It looks like the Kim regime is probing to see what free goodies it can get from the US for little to nothing in return:

A ranking North Korean official arrived in Beijing on Tuesday before possibly traveling to Malaysia for informal talks with former U.S. officials or experts, a Japanese news report said.

North Korea’s deputy foreign minister Han Song-ryol was seen at Beijing’s international airport, according to Kyodo News.

“He could be set to meet former U.S. officials or experts on North Korean issues, and the discussions will most likely be held completely behind-the-scenes under the informal, unofficial track II format,” Kyodo reported, citing the source.

An official at Seoul’s foreign ministry said he cannot confirm anything at the moment.

Han’s possible trip to Malaysia, if confirmed, comes after North Korea conducted its fifth and most powerful nuclear test in September, just eight months after its previous nuke test.

The U.N. Security Council (UNSC) is working on a fresh sanctions resolution to punish Pyongyang for its latest nuclear provocation. In March, the UNSC slapped tougher sanctions on the North for its nuclear and long-range rocket launches early in the year.

Until recently, Han served as director-general handling U.S. affairs at North Korea’s foreign ministry, the report said.

Han met with a private U.S. delegation, which made a rare visit to North Korea in late September, the New York Times reported on Oct. 9.

During the Sept. 24-27 visit, the delegation discussed a U.S. student detained in the communist nation, recovering the remains of American soldiers killed in the 1950-53 Korean War and possible flood assistance for the North, it said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I would be surprised if anything comes out of this considering the upcoming change in the Presidency.  Would President Obama want his legacy to be a last minute deal with the North Koreans that they would inevitably violate?

Under pressure: Can Beijing really change Pyongyang’s mind? https://t.co/yf50i22wJK

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) October 18, 2016

South Korean President Park Geun-hye delivers an opening speech at the Global Saemaul Leadership Forum in Pyeongchang, 180 kilometers east of Seoul, on Oct. 18, 2016. The Saemaul Movement, started by incumbent President Park Geun-hye’s father, late President Park Chung-hee, in the 1970s, aimed at national development and has since been shared with other countries as a development model. (Yonhap)

If I was the Prime Minister of the UK, I would send more forces to participate in the exercise with the ROK in response to such threats:

North Korea has said it is “close to the brink of war” with its southern neighbor – and Britain has been warned to stay out of the fight.

The regime’s foreign affairs representative for northern Europe, Pak Yun Sik, was speaking after the UK announced it would take part in joint military drills with South Korea and the US.

The war games will be played out in November as a training exercise in case there is ever a need for real thing in the region.

Mr Pak said angrily: “The situation on the Korean peninsula is close to the brink of war because of endless military exercises by American and South Korean forces targeting us.

“Now, Britain has decided to send its Typhoon fighter jets to take part in joint US-South Korean military drills, in the south of Korea, from 4 to 10 November.

“This is a hostile act, openly joining the US and South Korean forces in moves for a new war against us.

“Britain claims that this military exercise is not targeting us, but the US and South Korea openly say that these military exercises are aimed at launching a strike against our military facilities and our command structure.”  [Fox News]

Further Reading:

https://www.rokdrop.net/2016/10/united-kingdom-to-take-part-in-invincible-shield-exercise-with-us-and-rok/

Welcome to Korea Finder.  The way this contest works is that each week a new image is posted and the first reader to accurately describe or locate the image gets a point.  At the end of the year the reader with the highest amount of points will win a Korea related book of their choice.

So who knows where this airfield is located?:

2016 Korea Finder Leaders Board

1. Comfortable Chairs – 9
2. MTB Rider – 5
3. Smokes – 4
4. Dd – 2, Setnaffa – 2
5. JoeC – 1, Nullscan -1, sfasdfsadf – 1

I wonder what the Chinese response would be to someone threatening to launch a preemptive nuclear attack on them?:

North Korea is prepared to launch the big one.

A top North Korean official is warning that the isolated nation is ready to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the US if necessary, NBC News reported Monday.

“The US has nuclear weapons off our coast, targeting our country, our capital and our dear leader, Kim Jong Un,” Lee Yong Pil, director of the Foreign Ministry’s Institute for American Studies, told NBC News. “We will not step back as long as there’s a nuclear threat to us from the United States.”

Lee said the US does not have a “monopoly” on pre-emptive nuclear strikes.

“If we see that the US would do it to us, we would do it first,” Lee said. “We have the technology.”

North Korea may also conduct more nuclear tests, including a “sixth, a seventh or an eighth” trial, Lee said, adding that the hardened stance comes amid “increasingly aggressive” drills by the US and South Korea.  [New York Post]

You can read more at the link.

Latest #Profile @BBCRadio4 is on #Samsung's #LeeKunHee. Quite good imho. (disclosure: I'm quoted). Listen/download: https://t.co/c2suC66UMp

— Aidan Foster-Carter (@fcaidan) October 16, 2016

North Korea’s State Merited Chorus performs in Pyongyang in a celebration of the 71st founding anniversary of the country’s ruling Workers’ Party of Korea in this photo released by the North’s Korean Central News Agency on Oct. 12, 2016.  (Yonhap)

For people familiar with the Roh Moo-hyun years of the Korean government, this latest revelation should not come as any surprise:

Presidential candidate Moon Jae-in has been embroiled in a controversy over an ex-foreign minister’s claim that he supported a recommendation to seek Pyongyang’s opinion on a 2007 U.N. resolution on North Korea’s human rights situation ahead of a vote.

Song Min-soon, who served as foreign minister for President Roh Moo-hyun, said in his memoir published last week that South Korea abstained from the vote after listening to Pyongyang’s opposition.

Song claimed that the proposal to seek the North’s opinion was backed by Moon, then Roh’s presidential chief of staff, amid divided opinions among Cabinet members.

The recently surfaced claim soon instigated political sparring between rival parties. The ruling Saenuri Party called for an investigation to get to the bottom of the issue, accusing Moon of having virtually been “in league with” the North. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Person who recently visited the city tends to think so:

If one were to crown the most bizarre city in South Korea, many users on r/korea would undoubtedly pick Songdo. Officially known as the Songdo International Business District, this 40 billion USD project is promoted as a smart, green, low-carbon city a fifteen-minute drive and a short flight away from a third of the world’s population.

Little do people realize that the city is far from just about everything else. Songdo is part of Incheon, and to get to the former you have to go through the latter if you’re not coming from the airport. From Seoul I took the subway, which crawled past enormous apartment buildings for what felt like more than an hour. I found myself wondering what Douglas MacArthur — the nuke-loving American general who surprised the invading Korean People’s Army here seventy years ago — would say if he could see what this village of brick and tile had become.

It was all too much for me, or at least for my stomach. By the time my map app was telling me I was in Songdo I was about to collapse from starvation. I staggered out of the subway into the dark gray empty station and wandered South Korea’s usual labyrinthine hallways, stairwells, and escalators echoing with electronic voices until I emerged in the middle of… nowhere.  [Korea Expose]

You can read the rest at the link of what was a humorous read about what is likely Korea’s most empty city.