Staff Sgts. Hah Jae-hun (L), who lost both of his legs in a land mine explosion blamed on North Korea during a search operation inside the Demilitarized Zone on Aug. 4, 2015, and Kim Jeong-won, who also lost one of his legs, pose in front of the “Peace Foot” statue during a ceremony to mark the 2nd anniversary of the North’s attack in Paju, north of Seoul, on Aug. 4, 2017. Three land mines were allegedly buried by North Korean soldiers. (Yonhap)
North Korea’s propaganda department needs to come up with a new term to describe the destruction of the United States. The “Sea of Fire” term has been quite over used by now:
Nuclear action or sanctions taken by Washington against Pyongyang will lead to a “sea of fire” engulfing the U.S. mainland, a North Korean newspaper said in its Sunday edition printed before the United Nations’ adoption of a new sanctions resolution against the reclusive country.
“The day the U.S. dares tease our nation with a nuclear rod and sanctions, the mainland U.S. will be catapulted into an unimaginable sea of fire,” the North’s ruling-party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said in an article.
The article was printed as the U.N. Security Council adopted its Resolution 2371. However, the piece could still portend North Korea’s fierce reaction to come over the international sanctions drafted by the United States.
In the article titled “North Korea should reverse its policy,” the mouthpiece newspaper for the regime said, “Besides completely dumping its frayed hostile policy toward North Korea, the only choice for the U.S is self-destruction.
“The more the Trump gang strives to break out of today’s quagmire, the more our military and people get aroused, giving more reasons for the (North Korean) republic to own nuclear weapons,” the comment also said.
“A strong war deterrence is an essential strategic choice of national defense for our people who went through a horrendous war.” [Yonhap]
By the way the sanctions ban North Korean exports of coal, iron and iron ore and restrict the overseas sales of lead, seafood and labor. Just like all the past resolutions these sanctions are only as good as they are enforced and I am very skeptical that China and Russia will strongly enforce them.
RAND researcher Bruce Bennett explains why South Korea needs the THAAD missile defense system:
Bruce Bennett
There were many reasons for the deployment of THAAD in Seongju, the location chosen for the THAAD battery in South Korea. One leading reason: In a major Korean conflict, tens of thousands of U.S. military personnel would deploy to Korea over time largely through the Pusan port area in southeastern Korea. They would be most vulnerable to a North Korean nuclear weapon attack while in the port area and while assembling to depart from Pusan. Not protecting exposed military personnel from the North Korean ballistic missile and nuclear weapon threat would be irresponsible, the United States concluded.
By placing THAAD in Seongju, the U.S. can also attempt to protect the large South Korean urban areas of Pusan, Kwangju, Pohang, and Daegu, as well as many other cities in the southern part of South Korea. During a U.S. military deployment to protect South Korea, a North Korean nuclear weapon detonating on Pusan might kill thousands of U.S. military personnel arriving in Pusan, but it could also kill a 100,000 or so South Koreans. With this THAAD placement, the United States is trying to prevent such an outcome. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but one of the arguments often used by anti-THAAD activists is that the system is there to protect US troops not Koreans. This argument has always been one of the stupidest considering that if a missile with a nuclear weapon is fired at a US military base the explosion and destruction is not limited to the US military base; the whole city would be destroyed.
This makes me wonder how long he has been doing this to other actresses?:
A scene from “Moebius”
Influential filmmaker Kim Ki-duk is Korean prosecutors’ latest target after an actress accused him of sexually abusing her while filming several years ago.
The actress, 41, whose name was withheld, but known to have worked in Kim’s film “Moebius” (2013), recently sued him through the Seoul Central Prosecutors’ Office. Prosecutors then launched an investigation, according to reports Thursday.
The actress didn’t sue until recently because she thought her career could be jeopardized. After she quit acting early this year, she told the Federation of Korea Movie Workers’ Union of the incident and sued Kim.
She said Kim slapped her during the filming in March 2013 to “help her get in the mood” and forced her to perform a sex scene in a way that wasn’t in the script. Embarrassed, she quit the role.
The movie’s production staff supported her claim. The union quoted the witnesses as saying Kim slapped the actress “three times” and demanded she grope her co-star’s penis while shooting the scene. She originally believed a replica would be used. She argued with Kim over the scene but eventually gave in. [Korea Times]
I tend to think that Kim Jong-un is probably sleeping very well considering he is nearing his strategic goal of obtaining a nuclear weapon with a reliable delivery system. Once this goal is achieved he pretty much guarantees himself the ability to prevent outside regime change. Additionally the whole world is not against North Korea, they have enough partners internationally that they continue to bring in enough revenue and components to advance their nuclear and weapons programs:
Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster
McMaster told MSNBC in an interview, “I think he should not be [sleeping well] because he has the whole world against him… He’s isolated on this.”
He described North Korea’s missiles as a “grave threat” but declined to confirm that the Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile the North tested recently can reach New York. “I’m not going to confirm it,” McMaster said. “But as I mentioned, really, whether it could reach San Francisco or Pittsburgh or Washington — how much does that matter, right? It’s a grave threat.”
He added it is intolerable for North Korea have nuclear weapons that could threaten the U.S., and all options including a military option should be on the table.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters the previous day that the U.S. is willing to hold talks with the regime and added, “We do not seek regime change.”
But in an interview with the Wall Street Journal the same day, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence ruled out direct talks. The U.S.’ strategy doesn’t involve “engaging North Korea directly,” he said.
The shambolic Trump administration has frequently made it difficult to discern any clear line in the fog of obfuscation and braggadocio that emerges from it.
McMaster, an Army lieutenant general, is seen by some in the U.S. mainstream media as the most rational in the national security team and is thought to stand his ground against President Donald Trump if necessary. [Chosun Ilbo]
By the way the past week has had a lot of White House intrigue involving H.R. McMaster. Factions in the White House are unhappy that McMaster has been cleaning house in the National Security Council. He even fired a staffer named Ezra Cohen-Watnick that an article last month in the Atlantic proclaimed him as, ‘The Man McMaster Couldn’t Fire.’
Here is the latest development on the Dokdo front:
An ancient map found in Japan shows Dokdo to the right of Ulleung Island in the East Sea / Yonhap
An antique map from the 19th century depicting the Dokdo Islands as part of Korean territory has been discovered in Japan.
Nam Kwon-hee, a professor of library information science at Kyungpook National University, said he confirmed a Japanese collector has a hand-drawn map of “Daedongyeojido,” a Korean map made by cartographer and geologist Kim Jeong-ho in 1861 that marks Dokdo to the right of Ulleung Island in the East Sea, according to Yonhap News.
The research was co-conducted with Professor Kim Sung-soo of Cheongju University and professor emeritus Yukio Fujimoto of the University of Toyama in Japan.
The map was originally in the collection of the Pyongyang Provincial Library, but was smuggled out via an unknown route. The atlas has the library’s registration number and Aug. 30, 1932, marked as the date acquired.
Professor Nam estimates that the hand-drawn map including Dokdo was created between 1864 and 1889. The map supplements the woodblock book printed by Kim, which does not mark Dokdo. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but I look at this map and that does not look like Dokdo at all. It makes more sense that the island to the right of Ulleongdo is actually Jukdo Island. The island on the map looks like Jukdo and is located where Jukdo is near Ulleongdo. Also back in the 1800’s no one would have cared about two insignificant rocks in the middle of the Sea of Japan to make them so big on a map like this.
