This plan does not solve the heart of the problem which is South Korea trying to confiscate Japanese property in South Korea which Tokyo believes is in violation of the 1965 treaty that normalized relations between the two countries:

A Korean-Japanese parliamentary group is promoting an idea to break the diplomatic logjam between the two countries that involves Seoul returning to a bilateral intelligence-sharing pact and Tokyo cancelling export restrictions, a member of the group exclusively told the JoongAng Ilbo on Tuesday.

One “important opportunity” for both countries to decide on such a “simultaneous action plan” will come at the end of this month, when Seoul dispatches an official to Japanese Emperor Naruhito’s enthronement ceremony on Oct. 22 in Tokyo, the source continued.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but this whole thing could be ended if President Moon agrees that confiscation of Japanese property in South Korea will not happen.

It appears the North Koreans are up to their usual negotiating tricks:

North Korea will return to nuclear disarmament talks with the United States despite last week’s breakdown in Sweden, as it intentionally made the decision to leave the first negotiations early to increase its political leverage, experts said Monday.

Ending a months-long hiatus in their denuclearization dialogue, officials from Washington and Pyongyang met in Stockholm amid expectations of a possible breakthrough in the suspended talks.

But Pyongyang declared a breakdown just a few hours after the meeting started in the Swedish capital. It stepped up criticism of Washington for sticking to an “old-fashioned” attitude, even after the fiasco of the failed Hanoi summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in February.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I think at this point President Moon is not going to replace his allegedly corrupt Justice Minister no matter how low his poll numbers drop:

President Moon Jae-in’s approval rating has declined to 44.4 percent amid political turmoil over his justice minister, coupled with news reports of deepening economic woes and North Korea’s firing of a submarine-based ballistic missile, a local pollster said Monday.

According to Realmeter, the rating hit the lowest in its weekly survey since the president took office in May 2017. 

Commissioned by a cable news channel YTN, Realmeter conducted a phone survey of 2,007 people nationwide, aged 19 or older, throughout last week, except for the National Foundation Holiday that fell Thursday. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the U.S. negotiators were not about to drop even limited sanctions for little to nothing in return:

North Korea’s top nuclear envoy on Monday said it was up to the United States to decide whether the two sides will hold further denuclearization talks, pending sufficient change from Washington on its position. 

En route home to Pyongyang after much anticipated working-level discussions with the United States fell apart on Saturday, North Korea’s chief nuclear negotiator Kim Myong-gil told reporters at Beijing’s Capital International Airport that his recent exchange with the U.S. delegation was “sickening,” making clear his dissatisfaction with the United States’ unchanged position on denuclearization.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but I continue to believe that the North Koreans if they don’t get the limited sanctions dropped before the New Year, will create a “crisis” in order to get the deal they want.

Via a reader tip comes news that the person suspected of the infamous Hwaseong murder and rapes over two decades ago has confessed:

The prime suspect of the infamous serial killings in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, has confessed to five more murders besides the nine known cases, police said Wednesday. Lee Chun-jae, 56, also said he committed or attempted to commit about 30 sexual assaults that did not involve murder.

Lee was recently identified as the prime suspect of the nine serial killings that took place in and around Hwaseong from 1986 to 1991, after advanced DNA technology linked him with three of the cases. He is currently serving a jail sentence for a separate murder.

Since the identification, the police have questioned him over nine times. Lee first denied the allegations but confessed last week, according to the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but incredibly for all the rapes and murders he has now confessed to he can not be charged with because the statute of limitations has passed. He will however remain in jail for the murder of his sister-in-law which unknowingly stopped the Hwaseong murders. He raped and murdered his sister in law because she convinced his wife to leave him.

It will be interesting to see how this race turns out next year after narrowing losing in 2018:

When newly elected members of Congress traveled to Washington for freshman orientation in late November, Young Kim, 56, flew from her Orange County home to join them. Not all of the ballots in California’s 39th Congressional District were counted, but Ms. Kim believed her narrow lead was solid. After shaking hands with other members at white-tablecloth lunches, she posed for her official portrait and a group photo of all new members. Ms. Kim was expected to be one of two Republican women of color and the first Korean-American woman in Congress.

Several days into her rookie duties in late November, with all of the 244,393 ballots in the district counted, the race was officially called: She lost the election. Gil Cisneros, her Democratic opponent and a former Republican who ran on preserving Obamacare, captured 51.6 percent of the vote. Ms. Kim would not be a member of the 116th Congress.

Less than six months later, Ms. Kim announced she would try again. Now, the rematch between Ms. Kim and Mr. Cisneros will test how blue the 2018 wave in Orange County really was. Republicans hope that after the narrow loss, they can reclaim the district and two others in the county, which encompasses the birthplace of Richard Nixon and has long been a bastion for conservatives.

“This district is not as far left as many political pundits in Washington would like people to believe,” Ms. Kim said in an interview. Soon after the loss, Ms. Kim began discussing the possibility of running again with her husband, who is also active in local politics, and their four adult children. It was almost a given that she would try again. “Winners don’t quit,” she said. “That’s why I got back in — we know we can.”

New York Times

You can read more at the link.