Suhorang (L) and Bandabi, mascots of 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, pose with American children during an event to promote the event at Times Square in Manhattan, New York, on June 23, 2017. The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) organized the event. (Yonhap)
If the ROK government wanted to get on the good side of the Trump administration this is one way of doing it:
While the Donald Trump administration continues to express concern over its goods trade deficit with Korea, Seoul will officially import U.S. shale gas for the first time starting next month.
According to Korea Gas Corporation (Kogas) on Monday, it will import 2.8 million tons of shale gas annually, which is worth about $1 billion, for 20 years.
Kogas said it held the reception ceremony for importing U.S. liquefied natural gas with Cheniere Energy at Sabine Pass LNG terminal in Louisiana on Sunday, local time.
The Korean government announced earlier this year that it will diversify the sources of its imports of crude oil to include shale gas from the United States to reduce Korea’s trade surplus with America in the hopes of avoiding being labeled a currency manipulator by the Trump administration. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
I am sure if the ROK government funnels enough cash to Kim Jong-un then the decision to have a joint team can be expedited, that is what this current posturing is all about:
Chang Ung (R), an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member from North Korea, shakes hands with fellow IOC member Wu Ching-Kuo of Chinese Taipei (L) during the opening ceremony of the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) World Taekwondo Championships at Taekwondowon’s T1 Arena in Muju, North Jeolla Province, on June 24, 2017. (Yonhap)
A veteran North Korean sports administrator visiting South Korea has expressed his misgivings about forming a joint Korean team for next year’s Winter Olympics south of the border due to the time crunch.
Chang Ung, the North’s lone member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), is in South Korea for the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) World Taekwondo Championships, which opened in Muju, 240 kilometers south of Seoul, on Saturday. He traveled with a delegation from the North Korea-led International Taekwondo Federation (ITF), whose demonstration team performed at the WTF event’s opening ceremony.
Chang crossed the tense border just days after South Korea’s new sports minister, Do Jong-hwan, proposed forming a joint women’s hockey team and holding skiing events at North Korea’s Masikyrong resort during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics.
As an IOC member, Chang has been peppered with questions about Do’s ideas. According to an official with the WTF competition, Chang spoke of his doubts about the South Korean minister’s suggestions. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but according to the article the North Koreans may not have anyone even qualify for the Winter Olympics to have a joint team with. Another thing to keep in mind is that the Kim regime had previously wanted to host some of the Winter Olympics events at their new ski resort. I wonder if this is something else that the current ROK government may try to pursue?
If you ever wondered how much a South Korean conscript to include the KATUSA soldiers assigned to US military units make, the answer is not much:
Conscript soldiers’ pay will increase in 2018 to 30 percent of this year’s minimum wage of an annual 1,352,230 won ($1,189.8). This means all draftees will receive 405,669 won, almost double the current 216,000 won. The announcement was made Monday at a regular press briefing by the State Affairs Planning Advisory Committee, President Moon Jae-in’s de facto power transition team.
Pay will be incrementally increased to 40 percent of the minimum wage by 2020, and reach 50 percent by 2022, equivalent to 540,892 won and 676,115 won, respectively.
The move is part of “fulfilling (Moon’s) national defense plan to increase soldiers’ pay,” committee spokesman Park Kwong-on said. President Moon had vowed better treatment for conscripted soldiers ― all able-bodied Korean men aged between 18 and 35 must serve in the military for up to 21 months. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but diving $1,189 annual salary by 12 months means the ROK conscripts are making roughly $99 a month. The cost savings from mandatory service is why the ROK military will never become a volunteer only military.
South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha is aboard an Apache helicopter during a visit to the U.S. Forces Korea’s Camp Red Cloud in Uijeongbu, north of Seoul, on June 25, 2017, the 67th anniversary of the Korean War. (Yonhap)
With the leftists emboldened every GI crime incident now has the potential to be blown up in the media. So far this one has been kept pretty low key considering it happened back on April 1st and we are hearing about it now:
An American soldier faces a charge for sexual assault, the Gangnam Police Station said Monday. The soldier, part of the United States Forces Korea stationed at Osan Air Base in Gyeonggi Province, allegedly raped a woman after taking her to a hotel at 7:30 a.m. near a club where they met in Gangnam, April 1.
According to police, the woman had been intoxicated when she was taken to the hotel and then raped. She reported the incident to the police the same day, claiming she believed she was raped.
After about a month-long police investigation, in which the police analyzed video footage from the club and hotel, the police identified the soldier as the culprit. The police summoned the suspect for questioning June 17 and indicted him June 20, following the protocol of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), a mutual defense treaty between Korea and the U.S. [Korea Times]
Just like with all the other criminal cases involving US GI’s this soldier will be prosecuted through the Korean court system and if found guilty will be put in Korean prison. It will be interesting to see in the coming months if the currently emboldened anti-US groups in Korea will try to revive the narrative that GIs are committing all these crimes and then flying home with no punishment.
I say this every Olympics, but if the South Africans were banned from the Olympics because of their Apartheid policies than why is North Korea with its far worse human rights violations allowed in the Olympics much less championed like President Moon is currently doing?:
President Moon Jae-in, fourth from left in second row, with taekwondo athletes from North Korea, in the second row, and South Korea, in the first row, at the opening ceremony of World Taekwondo’s World Taekwondo Championships in Muju County, North Jeolla, Saturday. [YONHAP]President Moon Jae-in renewed calls for warmer ties with Pyongyang in his remarks at the World Taekwondo Championships in Muju County, North Jeolla on Saturday, inviting North Korea to participate in the PyeongChang Winter Olympics next year to “fulfill the Olympic spirit of harmony and promote world peace.”
Moon’s latest outreach to Pyongyang came as a 36-member demonstration team from the International Taekwondo Federation (ITF), which included 32 North Korean nationals, touched down at Gimpo International Airport last Friday to participate in the World Taekwondo’s (formerly World Taekwondo Federation) World Taekwondo Championships.
Among members of the delegation were Ri Yong-son, president of ITF, and Chang Ung, former ITF chief and the only North Korean member on the International Olympic Committee (IOC). While welcoming the North Korean taekwondo team, Moon said he was “delighted” to have accomplished the first “inter-Korean sports cooperation” in his administration, adding that he hopes the ITF and World Taekwondo help bring peace to the Korean Peninsula. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but a ban on North Korea competing in the Olympics seems like something President Trump could get traction on if he wanted. It would be very interesting to see which countries would defend North Korea participating that supported a ban on South Africa from 1964-1988. The ban was only removed when the Apartheid system was scheduled for removal. Why can’t the same standard be applied to the Kim regime which has done things far worse than what Apartheid South Africa ever did?
China and the United States agreed that efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula should be “complete, verifiable and irreversible”, Chinese state media said on Saturday, reporting the results of high level talks in Washington this week.
“Both sides reaffirm that they will strive for the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” a consensus document released by the official Xinhua news agency said.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had said on Thursday that the United States pressed China to ramp up economic and political pressure on North Korea, during his meeting with top Chinese diplomats and defense chiefs.
China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi and General Fang Fenghui met Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis during the talks. Yang later met with U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House, where they also discussed North Korea, Xinhua reported.
The consensus document also highlighted the need to fully and strictly hold to U.N. Security Council resolutions and push for dialogue and negotiation, which has long been China’s position on the issue. [Reuters]
