President Moon Jae-in (3rd from L) walks to an airplane at Seoul Airport in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, on May 21, 2018, to depart to Washington D.C. for a summit meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump the following day. The summit will focus on ways to denuclearize North Korea ahead of a summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore on June 12. (Yonhap)
After the media first made it look like the closure of North Korea’s nuclear test site was a big deal, it appears the media is now beginning to understand they are being used by the Kim regime for another purpose:
Foreign journalists will be allowed to journey deep into the mountains of North Korea this week to observe the closing of the country’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site in a much-touted display of goodwill before leader Kim Jong Un’s planned summit with President Donald Trump next month.
Expect good imagery, but not much else.
The public display of the closure of the facility on Mount Mantap will likely be heavy on spectacle and light on substance. And the media will be spending much of their time in an unrelated tourism zone that North Korea hopes will be the next big thing for its economy if Kim’s diplomatic overtures pay off in the months ahead.
For sure, the closure is a milestone, marking an end to the world’s last active underground testing site and offering some important insights into Kim’s mindset as he sets the stage for his meeting with Trump. [Associated Press]
You can read more at the link, but as I have long said the closure of the nuclear test site is largely meaningless because if they decide they need to conduct more tests they can just dig another shaft at a time of their choosing.
What is interesting though is that according to the article the media is going to be kept in Wonsan. This is because Kim plans to use the media to showcase has plan to expand South Korean tourism into Wonsan to increase foreign currency. So basically these journalists going to North Korea get to see a largely meaningless dog and pony show and then promote the Kim regime’s major foreign currency initiative.
The ties to the Moon campaign to the blogger behind the online opinion rigging scandal before the election has expanded:
Song In-bae
A political blogger known as Druking who allegedly used software to rig public opinion for – and later against – President Moon Jae-in had more ties to Moon’s aides and confidants than previously thought.
The Blue House found in an internal investigation that Moon’s personal secretary, Song In-bae, met with members of the blogger’s political group before last year’s presidential election, when they allegedly engaged in suspicious online activities to support Moon, then a candidate.
“Song met with members of the group four times,” Kim Eui-kyeom, the Blue House’s press secretary, said during a briefing on Monday. “The first was in June 2016.”
An acquaintance of Song who volunteered in his failed National Assembly run in 2016 first suggested the meeting. The acquaintance was part of Druking’s group. Some members allegedly requested that Song bring Kim Kyoung-soo, a former lawmaker with close ties to Moon.
“It is normal for campaign members to meet lots of people during election season,” Kim Eui-kyeom said. “Song was simply doing that in bringing Kim Kyoung-soo to the meeting. We found that Song did not meet with Druking after the election, so that was the end of the Blue House’s investigation.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Readers may remember that Kim Kyoung-soo is the Democrat Party representative that authorized and directed Druking’s online activities. It appears that Moon’s personal secretary needed someone to work with the bloggers and chose Moon’s close friend Kim Kyoung-soo to be that person. What is further interesting is that Song even took payments from the bloggers:
According to the Blue House, Song voluntarily requested the internal probe after Kim Kyoung-soo held a news conference on April 16 about his alleged connection with Druking. Blue House officials questioned Song on April 20 and 26 and found he had received money from Druking’s group but found no issue with the payment.
“They insisted on paying him an honorarium for meeting them,” Kim Eui-kyeom said. “Song initially refused to take it, but they insisted. He received a total of 2 million won [$1,844], which was given to him as 1 million won each time over two times.”
This is pretty amazing that President Moon’s personal secretary not only met with blogging group behind the online opinion rigging scandal multiple times, but even took a nearly $2,000 cash payment from them and yet the Blue House say there is nothing to see here. What further adds to this is the fact that NIS personnel are in jail for online opinion manipulation and former Presidents Park and Lee and others are all in jail for alleged bribes.
In this case we have President Moon’s own personal secretary taking a cash payment from a group conducting illegal activity, that after the election made requests for government positions and received some of them.
It has come to this: *Breitbart* just did a better job of describing the cast of extremists in Moon Jae-in’s cabinet than “respected” publications with correspondents in Asia.https://t.co/NbdJMjz8PL I don’t read Breitbart; saw the link in my traffic stats. But I know who does.
Does this issue in South Korea sound familiar to Americans?:
Doctors staged a massive rally in Seoul on Sunday in protest against what they call the government’s “unilateral” medical care policy.
Around 7,000 members from the Korean Medical Association gathered in central Seoul to voice their anger at so-called Moon Jae-in Care, which the government says is focused on providing comprehensive medical services to the general public at reasonable prices.
The participants shouted out slogans such as “Let’s banish Moon Jae-in Care” and “The government has come up with a delusional policy.”
Many in the medical profession have been opposed to the plan costing 30.6 trillion won ($27.9 billion) that will be implemented in stages up to 2022. The government is aiming to greatly expand National Health Insurance coverage for most medical treatment, which includes various medical procedures and tests.
“We have set up a committee with the government to discuss the issue but we will immediately halt all talks and put up a strong fight, as discussions are void of truth with the government taking steps to unilaterally push forward the plan,” said Choi Dae-jib, the president of the association.
Doctors have consistently complained that policymakers are railroading the plan without proper consultation with those in the medical field and without regard for how the program will be funded in the long term. [Yonhap]
An annual sand sculpture festival is under way on Haeundae beach in the southeastern port city of Busan on May 19, 2018. This 14th edition runs until May 22 under the theme of “Meet the Heros through Sand.” Eleven sand sculptors from six nations, including America, Japan and Taiwan, are to exhibit their works at the festival. (Yonhap)
The power blogger known as “Druking” has now confessed that Democratic Party representative and close friend to President Moon Jae-in approved his plan to manipulate online opinion during the last ROK Presidential election:
Kim Dong-won
The power blogger known as Druking claimed that former Democratic Party Rep. Kim Kyoung-soo approved the use of software to rig “likes” on political comments online to help Moon Jae-in in the presidential campaign of 2017.
“In September 2016, when Kim Kyoung-soo visited my office in Paju, I told him how the winning parties in the 2007 and 2012 presidential elections used a certain program online to manipulate public opinion,” the blogger, a 49-year-old man named Kim Dong-won, wrote in a letter dated Thursday, according to the Chosun Ilbo on Friday. “So in October of that year, I briefed Rep. Kim about the so-called ‘King Crab’ program in my office.”
Druking is charged with obstruction of business, a punishable crime in Korea. Three of his associates face the same charge over their use of software to manipulate comments on Naver, a portal that many Koreans use to access news.
Prosecutors said the software allowed the group to automatically log in and out of individual members’ accounts and change their IP addresses. The group said it used the Amazon Web Services platform to develop the software.
“Kim was briefed about the program and confirmed in person how the program works,” the blogger wrote. “I told him, ‘If we do not use the program we will lose in the election again. If something goes wrong, I will take responsibility and go to jail. But we cannot do this without your consent or agreement. So will you give your consent, even just by a nod, if you cannot say anything?’
“And Kim nodded, so I told him, ‘We will go ahead with this plan,’” the blogger wrote. “Leaving the office, Kim said, ‘Why did you have to show me this? You should have just carried it out as you saw fit.’ And I told him, ‘We will take care of it as if you had not seen it.’” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Here is what caused the falling out between Druking’s group and the Democrat Party:
The blogger wrote, “We tried really hard to help Moon during the election so we asked Kim around February [2017] to include two of our associates in the election policy committee of the Democratic Party, and one did make it on, but the other did not.
“So after the election we asked Kim if the associate could be recommended as the next Korean ambassador to Japan, but Kim said he couldn’t make the recommendation,” the blogger wrote. “Then he called me on Dec. 28, 2017, to ask, ‘What do you think about the job as consul general in Sendai?’
“Sendai was a place that diplomats did not like to go because it’s close to Fukushima, where they had the nuclear disaster,” the blogger wrote. “I felt like Kim was making a fool of me. So I denied the offer.”
You can read more at the link, because there was some bribery allegedly involved as well. Since Druking turned on President Moon to use his software to attack him I fully expect he will feel the full weight of the ROK justice system. For Representative Kim Kyoung-soo I would be surprised if anything happens to him since I doubt the Moon administration will put any pressure on prosecutors to investigate him.
The dismantling of the nuclear test site in North Korea is not a significant measure because it is easily reversible. The Kim regime at a time of their choosing can easily go and drill more shafts into another mountain if they want to do more nuclear testing. This is just another example of how the Kim regime tries to give up little to nothing in return for aid and the dropping of sanctions:
North Korea on Sunday stressed the importance of its dismantling the Punggye-ri nuclear test site this week and called it a “significant measure” amid reports the North has disregarded South Korea’s roster of journalists planning to cover the dismantlement.
The decommissioning of the site is “a very meaningful and significant measure” undertaken voluntarily by the North to achieve the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula based on the spirit of an agreement reached at a historic inter-Korean summit, North Korea’s propaganda website DPRK Today said.
DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s official name. The leaders of the two Koreas met on April 27 at the truce village of Panmujom on the inter-Korean border.
DPRK Today referred to the May 12 announcement by the North’s foreign ministry that it will hold a ceremony for the dismantling of the nuclear test site between Wednesday and Friday and invite journalists from China, Russia, the United States, Britain and the South to cover it.
On Saturday, another North Korean propaganda website, Uriminzokkiri, carried a commentary in which the North said it does not give the slightest consideration to “a mental patient’s grumble” in the South. “The international community as well as the United States and South Korea is giving a great deal of support to the dismantlement,” it said.
In the commentaries carried by the two propaganda websites, the North lambasted conservative forces in the South, including the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, for underestimating the planned closure of the site. Pyongyang apparently aims to stress the importance of the dismantlement by raising the issue again.
South Korea’s unification ministry handling inter-Korean affairs said Friday the North had not responded to the list of South Korean journalists chosen to attend the ceremony. [Yonhap]
