Due to the Korean War there are many more families like this one that have remained separated for decades. It is good they have finally been able to see each other:
Lee Sung-kyu, right, is reunited with her husband Oh In-se for the first time in 65 years after they were separated by the outbreak of the Korean War at the reunion center at Mount Kumgang in North Korea during the inter-Korean family reunions on Tuesday. She was accompanied by their son Oh Jang-kyun, who had never met his father before. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]The long-awaited reunions of some 530 members of 96 families separated for over six decades following the Korean War (1950-53) kicked off Tuesday at Mount Kumgang in North Korea in a flurry of tears of joy and sorrow over the time together stolen from them.
Lee Sung-kyu, from Changwon in North Chungcheong, was separated from her husband Oh In-se in June 1950 at the outbreak of the war. She was just 19 years old.
Lee was one of 389 South Korean participants eager to reunite with 141 North Koreans at the reunion center on Mount Kumgang at around 3:20 p.m.
Some were anxious over whether they would recognize the faces of a child, spouse, sibling or parent after more than half a century had passed, in the first round of the 20th inter-Korean family reunions that will run until Thursday.
Lee, now 85, was accompanied by her and Oh’s son and daughter-in-law. Her eyes swelled with tears upon seeing her 83-year-old husband in a gray suit, a fedora hat and hearing aids.
Their 65-year-old son Oh Jang-kyun uttered the salutation “Father” for the first time in 65 years.
“I tried to live proud to be your son,” said Oh, who was born during the war and never knew his father in North Korea. “We look alike.”
His father beckoned him, said, “Come nearer,” and stroked his son’s face. It was their first conversation.
Jang-kyun and his wife proceeded to give a deep bow to his father, a sign of respect to elders.
For 37 years, Lee thought her husband was dead and even conducted memorial services for him every year. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
I guess we will see if the Kim regime manufactures a reason to cancel these reunions at the last minute, but it appears these reunions are pretty much set to happen this time:
South Korean families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War gathered at a resort on the country’s east coast Monday to prepare for reunions with their North Korean relatives later this week, officials said.
The first batch of the nearly 400 South Koreans, part of 96 families, stopped in the city of Sokcho on their way to the scenic resort on Mount Kumgang for the reunions with their family members in North Korea from Tuesday to Thursday.
The upcoming event, the first since February 2014, is the result of the deal South and North Korea reached in August to defuse military tension and resume the family reunions.
The second round of the reunions involving some 250 South Koreans, part of 90 families, will be held from Saturday to next Monday at the North Korean resort, which is about a half-hour drive from Sokcho. [Yonhap]
Very interesting read in the Joong Ang Ilbo about Hwang Jang-yop and his aide Kim Dok-hong who are the highest level Kim regime officials to ever defect to the South. What was most interesting was that after defecting they promised to assist the ROK with democratizing North Korea, but during the Sunshine Policy years the so called democracy advocates of the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations had so effectively isolated Hwang that he feared for his life and considered defecting to the US:
Hwang Jang-yop, the architect of North Korea’s Juche ideology who defected to the South in 1997, considered seeking asylum from the U.S. government because he feared for his life in Seoul, according to his former aide Kim Dok-hong.
In an exclusive interview with the JoongAng Ilbo on Saturday, the 67-year-old Kim, who left Pyongyang along with Hwang, the highest North Korean to defect to the South to date, spoke up for the first time about the defection process.
Kim recalled that Hwang, a former secretary of the Workers’ Party, claimed that he was behind the Juche, or self-reliance, ideology rather than North Korea founder Kim Il Sung or his son Kim Jong-il, and that this “slip of the tongue” led him to seek asylum.
On his way back from a trip to Japan to give a special lecture on Juche, Hwang went to the South Korean Embassy in Beijing on Feb. 12, 1997, to seek political asylum.
At the time, Hwang was the Worker’s Party secretary in charge of international affairs, and he defected with his aide, Kim, a businessman with connection to China and an official with the Workers’ party that managed resources.
At the time of the defection in February 1997, Kim described that then President Kim Young-sam in a personal letter promised to treat Hwang with the respect due a minister-level official and Kim as a vice-minister-level official, and pledged to help support activities to democratize North Korea.
“But that promise was not kept by the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations,” he recalled.
“Former Secretary Hwang was deemed an ‘enemy’ by the Kim Dae-jung government’s National Intelligence Service,” said Kim. “And feeling threatened that the NIS may kill him, he even requested asylum from the U.S. government.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (R) and his wife Ri Sol-ju view a joint performance given by the State Merited Chorus and the Moranbong Band, a popular all-female music band, to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, in this photo released by the North’s state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper on Oct. 19, 2015. (Yonhap)
Here is a small example of one of the illegal scams the Kim regime has operating around the world to bring in foreign currency:
Two North Korean diplomats have been caught smuggling a large stash of top-end Cuban cigars into Brazil.
The two were arrested at Campinas International Airport in São Paulo, according to the Brazilian daily O Estado.
Both are trade attaches at the North Korean Consulate there.
They had come from Cuba via Panama carrying 3,800 cigars worth W90-150 million in six travel bags (US$1=W1,133).
Cigar smuggling is apparently a common sideline for North Korean diplomats in Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela who are under growing pressure from Pyongyang to earn valuta.
Top-end Cohiba Cigars sell for W40,000-50,000 apiece, but the North Koreans can buy them for 1/10 of that money in the Cuban black market. [Chosun Ilbo]
That is the question a lot of people have been wondering for years since it was first unveiled and analysts at NK News share their opinion about the KN-08 after its recent reappearance at a North Korean military parade:
The KN-08 mobile missile system on display at the October 10, 2015, parade in North Korea is significantly different from the KN-08 missiles displayed at all previous parades. The changes visible in the KN-08 design include a shortened missile, either a new nosecone or a shroud, and indicate a possible basis on the Russian R-29R missile. It is apparent that North Korea is continually researching and upgrading its ballistic missile designs.
Assuming these differences are real and not simply models or deceptive false alterations, the KN-08, appears significantly shorter, indicating the elimination or redesign of later stages. Additionally, it has a radically different nosecone that could be indicative of guidance systems based on Russian technology. In the best case scenario, it is either a cosmetic cover for the purposes of the parade or a shroud for protecting the reentry vehicle (RV, colloquially referred to as the warhead) during ascent. The data cabling along the side has also changed, though this is a much more minor data point than the previous two.
The differences between early and current KN-08s are so great that, if both sets have been functional missiles, they should and will likely receive a different common designation from the previous KN-08 (such as KN-08 Mod 2 for example). Alternatively, since the KN-08 is not fully operational, it may be that the previous versions end up waved off as prototypes and KN-08 becomes the standard for the final product. [NK News]
I highly recommend reading the whole thing at the link, but I don’t think it is a mock up and is instead a prototype that the Kim regime is continuing to develop.
If there is one thing the Kim regime is persistent in pursuing is a peace treaty with the US to end the Korean War. The reason they are persistent is that a formal peace treaty would then call into question the continued existence of the US-ROK alliance. The North Koreans have tried for decades to drive a wedge between the ROK and the US and a peace treaty is one way they try and do this:
North Korea has called on the United States to sign a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War, without commenting on the summit talks between President Park Geun-hye and U.S. President Barack Obama.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency quoted the North’s Foreign Ministry as saying in a statement that Pyongyang and Washington could remove the source of war and put an end to the nuclear arms race by building trust.
The ministry reportedly said that one way to establish peace on the Korean Peninsula is for the North to bolster its defense capability based on nuclear weapons, while another way is for Washington to abandon its hostile policy toward Pyongyang and accept the North’s call for a peace treaty to replace the armistice agreement.
The statement came 20 hours after the South Korea-U.S. summit, in which Park and Obama called for the North’s denuclearization. [KBS World Radio]
Large missiles believed to be KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missiles appear during a large-scale military parade at Pyongyang’s Kim Il-sung Square on Oct. 10, 2015, to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, in this photo released on Oct. 12 by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency. (Yonhap)
