Considering that she is Kim Jong-un’s trusted sister, she has probably always been a national leader, but is now officially filling the role:

North Korean leader’s younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, has been elevated to the level of a national leader, an upgrade from her previous role as a protocol assistant to the leader, the main South Korean intelligence agency concluded Tuesday in its analysis of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s unprecedented state visit to the North last week. 

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) on Tuesday briefed Rep. Lee Hye-hoon of the Bareunmirae Party, chairwoman of the National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee, about Xi’s visit to the North on Thursday and Friday. Following the briefing, Lee met with journalists and shared some of the NIS’s analysis, which dissected in detail Xi’s 27-hour stay in Pyongyang, including his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

According to Lee, Kim Yo-jong has been elevated to the level of a national leader. 

“If you look at the photos [of last week’s summit], she was standing in the same level of Choe Ryong-hae, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, and Ri Su-yon, vice chairman of the Workers’ Party,” Lee quoted the NIS as saying. “The NIS believes that Kim’s role has been adjusted and her weight has been increased [within the North’s regime].” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Legally going after the people and organizations that break sanctions and freezing their assets like what happened with this guy should be vigorously pursued:

Taiwan’s justice ministry has expressed regret after a businessman convicted over illegal oil sales to North Korea leapt to his death.

Authorities launched a probe into Chen Shih-hsien last year after Seoul said it had detained a Hong Kong-registered ship suspected of transferring oil to a North Korean vessel, flouting UN sanctions. 

Chen, 54, was later indicted on forgery charges for making a false declaration that a ship he had chartered was bound for Hong Kong when it actually sailed to international waters to sell the oil. 

A district court in southern Kaohsiung city last month sentenced him to 119 days in jail, suspended for two years.

Chen’s assets were frozen after Taiwan’s government imposed a ban on all financial dealings with him and locked up his companies’ bank accounts due to the probe, which he was appealing against.

The justice ministry said in a statement it deeply regretted the passing of Chen, who jumped from a building on Friday in a suspected suicide. 

Local media said Chen left a “suicide note” while prosecutors were not immediately available for comment.

Chen’s case revolved around a ship called the Lighthouse Winmore, which was impounded in late 2017 by South Korean authorities after it allegedly transferred 600 tonnes of oil to the North’s Sam Jong 2.

The vessel was chartered by the Billions Bunker Group, which is incorporated in the Marshall Islands and run by Chen.

Reports said Chen sold oil products through “a Chinese middleman”.

AFP

You can read more at the link, but China is always going to be the weak link when it comes to sanctions and probably all the more reason why the Trump administration has been putting economic pressure on them.

69 years ago today North Korea launched an all out attack on South Korea which ignited a conflict we call the Korean War. Sometimes referred to as “the Forgotten War” in the US, it is not forgotten here in the ROK. 1/5

— Robert Abrams (@DogFaceSoldier) June 25, 2019

I am not a fan of occupying Gwanghamun Square with tents, but would the government remove tents of their political allies if they set them up in Gwanghamun Square?:

The Seoul Metropolitan Government removed tents, Tuesday, which had been put up illegally by a far-right minor opposition party in Gwanghwamun Square protesting the imprisonment of former President Park Geun-hye.

However, the Our Republican Party, put up new tent on the same spot just five hours later, indicating a possible clash between it and the city government in the near future.

According to the city government, 500 municipal officials and 400 hired workers raided the spot at 5:20 a.m. to remove two tents and a canopy installed by the party.

The party, which changed its name the previous day from the Korean Patriots Party, set up the tents May 10 for sit-in protests calling for an investigation into the deaths of five pro-Park supporters who died during a 2017 rally against the impeachment of the former president. Seoul City has been sending letters of notification to the party to remove the tents set up without its permission. 

The officials and workers clashed with 400 party members and supporters, who tried to protect the tents after a city official read out a notice on the execution of an administrative order.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This seemed unlikely considering that President Trump appears to only want to meet if Kim Jong-un commits to real denuclearization:

 U.S. President Donald Trump has no plans to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during his trip to South Korea later this week, a senior U.S. administration official said Monday.

Trump will visit Seoul on Saturday and Sunday after attending a Group of 20 summit in Japan, prompting speculation that a Trump-Kim meeting could be arranged at the inter-Korean border.

“There are no plans for the meeting that you just mentioned,” the official told reporters on background in a phone call.

“The president’s there to see President Moon (Jae-in),” he said.

On a Trump visit to the Demilitarized Zone, the official said the details of the president’s schedule have yet to be finalized.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The so called experts are again weighing in and recommending that President Trump reopen the Kaesong Industrial Complex to create “momentum” in the denuclearization talks whatever that means:

North Korea raked in more than $120 million a year from a symbolic cross-border industrial zone that Pyongyang and Seoul are pushing to re-open as part of nuclear negotiations, a report said Monday.

The Kaesong Industrial Complex — where around 55,000 North Korean workers churned out products ranging from watches to clothes for some 125 South Korean companies — was one of the most visible signs of reconciliation that followed the first inter-Korean summit in 2000.

But it was shuttered by the South’s then-conservative government in 2016 in response to a nuclear test and missile launches by the North, saying profits from Kaesong were funding Pyongyang’s provocations.

The South’s current President Moon Jae-in has dangled re-opening the complex as an incentive for Pyongyang to engage in denuclearisation talks, but doing so is complicated by the web of international sanctions imposed on the North over its weapons programmes.

At their Pyongyang summit in September, Moon and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed to “normalise” operations at Kaesong when conditions were “ripe”, but negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington are now deadlocked and Northern media have pressed the South to implement joint economic projects.

The International Crisis Group called on Monday for the complex to be reopened with “a modest deal involving sanctions relief”.

Doing so would create “much needed momentum for stalled peace talks and serve as a reminder to both North and South Korea of the benefits of building a sustainable peace on the peninsula”, it added in a statement.

AFP

You can read more at the link, but this is just more “pretend denuclearization” and something that the expert class has been calling for now for decades. These concessions to the Kim regime never work and I believe it actually makes it harder to reach a denuclearization deal because they use the funding to further their weapons programs.

Very cool introducing Gen. Abrams to Doran Clark Abrams, the granddaughter of Gen. Mark Clark, and her husband this week at the Korean War Veterans Appreciation Event. Gen. Abrams gave an inspiring speech and reaffirmed the US-ROK “ironclad alliance.” #Katchikapshida pic.twitter.com/tKxLrbWAsI

— Ned Forney (@NedForney) June 21, 2019

If this bill is approved does anyone think the VA will be flooded with new sexual assault claims?:

The Department of Veterans Affairs is opposing a new bill that would expand access to disability benefits for survivors of military sexual trauma.

Department officials characterized the legislation at a congressional hearing Thursday as too broad, saying it would require the VA to approve claims based on a veteran’s word alone without any corroborating evidence.

But after a recent inspector general report found the VA may have wrongly refused benefits to thousands of military sexual assault victims in recent years, supporters of the Servicemembers and Veterans Empowerment and Support Act of 2019 say changes are necessary to keep the department from retraumatizing victims who deserve to be compensated for what they went through — even if there’s no paper trail.

“It is just unthinkable that in this day, we ask people to serve in the military, they have these horrendous experiences … but then people present themselves for claims — and many of them going back an incredibly long period of time — and then hit these brick walls,” said Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, who introduced the legislation.

Among other things, the bill would lessen the burden of proof for military sexual assault survivors applying for disability benefits, requiring the VA to resolve every reasonable doubt in favor of the veteran, as is already standard VA practice for claims of combat-related PTSD.

Army Times

You can read more at the link, but how come the burden of proof is not lowered for other claims to the VA such as for muscular-skeletal injuries or even agent orange exposure?