This photo, taken June 28, 2018, shows a rain-swollen stream in Busan as torrential rains pounded the southeastern port overnight in the wake of the annual rain front, in this photo provided by local police. (Yonhap)
This photo provided by KT Corp. on June 26, 2018, shows the booth of KT SAT, a satellite communications service provider, at CommunicAsia 2018 at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, to promote the Mugunghwa-7 and other communication satellites. (Yonhap)
This maybe South Korea’s most impressive World Cup win since 2002 even though it was ultimately meaningless since they were eliminated from the knockout stage of 16 teams:
South Korean goalkeeper Jo Hyeon-woo (R) makes a stop on Timo Werner of Germany (second from L in green) during their teams’ Group F match at the 2018 FIFA World Cup at Kazan Arena in Kazan, Russia, on June 27, 2018. (Yonhap)
South Korea stunned Germany 2-0 while being eliminated in the group stage at the FIFA World Cup on Wednesday, bringing the defending champions down with them.
South Korea needed to beat Germany by at least two goals and have Mexico defeat Sweden in the other Group F match Wednesday. The Taeguk Warriors took care of their own end at Kazan Arena in Kazan, some 800 kilometers east of Moscow, with Kim Young-gwon and Son Heung-min each scoring in second-half stoppage time. But Sweden made it all moot by beating Mexico 3-0 in Ekaterinburg.
South Korea, which earlier fell to Sweden and Mexico, finished third in Group F with three points, while netting three goals and conceding three. Sweden won the group with six points, beating Mexico, which also had six points, on goal difference.
Germany unceremoniously bowed of the tournament with three points, losing to South Korea in goal difference and becoming the third straight World Cup champions to miss the knockout stage in title defense. [Yonhap]
These are very capable artillery pieces that Estonia is purchasing from South Korea:
South Korean troops take part in an exercise using self-propelled artillery near the Demilitarized Zone on May 10, 2016. According to reports on Tuesday, June 26, 2018, a South Korean company has entered into a $54 million deal to sell howitzers to the Baltic nation of Estonia.
Estonia has agreed to buy South Korean artillery in a $54 million deal that officials say will substantially boost the small Baltic country’s defense capacity.
The Estonian military procurement agency says the contract with Seoul-based weapons producer Hanwha Land Systems is for 12 K9 Thunder howitzers, training, maintenance and spare parts.
Agency director Col. Rauno Sirk said after a signing ceremony on Tuesday that the artillery pieces “will bring Estonia’s defense capacity to a new level and be one of the most considerable steps of building up armored maneuvering capacity.”
The first howitzers are to arrive in Estonia in 2020. [Stars & Stripes]
Colonel-level military officials of the two Koreas meet at the Customs, Immigration, and Quarantine office in Paju, just south of the inter-Korean border, on June 25, 2018, in this photo provided by the Defense Ministry. The officials met to discuss restoring their military communication lines. (Yonhap)
The North Koreans like to use these family reunions to appeal to the emotions of South Koreans which then makes them useful bargaining chips by threatening to cancel them if they don’t get what they want from the ROK government:
A South Korean woman talks with a Red Cross official to see if she can meet with her family in North Korea in this undated file photo. (Yonhap)
South Korea began a process Monday to select those who will meet their long-separated family members in North Korea in late August.
The two Koreas agreed to hold their first family reunion event in nearly three years at the North’s Mount Kumgang resort from Aug. 20-26, a follow-up to the April 27 summit deal.
It would enable 100 South Korean people, mostly elderly ones, to get together with their families across the border, decades after being separated by the 1950-53 Korean War. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but these reunions have also in the past been a cottage industry for the regime to make money by holding them at the Kumgang Resort on the east coast of North Korea. I suspect the regime also is using the reunions to promote the resort in its efforts to get sanctions dropped and tourism reopened to Gumgang resort and other nearby facilities.
Salvation Army General Andre Cox speaks at a joint service celebrating the 110th anniversary of Salvation Army Korea at Yonsei University in Seoul on June 24, 2018. (Yonhap)
ROK Drop favorite Andrew Salmon writes in the Korea Times about if the Moon administration should pursue a trilateral security pact with the United States with the third country not being Japan, but North Korea:
But even if South Korea can defend itself against North Korea conventionally, there are broader reasons to maintain a Washington alliance.
This alliance goes beyond USFK. Its underpinning is a mutual defense treaty ― which, incidentally, does not even mention North Korea.
There is no multilateral security architecture in the region; no Northeast Asian NATO. We all know that _ for emotive rather than political reasons ― Koreans cannot ally with Japanese. This makes the U.S. South Korea’s only friend to turn to if things turn rough. It has no other ally. Period.
Speaking of the broader peninsula: What is more threatening? A superpower across the Pacific ― or a superpower next door? Could ― gulp! ― Seoul and Washington one day invite Pyongyang into a trilateral pact against external enemies?
This is not complete lunacy. After all, the late Kim Jong-il told the late Kim Dae-jung that he agreed to a long-term US presence on the peninsula to counterbalance a rising China.
I would respectfully suggest that Seoul considers these factors very carefully as it negotiates the upcoming issues of defense cost-sharing and wartime operational control with Washington.
These are big-picture issues here. There are big-boys’ rules to consider. In a situation where all possibilities are in play, there is more at stake than North-South rapprochement. [Korea Times]
You can read the rest at the link, but if this was to happen this would be a huge strategic victory for the US against Chinese hegemony in northeast Asia. Could you imagine a Foal Eagle exercise with US soldiers training with North Korean troops?
