Yonhap is reporting that the deployment of THAAD to South Korea was not a major issue discussed during recent diplomatic meetings with Russia:
South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se (L) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sign an agreement in Moscow on June 13, 2016, on the exchanges between their agencies for 2016-2017. In their bilateral talks, the two diplomats agreed to cooperate for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, Seoul officials said. (Yonhap)
The top diplomats of South Korea and Russia barely discussed the controversial issue of deploying an advanced U.S. missile defense system on Korean soil during their talks earlier this week, a Seoul official said.
The senior official told South Korean reporters during a luncheon in St. Petersburg on Tuesday that the topic of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system was raised in the meeting between South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, but only in passing.
“(The Russian side) mentioned a confrontational structure in Asia but barely talked about it,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “This showed (Moscow’s) will to focus more on bilateral relations and the North Korean nuclear issue.”
Russia and China have strongly opposed the possible deployment of a THAAD battery to South Korea, claiming it would undermine the strategic balance in the region. Seoul and Washington insist the missile defense system, if placed in the South, would be purely defensive in the face of North Korea’s evolving nuclear and missile threats. [Yonhap]
You can read the rest at the link, but in the past the Russian ambassador to North Korea complained that THAAD could potentially be used to shoot down Russian missiles fired at South Korea.
Another year and yet another cheating scandal in South Korea:
Operators of the ACT college entrance exam on Saturday canceled the tests for students in South Korea and Hong Kong at the last moment over what they said was a verified breach of test materials.
The cancellation affected about 5,500 test takers who will receive refunds of test fees, according to ACT spokesman Edward Colby, who said the company believes it was the first time the exam was canceled for an entire country.
The ACT, an Iowa-based nonprofit organization, had planned to administer the tests at 56 different locations in South Korea and Hong Kong on Saturday morning. The ACT decided to cancel the test soon after it received “credible evidence” that the test materials had been leaked, Colby said.
“We are extremely concerned about any activities that could impact the fairness and integrity of the test. When individuals attempt to profit by stealing test materials and selling them, it can hurt thousands of students who did nothing wrong, as it has in this case,” Colby said in an email conversation. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but cheating on these standardized tests has been a long term problem. It seems some Koreans tend to believe in the old military saying of “if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.”
A policeman has a driver breathe into Breathalyzer in a street in downtown Seoul during the day on June 14, 2016. The random crackdown on drunk drivers was conducted across the nation on that day as the number of victims of drunken driving has increasingly risen as of late. (Yonhap)
It is ironic that this complaint is coming from the same people who have boasted of turning Seoul into a “sea of fire” and threatened attacks against the US mainland:
North Korea‘s foreign ministry spokesman said he has information on precision strike operations the United States is planning as part of its “blatant war of aggression” against the country.
Pyongyang’s state-controlled news agency KCNA reported the spokesman has evidence Washington is openly discussing air strikes against North Korea’s nuclear facilities.
“The fact that the United States is openly discussing ‘precision strike operations’ is a sign it is on the brink of taking an extremely reckless step,” the spokesman said. “The fact the operation was made public ahead of the U.S.-South Korea joint military exercise, that dangerous ‘scenario of war’ taking place in August, cannot be overlooked.”
The spokesman added the alleged U.S. policy justifies Pyongyang’s policy of “Byungjin,” or pursuing economic development alongside the development of nuclear weapons. [UPI]
You can read the rest at the link, If anything I would hope US military planners do have an on-the-shelf plan to bomb North Korean nuclear facilities if the situation arose.
These African scammers sure are creative and their victims seem to get dumber and dumber:
African con artists have found another way to swindle Koreans, this time by selling pieces of regular paper that they claim are actually U.S. banknotes.
In this so-called “black money” or “money wash” scam, unsuspecting victims are persuaded that stacks of banknote-sized black pieces of paper are $100 bills that have been dyed black and smuggled from a U.S. relief fund for Africa. Wide-eyed victims then pay large amounts of money for heaps of black paper and a dye-remover machine or liquid, believing they have purchased U.S. dollars far below the exchange rate.
Last month, a 45-year-old Korean businessman was strolling through Itaewon, a popular neighborhood in Seoul known for its many cafes, bars and foreign restaurants, when a Liberian approached him and said he had a lucrative business proposal. After leading the Korean to a nearby parked van, he fed a piece of black paper into a small machine, and soon the device spit out a crisp $100 bill. The businessman took the bill to a bank, where he was told that it was genuine.
He paid 540 million won ($463,100) for the machine and a sizable portion of black paper. He borrowed the money from associates.
The machine was a simple paper dispenser previously loaded for the demonstration with a genuine banknote. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read the rest at the link, but it seems the victim is just as bad as the con artist if they though they were receiving stolen African aid money.
Al Jazeera has recently published an article about their visit to a ROK Marine Corps base along the maritime border with North Korea. The article has a few interesting facts to include that the ROK Marines has the second highest number of amphibious assault vehicles in the world:
Marines watch a performance by K-pop band La Boum [Joel Lawrence/Al Jazeera]Our next stop was a marine battalion operating amphibious landing vehicles known as KAAVs – Korean Amphibious Assault Vehicles – a variant of the American AAV7 and an asset essential for its core mission of landing on an enemy’s shore.
A KAAV can transport as many as 21 troops and run 480km on land, or stay in the sea up to seven hours.
South Korea’s Marine Corps has about 160 KAAVs in total, the second-largest contingent of such landing vehicles in the world after the United States. [Al Jazeera]
Even in the worst of times of US-ROK relations during the Roh Moo-hyun administration years there was never government officials driving around with blue lights on their cars looking to harass US servicemembers like what is currently happening in Okinawa:
Japanese officials are patrolling areas in southwestern Okinawa in an effort to prevent crimes near U.S. military bases and entertainment districts.
The team, composed of about 40 staff members from Okinawa government agencies, was created after a former Marine working at Kadena Air Base was arrested May 19 in connection with the death of a 20-year-old Okinawan woman, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported Wednesday.
The patrol vehicles, which use blue rotating lights, are on the streets between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m., the report said. The number of police officers patrolling the island prefecture is also expected to increase. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read the rest at the link, but this looks like pure political theater. Some government official driving around with a blue light would have done nothing to prevent the tragic murder of Ms. Shimabukuro.
A group of foreigners who participated in a South Korea-ASEAN tourism workshop in Seoul visits the “Eco-Peace Park” near the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas in Cherwon, located some 88 kilometers north of Seoul, on June 12, 2016. ASEAN stands for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The Seoul-based ASEAN-Korea Center provided this photo. (Yonhap)
