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.
Mark Lippert (L), the United States ambassador to South Korea, speaks to students of Jeju National University at a sea wall in Seogwipo, Jeju Island, on May 15, 2016. Lippert also attended the Jeju Food & Wine Festival and met with Jeju Governor Won Hee-ryong. (Yonhap)
It is slowly happening, but it looks like the bulk of 2ID will eventually be on Camp Humphreys after all these years of delays:
The 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment will move from an area near North Korea this summer, becoming “the vanguard” for a massive relocation of U.S. forces to regional hubs south of Seoul, an Army spokesman said Tuesday.
The announcement is part of a flurry of activity as U.S. Forces Korea readies to finally shift the bulk of its operation to Camp Humphreys in the South Korean port city of Pyongtaek and other areas. The effort has been frequently delayed due to funding and construction problems. The move was originally scheduled to take place in 2008 but was delayed until 2012, then 2016 and most recently, 2017.
The Fort Hood, Texas-based battalion is slated to move from its base at Camp Hovey, which is near the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas, to Humphreys in July, said Lt. Col. Richard Hyde, a spokesman for the 2nd Infantry Division. [Stars & Stripes]
Considering the history between South Korea and Japan, this cooperation in regards to missile defense is pretty significant and hopefully will open the door to more future military engagement that is in the best interests of both countries:
South Korea, Japan and the United States will hold their first joint missile defense drill in Hawaii next month, the Ministry of National Defense said on Monday.
The trilateral antimissile defense drill is expected to kick off on June 28 and will take place on the sidelines of Rimpac, or the Rim of the Pacific Exercise, the world’s largest international maritime warfare exercise. This multinational naval maneuver, which takes place every two years, will last between June 30 and Aug. 4.
Moon Sang-gyun, spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said that Seoul is partaking in the trilateral drill designed to detect missile launches from North Korea and track their trajectories, “for more effective defense” against Pyongyang’s threats and in line with the three countries’ intelligence-sharing pact. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
A Korean researcher with a think tank has published an opinion article on why the South Korean government should take advantage of Trump’s offer to allow the ROK to develop nuclear weapons if he is elected President. To break the status quo on the Korean peninsula it would take a policy that has the potential to really shake up the current security paradigm which the ROK developing nuclear weapons would definitely do:
Rather than criticizing Trump, Korea may announcethat it would not develop at this time, but prepare for development of nuclear and anti-nuclear weapons. While seriouslyand feverishly working on these weapons, Korea may ask China, as well as the U.S., to strongly intervene in North Korean affairs to abandon their nuclear programs as a condition for Korea to abandon its own nuclear programs.
In view of North Korea’s progress made in developing short-range missiles that can carry nuclear weapons, Trump’s view may well providea timely diplomatic cover for Korea to really improve its defensive posture and to put heavy pressure for North Korea to negotiate.
When the opponent is as vicious and sneaky as leaders of North Korea, who made complete fools out of Bill Clinton and Kim Dae-jung as well as all of Kim Dae-jung’s successors before Park Geunjye, Korea has to negotiate from the position of strength without which North Korea will clearly not give in. [Korea Times]
A Chinese male (C) suspected of killing a Chinese woman on Jeju Island in late 2015 is brought to the Seogwipo Police Station by police officers in Seogwipo, Jeju Island, on May 15, 2016, for further investigation of the murder case. The body of the dead woman was discovered in April. [Yonhap]
Via a reader tip comes the below article about how a progressive legal team is trying to gain access to the 13 North Korean restaurant workers that defected to South Korea:
North Korean defectors arriving in the South on April 7. The defectors in custody have not had contact with legal counsel, according to a group of South Korean attorneys. File Photo courtesy of Republic of Korea Ministry of Unification
A progressive South Korean legal organization has been denied access to the 13 North Korean defectors who fled a state-run restaurant in China.
Lawyers for a Democratic Society had requested interviews with the North Korean waitresses and their manager, but after being rejected at the defector custody center is planning to take legal action, Yonhap reported.
During a press conference Monday, the lawyers said they were told by an intelligence official that access was not allowed because the “North Korean workers had entered South Korea out of their own free will.”
“If that is correct, the government must grant them their right to counsel,” the lawyers told reporters. [UPI]
You can read the rest at the link, but it is likely that the ROK intelligence officers are concerned that the lawyers like some other progressive groups in South Korea are influenced by North Korean handlers. The Kim regime has been launching a vigorous propaganda campaign against the defectors and I would not put it past them to use these lawyers to pass messages about how their family members are being threatened back in North Korea by their defection and to come back.
I am not sure what the union expects USFK to do; keep jobs that aren’t needed?:
A Korean employee at the main gate of Camp Red Cloud, a U.S. military base in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province, stages a one-man protest, Sunday, demanding job security for all Korean workers there after the base is relocated to Pyeongtaek. / Yonhap
Thousands of Korean employees at two U.S. military bases in Korea are facing massive layoffs because of the planned relocation of the camps.
Under a plan signed between Korea and the U.S., the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) headquarters and 8th Army headquarters, located in Yongsan Garrison in central Seoul and the 2nd Infantry Division (2ID), north of Seoul, will be moved to Camp Humphreys, a U.S. Army garrison in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province.
About 5,000 Koreans are working at the military bases.
There is a growing fear that at least half of the jobs of Korean employees might be on the line, but there has been no explanation from the U.S. military regarding its plans to cut jobs or reassign personnel, arousing anxiety among the workers, the USFK Korean Employees Union said Sunday.
On Thursday, the labor union began a one-person protest at Camp Red Cloud in Uijeongbu, scheduled to last for nine days, and will hold a rally against the layoffs at the War Memorial of Korea in Yongsan on May 21.
“We will fight to protect our jobs,” a labor union official said. [Korea Times]
