The Moon administration is not going to like this news:
Eight out of ten South Koreans think economic issues are more important than unification with North Korea, according to a new government survey.
The Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs released on Friday the results of their survey of three-thousand-873 South Korean adults, which indicates that 77-point-one percent of respondents would choose the economy over unification if only one of the two problems could be solved.
In the survey, 55-point-nine percent agreed with the proposition that South Korea and North Korea don’t necessarily have to form a unified country.
A full 53-point-two percent answered negatively when asked if they were willing to partially give up their quality of life for unification with North Korea.
Which begs a fundamental question: if true that no amount of sanctions can convince NK to make the strategic decision to denuclearize, then why do we think unbridled concessions would? If we asked Kim what it would take for him to willingly go to zero, he wouldn’t have an answer. https://t.co/7n5QSpxLGp
N. Korean children pay tribute to former leaders Delegates to the celebrations of the 73rd founding anniversary of the Korean Children’s Union gather at Mansudae Hill, where bronze statues of founder Kim Il-sung and his late son Kim Jong-il stand, in Pyongyang on June 4, 2019, in this photo released by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency on June 5. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
It appears that the North Korean uranium enrichment facility has never slowed down operations during the recent peace initiative:
This image shows North Korea’s main nuclear facility at Yongbyon. (Yonhap)
North Korea’s main nuclear complex shows continued activity around its uranium enrichment facility, indicating ongoing operations at the plant, a U.S. monitor said Wednesday. 38 North, a project run by the Stimson Center think tank, said recent commercial satellite imagery shows the movement of vehicles, equipment and personnel near the uranium facility at Yongbyon. “Our observation, that periodic material transport (e.g., possibly to deliver liquid nitrogen) has continued at the Uranium Enrichment Complex over time, provides a new indicator that the complex is operational, and therefore that it is also most likely producing enriched uranium,” 38 North said on its website, citing satellite imagery from past months up to May 28. “However, we do not have any definitive means to determine either the actual levels of enrichment or the total production throughput of the ~4000 centrifuges at this time,” it added. North Korea has built nuclear weapons from both plutonium and uranium, with some estimating that the regime now holds an arsenal of 20 to 30 nuclear weapons.
You can read more at the link, but the original 38 North article can be read at this link.
I can still remember the days when the North Korean apologists were all saying that former President Bush was lying about North Korea having a uranium program. Now many of these same people are still giving advice about North Korea.
If Kim Jong-un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong was supposedly disciplined, it sure didn’t last very long because she is back in the spotlight:
Kim Yo-jong, second from left, is seen at North Korea’s propaganda group gymnastics and artist performance, “The Land of the People,” at May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, Tuesday. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is also seen fourth from left. Yonhap
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s powerful younger sister has appeared in public for the first time in 53 days, contradicting rumors that she was disciplined in the wake of the leader’s embarrassing no-deal summit with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Kim Yo-jong attended North Korea’s propaganda group gymnastics and artist performance called “The Land of the People” held in Pyongyang’s May Day Stadium on Monday, along with leader Kim, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
It marked the first time that Kim Yo-jong has appeared in public since she was last seen in North Korean media during the Supreme People’s Assembly in April. Until then, she played the role of a personal secretary for the leader, and was seen holding an ashtray when he was having a cigarette break at a Chinese train station on his way to Vietnam for the summit with Trump.
The report came after rumors of a purge spiked following a news report that leader Kim had carried out a massive punishment of officials responsible for the breakdown of the Trump summit and that Kim Yo-jong was disciplined.
NK premier inspects power stationNorth Korea’s Premier Kim Jae-ryong (L) inspects the Sunchon Thermal Power Plant in Sunchon, South Pyongan Province, in this photo released by the Korean Central News Agency on May 22, 2019. The agency did not elaborate on when the inspection was made. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
I found the report of Kim Yong-chol being purged hard to believe considering he is the Butcher of the Cheonan which has been one of North Korea’s most successful operations in recent years:
Kim Yong-chol, in the white circle, watches an arts performance with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, fourth from left, in this photo released on Monday by the North’s Korean Central News Agency. The photo came amid rumors of him being purged after collapsed nuclear talks in Hanoi. Yonhap
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un watched an art troupe’s performance, along with his top aides, including Kim Yong-chol, who was rumored to have been purged after the no-deal summit in Hanoi, Pyongyang’s media reported Monday.
The leader attended the show “given by amateur art groups of the wives of officers of units of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) selected in the seventh round of the second-term contest of art groups of KPA officers’ wives,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.
He appeared with his wife Ri Sol-ju and other top officials, including Kim Yong-chol, the North’s counterpart to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in denuclearization negotiations with the U.S., the KCNA revealed.
Rumors have circulated that Kim Yong-chol might have been punished in the leader’s move to purge officials responsible for the no-deal summit with President Trump after the Chosun Ilbo, a major conservative newspaper, reported that Kim Yong-chol was punished with hard labor and another negotiator Kim Hyok-chol, a former North Korean envoy to the U.S. was executed citing anonymous sources last week.
The fact that the North Koreans are so strongly protesting the seizure of their ship at the UN demonstrates this is an area they are vulnerable:
Kim Song, the permanent representative of North Korea to the United Nations, speaks during a press conference at the UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday. [XINHUA/YONHAP]
North Korea’s top envoy to the United Nations (UN) warned that the U.S. seizure of a cargo ship earlier this month could endanger future denuclearization negotiations in a rare news conference in New York on Tuesday.
“The United States should deliberate and think of the consequences that its outrageous act might have on future developments,” Kim Song, the North Korean ambassador to the UN, said at a press conference at the UN headquarters Tuesday. “And also, the United States must return our cargo ship without delay.”
The U.S. Justice Department on May 9 announced it had impounded the 17,061-ton Wise Honest bulk carrier and accused it of exporting North Korean coal in violation of U.S. and UN Security Council sanctions. Along with coal shipments, it was also used to import heavy machinery from Yantai Port in China’s Shandong Province to Nampo Port in North Korea, the Justice Department said.
You can read more at the link, but seizing ships involved in illicit shipments from North Korea is something I have long advocated. After being seized the cargo and the ship itself I believe should be auctioned with the proceeds going to families who have lost loved ones due to North Korea’s terrorism acts over the years.
Here are the modern day comfort women that you never hear the left in South Korea ever talk about. Instead they bash Japan for things that happened nearly 75 years ago while saying nothing about the modern day Korean comfort women in China:
The sexual exploitation of North Korean women and girls generates an estimated $105 million annually for Chinese criminal networks, according to a report released by a London-based human rights group Monday.
The Korea Future Initiative, a non-governmental human rights organization, described a year-long study of thousands of North Korean women and girls forced into marriages and pregnancies, organized prostitution and cybersex work in China.
The report found that the victims, generally between the ages of 12 and 29 and overwhelmingly female, could be trafficked directly from North Korea or coerced, sold or abducted in China. They are subject to abuse thanks to a demand for sex slaves in China.
Some victims – including a nine-year-old girl – were trafficked into Chinese cybersex dens, where they are sexually assaulted or forced to perform graphic acts in front of webcams live-streamed to a paying global audience – including South Korean men. A single live-stream session featuring a North Korean pre-teen can cost as much as $110.
You can always count on the Chinese to bust international sanctions:
China has provided rice and fertilizer to North Korea, Chinese data showed Sunday, amid U.N. Security Council (UNSC) sanctions against the North that prohibit any large-scale economic assistance.
According to data from China’s customs office, Beijing provided 1,000 tons of rice, worth about US$1 million, to the impoverished North between May and October of 2018. The data showed Beijing also provided 162,000 tons of fertilizer, worth more than $55 million, to the North.
The shipments of what appears to have been free assistance followed North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s visit to China in March 2018, when he held his first summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
