Fortunately no one was killed by whatever caused this explosion in Ulsan:
This photo taken on Dec. 13, 2016, shows a military base in Ulsan, some 410 kilometers southeast of Seoul, where an explosion took place at around noon. Authorities are investigating the details of the incident. (Yonhap)
An explosion at a military base in South Korea’s southeastern city Tuesday injured more than 20 soldiers, authorities said.
The blast of unknown cause took place at around 11:50 a.m. at a training camp for reservists in Ulsan, some 410 kilometers southeast of Seoul, according to the authorities.
The injured soldiers, some of whom were burned, were taken to nearby hospitals. No casualties were reported.
No training took place at the time of the incident, according to authorities. All the injured were soldiers on active duty, mostly in their early 20s. [Yonhap]
It looks like it will be a few months before the ROK Constitutional Court rules on the legality of the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye:
Justice Bae Bo-yoon, spokesman of the Constitutional Court, said Monday that the court will review all grounds cited in the impeachment motion. [NEWSIS]The Constitutional Court said Monday it will scrutinize all grounds cited in the National Assembly’s motion to impeach President Park Geun-hye, indicating that the trial will be a long process, possibly as long as six months.
The court held its first meeting Monday morning to discuss how it will proceed with the trial. The National Assembly on Friday passed a motion to impeach Park for alleged constitutional and legal violations, as she gave a friend influence in state affairs.
Justice Bae Bo-yoon, spokesman of the Constitutional Court, said Monday that the court will review all grounds cited in the motion, rejecting speculation that the court would review only key charges to reach a speedy ruling.
“We cannot use our discretion to have selective hearings,” he said. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
The new advertisement of Absolut Vodka, which depicted an image of a candlelit rally as the shape of a vodka bottle, has caused controversy among Korean customers. The world-famous vodka brand owned by Pernod Ricard has disclosed the new Korean version of an advertisement on its official Facebook page, Saturday. Read more at the Korea Times.
Obviously the sanctions put on North Korea are not working when Dr. Andrei Lankov writes about the large economic expansion Kim Jong-un has helped to usher in during his first five years of ruling North Korea:
Next month it will be five years since the sudden death of Kim Jong-il led to the second dynastic transition in North Korean history. Kim Jong-un’s reign is approaching the five-year mark, the length of a presidential term in many modern democracies, so it is probably a good time to say what we think of the young North Korean leader.
To an extent, we can see the directions that Kim Jong-un wants to take and the trajectory that he wants to steer his country toward. I would dare to describe Kim Jong-un as a modest, perhaps hyper-cautious, but rather determined reformer in economic matters. Unfortunately, his foreign policy is difficult to appraise in anything but a critical fashion: it is quite likely that, in the long run, his diplomatic blunders will be his undoing.
But let’s start with the good news. In the last five years the North Korean economy has grown faster than any time since the early 1980s. Economic statistics are murky, speculative and controversial, but the majority of inside observers (diplomatic staff in Pyongyang) tend to estimate growth as being 3 percent to 4 percent per annum. This is much better than anything North Korea has seen since the 1980s, if not the 1970s. The results of such growth are felt through the whole of society, though the results are highly unevenly distributed. [Korea Times]
You can read the whole article at the link, but I would speculate that China has been playing the “North Korea card” for years considering they have done little to nothing to stop North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs:
– China could exercise a veto against any new U.N. sanctions on North Korea, ignore existing sanctions and even accept the communist neighbor as a nuclear state if the incoming administration of Donald Trump plays the “Taiwan card,” a U.S. expert said.
Trump sparked China’s anger by accepting a call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen earlier this month in breach of the decades-long diplomatic tradition that the U.S. has kept under its “One China” policy since severing ties with Taiwan and normalizing relations with Beijing.
China considers Taiwan a renegade province that must be unified with the mainland and rails against any support for Taiwan’s independence or the notion that the island is not part of the country. Despite the absence of formal diplomatic ties, the U.S. has maintained friendly relations with Taiwan.
On Sunday, Trump went a step further, saying he doesn’t understand “why we have to be bound by a One China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade.” The remark suggests Trump could use the Taiwan card in dealings with Beijing. [Yonhap]
The South Korean government has now responded to North Korea’s invasion drill:
South Korean officials were quick to condemn the movements.
“(We) view the drill from yesterday as a childish act to display that their system is undiminished, in response to our internal situation,” South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee said.
“Kim Jong Un has been continuously visiting its military units since November and it has been escalating tension. We strongly condemn it.” [CNN]
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un visits the Wonsan Shoes Factory in the country’s southeastern Kangwon Province in this photo published on Dec. 9, 2016, by daily newspaper Rodong Sinmun. Media report said Kim “dropped by” unannounced and was satisfied with the high production at the plant. (Yonhap)
The North Koreans may not be launching any provocations in the near term due to the South Korean political crisis, but they obviously don’t want people to forget about them either:
This capture from Pyongyang’s Korean Central Television shows North Korean soldiers attacking a replica of the South Korean presidential office Cheong Wa Dae in a recent drill. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un observed a special warfare unit’s drill to destroy specific targets in South Korea, the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Sunday.
Kim watched the combat drill of the service personnel of the special operation battalion of KPA Unit 525, which included artillery shelling of and infiltration into key South Korean targets, such as the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, the KCNA report said. [Yonhap]
