I saw this article in The Telegraph as well as posted on other sites and thought to myself it could not possibly be true:
A picture of the supposed corporate jet that mistakenly landed in Pyongyang.
A delegation of corporate sponsors of next year’s winter Olympics in the South Korean city of PyeongChang was flown to the North Korean capital Pyongyang by mistake, it has emerged.
According to the Around the Rings website the pilot of the corporate jet made a mistake when he entered the flight plan into the aircraft’s navigation system.
It steered the aircraft 250 miles further north than its intended destination.
The plane was carrying eight passengers from Beijing who were on a reconnaissance trip.
Bemused flight control staff at the North Korean capital allowed the Gulfstream and its passengers to land before the plane was ushered to a remote part of the airport.
“We stopped on the tarmac. The pilot announced the error. We were petrified about what might happen,” one of the delegation said later.
“He told us to stay seated, stay calm. A cabin steward popped the door open and we could see armed men in uniform facing the plane.”
With the aid of a translator, the pilot apologised profusely. The passengers were told to disembark while their luggage was inspected.
After inspecting the collection of Olympic badges, which were intended to be delivered to PyeongChang, the North Koreans were satisfied that the landing was completely inadvertent and the plane was allowed to carry on to South Korea. [The Telegraph]
This story just sounded to unbelievable to me so I checked out the source posting from the Around the Rings website. The article is from an anonymous source and posted on April 1st, which is April’s Fools Day. This leads me to believe this is a hoax posting.
What gets me about this is that major news outlets were passing this around because of the sensational headline and did not even bother to confirm its authenticity. This is the world of fake news journalism we now live in.
Some of America’s newest military hardware was exercised last month during the Foal Eagle/Key Resolve exercise between the ROK and the US:
A Marine F-35B fighter lifts off from the deck of the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp. The open hatch behind the cockpit enables air to flow through a mid-fuselage lift fan; that plus downward-vectored engine nozzles at the rear give the plane vertical lift so it can land pretty much anywhere.
The Pentagon revealed this week that U.S. Marine Corps F-35 fighters are operating in South Korea for the first time, as they participate in joint training exercises with the Republic of Korea’s military. The eight planes are from a squadron of F-35Bs deployed to Iwakuni, Japan in January, where they will be permanently stationed and on call to respond quickly if a crisis occurs on the Korean Peninsula.
And therein lies a bigger story than the ongoing training exercise in which allied forces are practicing how to operate together in wartime. F-35B, the Marine variant of the tri-service fighter, isn’t just the world’s first supersonic tactical aircraft capable of taking off and landing vertically, it is also invisible to radar. That’s what being stealthy means — the enemy can’t see you, but you can see them.
When you combine the vertical agility and invisibility of the Marine Corps’ latest fighter with the fused data from diverse sensors and the ability to share information securely among all fighters on a mission, what you have is a plane that can operate pretty much anywhere. Including over North Korea. So although U.S. Pacific Command is at pains to describe the training exercise as a routine annual event intended to provoke no one, the F-35’s presence is sending a powerful message to the mercurial leader of North Korea. [Forbes]
I hope Thae Yong Ho has protection from stopping two women approaching him from behind with VX while walking around streets of Seoul pic.twitter.com/7VPC67zLee
— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) April 3, 2017
A semisubmersible ship carrying the Sewol ferry, lifted from where it sank some three years ago in the country’s southwestern waters, arrives at a port in Mokpo, some 100 kilometers away, on March 31, 2017. The doomed ship will be put into a dry dock, and a search will begin to find the remains of nine people still missing from the sinking on April 16, 2014, who are among the 304 killed in the tragedy. (Yonhap)
North Korea has jumped above Iran on America’s enemies list according to Secretary of Defense James Mattis:
Defense Secretary James Mattis, when he led the U.S. Central Command that oversees operations in the Middle East, repeatedly said that the three gravest threats to the United States were “Iran, Iran, Iran.”
But at a press conference in London on Friday, the retired Marine general suggested that North Korea, with its ballistic missile and nuclear programs, now holds the top spot.
Asked about his previous focus on Iran as the most serious threat, Mattis called Iran “the primary state sponsor of terrorism” but pivoted quickly to the secretive Stalinist regime in Pyongyang.
“In the larger scheme of things, obviously, in a global situation that’s dynamic, you’ve highlighted appropriately I think the North Korean threat,” Mattis said (the reporter had not mentioned North Korea). [Yahoo News]
Here is a good interview that NBC News’ Lester Holt did with prominent North Korean defector Thae Yong-ho who has to be number on Kim Jong-un’s kill list:
Lester Holt walks the streets of Seoul with Thae Yong-ho
A senior North Korean defector has told NBC News that the country’s “desperate” dictator is prepared to use nuclear weapons to strike the United States and its allies.
Thae Yong Ho is the most high profile North Korean defector in two decades, meaning he is able to give a rare insight into the secretive, authoritarian regime.
According to Thae, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is “desperate in maintaining his rule by relying on his [development of] nuclear weapons and ICBM.” He was using an acronym for intercontinental ballistic missiles — a long range rocket that in theory would be capable of hitting the U.S.
“Once he sees that there is any kind of sign of a tank or an imminent threat from America, then he would use his nuclear weapons with ICBM,” he added in an exclusive interview on Sunday.
Thae was living in London and serving as North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom when he and his family defected to South Korea and were announced to the world in August. [NBC News]
You can read more at the link as well as video from NBC News.
In the rest of the interview Thae confirms what many have suspected that Kim Jong-un is moving rapidly forward with his nuclear and missile programs because of what he saw happen with Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi. Thae also confirms my long held view that Kim Jong-un is not crazy, but instead what he is doing is rational from his perspective. Thae describes Kim as someone who will do whatever it takes to hold on to power to include purges and killing of family members.
Thae also advocates for fighting the information war within North Korea which is something I have been advocating for years. He believes that the more educated people within North Korea become the more likely it is that at some point they may rise up against the regime.
The more I listen to Thae the more I keep thinking that maybe he should become the leader of a North Korean government in exile to further challenge the legitimacy of the Kim regime.
It looks like former US Ambassador to Korea Mark Lippert is a really big fan of the Doosan Bears:
Mark Lippert (C), former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, waves to fans while attending a Korea Baseball Organization game between the Doosan Bears and the Hanwha Eagles at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul on March 31, 2017. (Yonhap)
Former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert returned to Seoul on Friday to attend a baseball game.
Lippert, whose term ended in January after a little over two years, attended the 2017 Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) season opener between the home team Doosan Bears and the Hanwha Eagles at Jamsil Stadium.
A Bears official said Lippert had contacted the club about 10 days ago saying he wanted to be here for the first game of the new season.
During his time here, Lippert, an avid baseball fan, had been an honorary ambassador for the KBO. The Bears are his favorite team, and he often traveled across the nation to watch them in postseason play. [Yonhap]
A North Korean TV announcer reports on the arrest of former South Korean President Park Geun-hye on March 31, 2017. Most of the North’s state-run media outlets reported the news about 13 hours after Park’s arrest, calling it a stern punishment by history and popular sentiment. (KCNA-Yonhap)
