Cold War situation on the Korean Peninsula through dialogue and compromise, a change in the other side’s attitude and posture is required.
But Hong insisted that North Korea has not changed at all and is only putting on a show, adding that leading the South Korean public to believe the North has changed could bring about an even bigger catastrophe.
The former LKP chief said that North Korea will never give up its nuclear program. He added that if it did attempt to, leader Kim Jong-un would immediately be purged by his hawkish military. [KBS World Radio]
