Chang Ho-kwon (L), the eldest son of prominent independence fighter and dissident Chang Joon-ha, receives a glass of beer from a man pretending to be a Japanese Army officer during an event in Seoul’s Yeongdeungpo Ward on Aug. 18, 2015, to display a C-47 cargo plane as part of festivities to mark the 70th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule. The two are re-enacting an episode in which the elder Chang returned home from China aboard the same type of cargo plane and was offered a glass of beer from a Japanese officer at the now-defunct Yeouido airfield on Aug. 18, 1945, three days after Korea gained independence from the Japanese rule. (Yonhap)
South Korean President Park Geun-hye has dropped everything on her schedule to meet and encourage the ROK military in the wake of the recent exchange of fire on the DMZ with the North Koreans:
President Park Geun-hye, Defense Minister Han Min-koo (left) and National Security Office chief Kim Kwan-jin visit the headquarters of the Third Army in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, Friday. Cheong Wa Dae
Following the exchange of fire, Kim presided over an emergency meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Military Commission, instructing frontline units to switch to a “wartime state” and fully arm themselves starting from 5 p.m. on Thursday, state media said.
The North last made the “quasi-state of war” declaration in November 2010 when it shelled a South Korean border island in the West Sea.
“Military commanders were urgently appointed and dispatched for operations to strike the enemy’s means of psychological warfare and quell possible counteraction if it did not stop the propaganda broadcasts,” the official Korean Central Television reported.
President Park Geun-hye urged the South Korean military to stay ready to react immediately to any further provocation and blasted Pyongyang for churning out security threats during her visit to a field army command in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province.
The trip, which came after she shelved her scheduled tour to southern parts of the country, was designed to examine its readiness posture and encourage soldiers, Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Min Kyung-wook said. She was briefed by commanders there on their plans to respond to potential attacks and the current movements by the North Korean military.
Presiding over a video conference with operational commanders later in the day, Defense Minister Han Min-koo also called for airtight readiness and effective situation management, saying that after the deadline the North may stage a provocation “in any way.” [Korea Herald]
The ROK has no plans to give into North Korean demands which the Kim regime assuredly knew they would not. The demand is just being made to justify a future provocation. It appears the leading theory is that they will fire missiles into the Sea of Japan or a cyberattack of some kind in the near term. It will probably be both since it appears the North Koreans are already gearing up to fire missiles:
Separately, North Korea seems to be gearing up to fire missiles, an official said, a move that could be seen as a show of force against South Korea amid escalating tensions.
“The North is showing signs of shooting off a Scud missile near Wonsan and a Rodong missile in North Pyongan Province,” the official said, citing detection results of its joint radar system with the United States. [Yonhap]
Besides launching another DMZ provocation, a naval engagement in the Yellow Sea is always a possibility, but I don’t think they would try this now because the ROK military’s guard is way up right now. However, they could try and fire an anti-ship missile from their mainland somewhere into the Yellow Sea near at ROK vessel. I don’t think they would actually try and sink a ROK ship like they did the Cheonan because it would be too easy to pin the blame on them. Remember they have never admitted to sinking the Cheonan. They have fired these anti-ship missiles into the Sea of Japan before so firing them into the congested waters of the Yellow Sea would be a pretty good provocation. Another, but unlikely provocation is to detain someone at the Kaesong Industrial Complex. They have done this before and have set conditions to do it again, but I think at this point another provocation using Kaesong would probably lead to its closure which has been a cash cow for the Kim regime:
Meanwhile, South Korea said it has measures to ensure the safety of its nationals who are temporarily staying in the North.
It said it has put a partial ban on the entry of its nationals into an inter-Korean joint factory park in the North’s western border city of Kaesong.
The factory park, the last remaining symbol of inter-Korean cooperation, is home to 120 small South Korean factories producing garments, shoes, watches and other labor-intensive goods. More than 54,000 North Koreans work in the complex. [Yonhap]
I think this is all leading to the bigger provocation coming up which is when they try and do their expected October space launch. The launch would once again violate United Nations sanctions and be a major media event where once again North Korea will be dominating the headlines. The bottom line is that I don’t expect to see North Korea out of the news anytime soon; what they plan to do to dominate the headlines is still open to debate.
What does everyone else think the Kim regime will try to do in the coming weeks?
Maj. Gen. Urs Gerber, who heads the Swiss delegation of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission, places a flower in front of the monument to the 1976 ax murders of two U.S. Army officers by North Korean soldiers, during a memorial at the Joint Security Area in the truce village of Panmunjom on Aug. 18, 2015, to pay homage to the victims. (Yonhap)
As it turns out the North Koreans did not fire artillery at the loudspeaker on the ROK side of the DMZ and instead used an anti-aircraft weapon:
The two Koreas traded fire on Thursday after the North launched artillery shells apparently targeting propaganda loudspeakers installed across the border, threatening additional military action against the broadcasts and further heightening tension on the peninsula.
The North fired a 14.5-milimeter anti-aircraft gun once at around 3:53 p.m. at a town in Yeoncheon County, Gyeonggi Province, and then a 76.2-mm direct fire weapon “several times” at 4:15 p.m. within the Demilitarized Zone, military officials here said. Shortly after detection, the Army discharged a 155-milimeter self-propelled gun at 5:04 p.m.
The Army reported no damage. Casualties in the North were not immediately known.
Coincidentally with the exchange of fire, Pyongyang sent two separate letters to the South, calling for a withdrawal of the loudspeakers and threatening military action.
In the letter sent from the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army to South Korea’s Defense Ministry through a border telephone channel at around 4:50 p.m., Pyongyang warned that it would initiate “military action” unless Seoul stops the propaganda broadcasts within 48 hours from 5 p.m.
In a separate letter by Kim Yang-gon, director of the United Front Department in charge of cross-border affairs, to National Security Office chief Kim Kwan-jin, Pyongyang said the broadcasts constitute a “declaration of war” but it is willing to resolve the current situation and “open a way out for the improvement of the relationship.”
Seoul said it has no plan to dismantle the speakers at this point. (………….)
The North’s anti-aircraft gun ammunition appeared to have hit an uninhabited hill located several kilometers away from a loudspeaker set, an official at Seoul’s Defense Ministry said. Yet the North did not appear to have aimed at the equipment, he noted, without elaborating.
“We detected signs that the North Korean military staged two rounds of firearm provocation in the southern part of the Military Demarcation Line, and fired dozens of rounds of a 155-millimeter self-propelled gun as warning shots,” Joint Chief of Staff spokesman Col. Jeon Ha-kyu said at a news briefing. [Korea Herald]
As cheap as plastic surgery already is in South Korea, it is about to get even cheaper:
The plastic surgery capital of the world is stepping up its game to attract even more clients.
South Korea is now offering tax breaks to tourists for undergoing cosmetic surgery procedures. The government plans to give 10 percent of the costs back to these consumers.
The procedures listed in the new policy include breast augmentation, liposuction, nose jobs and liposuction just to name a few according to Bloomberg News.
The motive behind the plan is to boost tourism after the industry was hit hard during the Middle Eastern Respiratory Virus (MERS) outbreak in which 36 lives were lost and hundreds more were infected. In fact, the country saw a 40 percent drop in tourists compared to a year before in the month of June.
Relative to other nations, South Korea has the highest amount of plastic surgeries done per capita — almost double that of the United States, which is second on the list — according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. [Korea Times]
judging by the quick reaction by the ROK forces they were likely ready for what was a pretty predictable action by the North Koreans to try and destroy one of the propaganda loudspeakers:
South Korea fired tens of artillery rounds towards North Korea on Thursday after the North fired a projectile towards a South Korean loudspeaker that had been blaring anti-Pyongyang broadcasts, the defense ministry in Seoul said.
North Korea did not immediately respond to the South’s shots, it said, as tensions rose on the peninsula.
South Korea said its detection equipment had spotted the trajectory of a suspected North Korean projectile launched at around 3:52 pm (0252 EDT), which did not appear to have damaged the loudspeaker or caused any injuries.
“Our military has stepped up monitoring and is closely watching North Korean military movements,” South Korea’s defense ministry said in a statement.
South Korea’s military raised its alert status to the highest level.
There was no mention of the firing in North Korean state media, which does not typically make immediate comment on events.
The suspected North Korean projectile landed in an area about 60 km (35 miles) north of Seoul in the western part of the border zone, the defense ministry said. South Korean residents in the area were ordered to evacuate, according to the South’s Yonhap news agency.
Yonhap reported that the projectile appeared to have landed in a mountainous area near a South Korean military base in the town of Yeoncheon. [Reuters]
You can read more at the link, but this will not be the last of the tit-for-tat along the DMZ as the North Koreans have threatened more military action if the propaganda speakers are not taken down in 48 hours. In preparation for more provocations civilians along the western DMZ are being evacuated.
The murder of Koreans in the Philippines continues:
A South Korean couple living in the Philippines were found dead in their home apparently by gun-inflicted wounds, the foreign ministry said Wednesday.
The bodies of the husband and wife, both in their 60s, were found at around 7 a.m. local time by a neighbor inside their homes located in a village south of Manila, the ministry said.
The two, only identified by their surname Na and Kim, reportedly had gun-inflicted wounds in their necks and chests with their bodies lying in the living room.
Local police suspect armed robbery as the motive but are still considering the possibility of murder driven by personal grudge.
The couple reportedly settled down in the Philippines seven years ago after retirement. [Yonhap]
