President Moon Jae-in Sunday defiantly appointed Kang Kyung-wha foreign minister over the bitter objection of opposition parties, raising the prospect of war between the Blue House and ruling Democratic Party and the opposition going forward. Following weeks of controversy over Kang’s ethical breaches, especially a fake residential registration to allow her daughter to attend a school of her choice 17 years ago, Moon officially named the former United Nations official as foreign minister, making Kang the first female and non-career diplomat ever to lead the ministry responsible for foreign affairs. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
To properly study the effects the THAAD system has on putting greens and sand bunkers the environmental assessment has to be conducted through four seasons according to this ROK Presidential advisor:
THAAD site on former South Korean golf course outside of Seongju.
The adviser also said that the environmental assessment that South Korea plans to conduct over the U.S. THAAD missile defense system could take one year because the study should take into consideration the deployment’s impact over four seasons. [Yonhap]
Here are the questions I have which I doubt any journalist will bother tracking down. How long did the environmental assessment take to approve bulldozing the top of a mountain and installing the golf course where the THAAD site is? Also how long did the environmental assessment to install the ROK military’s Green Pine radars take?
It looks like the Moon administration is still pushing for Sunshine Policy 2.0 and a peace treaty with North Korea:
Moon Chung-in, special presidential adviser for unification, foreign and security affairs. (Yonhap)
South Korea may consult with the United States about scaling back joint military exercises and deployment of American strategic weapons if North Korea suspends nuclear and missile activities, an adviser to President Moon Jae-in said Friday.
Moon Chung-in, a foreign affairs scholar and special presidential adviser, made the remark during a Wilson Center seminar in Washington, saying President Moon has proposed the idea.
“He proposed two things. One, if North Korea suspends its nuclear and missile activities, then we may consult with the United States to (on) scaling down ROK-US joint exercises and training. I think what he has in mind is we may scale down deployment of American strategic weapons over the Korean Peninsula,” the adviser said.
“Another one is linking North Korea’s denuclearization to creation of a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula,” he said. (……..)
During the seminar, the adviser said that President Moon pursues “incremental, comprehensive and fundamental” denuclearization with North Korea, beginning with a freeze on its nuclear and missile programs and a verifiable dismantlement of its nuclear facilities and materials. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but here is my view on a freeze deal. Any freeze deal should not include a peace treaty and only include the scaling down of US-ROK military exercises. A peace treaty should only be offered in return for the complete dismantlement of their nuclear and ICBM programs which we know they will never do.
The freeze deal should then have strong language in it that any non-compliance by North Korea opens them to a kinetic strike to ensure compliance. Including language that includes the use of force to ensure compliance gives the US world opinion on its side if it needs to strike North Korea. It additionally puts pressure on China to ensure that Pyongyang is complying with the deal to avoid the use of force being used against North Korea.
Ulleung-do is one of my favorite places in South Korea, but unfortunately the last time I was there I did not get my own personal guide dog:
Oftentimes, the best way to describe directions to someone is to explain using street view technology, so you can use notable landmarks as cues for turns and stops. While Google Maps has been pretty good at covering a large part of the world, it’s certainly missing one useful component: a helpful guide dog who photobombs every shot along the way.
At least that’s one competitive advantage for Daum, a Kakao-owned web portal, for its coverage in Ulleung-gun, Gyeongbuk, South Korea. Map services often employ human photographers to capture off-road images, and it appears this very good dog has decided to accompany just about every shot along the trail on this little South Korean island.
Need help finding that lookout point over the beautiful blue ocean? Sure, follow doggo up the stairs and hang when you’ve found the area with the wooden benches. [The Verge via Reddit Korea]
You can read more at the link, but looking at the pictures this dog is actually on the neighboring island of Jukdo and not Ulleongdo.
Local residents and policemen clash near the deployment site of a U.S. anti-missile defense system in Seongju, some 300 kilometers south of Seoul, on June 15, 2017. The residents have been blocking the roads with desks and other small furniture to stop the installation of the system, known as THAAD. Scuffles erupted when police tried to remove the blockage and ended 10 minutes after the police stepped back. (Yonhap)
Here is an update from the anti-THAAD frontlines in Seongju county:
In Soseong-ri, a small farming village of about 80 residents in southern South Korea, a band of elderly women is at the forefront of protests against the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system next to their neighborhood.
A dozen or so women, in their 60s to 80s, stand watch each day around the clock to make sure no military vehicles enter the deployment site through the only road to it — a former golf course owned by a leading conglomerate, the Lotte Group.
The vigil has forced the U.S. military to use helicopters instead to shuttle fuel and supplies to the site hosting the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. (………..)
The women, who brandish canes and umbrellas at the military helicopters and shout for them to go away every time one flies through the village, say they have no interest in the politics of the deployment.
But they protest, longing for the peace they had before.
“I can’t sleep. I’m taking sedatives at night but I still get only two hours of sleep,” said 87-year-old Na Wi-bun, who lives within a kilometer (0.62 mile) of the site and says she can hear the generator that powers THAAD humming around the clock. [Reuters]
You can read more at the link, but it is ironic they are complaining about noise when their protest is causing the noise. The helicopters would not be flying if trucks were allowed to drive up the road to the site. Also the generators as we have seen in with the radar site in Japan can be muffled and the noise ultimately eliminated when the radar is hooked up to commercial power. However, if construction crews cannot drive up the road to hook up to commercial power then the noise will remain.
It looks like the cable car from Osaek to near the summit of Mt. Sorak is now going to be come a reality:
Picture of Seorak Mountain’s summit with the lodge in the foreground.
A government arbitration commission on Thursday ruled in favor of a county in Gangwon province that has been planning to set up a cable car on a popular mountain range near the nation’s eastern coast.
In the ruling, the Central Administration Appeal Commission under the Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission called for the Cultural Heritage Administration to allow Yangyang County to build a cable car system on Mount Seorak.
The project calls for a 3.5-kilometer-long cable car system to be built in the southern region of Mount Seorak in Yangyang, some 215 kilometers east of Seoul, providing a means of convenient transportation all the way up to the peak of the Osaek area hiking course.
The cable car project has been a controversial issue among environmentalists here, who have argued that the mountain’s natural environment must be preserved. [Yonhap]
I have not supportive of this cable car because of how the summit of the mountain is already over crowded with tourists leaving trash every where. There are so many hikers already accessing the mountain that a lodge has been constructed to house them in near the summit. Now there is going to be a cable car station to bring more tourists up the mountain which means that restaurants and shops will need to be constructed to service them as well. The summit of the mountain is basically going to turn into the craziness that is Sorak-dong at the base of the mountain.
Here is another case of people being caught smuggling gold into South Korea in their underwear:
The gold bars and the underwear two Vietnamese flight attendants working for Asiana Airlines attempted to smuggle into the country. /Courtesy of the Korea Customs Service
Two Vietnamese flight attendants working for Asiana Airlines, Korea’s second largest carrier, have been detained after trying to smuggle 19 kilograms of gold into the country, the Korea Customs Service (KCS) said Thursday.
According to the KCS Incheon office, the attendants were concealing 1-kilogram-gold bars ― 10 on one and nine on the other ― in their underwear when they arrived at Incheon International Airport on June 5 from Vietnam.
The KCS said this was not their first smuggling attempt, saying it has confirmed that the two succeeded in smuggling 13 kilograms of gold into Korea on three occasions in April.
They will face charges of attempting to smuggle 32 kilograms of gold, worth about 1.5 billion won ($1.33 million), into the country. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but I wonder if the flight attendants were dressed like this?
