According to Ambassador Harris timing is running out for a US-ROK cost sharing deal:

Washington has compromised in its demands that South Korea should pay billions of dollars towards US troop presence and it was Seoul’s turn to reciprocate before time ran out, the American ambassador said Thursday.

The two allies are in a security alliance and Washington stations 28,500 troops in South Korea to defend it from the nuclear-armed North, which invaded in 1950.

They are a key part of US forces’ deployment in Asia, but the Trump administration has been insisting Seoul pay more towards their costs.

The initial US demand was around $5 billion a year — a more than fivefold increase on the roughly $900 million paid in 2019 — provoking consternation in Seoul.

The latest round of negotiations concluded without an agreement in Washington on Wednesday.

US negotiators had “adjusted our position, our top line number”, said Ambassador Harry Harris. “We are now waiting for the Korean side to do the same.”

“South Korea as an equal partner in the preservation of peace on the peninsula, and its position as the 12th largest economy in the entire world, can and should do more.”

Time was “of the essence”, he told reporters in a group interview at his residence in the centre of Seoul.

Around 10,000 South Koreans working for United States Forces Korea (USFK) are paid from funds from last year’s deal and when they run out, they will have to be put on furlough, he said. “That notice is going to go out soon.”

AFP

You can read more at the link.

This should be a surprise to absolutely no one who follows China and North Korea issues closely:

In the case of the three banks, which were not identified by name, China opposed U.S. sanctions on a North Korean front company in Hong Kong linked to the banks. Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled last year that the three companies were in contempt for failing to comply with the subpoenas and fined them each $50,000 per day.

Bloomberg News reported that the three banks appeared to be the China Merchants Bank, the Bank of Communications and the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, identified as among China’s 10 largest banks. The banks told Bloomberg that they were not under investigation for sanctions violations.

In a second case involving covert Chinese support to North Korea, an FBI agent revealed in court papers that although China agreed to work with U.S. authorities in providing bank records under the Mutual Legal Assistance Agreement, China never handed over any records. The FBI agent testified that based on the lack of cooperation “the MLAA process is not an effective way to obtain bank records from Chinese authorities with respect to investigations involving North Korea.”

That case involved a request for Chinese bank records regarding Dandong Hongxiang Industrial Development Co. Ltd., a North Korean front company in China.

The agent was quoted as saying “one reason that Chinese authorities do not want to assist with North Korean investigations is that producing such records could reflect badly on the Chinese government and the Chinese financial industry.”

Washington Times

You can read more at the link.

The Australian student who was detained in North Korea last year is now telling his story on what happened to him:

An Australian student who was briefly detained in North Korea last year over spy charges said he had been kidnapped by secret police and forced to make a false confession, according to an article written by him and seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

Alek Sigley was held for nine days from June 25 while studying for a postgraduate degree in modern Korean literature at the prestigious Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

He was expelled from the country after Swedish officials helped broker his release.

North Korean state media KCNA said he had admitted his “spying acts” including passing data and photos he collected by utilizing his status as a foreign student to “anti-state” media outlets.

Beyond denying that he was a spy and saying he was sad to have lost access to North Korea, Sigley has not previously publicized details of his detention.

In his first-hand account carried by a South Korea magazine, Sigley said that what appeared to be agents from the Stasi-like State Security Department, known as bowibu, “kidnapped” him from his dorm at the university.

“I was innocent but they filed false charges against me,” he wrote, without elaborating.

“They endlessly tried to teach me some kind of lessons by forcing me to make a written confession which was a concoction of fabricated evidence and crimes and illogical legal reasonings.”

Reuters

You can read more at the link, but at least he wasn’t tortured and is alive to tell about what happened unlike other former detainees in North Korea.

Like I have always said, people should not be visiting or investing in North Korea and helping to fund the Kim regime. Mr. Sigley has unfortunately found this out the hard way.

I guess to President Moon reform means that prosecutors should not look into corrupt activities surrounding the Blue House:

President Moon Jae-in pressed Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl to take more control of reform Tuesday, issuing a public warning that the right to appoint prosecutors belongs to the president and minister of justice. 

“Prosecution reform is only possible when the prosecutors themselves act as main agents,” Moon said in a New Year’s press conference. “And the prosecutor general must spearhead the reform in order to bring about changes in not only the customary way of conducting investigations, but also the organizational culture.” 

Moon’s remarks followed a series of unprecedented measures taken by the Blue House, Ministry of Justice and the ruling party on the previous day to chip away at the power of state prosecutors.

On Monday, the Blue House asked the National Human Rights Commission of Korea to consider a petition that the prosecution should be investigated for alleged rights abuses when it probed corruption allegations surrounding former Justice Minister Cho Kuk and his family. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but it is amazing how no one in the media is challenging Moon on suppressing investigations into corruption inside his administration.

That is what the National Human Rights Commission of Korea believes:

The nation’s human rights watchdog recommended the Korean Air Force to stop making new trainees shave their heads, Monday, saying the practice is an excessive restriction of the soldiers’ rights.

Unlike their counterparts in the Korean army and navy, air force recruits are required to completely shave their heads during the month-long training period. Army or navy trainees, on the other hand, are allowed to keep a crew cut up to 5 cm length at the front. 

The complaint was brought to the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) last April. The complainant ― the parent of an Air Force trainee at the time ― claimed the head-shaving practice was an encroachment on soldiers’ human rights. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I guess this is better than the Hitler bars in South Korea:

Tucked away in the dazzling neon of Seoul’s Hongdae nightlife district, a small building bears an image of a North Korean-looking construction worker pointing to the slogan: “Look! It’s the Pyongyang Bar!”

There are no post, telephone or transport links between the two halves of the divided Korean peninsula, but Seoul’s only North Korean-themed pub aims to give its patrons a taste of their nuclear-armed neighbour.

Owner Jang Woo-kyung has never been north of the Demilitarized Zone — the two Koreas are technically still at war and Southerners need their government’s permission to visit — but the bar’s decor is inspired by imagery from across the border.

The premises are festooned with North Korean-style posters, the lime green walls reminiscent of the pastel shades seen on Pyongyang apartment blocks, and slogans painted around the pub are written in a white-on-red script similar to the North’s propaganda.

But rather than praise North Korean leaders, which might fall foul of the South’s National Security Act, the messages proclaim more prosaic goals: “Let’s provide the most cold beer!”

Others combine health regulations with allusions to the North’s uncompromising judicial system: “Execution by firing squad if caught smoking inside.”

– ‘Loyal to capitalism’ –

Even before the business opened, Jang was ordered by authorities to remove portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il — the grandfather and father of current leader Kim Jong Un — from the building’s exterior.

“I have no intention of dignifying or praising North Korea,” said Jang, whose business cards use the South’s English spelling for the North’s capital, Pyeongyang. “I’m just a man loyal to capitalism.”

AFP

You can read more at the link.