South Korean President Park Geun-hye (front) arrives at El Dorado airport in Bogota, Colombia, on April 16, 2015, on her first leg of her South America tour that will also take her to Peru, Chile and Brazil. (Yonhap)
Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.
Deployment of US missile defense considered for South Korea http://t.co/gGUMQGYQWp #KoreaNews
— Korea News Summary (@ROKreport) April 16, 2015
A soldier from the 2nd Infantry Division of U.S. Forces Korea and a soldier from the 65th Division of the Korean Army compete in a “ssireum,” Korean wrestling, match at Camp Casey in the city of Dongducheon, north of Seoul, on April 17, 2015, as part of an athletic event aimed at promoting the South Korea-U.S. friendship. (Yonhap)
This is going to be a very expensive operation to do. The Korean government should force the ferry boat company to pay for this instead of the taxpayers:
South Korea’s president on Thursday vowed to raise the Sewol ferry — which sank a year ago killing 304 people — as mourners marked the anniversary of the disaster.
Most of those killed in the sinking, off the country’s southwestern coast, were high school students. Some 295 bodies were retrieved but nine remain missing.
Speaking in the port of Paengmok, near the disaster site, President Park Guen-hye said she would take “the necessary steps to salvage the ship at the earliest possible date,” the BBC reported.
Park’s announcement — the first time she explicitly mentioned the recovery operation — came soon after the National Assembly adopted a resolution calling for the swift recovery of the ferry, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported. The president said all measures would be taken to recover the bodies of the missing.
“I have a heavy heart and my heart aches to think how painful it is” (for the family members), Park said, according to Yonhap. [USA Today]
You can read the rest at the link, but for causing this tragedy Chonghaejin Corp. was fined less than $10,000. They should pay to raise the ferry and compensate all of its victims.
I think everyone except the Air Force senior leadership realizes it is crazy to think the F-35 can provide the same capability as the A-10:
The commander of U.S. forces in South Korea said Wednesday that the retirement of the A-10 aircraft will leave a gap in the ability to take out enemy tanks from the air.
Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti made the comment under questioning by House lawmakers and said he would compensate for the change by using air and ground forces differently if war breaks out on the peninsula.
The Air Force is pushing a controversial plan to retire the 1970’s-era close air support stalwart, which can shoot tank-busting depleted uranium rounds, and replace it with the F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter, which remains in development and will have limited combat capability when it first goes into operation this summer.
“It would open a gap in terms of that aircraft with that specific capability,” said Scaparrotti, who along with other defense officials warned Wednesday of an increasingly belligerent North Korea.
The testimony comes a day after the Pentagon told lawmakers that the first version of the F-35 will not be able to outdo the A-10 Warthog and its powerful nose cannon on the battlefield.
The Block 2B set to got to the Marine Corps this summer will only be able to carry four bombs and not have any guns. Future variants are expected to have improved weapons but still face high development hurdles. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read the rest at the link.
https://twitter.com/SouthKoreaDaily/status/588418510964953088
This photo, taken on April 10, 2015, shows a message that U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter wrote in the visitors’ book at the defense ministry in Seoul on the same day prior to his talks with South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo. The message reads, “Thank you to the Minister and all the members of the ROK forces for many decades of steadfast alliance. We have a bright future ahead.” (Yonhap)
Just in case anyone cares it was recently Kim Il-sung Day in North Korea:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un paid homage to his late grandfather as the country celebrated his 103rd birthday. Military and party executives and ordinary citizens vowed loyalty to the country and dozens of cannon salutes were unleashed.
At midnight, flowers were laid before the embalmed bodies of national founder Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun to mark the “Day of the Sun,” according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
The participants “consolidated their pledge to actively contribute to building as soon as possible a rich, powerful and thriving paradise of the people, an unparalleled strong country,” the agency said. [Korea Herald]
You can read the rest at the link, but for how long now has the Kim regime been promising to building a powerful and rich country?
I wonder if the Iranians were using this shipment as a way to test US willingness to strike a deal?
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, right, welcomes North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong, for a meeting in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014North Korea supplied several shipments of missile components to Iran during recent nuclear talks and the transfers appear to violate United Nations sanctions on both countries, according to U.S. intelligence officials.
Since September more than two shipments of missile parts have been monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies as they transited from North Korea to Iran, said officials familiar with intelligence reports who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Details of the arms shipments were included in President Obama’s daily intelligence briefings and officials suggested information about the transfers was kept secret from the United Nations, which is in charge of monitoring sanctions violations.
Critics of the U.S.-led nuclear framework agreement reached in Switzerland earlier this month have said one major deficiency of the accord is its failure to address Iran’s missile program, considered a key nuclear delivery system for the Islamist regime. [The Washington Free Beachon]
You can read the rest at the link, but if the Iranians saw that the US was allowing this ship to travel to Iran unmolested then that may have been a sign to the regime that the US was eager to cut a deal and overlook obvious sanctions violations. Anyone else have any other theories on the timing of this shipment?
