So does anyone have any issues with the plastic bag ban that is about to go into affect in South Korea?:
Use of disposable plastic bags will be banned at large retailers nationwide, starting next month, as part of the government’s efforts to reduce waste and conserve the environment, the Ministry of Environment said Wednesday.
The ministry said about 2,000 hypermarkets and approximately 11,000 big supermarkets with sales floor space of 165 square meters or more will be prohibited from offering disposable plastic bags to their clients from April 1.
Department stores and large shopping malls are also subject to the revised enforcement regulation of the Act on the Promotion of Saving and Recycling of Resources, the ministry said.
Retailers that violate the ban could face fines of up to 3 million won (around $2,644).
Hmm, I wonder if North Korea was behind all those emails I got from the Ugandan prince wanting to give me ten million dollars if only I gave my bank information. 😀 https://t.co/eoiqNsc3eL
S. Korea receives stealth fighter jets from U.S.A U.S. F-35A stealth fighter jet arrives at an air base in Cheongju, 140 kilometers southeast of Seoul, on March 29, 2019. It is one of a pair of the jets that South Korea received on the day, part of the 40 that South Korea agreed to buy in a 2014 contract. (Yonhap)
Is anyone surprised that CNN is trying to sensationalize this nuclear football story to make the claim that President Trump doesn’t care about Puerto Ricans:
He was there to survey the path of destruction left by Hurricane Maria. But when President Donald Trump visited Puerto Rico in October 2017, the island’s dire predicament was hardly the only topic on his mind. People familiar with the visit said the President was distracted by other matters — including his then-devolving war of words with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — as he toured devastated neighborhoods and took an aerial tour of the damage. At one point, Trump pointed to the “nuclear football” — a briefcase always in the President’s vicinity that can be used to authorize a nuclear attack — and claimed he could use it on Kim whenever he felt. “This is what I have for Kim,” he said, according to three people familiar who witnessed the remark.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the incident. The episode came amid an increasingly acrimonious period that saw Trump boast of the size of his “nuclear button” and threaten to rain “fire and fury” on North Korea. Since then, he and Kim have developed a warm friendship and met for two summits. But at the time, the casual reference to his nuclear capabilities was another sign of the spiraling rhetoric that marked his early interactions with Kim. And, to some officials, it was an indication of Trump’s disinterest in the plight of Puerto Ricans, who suffered for months without power and limited resources as their island recovered from the walloping storm. “There were other topics that were being discussed and my view is that the sole focus of that trip should have been on Puerto Rico,” said Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló in an exclusive interview on Thursday.
Security has been tightened at bases in South Korea:
The new U.S. Forces Korea building seen at Camp Humphreys, South Korea, June, 29, 2018.
The U.S. military in South Korea increased security at bases across the divided peninsula Friday after receiving a potential threat. Security measures were stepped up after American law enforcement officials notified U.S. Forces Korea of the potential threat by an individual against the installations, according to a USFK announcement posted on social media. “Organizations from USFK, [South Korea] and law enforcement are cooperating to appropriately assess the credibility of the threat,” it said. “During this time, you may see increased force protection measures.”
he statement didn’t elaborate. USFK officials declined to publicly specify the measures or elaborate on the potential threat due to the security concerns involved, but they urged people to be vigilant.
If I was this group I would keep a very low profile because I would not be surprised if the Kim regime is plotting to give their leadership the Kim Jong-nam treatment:
Adrian Hong Chang
A political group that claimed responsibility for a raid on the North Korean embassy in Madrid last month announced on Thursday it will temporarily cease all activities, but said it will eventually shake the North’s Kim Jong-un regime “to its roots.”
Free Joseon, also known as Cheollima Civil Defense, defined itself in a statement released on its website as an international group composed of North Korean refugees around the world mobilized under the “conviction to break [North Korea’s] dynastic succession under the Kim family.”
Adding that it had no links to North Korean defectors residing in the South, whose activities are monitored by Seoul, the group also asked international media to stop paying attention to its structure and members for security reasons, since “greater acts lie in store.”
A Spanish High Court investigation report released on Wednesday said 10 assailants from Free Joseon stormed the North’s embassy in Madrid on Feb. 22. Armed with knives and fake guns, the group allegedly stole computers and pen drives reportedly containing sensitive information before successfully escaping to the United States.
Court papers named the mastermind behind the attack as Mexican citizen Adrian Hong Chang, a longtime figure in North Korea-related activist circles in the United States. Upon returning to the United States after the successful raid, Hong apparently tried to offer the information he obtained to FBI officials. It remains unclear whether the FBI accepted the offer, but the State Department denied the U.S. government had any ties to the group on Wednesday. According to Reuters on Thursday, an FBI investigation into the raid is currently in the works.
Hong is said to be one of the co-founders of the North Korea refugee support group LiNK, or Liberty in North Korea, and the head of a strategic consulting firm called Pegasus Strategies LLC, which he described in a published article as a company that uses modern technology to “penetrate closed societies and empower people in those nations.”
The govt owns the Pension Fund, which invests in stocks. The #MoonJaein administration just used that to involve itself in the management of a company, starting with expelling the CEO. The 1st target of nationalization is Korean Air. #SouthKorea on the way to socialism. https://t.co/Ny1Eo8BlvD
N.K. leader attends military meetingNorth Korea’s top leader Kim Jong-un (front, L) attends a military meeting in Pyongyang on March 25-26, 2019, in this image from the North’s Korean Central TV broadcast on March 27. It was Kim’s first reported public appearance since March 10 when he voted in the parliamentary election. Kim gave opening and closing speeches at the meeting. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
Here is what well known author and Korea expert Michael Breen has to say about the current efforts to denuclearize North Korea by the Trump administration:
The Korea Times roundtable to tackle the aftermath of the no-deal Hanoi summit between North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and the U.S.’s Donald Trump is under way at the Times conference room, March 14. From right are Prof. Hwang Jae-ho, director of the Global Security Cooperation Center, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies; Asia Times correspondent Andrew Salmon; Michael Breen, author of “The New Koreans;” Michael Hay of HMP Law, who ran North Korea’s only foreign law firm; and The Korea Times digital managing editor Oh Young-jin. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul
What does North Korea want? North Korea’s leaders may be rational and consistent, but they are opaque, which leads to a lot of guessing about them. One certainty is that they want sanctions lifted. After that, it becomes unclear. Possibility number one is that they want to come in out of the cold, develop their economy and that for this they are prepared to destroy their known nuclear weapons and facilities, but retain the potential to re-arm.
Another possibility is that they plan no real change and are approaching Trump from a risk management perspective. If that is the case, they might serve up a missile launch when Trump announces his plan for re-election. A third possibility is that they still want to unify the peninsula on their own terms and see nuclear weapons as integral to this aim.
These possibilities are not mutually exclusive. But they have one thing in common ― there is a role for nuclear weapons. A fourth possibility ― that North Korea wants to give up being a nuclear power and return to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty with its tail between its legs ― would be nice, but appears to be the least favored by analysts.
It is precisely because it is this last scenario that the U.S. is pushing for that suggests the talks may well fail. I hope I am wrong, but the answer to our question of whether Trump is failing may well be, no, not yet.
You can read more at the link, but I think it is pretty clear what North Korea wants. First of all they want to keep their nuclear weapons not as a deterrent, but instead to unify the Korean peninsula. Remember their artillery threat on Seoul has been enough of deterrent to prevent a US attack on North Korea for decades. Remember the Kim regime has killed many American troops over the decades with no US counterattack because of this artillery threat.
So clearly the expense and political capital they have put into their nuclear weapons program is intended to give them a military advantage over South Korea. This will all factor into the future confederation that the Kim regime wants to establish with South Korea that they can use their nuclear weapons to help extort the ROK to implement once the US-ROK alliance is ended.
This is why the Kim regime wants “Pretend Denuclearization” in return for dropping sanctions, followed by a peace treaty that would ultimately lead to a US troop withdrawal to make the Confederation under North Korea’s terms fall into place.
Another ruling party and Moon administration official caught up in a scandal:
A two-story building purchased by presidential spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom last July. The building, located inside the redevelopment zone of Heukseok-dong, Dongjak District, in southern Seoul, was worth 2.57 billion won (＄2.26 million). [YONHAP]
A real estate investment by presidential spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom has prompted accusations that he is guilty of real estate speculation – which the administration has done its best to crack down on.
On Thursday, the Government Ethics Committee’s Public Service Ethics Program released this year’s report on assets of senior public servants, including Blue House aides and cabinet ministers. According to the report, Kim purchased a building in Heukseok-dong, southern Seoul’s Dongjak District, for 2.57 billion won ($2.26 million won) last July, just weeks before the government announced strong antispeculation measures that applied to that neighborhood.
“Throughout the morning meeting, we discussed concerns over Kim’s purchase,” an official of the Blue House told the JoongAng Ilbo on Thursday. “We wonder if the public will accept the fact that he borrowed 1.6 billion won to make an investment in a redevelopment zone when the government was strongly pushing its policy to stabilize the real estate market.”
To purchase the building, Kim borrowed over 1.02 billion won from Kookmin Bank. He borrowed another 360 million won from individuals. In total, he took out over 1.6 billion won in loans to purchase the building.
The property is located inside the Heukseok 9 redevelopment district, one of the hottest redevelopment projects in Seoul. Lotte Engineering and Construction will redevelop the area to build 11 buildings that will house 1,536 apartments under the name Heukseok Signature Castle. A realtor in the neighborhood said the project is considered to be highly profitable to investors depending on when they got in. (…..)
“It is common sense among ordinary people that you shouldn’t take out a huge loan and invest unless you are certain that the building will soon be redeveloped,” said another Blue House official. “If accusations are made that Kim used information he obtained as the presidential spokesman and made the investment, the situation can be uncontrollable.”
