I am glad to see someone else is bringing up the long held viewpoint I have shared in regards to North Korean participation in the Olympics:
Bruce Klingner
In the 1960s through the ‘80s, the international community was appalled by South Africa’s apartheid regime and thus banned the country from participating in Olympics.
But in response to North Korea’s far more egregious human rights violations—which the United Nations has ruled to be “crimes against humanity”—the world allows and even encourages Pyongyang to participate.
Why the double standard?
The international community has long tried, and failed, to moderate North Korean behavior and bring about political and economic reform by asking Pyongyang to participate in sporting and other cultural events. Yet with each new attempt, optimists breathlessly anticipate that this time, the appeasement will work.
The 2000 Sydney Olympics was one such example. Taking place only six months after the historic first inter-Korean summit, the sight of North and South Korean athletes walking together behind a non-national unification flag was uplifting and a sign of hope.
Yet behind the scenes, North Korea had demanded and received a secret payment from Seoul, along with payment for the North’s uniforms, and agreement that the North’s delegation would not be outnumbered by the South’s. This prevented many South Korean athletes and coaches from marching into the stadium as part of the Korean entourage.
An inspiring sight to be sure, but as with visits by symphonies and other cultural and sporting envoys, this gesture failed to alter North Korea’s policies and real-world behavior.
Similarly, other attempts at sports diplomacy at events in South Korea—including the 2002 Asian Games, the 2003 University Games, the 2005 Asian Athletics Championship, and the 2014 Asian Games—all failed to improve inter-Korean relations. In 1987, Pyongyang downed a civilian airliner in an attempt to disrupt the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
But as the world seeks to isolate and pressure North Korea for its repeated violations of United Nations resolutions, it should ask itself: Why is Pyongyang still allowed to participate in the Olympics, but South Africa was shunned? [Bruce Klingner]
You can read much more at the link, but most of the world and the IOC fought to keep Apartheid South Africa out of the Olympics, but North Korea a country with a far worse human rights record and a threat to world peace has South Korea and the IOC literally begging them to participate.
This double standard is something that I wish President Trump would Tweet about.
This photo taken from North Korea’s Central TV Station on Jan. 4, 2018, shows Pyongyangites holding a mass rally at Kim Il-sung Square to express their resolution to carry out the important tasks advanced by respected leader Kim Jong-un in his New Year’s Day address. (Yonhap)
Another example of an article to keep in mind when someone tells you that South Korea is an ultra conservative country:
Top left: The entrance to the adult shop N.19 located in Garosu-gil in Gangnam District, southern Seoul. From top right: Condoms are neatly arranged at N.19 in a wide variety. Costumes on display on the fourth-floor “special nights” section of N.19. [SHIN IN-SEOP]Two months ago, work began on a four-story retail shop in Garosugil, the trendy neighborhood in Sinsa District, southern Seoul, with no clue as to what it would sell. It looked like a show room for a global fashion brand.
The store opened in November and one step inside makes clear what kind of store it is: a purveyor of what used to be called marital aids, now known as sex toys.
A huge buzz began over N.19, as the store is called, as no sex shop in Seoul has ever been this big.
In the past, sex shops in Korea were hidden in shadowy alleys with windows covered from the inside so passersby couldn’t peek inside. There have been attempts to sell sex toys with fresh marketing strategies, but most were online. A video clip of N.19’s fancy interior went viral on social media in early December, and the number of visitors soared. (….)
Last year alone, more than 10 sex shops with modern, casual atmospheres opened in the Hongdae and Itaewon areas.
Retail specialists say young consumers are more open to discussions of sex and not embarrassed to see adult stores on main streets. It’s also a trend in the retail industry to open large stores that specialize in one product category. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
U.S. President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Tuesday the purpose of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s New Year address was to “try to drive a wedge” between Seoul and Washington.
That assessment of Kim’s 40-minute speech was in stark contrast to that of the Blue House. President Moon Jae-in’s Spokesman Park Soo-hyun said Monday his office “welcomed” Kim’s overture about sending a delegation to the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, set to kick off next month in Gangwon.
Park made no mention of Kim’s threatening the United States with a nuclear attack in the address.
U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said Tuesday in New York that her country is “not going to recognize” or “acknowledge” any talks other countries have with the North unless the regime agrees to foreswear its nuclear weapons program.
Asked by Greta Van Susteren, a contributor for the Voice of America (VOA), about Kim’s Olympic gesture to South Korea, McMaster replied: “Anybody who thought that the speech was reassuring was drinking too much champagne over the holidays…..he is building a hair-trigger nuclear force that can place the world at risk.”
McMaster continued that it was “pretty clear” Kim was trying to separate Seoul and Washington, but, “Of course, that’s not going [to] happen. His provocative actions, what he’s been doing, is driving our alliances closer together.”
The security adviser explained that the “only reason” why North Korea was developing weapons was to “coerce or blackmail or extort the United States to leave the peninsula and Northeast Asia.”
Beyond that, he continued, it wants to unify the two Koreas under its own “failed system.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but there is a false belief that North Korea is solely pursuing nuclear weapons for regime survival when the regime has survived just fine for decades with the threat of a massive artillery strike on Seoul. It is very arguable that the ultimate goal of the North’s nuclear weapons program is to co-opt the ROK into a confederation on North Korean terms.
A US Army general is in trouble for disrespecting a Congressional staffer:
The U.S. Army says “appropriate administrative action” has been taken against a two-star general faulted for mistreating a congressional staffer, but the service refused to specify the steps it took against Maj. Gen. Ryan Gonsalves.
“The matter is now closed,” Army spokeswoman April Cunningham said in a statement.
Gonsalves, who served as commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Infantry Division until August, had been in line for a promotion. In July, he was nominated by the Army for a third star, but the White House rescinded the nomination on Nov. 27, after an inspector general’s probe.
The allegations against Gonsalves centered on complaints that he failed to treat a female congressional staffer with “dignity and respect” during an October 2016 meeting at his Fort Carson headquarters. [Stars & Stripes]
So what was the horrible thing that MG Gonsalves did? He called a Congressional staffer “sweetheart”:
The IG says it was able to substantiate an accusation that Gonsalves called the congressional staffer “sweetheart” during a meeting about the 4th Infantry Division’s mission, which amounted to a violation of Army command policy.
The IG complaint also said that Gonsalves took issue with the staffer’s youth and told her she should take detailed notes on why the military needed funding “since she was a Democrat and did not believe in funding the military,” the IG report said.
Lt. Gen. Michael Bills (L), the new commander of the U.S. Eighth Army, receives the Eighth Army flag from his predecessor Lt. Gen. Thomas Vandal during a ceremony at Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, on Jan. 5, 2018, to mark his inauguration and his predecessor’s departure. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)
An illustration of the KPLO’s planned trajectory (provided by Korea Aerospace Research Institute)
A South Korean orbiter to be launched toward the moon in 2020 will be carried on a rocket by the private US aerospace manufacturer SpaceX. “The US company SpaceX has been selected to carry out the scheduled launch of the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) in 2020, and a launch contract was signed on Dec. 15,” the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) announced on Dec. 18.
SpaceX and India’s Antrix took part in the overseas bidding to carry out the launch, with KARI selecting SpaceX as a priority negotiation candidate. The final launch contract is determined through negotiations. SpaceX entered the bidding with its Falcon 9 rocket, a launch vehicle weighing 549 tons and measuring 70 meters in length and 3.7 meters in external diameter with a two-stage liquid-propelled engine that is capable of carrying 22.8 tons into low earth orbit, 8.3 tons into geostationary transfer orbit, and 4 tons into Mars transfer orbit. South Korea’s lunar orbiter weighs approximate 550 kg.
For the first stage of its lunar exploration effort, KARI plans to cooperate internationally with the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on development and operation of the KPLO and establish the necessary core technology and an independent base for lunar exploration. The KPLO is to carry a payload of six items, including a domestically developed high-resolution camera, wide-angle polarimetric camera, lunar gamma ray spectrometer, lunar magnetic field scanner, and space internet, along with a shadow camera developed by NASA. [Hankyoreh]
