Members of the Korean Animal Welfare Association, an animal rights group, hold a rally in central Seoul on July 23, 2015, protesting against eating dog meat. (Yonhap)
It looks like the next North Korean provocation cycle will occur in October if these analysts are correct:
Construction to upgrade North Korea’s main rocket launch site now appears complete amid expectations in rival South Korea that a launch could take place in October, a U.S. research institute said Tuesday.
South Korean officials are predicting the North will mark the upcoming 70th anniversary of the ruling communist party with a “strategic provocation” – possibly a blastoff from the west coast site of Sohae from where Pyongyang launched its first rocket into space in December 2012, drawing international condemnation.
The U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies says commercial satellite imagery taken July 21 shows Pyongyang has made quick work since spring of constructing a support building on the launch pad where rockets would be prepared. It has also apparently completed a moveable structure on rails, several stories high, that would be used to shift rockets or rocket stages to the launch tower. (……………)
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency last week cited unnamed government sources as saying that North Korea has almost completed modifications at Sohae, including an extended launch tower, and that it would be used to fire a long-range missile bigger than the rocket launched three years ago. This would mark the Oct. 10 anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea.
“I’m sure we’ll have a grand celebration,” North Korean Ambassador to the United Nations, Jang Il Hun, told reporters Tuesday in response to a question about a possible missile test for the anniversary. He added, “We are free to do whatever we want.” [Associated Press]
This would actually be a fitting tribute for the Kim regime’s 70th anniversary commemoration because Kim Jong-un has been very diligent in associating himself with the nation’s space program. Kim Jong-un does not have the military or governmental credentials of his grandfather or father, but I believe he is trying to make his own mark as the person advancing North Korea’s technological prowess, be it smartphones, expanding intranet access, submarine technology, nuclear technology, and most importantly the nation’s space program.
I don’t know how much more blunt the Kim regime can be that it has no intention of giving up its nuclear weapons:
Lately North Korea has been boasting their nuclear arms capabilities a bit more than usual and part of that might be from outside pressure following the Iran nuclear deal.
North Korea’s ambassador to China Ji Jae-ryong made it very clear on Tuesday that the communist country would continue with their developing their arsenal. In fact, any form of dialogue was unwelcome according to him.
“The DPRK (North Korea) is not interested at all in dialogue to discuss its nuclear program,” Ji said at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing according to Yonhap News Agency. “We are a nuclear weapons state both in name and in reality.”
Ji also mentioned during his statement that his country had already completed the development of a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can be mounted on a missile. [Korea Times]
Like I have said repeatedly before, all the people calling for North Korean nuclear disarmament are wasting their time because they have no intention of giving up their nuclear weapons; why should they?
It looks like there is an update to the cult of personality going on in North Korea:
In North Korea, there’s no escaping the Kim family.
“Eternal President” Kim Il Sung continues to reign — according to North Korean lore — 21 years after his death. His son, “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il, died in 2011 but lies in state with his father in a huge mausoleum the size of Buckingham Palace on the outskirts of Pyongyang. And the grandson, “Great Successor” Kim Jong Un, is making sure none of his subjects forget about the family line — by strengthening the bizarre personality cult that the family has perpetuated during the past 60 years.
The latest outlet for Kimism: new statues. The regime has been tearing down statues of Kim Il Sung around the country — an act that must be require all sorts of hoopla since it’s a treasonous offense to even place a newspaper with a photo of one of the Kims face down — and replacing them with huge new statues of Kim Senior and Kim Junior.
“This looks like part of Kim Jong Un’s plan to solidify his hereditary succession, carry on his father’s mantle,” says Curtis Melvin, a North Korea researcher at the U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS, Johns Hopkins, who has studied the country’s geography extensively using satellite imagery. He has noted the steady replacement of the statues over time, thanks to his remarkable knowledge of the country through Google Earth. [Washington Post]
Two foreign participants in a Korean culture event held for teenagers from countries that fought in the 1950-53 Korean War pose for a photo at the National Museum of Korea in Seoul on July 26, 2015. (Yonhap)
This is going to probably be very difficult to do considering how many Korean War veterans have now passed away and the ones still alive are quite elderly. I wish all the adoptees good luck with this project:
Estelle Cooke-Sampson, a radiologist at Howard University Hospital, was a Korean War orphan and is now seeking her birth parents.(Photo: Erin Raftery, USA TODAY)
Cooke-Sampson said that her next step is to do a DNA test to help find the identity of her biological father, who she assumes is either an Ethiopian or American soldier based on her skin color, but she is concerned about the age of Korean War veterans.
“I would love to, but considering that person probably would be perhaps in their late 80s or even 90s, they might not even remember me,” Cooke-Sampson said.
In their effort to now help Korean adoptees find their birth fathers, Hiatt said the organization is asking Korean War veterans who fathered a child in Korea to submit their DNA to a biological tracking ancestry service called 23andMe. Hiatt said that there are 672 members in a Facebook group for Korean adoptees who submitted their DNA to 23andMe, but she believes more adoptees have submitted their DNA.
Thomas Park Clement, president/CEO/Founder of Mectra Labs Inc., and a Korean adoptee, is providing $1 million for free DNA test kits that American Korean adoptees and war veterans can submit to 23andMe.
“I think it’s super important because it’s a daunting task for an adoptee, especially for an overseas adoptee to try to locate birth parents or other siblings and this is a surefire, scientific, straightforward way to do it,” Clement said. [USA Today]
I guess this means we will no longer see any defenders of the 1994 Agreed Framework considering one of the nation’s top Democrats has now disavowed it:
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday the recent landmark deal on Iran’s nuclear program grew out of “the failure of the North Korea experience.”
Kerry also said that Iran and North Korea are different, defending the Iranian deal during a Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing as Republican senators raised concern the Iranian deal could fall apart like the 1994 nuclear deal with North Korea.
“Iran has also agreed to accept the additional protocol, and the additional protocol is an outgrowth of the failure of the North Korea experience, which put in additional access requirements precisely so that we do know what Iran is doing,” Kerry said.
The 1994 deal with North Korea, known as the Agreed Framework, required North Korea to freeze and ultimately dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for economic and political concessions. But the deal fell apart after the North was found to have been running a secret nuclear program in late 2002.
Kerry stressed that Iran is different from the North.
“Unlike North Korea, that created a nuclear weapon and exploded one and pulled out of the NPT (Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty), Iran has done none of that,” he said.
The North Korea experience is “what gave birth to the additional protocol” in the Iranian deal, Kerry said. [Yonhap]
I can still remember the good old days when Democrats claimed the failure of the Agreed Framework was all Bush’s fault. How times have changed.
In recent years the mass shootingsperpetuated by ROK Army personnel on their fellow soldiers has been widely documented to include the latest case where a soldier killed 5 of his comrades. The prosecutor is asking for the death penalty in that case. The killers usually blame bullying for the mass shootings. This has caused the ROK Army to do a lot of introspection in regards to the culture of bullying in the ranks. The recent media attention on mass shootings makes it appear as if this is something new. However, as I was browsing through the digital archives of the Stars & Stripes newspaper I noticed this article from June 3, 1968 that shows that mass shootings perpetuated by ROK Army soldiers is not something new:
This case is worse than the recent ROK Army cases because he attacked a crowded movie theater which killed 5 people and wounded 43. Then what is up with this guy’s girlfriend wanting to marry him before being executed? Especially when she was dating another man?
Anyway what I found most interesting about this was that all the way back in 1968 the ROK Army was talking about routine mental testing of recruits. The ROK Army is making the same efforts today though one former ROK Army soldier in his opinion says the tests are a joke. I think what this shows that is unfortunately hard to quantify too crazy to serve in the military with a test until people actually do something crazy. That was true back in 1968 and still true today.
