In this image captured from video footage of North Korea’s Korean Central Television on Jan. 18, 2017, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un walks with a limp during a visit to a children’s camp in Kangwon Province. In 2014, Kim was reported to have received an operation to remove a cyst from his right ankle. The recent video footage, released the previous day, raises speculation that his condition has recurred. (Yonhap)
North Korea is doubling down on its viewpoint that it has the right just like any other sovereign country to test an ICBM. Of note though is that they are saying the ICBM test is part of its space program:
North Korean criticized the international community on Tuesday for its double standard toward the country’s development of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said in his New Year’s Day address that the country has entered the final stage of preparations to test fire an ICBM, an apparent warning that the reclusive country is perfecting the capability to hit the continental United States with nukes.
“Acting by the double-dealing standard unilaterally set by the U.S. in its interests, the UN brands the legitimate exercise of the sovereignty by an independent country as ‘illegal’ and its measure for self-defense provocation,” the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in an English-language report monitored in Seoul.
Pyongyang’s state-run media further said the North’s test firing is the country’s “exercise of the right to launch satellites for peaceful purposes, justified by international law.” [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but the way I look at it is if the Kim regime wants to be treated like a normal country, then act like a normal country.
Between Hillary Clinton and now Chelsea Manning and General Cartwright it just shows that there is different strokes for different folks when it comes to mishandling classified information:
Chelsea Manning
President Barack Obama on Tuesday overruled his secretary of defense to commute the sentence of former Army soldier Chelsea Manning, who was convicted of stealing and disseminating 750,000 pages of documents and videos to WikiLeaks.
The decision — which a senior defense official told CNN was made over the objections of Secretary of Defense Ash Carter — immediately touched off a controversy in the closing days of the Obama administration. A former intelligence official described being “shocked” to learn of Obama’s decision, adding that the “entire intelligence community is deflated by this inexplicable use of executive power.” The official said the move was “deeply hypocritical given Obama’s denunciation of WikiLeaks’ role in the hacking of the (Democratic National Committee).” [CNN]
Here is a thought question? If Manning wasn’t transgender would she have gotten the commuting of her sentence? It doesn’t matter now and Manning is undoubtedly going to be hero of the anti-war left when she is released in May.
With General Cartwright’s pardon what I found most interesting was the details of how he was caught by the FBI as a leaker in the first place:
General James Cartwright
The Stuxnet campaign appears to have been successful, and its disclosure, originally in a front-page New York Times story and a book by Sanger, helped burnish Obama’s national security credentials leading up to his 2012 reelection campaign. But FBI agents, after obtaining his email traffic, soon identified Cartwright — who had by then retired but continued to serve on the Defense Policy Board — as a key suspect. When he was interviewed in November 2012, Cartwright initially denied that he ever discussed classified information with Klaidman and Sanger. Then, FBI agents showed him his email correspondence with Klaidman. At that point, Cartwright “took off his glasses, started rubbing his eyes and told interviewing agents, ‘You got me’,” according to a court filing by prosecutors last week.
The agents then showed Cartwright an email exchange he had with Sanger. After reading through the email, “Cartwright was shaking, losing color in his face and clearing his throat. Cartwright attempted to explain the email; however, his speech became slurred and he subsequently slumped over in his chair and lost consciousness,” according to the court filing.
Cartwright was immediately rushed to the hospital. After his release a few days later, he agreed to another interview with the FBI and confessed that he had indeed discussed classified information with the journalists. He formally pleaded guilty last September and was due to be sentenced next week. [Yahoo News]
It just amazes me that someone of General Cartwright’s stature is leaking highly classified information to a reporter via email. He has to know that intelligence agencies would be targeting such emails for collection purposes.
Whenever noted North Korean scholar Dr. Andrei Lankov writes something I take notice. In his latest op-ed published in Bloomberg he is advocating that the incoming Trump administration negotiate a deal for a nuclear and missile freeze with North Korea:
Finally, some observers seem to hold out hope that Trump, a self-described “great” dealmaker, might be able to talk Kim out of his nukes in direct negotiations. This, too, is a futile idea. U.S. and North Korean interests are fundamentally incompatible. North Korean leaders fear that giving up their nukes would leave them dangerously vulnerable; they only too well remember what happened to Moammar Qaddafi after he negotiated away his nuclear program.
The truth is that for more than a decade, there’s been no real chance of fully eliminating the North’s nuclear program. Even now, though, the U.S. could negotiate something better than the current situation: a verifiable freeze on nuclear and missile testing, before North Korea develops an ICBM.
Of course, Kim isn’t going to restrain himself for free. In return, he will demand many things — a hefty aid package, above all, but also political concessions, including a formal peace treaty. No doubt his regime will probably try to cheat.
The opponents of such a compromise will describe it as a terrible precedent, even blackmail — and they may be right. Unlike Iran, North Korea will remain a nuclear power even after signing such a deal. But the alternatives — either a major war that drags in the U.S. and China, or a fully armed North with the proven capacity to attack the U.S. mainland — are worse. As long as there’s still a chance of striking such a compromise, the new U.S. President should be doing everything he can to seize it. [Bloomberg]
I do not see the point of a nuclear freeze in return for a bunch of free goodies to the Kim regime in return for something that even Dr. Lankov admits they will try and cheat on. Plus by agreeing to sign a peace treaty with North Korea that puts into question the entire existence of the US-ROK alliance which is why the Kim regime has been pressing so hard for it. The Kim regime knows they have no chance of reunifying the peninsula on their terms as long as the US-ROK alliance is in place.
It seems to me a peace treaty should not be part of a freeze deal and whatever deal that is signed should include robust inspections and the risk of a retaliatory bombing strike if it is not complied with. The risk of war on the peninsula by noncompliance by the Kim regime would give motivation to the Chinese to make sure the Kim regime is complying with the deal.
It appears South Korean prosecutors have been able to flip Choi Soon-sil’s niece and she is testifying against her. With Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong saying he felt pressured him to give money to Choi’s foundation and her own niece confirming the allegation, it seems the prosecutors have a very strong case against her now:
Chang Si-ho (front, L), Kim Chong (front, C) and Choi Soon-sil (front, R) stand trial at the Seoul Central District Court on Jan. 17, 2017. (Yonhap)
Choi Soon-sil, the woman at the center of a South Korean presidential impeachment scandal, clashed with a niece Tuesday over allegations they coerced Samsung Group into making donations to a sports foundation under their control.
Choi, her niece Chang Si-ho and former Vice Culture and Sports Minister Kim Chong were summoned to the Seoul Central District Court to testify on allegations they colluded to extort more than 1.6 billion won (US$1.35 million) in donations from the nation’s largest business group to the Korea Winter Sports Elite Center, which was established in June 2015.
Chang early on admitted that they forced the donations from Samsung and that she embezzled funds from the center. Her admission came a day after special prosecutors investigating the scandal sought an arrest warrant for Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong on charges of bribery.
According to the prosecutors, Lee was involved in Samsung’s decision to give up to 43 billion won to various organizations linked to Choi in return for the Park Geun-hye administration’s backing of a merger between two companies belonging to the conglomerate in 2015. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but what I haven’t seen strong evidence of yet is how President Park Geun-hye was involved in all of this?
An otter walks on the frozen Eomcheon River in Hamyang, a town in South Korea’s southeastern province of South Gyeongsang, on Jan. 16, 2017, in this photo released by the Hamyang municipality. The otter, an endangered animal, is designated as the country’s Natural Monument No. 330. (Yonhap)
Likely ROK presidential candidate Ban Ki-moon is differentiating himself from his rivals by strongly back the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system to South Korea:
Former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, center, on Sunday examines the wreckage of the ill-fated corvette Cheonan on display at the Navy’s 2nd Fleet Command in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi. [YONHAP]Former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon threw his weight behind the installation of a U.S. advanced missile defense system on Sunday in a move to woo security-sensitive conservatives in what is seen as his journey toward the Blue House.
During his visit to the Navy’s 2nd Fleet Command in Pyeongtaek in Gyeonggi, 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of Seoul, the former UN chief said Seoul needs to set up the U.S.-made missile defense system on its soil to protect itself from North Korea’s provocations, adding the missile was purely defense in nature, a remark apparently intended to appease Beijing’s anger toward the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) system in Seongju County, North Gyeongsang, set to be complete by the end of this year. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
This is a pretty bold sexual assault to drug multiple women in the back of a taxi and then sexually assault them. I am willing to bet this is probably not the first time this taxi cab driver has done this:
Two South Korean women said they were sexually attacked by a taxi driver while traveling to a night market in Taipei, according to local reports and the Korean foreign ministry on Sunday.
According to the reports, three Korean women hired a taxi around 6 p.m. on Thursday to visit the popular Shilin Night Market. The taxi driver, identified only by his surname Chan, was said to have given them a soft drink while heading to the market. Two of them, sitting at the back, passed out after drinking it while the one who was sitting in the passenger seat didn’t drink it.
Upon arriving at the market, the sober woman tried to wake them up, to no avail, and went to check out the market alone, thinking the two fell asleep due to tiredness. She went back to the taxi around an hour later to find out they were still sleeping. The three then returned to the hotel.
The next day, the two reported to the local police that they were sexually assaulted by the taxi driver.
On Saturday night, the police summoned Chan for investigation. They soon detained him as the suspect partially admitted to the assault in his testimony. He is reported to have said he only meant to touch them.
Meanwhile, a blood test revealed that the victims had sleeping-inducing drugs in their blood.
“The Taiwanese police detained the suspect for investigation and are likely to charge him,” an official from the foreign ministry told Yonhap News Agency, adding that the women have returned to Korea. [Yonhap]
