The U.S. and South Korea on Tuesday kicked off a two-day joint naval drill that includes two U.S. destroyers and several South Korean vessels.
The USS Mustin and the USS John McCain, each with about 280 personnel, are participating off South Korea’s eastern coast. Commander Naval Forces Korea spokesman Lt. Arlo Abrahamson said the exercise includes anti-submarine warfare training, communication drills, ship maneuvers and liaison officer exchanges.
“Some of it they’ve done ashore, and some of it they do at sea,” he said.
The South Korean destroyer Gwanggaeto, a submarine, anti-submarine aircraft and two helicopters are also taking part, according to a South Korean navy spokesman, who said the exercise is meant to reinforce the allies’ readiness posture against North Korea, which is believed to have some 70 submarines. [Stars & Stripes]
A suit to protect medical workers from the Ebola virus is being tested at a medical center in Daejeon, South Chungcheong Province, on Jan. 13, 2015. Last week, South Korea sent a group of five doctors and four nurses to Britain for safety training before flying to Sierra Leone on Jan. 19 for a four-week mission. Seoul plans to send a total of 30 medical staff members to Sierra Leone. The first batch of 10 health care workers has worked there since late December while the final batch of 11 workers will be sent next month. (Yonhap)
It only took a decade, but it appears the US government is ready to implement the only US measure I have seen change Kim regime behavior:
The United States will continue to identify and impose sanctions on financial institutions doing business with North Korea so as to cut the communist nation off from the international financial system, a senior U.S. sanctions official said Tuesday.
Assistant Treasury Secretary for Terrorist Financing Daniel Glaser made the remark during a House committee briefing, saying the 2005 sanctions on the Banco Delta Asia (BDA), a bank in Macau, were so successful because it “created a chilling effect” throughout the international financial system. [Yonhap]
It will be interesting to see how vigorous the financial sanctions will be enforced.
Remember when everyone in the media was highlighting Kim Jong-un’s offer of high level talks as some great thing? Like I said then he was just playing the media to frame the US and the ROK as the bad guys when the North Koreans like they always do make demands to stop US-ROK military exercises:
North Korea called on South Korea Sunday to stop all military exercises, including joint drills with the United States, if it really wants to improve inter-Korean ties.
“If the South is truly determined to improve inter-Korean relations through dialogue and negotiations … it should stop all kinds of war schemes, including reckless military exercises carried out jointly with foreign forces,” Minju Joson, North Korea’s cabinet newspaper, said. “War rehearsals and dialogues cannot coexist.”
The North Korean newspaper also warned that if Seoul sticks to the joint war rehearsals against the North, inter-Korean relations will get much worse and the South Korean government will have to take all the responsibility for it.
The Sunday warning is the latest in the North’s recent desperate efforts to stop rounds of military exercises conducted annually between South Korea and the U.S. [Yonhap]
Los Angeles Police Department officers enjoy Korean food at an event to experience Korean culture at the Korean Culture Center in Los Angeles on Jan. 8, 2015. (Yonhap)
The Korean-American woman who went on a speaking tour in South Korea praising North Korea has now been deported:
A Korean-American woman was expelled from South Korea Saturday for making a series of pro-North Korean remarks during her on-stage talks shows in South Korea, Justice Ministry officials said.
Shin Eun-mi was put on Korean Air Flight KE011 leaving Seoul at 7:50 p.m. for Los Angeles after undergoing two hours of questioning by immigration officials. The expulsion bars her from entering South Korea for the next five years.
On Thursday, the 54-year-old was suspended of indictment after being accused of making comments sympathetic to the North Korean regime at talk shows she hosted in Seoul and other provincial cities in the past several months in violation of South Korea’s National Security Law.
The law bans any activities meant to praise, promote or propagandize North Korean ideals in the country.
“I feel like I was betrayed by my lover. It’s just like an one-sided love,” she told reporters right after receiving the expulsion order. “I leave here today, but the government cannot drive my heart loving the country out of my fatherland. I will continue to wish for peace and reunification of Korea.”
Since being sued by local conservative civic groups for alleged pro-North Korean remarks, she has said she is not a North Korean follower and her comments were all for the peaceful coexistence of the two Koreas. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but this case has drawn criticism that the National Security Law is being used to stop free speech in South Korea. In regards to this case I disagree because foreign citizens by law are not supposed to be involved in political activity in South Korea. So the next time she visits she should leave her politics back in California where it belongs.
North Korea made an attempt to purchase advanced fighter jets from Russia by sending a special envoy, a senior South Korean military official told the JoongAng Ilbo on Thursday.
“Choe Ryong-hae, who visited Moscow as a special envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in November last year, asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to provide Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets,” the military source said.
Little has been disclosed about the discussions between Choe and Putin. Choe, a member of the Presidium of the Political Bureau and secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of North Korea, met with Putin on Nov. 18 and delivered a letter from Kim, the Russian presidential office has said, without providing further details. The Kremlin said the meeting was not open to the press, and no press conference was arranged afterward.
“The North produces many weapons systems domestically, but it appears to have sought Russia’s help because building fighter jets requires more complex technologies,” said the official. “But because of international sanctions imposed on the North, Russia won’t likely sell it readily.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
