The big question is will the North Koreans likewise remove an equal number of troops and equipment? If so how far away from the DMZ are they moving?:
South Korea’s defense ministry said Tuesday that it is pushing for a plan to withdraw forces and their equipment from border guard posts “on a trial basis” in line with the April inter-Korean summit agreement to halt all hostile acts and reduce tensions.
In a policy briefing to the National Assembly’s defense committee, the ministry also said that it would consider the “full-scale pullout” in sync with a cross-border survey of historical remains and ecological features within the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas.
After their summit at the truce village of Panmunjom on April 27, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un agreed to transform the DMZ into a “peace zone in a genuine sense.”
“To realize the transformation of the DMZ into a peace zone, as stated in the Panmunjom Declaration, (the ministry) is seeking a plan to expand the (withdrawal) program in stages after pulling out troops and equipment from the guard posts within the DMZ,” the ministry said. [Korea Times]
This photo released by the Korea Railroad Corp. (KORAIL) on July 20, 2018, promotes the Summer Santa Claus Village at the Buncheon Railway Station in Bonghwa, North Gyeongsang Province. (Yonhap)
A temperature map of Yeongcheon and surrounding areas. The red dot at the center of the dark red area is Yeongcheon, where the temperature reached 40.3C at 3:27 p.m., Tuesday, the hottest temperature on the Korean Peninsula since 1907. / Captured from KMA website
Remember July 24, 2018. The Korean Peninsula had its hottest day ever.
The midday high in a small town (Shinryoung-myeon) in Yeongcheon, North Gyeongsang Province, reached 40.3C (at 3:27 p.m.), melting down the previous record of 40C set in Daegu on Aug. 1, 1942, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA).
The KMA has been collecting weather data since 1907. [Korea Times]
Despite the sharp drop President Moon’s approval ratings remain very high:
President Moon Jae-in’s approval rating dropped sharply this week, a poll showed Thursday, amid concerns over a planned minimum wage hike that critics say is likely to further slow the local economy.
In a survey conducted by Realmeter on Monday through Wednesday, Moon’s approval rating came to 61.7 percent, down 6.4 percentage points from a week earlier.
The rate of decline was the steepest since Moon took office in May 2017, according to the local pollster. The latest reading also was the second lowest since Moon’s inauguration.
The sharp drop follows a controversial decision by the minimum wage commission to hike the country’s hourly minimum wage to 8,350 won ($7.39) from the start of next year, up 10.9 percent from the current 7,530 won.
The president apologized for what he called his government’s inevitable failure to raise the minimum wage to 10,000 won per hour by 2020. However, many, especially small and medium-sized businesses, argue the increases have already been too sharp and too frequent.
Of 1,504 adults surveyed in the latest poll, 42 percent of all respondents said the planned wage increase is too steep while another 40 percent answered the rise seemed adequate.
The ruling Democratic Party’s approval rating slipped 3.8 percentage points to 41.8 percent, marking five consecutive weeks of decline, while that of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party advanced 2.5 percentage points to 19.5 percent. [Korea Times]
Despite having a high approval rating, remember how quickly these numbers can change; former President Park once enjoyed high approval ratings as recently as 2015 when she was at 54%. She ended here her Presidency in 2017 at 5%.
Here is the latest on the martial law issue in South Korea:
Kim Eui-kyeom, a spokesman for the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, holds a press briefing at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul on July 20, 2018. (Yonhap)
Documents submitted by the defense ministry show the earlier reported proposal from the defense intelligence agency to declare martial law may have been more deliberate than earlier believed, the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said Friday, apparently implying the military may have actually sought to go ahead with such a plan.
Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom said the military maintained and renewed its plans for a martial law every two years, but that the new documents submitted by the ministry showed significant changes and differences from the original plans.
“Usually, the military renews its martial law plans every two years,” the spokesman told a press briefing. “(Cheong Wa Dae) has confirmed the submitted documents are completely different from the existing plans.”
The military documents have been submitted after President Moon Jae-in made a special order for the defense ministry and the military to submit all documents related to the martial law proposal from the Defense Security Command (DSC), which reportedly came in the wake of protest rallies and candlelight vigils in late 2016 that led to the ouster of former President Park Geun-hye on suspicions of corruption.
Kim said the proposal even included plans to inspect and censor news articles.
Also, the DSC suggested the chief of the Army take control of a martial law command, instead of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under conventional military plans.
It also suggested the head of the National Intelligence Service be subject to leadership of the top military commander under its proposed martial law, suggesting military control of the government, as well as the top spy agency.
To the apparent surprise of many, the DSC even stressed a need to arrest and remove then opposition lawmakers who took part in the protest rallies against Park, partly to prevent the parliament from impeaching then-President Park and lifting the martial law, Kim explained. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but remember the martial law plans were updated to prepare for massive riots if President Park was not impeached. From what I have read these plans were for worst case scenarios. If massive riots were to happen that the police could not handle and threatened the stability of the government, was the ROK military expected to just stand by and do nothing?
That is why I would not be surprised if this martial law issue is being sensationalized to create an excuse for the Blue House to replace ROK military leadership they feel are not ideologically friendly to their political goals. Of course this will all be sold as “reforms” and not a purge.
Park Sang-yung, a member of a special prosecutor team investigating an opinion rigging scandal, talks to reporters after arriving at the team’s office in Seoul on July 20, 2018. A court on the night before rejected the team’s request for a writ, the first by the special prosecutor, to arrest a lawyer implicated in the scandal, dealing a setback to the probe. (Yonhap)
A special counsel team sought an arrest warrant for a lawyer surnamed Do, 61, a key figure in the “opinion-rigging” scandal masterminded by an influential blogger who went by the nickname “Druking.”
Druking and his followers initially used software to boost the popularity of Moon Jae-in in the lead up to the presidential election last May, hoping their “successful months-long campaigning efforts” would be “rewarded.” But after Kim Kyoung-soo, Moon’s key aide and now governor of South Gyeongsang Province, dismissed the blogger’s recommendation to appoint Do as the consul general of Korea in Osaka, they used the same tools to disparage Moon. Do, one of seven members in the group of followers, is suspected of offering legal consultation as well as controlling the group’s activities overall.
The team led by special counsel Huh Ik-bum sought an arrest warrant for Do on charges of violating the Political Campaign Fund Law and destroying evidence. Assistant special counsel Park Sang-yong said the team believed Do helped Druking meet with Rep. Roh Hoe-chan, the floor leader of the minor opposition Justice Party, and gave him 50 million won ($48,000) in illicit campaign funds. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but a judge denied the prosecutors request to arrest Do:
A Seoul court on Thursday denied the special prosecutors’ request to arrest a lawyer linked to an opinion rigging scandal on charges he gave illegal political funds to a prominent opposition lawmaker.
The 61-year-old suspect, identified only by his surname, Do, is under suspicion of being involved in setting up a meeting between a political power blogger known as Druking and Rep. Roh Hoe-chan of the Justice Party in 2016 to deliver 50 million won (US$44,500) to Roh. [Yonhap]
Former President Lee Myung-bak is helped out of a prison vehicle as he arrives at the Seoul Central District Court in Seoul on July 20, 2018, to stand trial on corruption charges, including allegations that he accepted 11 billion won (around US$9.69 million) in bribes while in office. (Yonhap)
It didn’t take long for the North Koreans to use the proposed family unions as leverage against the South Korean government:
North Korea’s state-run media released a string of articles on Friday that criticized the South Korean government, hinting that planned reunions for families split between the two nations could be canceled. An editorial in the official state newspaper of the North Korean ruling party, Rodong Sinmun, argued that South Korea had been exaggerating its role in denuclearization talks between Pyongyang and Washington. South Korea’s role in the talks does “not even amount to that of an assistant,” the editorial stated. The same article described comments made by South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Singapore last week as “presumptuous” and “flippant.” [Washington Post]
You can read more at the link, but it appears the North Koreans are trying to put the ROK government back in its place as being subservient to the Kim regime with the denuclearization talks solely between the US and North Korea.
Here is the main reason they are threatening the cancelation of the family reunions:
In another attack against the Moon administration, Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean propaganda website, urged it to repatriate a dozen North Korean restaurant workers who came to the South in 2016.
The 12 had worked at a North Korean restaurant in China. Pyongyang claims they were abducted by South Korean authorities. The South has said the workers defected of their own free will.
Uriminzokkiri said there could be an “obstacle” in the planned reunion of families divided by the 1950-53 Korean War next month if the workers are not returned.
It lashed out at Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon by name, accusing him of “siding with” the former government which it said plotted the workers’ defection. [Reuters]
I think even for a left wing administration like President Moon’s, this will be politically very difficult to do. Could you imagine the backlash of forcibly removing these defectors from South Korea and handing them over to the Kim regime?
The wreckage of the ship. / Courtesy of Shinil Group
The Shinil Group’s announcement on July 17 that it had located the Dmitrii Donskoi, a Russian cruiser that went down 113 years ago, just two days before created a sensation, with the stock price of Jeil Steel (in which the Shinil Group holds a majority share) soaring and setting a new record.But the next day it turned out that the Dmitrii Donskoi was not a new discovery by the Shinil Group but had actually been found fifteen years before by the government-funded Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST), which had also attempted to raise the wreck.
KIOST furthermore argued that the Shinil Group had located the Donskoi through the unauthorized use of location information that belonged to the institute, which raises questions about the credibility of the Shinil Group’s assertion that it is “the first to discover the Dmitrii Donskoi and the only proven right holder.
”For now, therefore, extreme caution and care are probably required for the various projects and deals organized by the Shinil Group and promoted with rumors that the Donskoi is loaded with 150 trillion won (US$132.41 billion) worth of gold coins and gold bars. Jumping into these projects could have unforeseen consequences.“We had already discovered the Donskoi in 2003 and even released photos. It’s preposterous for the Shinil Group to claim ownership as if they’d been the first to find it,” a key official at KIOST said during a phone call with the HuffPost on July 18. [Hankyoreh]
You can read more at the link, but if another group found the ship 15 years ago it seems to me they would have removed any gold that was there by now, assuming there was any gold to begin with.
Even fairy tale characters are no longer safe from accusations from feminists:
Gender Equality and Family Minister Chung Hyun-back recently accused the woodcutter, the character in the folktale “The Woodcutter and the Fairy,” which can be found in the children section at the Cheong Wa Dae website, to press for her case of feminism. Captured from Cheong Wa Dae website
A prominent lawyer says Gender Equality and Family Minister Chung Hyun-back’s depiction of a folktale hero as a kidnapper-rapist is not based on law but on herd mentality.
Hwang Ju-myung, a former judge and chairman of HMP Law, said Chung did not provide evidence to support her accusation and by her logic would have to prepare for a legal challenge from the woodcutter in the “Woodcutter and the Fairy.”
“Besides, it is being silly to accuse the character from the old story of such a heinous crime,” Hwang said when asked his legal view of the minister’s argument. “As far as the law is concerned, it is hard to find any indication in it that he resorted to coercion to have sex with the fairy or to force her to live with him.”
Chung claimed during a seminar Saturday: “When in elementary school, I took a great pity on the woodcutter but seen from the standpoint of the fairy, two children she had with him, and the fairy’s parents, he could be a kidnapper and rapist. The point of view should be changed in the context of achieving gender equality.”
The minister is a ferocious supporter of feminism and she attended a weekend pro-woman, anti-man protest and promised thousands of women that she wouldn’t forget their voices. [Korea Times]
You can read the rest at the link, but for those that have read this Korean fairy tale, there is no suggestion in the book that the woodcutter kidnapped and raped the fairy. I have to seriously wonder what is wrong with someone mentally to even think of something like that from this story? By the way it would be funny if someone sued Chung on behalf of the woodcutter for libel which this clear is.
Additionally when did it become okay to attend anti-man protests, especially a cabinet member in the South Korean government? What would people say if anti-women protests were held?
