Former South Chungcheong Gov. An Hee-jung speaks to reporters after arriving at the Seoul Western District Prosecutors’ Office on March 9, 2018, to face questioning over allegations that he sexually assaulted at least two women, one of whom was his secretary. (Yonhap)
It will be interesting to see how strictly this is enforced:
Boarding bus passengers will now be greeted by signs telling them not to bring food and beverages on with them.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government put up signs at every bus stop and bus on Thursday. The signs read, “Let’s not carry coffee or any other food and beverages when boarding the bus. Bus drivers may deny passengers carrying any food or beverages in cups, or other unsanitary and dangerous items to maintain safety and prevent any harm to passengers.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Supposedly peace in our time is about to break out on the Korean peninsula with the announcement of a US-DPRK summit, but you would not know that if you only read the North Korean media:
Even after a historic announcement that U.S. President Donald Trump will meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for the first time as a sitting president, Pyongyang continued Saturday to denounce the U.S. for its sanctions and vowed never to bow to the pressure.
In an opinion piece attributed to an individual writer, North Korea’s state newspaper Rodong Sinmun said Saturday that the regime won’t bow to “military power, sanctions or blockade.”
“We won’t let Americans determine good and evil according to their own ruler and trample upon justice and truth,” it argued.
It denounced the latest sanctions and secondary boycott by the U.S. and said they violated international law and infringed on sovereignty. It also called those disciplinary actions “very dangerous” and said they “might provoke a war.”
Neither the paper nor other North Korean media mentioned that South Korean envoys extended an invitation from Kim Jong-un to President Trump Thursday (local time) in Washington to meet to discuss the regime’s nuclear weapons programs and that Trump accepted it. [Yonhap]
This likely means that the state controlled media in North Korea will continue to take a hardline against the US until it is clear that the upcoming summit is going to lead to the concessions they want.
Here is a strange sexual assault story involving a Japanese woman running a boarding house in Hawaii:
A Manoa woman who recruited exchange students from Japan raped one of her clients as many as 10 times while he was bedridden with an injury, police allege in court documents.
Police said she also threatened the victim, a 16-year-old Japanese national, if he went to authorities, saying she’d accuse him of rape if he reported her.
The suspect has been identified as 36-year-old Rika Shimizu.
She’s been indicted on five counts of second-degree sex assault and four counts of fourth-degree sex assault. She remains in custody on $600,000 bail. [Hawaii News Now]
South Korean ice sledge hockey captain Han Min-su climbs up the slope with the Paralympic torch on his back during the opening ceremony of the PyeongChang Winter Paralympic Games at the Olympic Stadium in PyeongChang, Gangwon Province, on March 9, 2018. (Yonhap)
The 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade has unfortunately lost another soldier yesterday:
Soldiers from E Company, 2-1 Air Defense Artillery Battalion stand in a formation last month at Camp Carroll, South Korea. MONIK PHAN/U.S. ARMY PHOTO
A soldier assigned to the 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade was found dead Friday at Camp Carroll, a U.S. base south of Seoul, the military said.
The cause of death is under investigation, and the soldier’s name is being withheld until 24 hours after family is notified, according to the brigade’s public affairs office.
I think before anyone gets to critical or excited about yesterday’s announcement that President Trump plans to meet Kim Jong-un by May, first lets see if in fact it happens. A lot can happen over the next two months to where this does not happen. However, if it does happen what does each side hope to get out of this US-DPRK summit? Oh Young-jin from the Korea Times provides his viewpoint in the below article that President Trump is essentially being a showman trying to win a Nobel Peace Prize:
But what prompted Rocket Man to offer an invitation and the Dotard to take it?
There can be many circumstances in play for the summit, making but only one fundamental and undeniable fact ― a meeting of their mutual interests.
From Kim Jong-un’s perspective, a meeting with Trump would be of great benefit instantly for a change of air, so to speak. There is much speculation, some well thought out, that the U.S. might preemptively strike Pyongyang to stop it from making nuclear-armed intercontinental missiles that can hit the U.S. Then there are international sanctions that are putting a stranglehold on the impoverished nation.
Plus, if the North has not mastered its weapons of mass destruction, it is very close to it. Last November, it declared it had become a nuclear weapon state. Meeting Trump would buy time in the lead-up to May while the summit is being prepared and for months or so in the post-summit afterglow.
Even if the two reach major agreement ― renunciation of nuclear weapons or a return to the global nuclear regimes such as rejoining the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty ― the North would have an option of procrastinating.
That way, Kim would outlast Trump, who has three years left in office, with a lot of domestic challenges ahead. If Trump manages to get reelected, Kim might become mellower and not likely dare wage a potential nuclear war. All he would have to do is prepare for the next U.S. president.
For Trump, the summit would be an awesome ego trip ― showing the world and detractors that after all he is a great politician and statesman that they have failed to recognize.
Trump also could mock his detractors by saying his negotiating skills, as shown in his “The Art of the Deal,” had paid off in dealing with the North. He would set out to do what Bill Clinton, the husband of his nemesis Hillary Rodham Clinton, had failed to do ― go to Pyongyang to seal the denuclearization deal.
Perhaps a Nobel Peace Prize would cap his presidency through a “kind” of deal with the North. That would make him equal to Barack Obama, Trump’s Democratic predecessor who won the Nobel Prize at the start of his presidency. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but President Trump may be a showman, but I would be surprised if he agrees to anything that does not lead to the denuclearization of North Korea during his Presidency. I haven’t seen any indication that the Trump administration wants to mortgage this problem off to someone else like prior Presidents have done.
Congressman Ed Royce who has been heavily involved with legislation involving North Korea believes the sanctions are working and President Trump needs to break the cycle of using talks to extract concessions and buy time:
Republican Rep. Ed Royce of California, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement after the announcement, “Kim Jong-un’s desire to talk shows sanctions the administration has implemented are starting to work.”
Royce said that it is important to break the cycle of the North Korean regime using talks to extract concessions and buy time, adding, “The United States and South Korea must stand shoulder-to-shoulder in applying the sustained pressure needed to peacefully end this threat. And Beijing must do its part.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
If North Korea agrees to a Libya like denuclearization and ending of their ICBM program everyone will assuredly welcome that. With that said I would also be very surprised if North Korea agreed to full denuclearization. As I have stated before the Kim regime would likely like to get a freeze deal signed in return for reopening the Kaesong Industrial Park and the joint tourism tours with South Korea that would effectively end sanctions against them. The freeze deal would continue the cycle of the Kim regime getting major concessions for little to nothing in return since they can restart their nuclear and ICBM programs at a time of their choosing like they have done with past deals.
ROK Drop favorite Dr. Andrei Lankov believes the Kim regime will negotiate for more time just like Congressman Royce warns about:
One expert told NK News that Thursday’s news suggests that this policy has, for the time being, “worked.”
“His pressure policy has succeeded in stopping the North Korean missile program, and basically pushed them to the negotiating table,” said Andrei Lankov, director of the Korea Risk Group, which owns and operates NK News.
“However, this does not mean this policy will keep working,” he warned. “Trump is likely to push for greater concessions, and there are limits of how hard he can push.”
“Most likely the North Koreans are going to win time, but if the U.S. starts pushing too hard for denuclearization Trump won’t get what he wants and it might backfire.” [NK News]
So ultimately this summit may not lead to anything, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t helpful to Trump’s goal of denuclearization. In the future if military action is taken, a summit with Kim Jong-un can be pointed to as one more thing the Trump administration has done to peacefully resolve the nuclear issue.
This sounds like another ploy to smear people connected to the Park administration disliked by the South Korean left:
Top military officials seriously considered suppressing a nationwide candlelight vigil by force after former President Park Geun-hye was impeached by the National Assembly in late 2016, the Center for Military Human Rights Korea (CMHRK) claimed Thursday.
Citing sources in the military, the CMHRK said senior officials, including Major General Koo Hong-mo, discussed in detail scenarios of quelling millions of street protesters across the nation.
“It is very shocking that they considered using military forces to quell the peaceful protest,” the center said. “The military mapped out a plan to trample on citizens with guns and swords in order to suck up to those in power like they did 40 years ago in Gwangju. It is tantamount to a rebellion conspiracy.”
If the Constitutional Court had dismissed the Assembly’s impeachment motion, the officials would have put that plan into action, according to the center. But in March 2017, the court ruled unanimously to remove the former president from office. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but does anyone really think the ROK Army was going to attack candlelight protesters with swords? Only a leftist living in a fantasy land would think that. If anything there was probably plans being made to assist the riot police with crowd control not a Gwangju style military action that this is being made out to be.
A protester holds placards that read “Arrest Lee Myung-bak” in front of the residence of former President Lee Myung-bak in Seoul’s Gangnam Ward on March 6, 2018. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office subpoenaed Lee to come to the office for questioning as a suspect on March 14 over a string of suspicions of bribery and other irregularities. (Yonhap)
