I do find it interesting that no one ever seems to protest ROK military training areas:
Rodriguez Range
The contentious Rodriguez Live Fire Complex in Pocheon, Gyeonggi, a tactical training area for the American army near the border with North Korea, was brought up in a recent high-level military conference between Seoul and Washington as nearby residents have complained of noise and safety concerns.
U.S. military officers worry that the complex, a 3,390-acre training zone managed by the 8th U.S. Army, could become the next “hot potato” after the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile shield in Seongju County, North Gyeongsang, a senior South Korean government official told JoongAng Ilbo Sunday on the condition of anonymity.
The field, which is the U.S. military’s largest shooting complex in Asia, was among the main agenda items discussed at the annual Military Committee Meeting between Jeong Kyeong-doo, chairman of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, and his U.S. counterpart, Joseph Dunford, last Friday. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read the rest at the link, but Rodriguez Range could close tomorrow and the THAAD battery could redeploy back to the United States and the leftists will still find “hot potato” issues to bash USFK with. Remember these are the same people who created a hot potato issue by claiming a USFK mortician polluted the Han River and exposed everyone in Seoul to cancer. They even convinced most people in Korea that eating US-beef would kill them.
The bottom line is that the Korean left will never be happy until USFK is gone. That is there ultimate goal with sensationalizing every “hot potato” issue.
Chinese police arrested several North Koreans dispatched to Beijing on suspicion of plotting to murder Kim Jong Un’s 22-year-old nephew, South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported.
Two of seven North Korean agents were arrested over the alleged plot to kill Kim Han Sol, whose father Kim Jong Nam was assassinated in Malaysia earlier this year, the newspaper said, citing an unidentified person familiar with North Korean issues.
Some agents are being interrogated in special facilities on the outskirts of Beijing, the paper said, without elaborating on whether the other five were arrested. China’s foreign ministry didn’t immediately respond to a faxed request for comment. [Bloomberg]
You can read more at the link, but if this plot was broken up in China it leads me to believe that Kim Han-sol must be in hiding in China under Chinese protection.
Like I have said before I will believe it when I see the OPCON transfer happen:
South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo, right, shakes hands with U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis before a joint press conference in Seoul Saturday. [YONHAP]The Moon Jae-in administration’s ambition to regain wartime operational control from the United States has hit a snag, as the latest security consultation by U.S. and Korean defense chiefs failed to approve a restructuring plan for the combined forces.
Defense Minister Song Young-moo and U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis attended an annual Security Consultative Meeting on Saturday in Seoul, accompanied by top military officials. North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats, and other key issues concerning the Korea-U.S. alliance, were discussed.
Following the discussion, the 49th of its kind, a joint communique was issued. Song and Mattis also addressed reporters in a press conference.
According to the joint communique, Song and Mattis pledged to work together to implement an agreement made in June by Moon and U.S. President Donald Trump to “enable the expeditious conditions-based transfer of wartime operational control.”
But conspicuously missing from the communique was the much-anticipated approval of a plan for a new Combined Forces Command to oversee Korean and U.S. troops on the peninsula after the transfer. Song and Mattis were updated on the draft organization of the future Combined Forced Command and decided to continue to refine the draft through combined exercises and certifications, it said.
Earlier this month, the Ministry of National Defense told the National Assembly that the structure of a future combined forces would be discussed and approved at the Song-Mattis meeting. According to the draft, a Korean general would act as chief commander of the combined troops and an American general was to serve as deputy commander. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but the talk of an OPCON transfer has been going on for many years due to Korean governmental delay games. You can read more about the OPCON transfer at the below link:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspects Pyongyang Cosmetics Factory in this photo released by the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency on Oct. 29, 2017. (Yonhap)
South Korean singer and actress Son Dam-bi poses for the camera during a publicity event for a cable channel program in Seoul on Oct. 27, 2017. (Yonhap)
The Love Boat has nothing on this British submariners:
Nine British servicemen have been thrown off a nuclear submarine at the centre of a sex probe, after testing positive for cocaine while on duty.
In one of the worst scandals to hit the Navy, the crew from HMS Vigilant – which carries the Trident nuclear deterrent – were sent home and kicked out of the service after the class A drug was found in their blood.
They are alleged to have had drug-fuelled parties while the submarine was docked in the US to pick up nuclear warheads. One man is said to have had sex with a prostitute in a swimming pool.
It can also be revealed that the submarine’s second-in-command, Lieutenant Commander Michael Seal, 36, has been removed amid claims of an extra-marital affair with a female engineering officer – Lieutenant Hannah Litchfield, 27. She too has been taken off the vessel.
The submarine was already embroiled in controversy over an alleged affair between its captain, Commander Stuart Armstrong, 41, and Sub-Lieutenant Rebecca Edwards, 25. Again, both have been removed from duty on board. [Daily Mail]
Considering all the recent earthquakes and landslides at Punggye-ri these Chinese scientists are probably correct:
Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geology and Geophysics briefed a North Korean delegation in Beijing late last month on the threat of an implosion at the mountainous Punggye-ri nuclear facility, about 80km from China’s border.
A day after North Korea said it detonated a hydrogen bomb at the Punggye-ri facility on September 3, a senior Chinese nuclear scientist warned that future tests at the facility could blow the top off the mountain, causing a massive collapse. The scientist said radioactive waste could bleed from cracks or holes at the site and be blown across the border.
Two days after the briefing in Beijing, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho announced suddenly at the United Nations in New York that Pyongyang might consider detonating a “most powerful” hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean. (………)
A researcher studying the radioactive risk from the North Korean nuclear programme at Peking University said China could no longer tolerate another land-based explosion.
“China cannot sit and wait until the site implodes. Our instruments can detect nuclear fallout when it arrives, but it will be too late by then. There will be public panic and anger at the government for not taking action,” the researcher said.
“Maybe the North Koreans themselves have realised that the site cannot take another blow. If they still want to do it, they have to do it somewhere else.” [South China Morning Post]
“I didn’t mean to do anything offensive." –#Gurriel. Yes, because we all know that doing this to an Asian is a universal sign of respect. pic.twitter.com/tfFO9ebyQU
