South Korean soldiers walk over the tracks of the Gyeongui railway blocked by a barbed wire fence inside the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas at the western section of the inter-Korean border in Paju, north of Seoul, on May 15, 2018. The leaders of South and North Korea agreed to link cross-border roads and railways on April 27 when they held the historic inter-Korean summit at the truce village of Panmunjom inside the DMZ, raising prospects for South Korea’s project to build a railway connection with North Korea and Eurasia. The Gyeongui railway links Seoul with Sinuiju, a city on the Korean Peninsula’s border with China. (Yonhap)
The odds are that he will fly his Russian made Il-62M aircraft to Singapore despite his plane having never flown that far before:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un gets on his official airplane Chammae-1 after his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Dalian in China’s Liaoning Province on May 7-8. (Korea Central News Agency
How will North Korean leader Kim Jong-un travel the 4,700km to Singapore, where the North Korea-US summit will be taking place on June 12? Since a train journey from North Korea to Singapore is out of the question, attention is focusing on Kim’s official airplane, Chammae-1 (meaning goshawk, North Korea’s national bird).On May 7, Kim flew Chammae-1 to Dalian in China’s Liaoning Province to hold his second summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Pyongyang and Dalian are about 360km apart in a direct line. Chammae-1, a souped-up IL-62M of Soviet manufacture, is equipped with four engines, which gives it a maximum flight distance of 9,000-10,000km. These specifications make it fully capable of reaching Singapore, which is about 4,700km away from Pyongyang.But safety concerns have also been raised since Kim’s jet is old and has never attempted a long flight before. The IL-62M, an upgraded version of the IL-62 model that was developed in 1967, entered production in 1975 and was discontinued in 1995.“[Chammae-1] is presumed to have been manufactured in 1985, and provided that it’s in good repair, it will have no problem flying to Singapore. But since it has no experience with long-distance flight and may not have been serviced properly, it probably presents a dilemma [for North Korea],” said a source in the South Korean government.
In Nov. 2014, Choe Ryong-hae, vice chairman of the Korean Workers’ Party (KWP), was reportedly on a flight to Russia as a special envoy for Kim Jong-un when a problem with his aircraft forced him to return to Pyongyang and restart his journey. The aircraft that Choe and his party were on was apparently also an IL-62. This is leading to speculation that Kim may have a stopover in China or borrow a large charter plane from China. [Hankyoreh]
You can read more at the link, but I seriously doubt Kim Jong-un would take a charter plane from China to Singapore. It would be too embarrassing in my opinion for him to show up in Singapore not flying in a state sponsored aircraft.
Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the US Pacific Command in Hawaii, was slated to start work as ambassador to Australia this month. Suddenly, out of the blue, the Trump White House announced on April 24 that Harris would be assigned to South Korea.
The assignment was unprecedented at multiple levels. Assigning a military officer as ambassador to Korea when Seoul is trying to develop peaceful ties with North Korea, and the rest of East Asia, is extraordinary. Assigning a military officer who has close ties with the far-right in Japan is also extraordinary granted the sensitivity about Japan’s colonial domination of Korea.
The fact that Harris was born in Japan to a Japanese mother is not a reason to oppose his appointment. Yet his being awarded the “Order of the Rising Sun” at exactly the same moment he was assigned at ambassador to Korea was extremely odd.
And then there is that matter of his role at the Guantanamo Prison camp at the time that torture and abuse were carried out within a carefully constructed legal limbo. In normal times, Harris’ role in that blatantly illegal operation would be enough to end a career, at the very least.
You can read the rest at the link, but his article reads like he received his talking points straight from Beijing. He made sure to bring up Admiral Harris ethnicity just like Beijing and he even tried to equate that Admiral Harris was running a Unit 731 like operation at Guantanamo Bay. Talk about hyperbole when three terrorists getting waterboarded is equated to 3,000 mostly Chinese being used as human lab rats for biological weapons testing by the Imperial Japanese.
He even made sure to call him names just like Beijing by calling him Dirty Harry in the article. Probably the most ridiculous thing was to claim that Admiral Harris was put in charge of Pacific Command to stop global warming initiatives with China. He even claims Admiral Locklear was replaced “unceremoniously” by Admiral Harris two months after giving a speech about global warming at Harvard. Admiral Locklear had long been scheduled to be replaced by Admiral Harris, but was held up because of the accusations made against Locklear in the Fat Leonard Scandal. Admiral Harris was the Pacific Fleet commander prior to taking command of PACOM making him highly qualified for the job. He was already selected for the PACOM job before Pastreich’s claim of Locklear being “unceremoniously” removed. Plus the Secretary of Defense Ash Carter came out to Hawaii to give remarks during the Change of Command ceremony held for Admiral Locklear. A big ceremony with the Secretary of Defense presiding over it does not seem like something that is “unceremonious” to me.
PEARL HARBOR (May 27, 2015) – U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM) and U.S. Pacific Fleet (USPACFLT) held a joint change of command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. During the dual ceremony, Adm. Scott H. Swift relieved Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr. as the PACFLT commander and Harris assumed command of USPACOM from Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III.
Another incredible claim in Pastreich’s article is that he equates the 12 nautical mile exclusive economic zone around Hawaii with the artificial islands being built in the South China Sea:
“Freedom of navigation” is a catchy way of saying that the U.S. is obligated to send military vessels into the waters surrounding the islands claimed by China in the South China Sea regularly, often intentionally crossing over the 12 nautical mile EEZ (exclusive economic zone).
This is a needless provocation (imagine how the U.S. would respond if Chinese ships regularly sailed close to Hawaii) became central to the planning in the Pacific Command.
First of all it is nothing new for Chinese Navy ships to sail by and stop at Hawaii. So his analogy is not even true. Secondly a better analogy would be if the United States started dredging up a bunch of sand and built an island off the coast of China and militarized it because that is what the Chinese are doing to their neighbors in an attempt to consolidate control over the South China Sea.
Admiral Harris is well known for being tough on China because of this and thus why the Chinese have used everything in their propaganda apparatus to discredit him and it appears Pastreich believes this propaganda. The Chinese government have even asked the US government to fire Admiral Harris. However, history has shown that Admiral Harris has been right about China as they continue to bully their neighbors and intensify building artificial islands in the South China Sea in their attempt to claim the entire body of water.
Here is where out of no where Pastreich goes into an anti-military screed:
American politics is incomprehensible because, at the moment that the military is playing an increasingly central role in the administration of the global system set up by the U.S. after World War II, military officers, whether fighting for justice or indulging in corruption, are completely inaccessible to the population and almost never the subject of investigative journalism.
The guidelines issued to military officers direct them to avoid social exchanges with ordinary citizens, and even with other branches of the government, or with other branches of the military.
This is quite the accusations being made here that the military just likes to indulge in corruption and directs its personnel to avoid social exchanges with civilians or even other branches of the military. This is beyond stupid considering that for officers to get promoted to senior ranks they have to have joint time serving with the other branches of the military. The command Pastreich highlights in his article, PACOM is a joint command with its headquarters at Camp Smith, Hawaii filled with officers, NCOs, and servicemembers from all the branches of the military. As far as interacting with civilians this is actually promoted in the military. For example USFK has its own Good Neighbor program that encourages US servicemembers to help out the surrounding Korean community. The ridiculousness goes on and on in Paestrich’s article such as calling Chelsea Manning a “legend” and Admiral Harris a Chinese “warlord”. Overall Paestrich is extremely uninformed about the US military and how it works.
To me it seems that Admiral Harris is heading to South Korea for the simple reason that he is someone that the President fully trusts to promote his policies on North Korea. Admiral Harris’s command, PACOM was responsible for the executing the “maximum pressure campaign” that many have credited with helping bring North Korea to the negotiating table. Putting Admiral Harris in charge of the US embassy in Seoul, along with putting John Bolton in place as National Security Advisor, and Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State signals to the Kim regime that President Trump has strong advocates of his policies across the US national security apparatus at a time of upcoming tough negotiations with North Korea. Using Occam’s Razor the simplest reason is usually the right one instead of wild global warming, military cabal, military industrial complex, etc. conspiracy theories.
.@USUN should block any Kaesong reopening before North Korea is fully disarmed. Any bank that handles its transactions should face the same fate as ZTE, Bank of Dandong & ABLV. Congress must make itself heard on this.https://t.co/4TPFH8M6q5
A poledancer performs at the Seoul International Poledance Championship (SIPC) in Seoul on May 13, 2018, in this photo provided by the SIPC organizer. (Yonhap)
I believe that the Kim regime and the Moon administration had the timeline for the current Inter-Korean thaw planned out well in advance. The construction of these resort hotels in Wonsan are evidence of this because construction began well before the Winter Olympics when the current thaw began. The Kim regime knew that the Winter Olympics is when the Inter-Korean thaw would begin and have likely timed the completion of these resorts to when sanctions would be expected to be dropped to fill them with South Korean tourists:
This photo carried by North Korea’s daily Rodong Sinmun on its May 14, 2018, edition shows the Wonsan-Kalma tourist resort under construction. Mentioned by the country’s top leader Kim Jong-un in his New Year address, it sits on the North’s eastern coast and is described as an idea place to be linked with other tourist destinations. (Yonhap)
It appears these activists will not be happy until there are comfort women statues in every major city in the world:
A statue of a girl symbolizing former Korean sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War II wears winter clothes, a scarf and a wooly hat in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on Nov. 7, 2016, or “ipdong,” one of the 24 seasonal divisions under the lunar calendar that marks the onset of winter. (Yonhap)
Japanese diplomats in Germany are reportedly trying to obstruct a civic group’s plan to erect a “girl statue” representing wartime sex slavery victims inside a museum in Bonn.
The diplomats recently visited Marianne Pitzen, founder and chief of the Bonn Women’s Museum, following media reports that a girl statue would be installed inside, said Yi Eun-hi, an activist who is leading the project.
Over 200,000 South Korean women were abused as sex slaves by the Japanese army before and during World War II.
At the meeting with Pitzen, the Japanese diplomats insisted that the number of the so-called comfort women is difficult to calculate and that they “volunteered” to serve for Japanese soldiers. [Korea Times]
Kim Jong-un’s favorite lawyer group in South Korea continues its legal attack against the North Korean restaurant workers that defected back in 2016:
This image shows a North Korean group of defectors at the center of a controversy over their defection. (Yonhap)
A liberal lawyers’ group plans to lodge a complaint with prosecutors on Monday against former President Park Geun-hye and her top aides over allegations that Seoul’s intelligence agency engineered a 2016 mass defection by a dozen North Korean restaurant workers.
The Lawyers for a Democratic Society, or Minbyun, said it will lodge the complaint with the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office seeking an investigation into Park, her chief of staff Lee Byung-kee, ex-spy chief Lee Byong-ho and the restaurant manager who allegedly took the workers to the South against the will of some of them.
In April 2016, the manager and 12 female North Korean restaurant workers defected to the South. Park’s government said they came of their own free will, while Pyongyang accused Seoul’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) of luring them for political purposes and demanded their repatriation.
Rumors have persisted that the defection, which occurred just before the parliamentary elections, may be the work of the NIS. Minbyun has demanded the government allow its lawyers a face-to-face meeting with the defectors to verify the allegation.
The story took a new turn last week when a cable TV network aired an interview with the restaurant manager. He said that he had planned to defect with his wife but threatened his employees to come with him at the instruction of NIS agents. [Yonhap]
Here is more from Newsweek:
But last night, on South Korean television, Heo himself admitted that the women were unaware they were being sent to South Korea and that the whole operation had been orchestrated by him and South Korea’s spy agency.
“It was luring and kidnapping, and I know because I took the lead,” Heo told TV channel JTBCon Thursday, as translated by The New York Times.
At least three of the women also appeared on the program with their names withheld and their faces blurred. One of the trio said “I want to go home because living like this is not the life I wanted,” adding, “I miss my parents.” [Newsweek]
If these restaurant workers in fact did not know they were going to South Korea this is a serious incident. However, what we don’t know is what pressure are these workers now under to make these allegations? Is the Moon administration putting them under intense pressure and allowing the North Koreans to contact them with threats against their families back in North Korea?
Remember these restaurant workers could have easily have made statements to the media that they were kidnapped before Moon became President or even over the past year that he was President, but did not. This is only coming out now after the charm offensive was launched by North Korea.
