It looks like the upcoming Key Resolve exercise will be delayed if North Korea does not cause any more provocations:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed Thursday to delay their countries’ regular joint military exercises during the Winter Olympic Games to be held here next month.

The agreement came in a telephone conversation between the two leaders, according to the South Korean presidential office Cheong Wa Dae.

The tentative agreement came at a request from the South Korean leader.

“I believe it would greatly help ensure the success of the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games if you could express an intention to delay joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises during the Olympics in case the North does not make any more provocations,” Moon was quoted as telling Trump.

The U.S. president agreed, saying Moon may tell North Korea that there will be no military exercises during the Olympics, according to Cheong Wa Dae.

In a press release, the White House confirmed the leaders agreed to “de-conflict the Olympics and our military exercises so that United States and Republic of Korea forces can focus on ensuring the security of the Games.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the Olympics are in February and the Key Resolve exercise is typically executed in March so it was not like both events were overlapping.  However, preparations and personnel movements do happen in February and a shift of Key Resolve will provide the ROK military more time to focus on Olympic security before executing the exercise.

I guess the big question becomes what happens if North Korea commits a provocation like a missile test? Does Key Resolve get executed at the original time?  I would not be surprised if North Korea does a more ambiguous provocation like a space launch just to create tension in the US-ROK alliance over what to do in response.

Here is what the USFK commander General Brooks had to say about North Korea’s recent overtures:

The commanding general of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) on Thursday stressed the importance of combat readiness and unity among regional powers to cope with North Korea’s recent peace offensive.

“We can be generally pleased by the recent overtures that happened. But we must keep our expectations at the appropriate level,” Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, who leads the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), said at a lecture in Seoul.

He was referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s New Year’s Day statement that his country is willing to join the Winter Olympics that will open in the South Korean town of PyeongChang next month. He proposed immediate inter-Korean dialogue to discuss the issue.

In a follow-up move, the two Koreas reconnected a cross-border communication channel Wednesday, two years after it was severed, and are preparing to hold high-level talks.

It represents Pyongyang’s “sincere” pursuit of reconciliation, but it may be in line with its typical strategy to keep apart five countries — South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia — aimed at weakening their power against the regime trying to win the status of a “nuclear capable” nation.

“We can’t ignore that reality,” the command emphasized during the session at Seoul Cyber University, organized by the National Unification Advisory Council, a presidential consultative body mainly on long-term inter-Korean ties.

In the face of the North’s peace gesture, he said, it’s important for South Korea and the U.S. to maintain an “ironclad and razor sharp” alliance and joint combat readiness in the event that it leads to a “negative outcome, not a positive outcome.”

He likened North Korea to the center of a palm and the five regional powers to five fingers, showing his right hand.

The North wants these five fingers to be separated but they should operate in “harmony and closely connected to one another” as a fist to create necessary pressure to cause a change in its course, he added. [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I think the problem with General Brooks analogy is that two of the fingers have no intention of being part of the fist, Russia and China.  It is arguable they share the same strategic objective of the Kim regime to separate the US from the ROK.

Every year there are overtures to the South that are perceived as harbingers of changed regime behavior. But we are still waiting for Godot. https://t.co/jfWLWdWE3I

— Bruce Klingner (@BruceKlingner) January 4, 2018

President Moon Jae-in (C, rear) meets two victims of sexual enslavement by the Japanese military during World War II to have lunch with them at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae on Jan. 4, 2018, in this photo released by his office. Moon reiterated his stance that a 2015 deal between Seoul and Tokyo on ending their longstanding dispute over former wartime sex slaves is defective but said the incumbent government may still work with the agreement to resolve the issue. (Yonhap)

It looks like the US media may be misinterpreting whatever information was leaked to them about an impending North Korea ICBM test:

South Korea’s defense authorities said Thursday there has been no indication of an imminent missile test by North Korea, responding to U.S. news reports that the secretive nation appears to be preparing to fire another intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

“There is no activity that would lead to an assessment that a missile provocation by North Korea is imminent,” Army Col. Roh Jae-cheon, spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a press briefing.

He pointed out, however, that it’s possible for the North to press ahead with a missile provocation anytime, adding South Korea and the United States are closely monitoring related situations.

Earlier this week, CBS News reported that the North has resumed its missile activity at the same site it shot an ICBM in November.

Newsweek also quoted U.S. officials as saying a new missile test may come as soon as later this week or next week.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Via a reader tip comes an interesting article in The Diplomat that discusses how a failed North Korean missile test in April 2017 came crashing down on a North Korean city:

What happens when a North Korean ballistic missile test fails in flight and explodes in a populated area? On April 28, 2017, North Korea launched a single Hwasong-12/KN17 intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) from Pukchang Airfield in South Pyongan Province (the Korean People’s Army’s Air and Anti-Air Force Unit 447 in Ryongak-dong, Sunchon City, to be more precise). That missile failed shortly after launch and crashed in the Chongsin-dong, in North Korean city of Tokchon, causing considerable damage to a complex of industrial or agricultural buildings.

According to a U.S. government source with knowledge of North Korea’s weapons programs who spoke to The Diplomat, the missile’s first stage engines failed after approximately one minute of powered flight, resulting in catastrophic failure. The missile never flew higher than approximately 70 kilometers. The location of the missile’s eventual impact was revealed exclusively to The Diplomat and evidence of the incident can be independently corroborated in commercially available satellite imagery from April and May 2017.

The April 28 failure merits close analysis, especially as North Korea continues to carry out flight-testing of its various ballistic missile platforms from a range of new test sites. In 2017, North Korea has introduced new sites for missile testing, arguably to demonstrate the flexibility of its Strategic Rocket Force. It has even carried out ballistic missile launches from a restricted area at Pyongyang’s Sunan Airport, which also serves as the country’s primary civil aviation facility and the entrypoint for most non-Chinese foreign visitors to North Korea. The potential for similar accidents occurring over Pyongyang, the country’s capital, or other populated regions remains high, especially with untested systems.

These risks may even serve to explain why North Korea chose to use the seaside town of Sinpo as its initial test site for the first two failed Hwasong-12 launches in April. An early in-flight failure over the sea would have a lower chance of striking any human infrastructure — certainly populated urban areas. However, since April, North Korea has not carried out any further ballistic missile testing from Sinpo (with the exception of four submarine-launched ballistic missile ejection tests).  [The Diplomat]

I recommend reading the whole thing at the link to include viewing the interesting satellite imagery.

This is just another example that South Korea does not have freedom of speech because of its libel laws:

“T,” a Liberian-born resident of Gyeonggi Province married to a South Korean, had an unpleasant experience while riding a bus in Nov. 2016. The passenger in the seat next to her, a man in his sixties surnamed Kim, began harassing T. When passengers tried to stop him, Kim pointed at T and said, “It’s illegal for this girl to be here.” T was not an undocumented foreigner, but a South Korean resident with an F6 (marriage) visa. In Kim’s eyes, however, all foreigners were seen as undocumented migrant workers. T brought her experience up during the Q&A session at a symposium held that Nov. 30 by the Gyeonggi Institute of Research and Development for Migrants’ Human Rights on the topic of racial discrimination and policy measures for its reduction.

One of the symposium’s discussants, attorney Choi Jeong-gyu of the law firm Wongok, took an interest in T’s story.  Choi decided to represent T in a defamation complaint against Kim. It wasn’t easy: Kim kept denying all charges during the police questioning stages, and while the police recognized the incident as a case of harassment in a crowded public setting according to the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment, etc., of Sexual Crimes, they forwarded the case to prosecutors with a recommendation not to press defamation charges. However, in April, the prosecutors delivered Kim for trial on charges of both harassment and defamation.

Judge Hon. Kim Do-hyeong of the eighth criminal division of Suwon District Court’s Ansan branch found Kim guilty on both charges last May and sentenced him to a fine of 2 million won (US$1,840). “In November 2016, the defendant boarded a bus and engaged in harassment while talking to the victim, who was sitting next to him,” the court concluded. “When stopped by other passengers, he declared that it was ‘illegal for this girl to be here,’ and he continued insulting the victim with abusive language even after disembarking.”  [Hankyoreh]

You can read more at the link, but this guy was clearly a jerk for harassing this woman minding her own business on the bus.

Below is a fascinating read in the Nikkei Asian Review about how the Kim regime has long claimed that Northeastern China should be ceded to North Korea:

Back in May 2000, Kim Jong Il made his first trip to China as North Korea’s top leader. An informal visit, it was kept under wraps until Kim, the father of North Korea’s current leader, returned to Pyongyang.

Kim had a big request for Jiang Zemin, then China’s president.

“I am preparing for an inspection of the northeast region [of China],” Kim told Jiang. “Could you make arrangements for it?”

Jiang’s face contorted into a quizzical expression. The word Kim used was the Korean equivalent of shicha, a Chinese term meaning inspection. Inspections are what leaders conduct to see how their own common people are doing.

Kim’s use of inspection not only contradicted reality, it was disrespectful to China.

Jiang told Kim in a calm manner, “In your case, you mean visit, correct?”

“No,” Kim snapped back immediately. “It is an inspection. My father [Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s first leader] told me that the entire ‘northeast’ belongs to us.”

Stunned by Kim’s response, Jiang asked the North Korean leader, “How can the ‘northeast’ be all yours?”

“This is not my father’s view,” Kim said. “This is a remark made by Chairman Mao Zedong,” the founding father of the People’s Republic of China.

Again, Jiang was flabbergasted. This time, he summoned an official from the Communist Party’s International Liaison Department and ordered him to check whether Mao had actually made such a remark in the past.

The official reported back to Jiang the following afternoon, confirming Mao’s remarks.  [Nikkei Asian Review]

You can read the rest at the link, but Mao made a comment to Kim Il-sung how prior Korean dynasties had been pushed out of Northeast China to south of the Yalu River by past Chinese emperors.  Kim Il-sung used that comment to justify North Korea being ceded a chunk of Northeast China which Chinese leaders over the years have scoffed at to include when Kim Jong-il brought it up.  It is unclear if the current North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shares such delusions of grandeur, but considering that his grandfather and father believed in it, I would not be surprised if Kim Jong-un doesn’t bring up the issue again at some point with China as well.

This makes me wonder if anywhere else would charge an ambulance driver for running a red light while trying to get an infant to the hospital?:

The driver of an ambulance carrying an infant suffering a possible medical emergency faces prosecution for ignoring traffic lights after the vehicle and an SUV collided.

The incident happened about 2 a.m. on January 1 at an intersection south of Olympic Bridge in Songpa-gu, Seoul. The ambulance, with its siren sounding, was coming from North Chungcheong Province and heading to Seoul Asan Hospital. It was also carrying the three-month-old child’s parents and a nurse. The infant was in a critical condition with fluid on the lungs.

The ambulance ran a red light before the collision with the SUV. Police said the SUV driver’s blood-alcohol level was 0.12 percent, enough for license revocation. No one was seriously injured in the crash.

Songpa police booked both drivers without arrest ― the ambulance driver for ignoring the traffic light and the SUV driver for driving under the influence of alcohol.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but long time residents in Korea are probably used to seeing how few cars bother to get out of the way of ambulances with their warning sirens and lights on as well.

This is a positive step forward – and something that the North can always take away (again) to demonstrate its… https://t.co/giIepYGAa1

— tomcoyner (@tomcoyner) January 3, 2018