Another example of how the defamation laws in South Korea are used to silence political opposition:

A conservative commentator has been arrested on libel charges regarding his claim that media reports that led to the ouster of former President Park Geun-hye were manipulated.

The Seoul Central District Court on Wednesday issued an arrest warrant for Byun Hee-jae, citing a risk of the suspect destroying evidence.

Byun is accused of spreading false information through his book “The Curse of Sohn Suk-hee” and his online articles, arguing that local cable channel JTBC manipulated the content of a tablet PC and made it look like it was used by Choi Soon-sil, a long-time confidante of the former president.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office filed for the warrant last Friday, accusing Byun of slandering JTBC, its president Sohn Suk-hee and its reporters without reasonable grounds.

The tablet PC was used as critical evidence proving that Choi had interfered in state affairs, leading to Park’s impeachment last year.  [KBS World News]

For those that don’t remember the tablet was mysteriously found in an office once rented by Park Geun-hye’s friend Choi Soon-shil who was at the center of the scandal.  The finding of the tablet PC was the key news that created the momentum to impeach former President Park Geun-hye.

JTBC only admitted where it found the tablet after changing its story multiple times about the origin of the tablet.  If it was in fact found in the old office I always found it interesting how it was conveniently left with such sensitive information on it and no password protection.  Additionally the Korean courts did not consider the tablet as evidence during the trial against President Park because it was tampered with.

For those that haven’t heard, Defense Secretary James Mattis during the Change of Command ceremony renamed Pacific Command to “Indo-Pacific Command” in response to Chinese militarism in the region.  I am just wondering what do we call PACOM now?  iPAC?  It makes it sound like a tech company.

Anyway with Admiral Harris now moving on from PACOM he will hopefully soon get confirmed to take over the Ambassador position in South Korea.

The Butcher of the Cheonan is in New York now meeting with Secretary of State Pompeo:

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a senior North Korean official met in New York Wednesday as both sides push to salvage a highly anticipated summit between their leaders.

The two had a 90-minute working dinner at the Manhattan residence of the U.S. deputy representative to the United Nations, with 13 days to go until a potential June 12 summit in Singapore between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Kim Yong-chol, a vice chairman of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Committee, arrived at JFK International Airport earlier in the day, becoming the highest-ranking North Korean to visit the U.S. since 2000.

His meeting with Pompeo is expected to determine whether the two sides have enough common ground to go ahead with the summit on dismantling the North’s nuclear weapons program in exchange for concessions.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Maybe this what the dispute was really about in regards to almost having the summit cancelled, not denuclearization, but agreeing on what burger joint to put in North Korea:  😉

A new CIA intelligence assessment concludes North Korea has no plans to relinquish its nuclear weapons program even though denuclearization is the centerpiece of the summit tentatively planned for next month, NBC News reported Tuesday.

But North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may be willing to bring a U.S. burger outlet to Pyongyang as a show of good faith, the assessment suggests.  [USA Today]

You can read more at the link, but if a US fast food joint it opened up next to Kim Jong-un’s palace that may end up shortening his life expectancy considering his already extreme weight.

This is super duper amazingly bad. Terrible combination of non sequitur and orientalism. It blows my mind that a publication like the New Yorker couldn't bother to find a writer who's been following K-pop for longer than, what, three days? https://t.co/M8NmhR5TKg

— T.K. of AAK! (@AskAKorean) May 30, 2018

Korean War veterans from abroad pay tribute at the graves of deceased fellow soldiers at the U.N. Memorial Cemetery in Busan on May 29, 2018. (Yonhap)

As I have long said the long term goal of the Kim regime is to get USFK off of the peninsula and the ongoing nuclear negotiations appear to be trying to advance that effort:

Joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States are likely to become a key topic at the denuclearization talks between the U.S. and North Korea.

The Rodong Sinmun, the North’s mouthpiece newspaper, published an op-ed article claiming the drills as a major source of security concern in Northeast Asia.

“It is an international practice for two negotiating sides to refrain from any military activities,” the article said.

“When the U.S. deploys strategic nuclear weapons during the joint military exercises with South Korea, all the ongoing dialogue momentum will return to the original state.”  (…..)

The regime last week threatened to cancel a planned summit between Trump and Kim, expressing anger over the Max Thunder joint air force exercises.

As the drills ended their two-week run last week, the regime ramped up criticism of the Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG) exercises between Seoul and Washington, annually held sometime around August.

“South Korea is making a fuss that it does not have plans to downsize UFG drills in August,” the propaganda newspaper said. It said the exercises are the root cause of breaking up peace and stability on the peninsula, urging their suspension in line with the ongoing dialogue momentum.  [Korea Times]

You can read more more at the link, but cancelling Key Resolve, UFG, and other joint exercises will impact the readiness of USFK.  These drills are especially important in a theater where many of the US troops rotate out in a year causing constant turnover.  North Korea appears to be trying to get the ROK to advocate to the US to cancel the upcoming UFG exercise.  If the ROK pushes hard to cancel the exercise this will likely cause tension within the US-ROK alliance which is what the Kim regime wants.

That is what some in Washington D.C. are thinking:

When Donald Trump abruptly scrapped their planned summit, Kim Jong Un sought out someone he knew would come over for a chat: South Korean leader Moon Jae-in.  (………….)

For now, Moon has maintained an appearance as a neutral middleman who can bridge the gap between Trump and Kim, two reactive leaders who create a high risk of miscalculation. Yet over the longer term, Moon’s desire to cut a peace deal with North Korea during his single five-year term means Trump could find it harder to enforce his “maximum pressure” campaign if talks break down again.

“There is a fine line between being an honest broker and being the North’s accomplice,” said Ralph Cossa, president of Pacific Forum in Honolulu. “There are some in Washington who are seeing Moon as the latter and this builds upon the distrust that any progressive leader carries with him.”  [Bloomberg]

You can read more at the link, but if things turn out once again that North Korea gets aid and sanctions relief for little to nothing in return; the media and left will not think of Moon as an accomplice.  Instead they will award Moon the Nobel Peace Prize just like they did with former President Kim Dae-jung.

Kim Dae-jung gave the North Koreans a $500 million bribe to hold the summit and yet many in the media and the left defend his legacy to this day.  Arguably the bribe followed by nearly a decade of unconditional aid has sustained the Kim regime after the break up of the Soviet Union and allowed them to build their current nuclear arsenal.

However, maybe Moon will surprise us and he will convince Kim Jong-un to give up his nuclear weapons with his current bromance effort.  If that is the case President Moon would definitely be worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize and any other accolade people want to give him.  I am however not getting my hopes up.

Something I plan to do more of is post various articles of interest that I see while browsing through the historical archives of the Stars & Stripes.  Below is an article I saw about a bizarre hostage incident that occurred in a Seoul teahouse that was published in the April 12, 1972 Stars & Stripes.

The incident involves a 19-year old teenager who took six people hostage in the teahouse before blowing it up with TNT.   Twenty buildings were burned in the resulting fire with nineteen people injured.  Fortunately no one was killed.  Amazingly the teenager survived blowing up the teahouse and claimed he did it because “He did not want to live anymore.”  You can read more details of the incident in the below article.

North Korea designates Chagang Province as special zone, possibly to conceal nuclear weapons https://t.co/JPTVd6kIsw pic.twitter.com/6BOUacYsGy

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) May 23, 2018