South and North Korean players compete at the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Women’s World Championship Division II Group A at Gangneung Hockey Centre in the namesake city, 237 kilometers east of Seoul, on April 6, 2017. The South shut out the North 3-0. (Yonhap)
It figures the North Koreans would send a congratulatory message to a regime that likes to use chemical weapons on their own citizens:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has sent a congratulatory message to Syria over the founding anniversary of the country’s ruling party, Pyongyang’s media said Friday, amid global condemnation against Damascus’s suspected chemical weapon attack on civilians.
The North’s leader sent the message to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to mark the 70th anniversary of the creation of the controlling Ba’ath party, according to Rodong Sinmun, North Korea’s main newspaper.
The move is seen to be aimed at showing friendly ties between Pyongyang and Damascus as about 90 people were killed by the Syrian government’s suspected uses of chemical weapons Tuesday against a rebel-held area in the northern part of the country.
“The two countries’ friendly relations will be strengthened and developed, given their fight against imperialism,” Kim was quoted as saying by the newspaper. (…….)
The U.S. launched a barrage of cruise missiles at an air base on Thursday night (local time) in retaliation for the latest chemical weapon attack for which Washington blames Assad. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but long time ROK Drop readers may remember that in 2007 North Korean scientists were killed by an Israeli bombing strike into Syria that destroyed the nuclear reactor the Kim regime was helping the Syrians to construct. Now a decade later the North Korean nuclear reactor may be the next one facing a bombing strike.
I guess we will see in the future of this statement includes North Korea or not:
U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday after summit talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping that “tremendous progress” was made in U.S. relations with China and that “lots of very potentially bad problems will be going away.”
“We have made tremendous progress in our relationship with China” Trump said after talks with Xi at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, according to pool reports. “I think truly progress has been made,” he said, calling the relationship with China “outstanding.”
“Lots of very potentially bad problems will be going away,” Trump said.
It was unclear if the “bad problems” include North Korea. (…….)
The strikes against Syria, which came in the middle of the state dinner Trump hosted for Xi at his Mar-a-Lago estate, could also send a message to China that the U.S. may take unilateral action unless Beijing helps rein in Pyongyang. [Yonhap]
It has seemed to me that the yellow dust pollution from China has gotten worse every year and this study now confirms that it in fact has:
Seoul’s government is trying its best to counter the gunk in the city’s air.
But it admitted Thursday that sources of pollution from outside Korea, including fine particle pollution from China, have increased in the past few years.
“According to our research conducted in 2011 and 2016, Seoul’s contribution to pollution grew from 21 percent in 2011 to 22 percent in 2016,” said Hwang Bo-yeon, head of the Climate and Environment Headquarters of the Seoul Metropolitan Government. “But the contribution to air pollution by international factors, including fine dust from China, grew from 49 percent to 55 percent in the same period.
“The city will do all it can, including increasing city-to-city meetings with Beijing to address the problem together.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
The activist group Green Korea United has launched another attack on USFK:
At least 90 incidents of oil leaks have taken place inside U.S. military installations in Yongsan, civic groups said Monday, suspecting U.S. Forces Korea of concealing massive contaminations of bases located in central Seoul.
The Green Korea United, an environmental group, Minbyun, also known as Lawyers for a Democratic Society, and a group of Yongsan residents held a joint press conference on Monday and made public their analysis into reports of oil leaks inside the Yongsan military bases from 1990 to 2015. They obtained the reports in November last year by demanding disclosure by the U.S. Defense Department in July last year using the Freedom of Information Act.
They said a total of 84 oil leaks at the main post and transportation division of Yongsan Garrison and nearby Camp Kim and Camp Coiner were documented in the Pentagon records. The number is far larger than the 13 oil leaks so far made public by the National Assembly and media. The Korean official record says there were five oil leaks between 1990 and 2015.
The civic groups also said the Pentagon data was missing six oil leaks that were made public in Korea. Adding them up, at least 90 oil leaks took place, they said. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
So Green Korea has had this information since November and decided now to publish it? Were they waiting until after President Park was impeached to push this issue? Additionally how many of these leaks are just small scales leaks such as someone doing maintenance on a vehicle and having oil accidentally spill out? According to the article only 7 of the 90 leaks were major. It seems Green Korea is inflating the leak number just like in the past the USFK crime rate in Korea was inflated by activist groups by including parking tickets.
Using environmental groups to attack USFK is something that has long been used by the Korean left. The most outrageous example has to be the ridiculous 2000 Yongsan Water Dumping Incident. These environmental groups have primarily focused on stopping the relocation of US bases from the 2nd Infantry Division area and Seoul. Of interest is that the 2006 Il Shim Hue spy scandal uncovered that North Korean operatives were infiltrating the ROK environmental movement to inspire more anti-US sentiment. After the spy scandal was uncovered the environmental groups kept a lower profile with their anti-US activities especially with the election of President Lee. I guess we will see in the coming months if the anti-US activist groups will feel more emboldened to attack USFK over issues like this.
This is a South Korean-made high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle, which has been undergoing tests in South Korean military units since January. The South Korean version of the U.S. heavy vehicle manufacturer AM General’s Humvee is scheduled to be mass-produced from the latter half of this year. (Photo courtesy of Defense Acquisition Program Administration) (Yonhap)
A Korean man in his 30s, surnamed Kim, has been arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a Japanese tourist he met at a nightclub in Gangnam, Seoul, according to Gangnam police station on Monday.
The tourist in her 20s reportedly visited the club with a friend and met Kim.
Kim allegedly sexually assaulted her after taking her to an emergency stairway.
He was stopped when security guards came to rescue the woman after hearing her scream.
“We heard a woman screaming and crying, so we sent our security personnel outside to check,” a club employee said. “We intervened and subdued the man until the police arrived.”
Kim denied the sexual assault charges, saying his interaction with the woman was with consent, police said. [The Korea Times]
It does seem the Korean authorities are taking sex crimes against foreign women more seriously. It wasn’t that long ago when this was not the case.
Japanese Ambassador to Seoul Yasumasa Nagamine tells reporters that he plans to strongly request for the implementation of the Korea-Japan agreement to resolve the so-called comfort women issue after he arrives at the Gimpo International Airport Tuesday evening nearly three months after being recalled to Tokyo. [YONHAP]Tokyo’s top envoy to South Korea returned to Seoul Tuesday, nearly three months after he was called in home due to diplomatic friction over a girl statue symbolizing the victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery of Korean women.
The Japanese government recalled Amb. Yasumasa Nagamine in January in protest over the statue that civic groups erected in front of its consulate in the southern port city of Busan.
The Japanese ambassador arrived at Gimpo International Airport shortly before 10 p.m. Japanese Consul General in Busan Yasuhiro Morimoto, who was also recalled over the dispute, came back hours earlier.
Tokyo claimed that the statue built before its consulate, along with another one standing in front of its embassy in Seoul, runs counter to a landmark deal reached between the two countries in late 2015 to resolve the long-running rift over Japan’s atrocity of forcing Korean women into front-line brothels during World War II. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
It would probably be interesting to be a fly on the wall to over hear what President Trump and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping will discuss this weekend:
President Donald Trump listens to a question during a town hall with business leaders in the White House in Washington on Tuesday. [AP/YONHAP]Claiming North Korea is a “matter of urgent interest” for President Trump and his administration, the official added that Trump “has been pretty clear in messaging how important it is for China to coordinate with the United States, and for China to begin exerting its considerable economic leverage to bring about a peaceful resolution to that problem.”
Such issues will come up in their discussions, the official said. “Even though we hear sometimes that China’s political influence may have diminished with North Korea, clearly its economic leverage has not,” pointing out that nearly 90 percent of Pyongyang’s external trade is with its closest ally Beijing.
The Trump administration has been suggesting a paradigm shift from previous U.S. governments on policy toward the North Korea issue, putting the Pyongyang nuclear issue as a top priority for the first time.
Trump’s administration also isn’t shy about the pressure it intends to put on China over North Korea.
In a town hall meeting with business CEOs on Tuesday, Trump said on his upcoming summit with Xi, “I’m sure we’re going to have a fantastic meeting and we’re going to talk about a lot of things, including, of course, North Korea,” which he described as “really a humanity problem.”
“China has great influence over North Korea,” Trump declared in an interview with the Financial Times on Sunday.
“China will either decide to help us with North Korea, or they won’t. And if they do that will be very good for China, and if they don’t it won’t be good for anyone.”
He also said that he will solve the North Korea issue if China won’t do it – and without China’s help. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
