For UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is returning soon to South Korea. It will be interesting to see if in five years he will attempt to run for President again:
Ban Ki-moon
Former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will begin his tenure as distinguished professor and emeritus director of the Institute for Global Engagement at Yonsei University from July.
“The Institute for Global Engagement was established in April at the university to coordinate among students and professors activities including global and domestic missions and volunteer programs,” said Nam So-hyeon, a PR official at Yonsei University in western Seoul.
“It’s not yet decided what Ban will be teaching at the university.”
The university is also planning to open a sustainable growth center once Ban begins his tenure.
“Ban is known for his initiatives and engagement to combat climate change,” said Yonsei University President Kim Yong-hak.
“His participation at the center will bring about advances in its climate change research.”
Ban has been teaching at Harvard University as the Angelopoulos Global Public Leaders Fellow since April. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
A standard THAAD battery comes with six launchers, you would think the President’s staff would know this, even Wikipedia knows this:
A Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense battery launcher is being installed on a former golf course in Seongju, North Gyeongsang Province on Wednesday. /Yonhap
South Korea’s presidential office made it clear Tuesday that it has not received any formal briefing from the defense ministry on the presence of additional THAAD rocket launchers here.
The ministry said it has already briefed Cheong Wa Dae on the issue, responding to President Moon Jae-in’s call for a probe into the matter related to the allies’ missile defense system.
Moon said it’s “very shocking” that the ministry had kept secret or did not announce the introduction of four more THAAD rocket launchers, according to his spokesman Yoon Young-chan. The equipment arrived in Korea apparently weeks or months ago.
A ministry official, however, said Wee Seung-ho, deputy minister for policy, briefed Moon’s national security adviser Chung Eui-yong on pending defense issues last Friday.
“At that time, he reported the entry of four additional launchers (into South Korea),” the official said on the condition of anonymity, adding it reflects the ministry’s official position.
Moon’s office refuted the ministry’s statement.
There was no report on the extra THAAD launchers waiting to be installed at a former golf course in Seongju, North Gyeongsang Province, which has been chosen as the THAAD site, said Cheong Wa Dae.
One thing that seems certain is that Moon did not receive any briefing on the subject during his visit to the ministry a week after taking office. It’s not clear whether he first raised the THAAD issue.
The State Affairs Planning Advisory Committee, a de-facto transition team for Moon, also said that it was told about only two THAAD launchers in operation, not about the other four, when receiving a briefing from the ministry.
The truth behind the dispute remains unconfirmed. [Yonhap]
The Joong Ang Ilbo is reporting that the Defense Ministry may be trying avoid an environmental assessment for the four launchers:
“The president was briefed that four launchers, in addition to the two already installed in Seongju, were clandestinely brought in and stored in Korea,” Yoon Young-chan, senior secretary for public relations, said Tuesday. “Today, Moon ordered his senior secretary for civil affairs and chief of the national security office to conduct a thorough investigation over how the four additional launchers were brought in.” (…….)
“Moon asked his aides to investigate why the four additional launchers were brought in, who made the decision, why it was not made public and why the new administration was not told about it,” Yoon said. “He also ordered that the investigation must look into the suspicion that the four launchers were kept secret in order to avoid an environmental impact assessment.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
If an environmental assessment was done for two launchers, what difference would four more make? They have to tear up a few more putting greens to put them in? It is not like an old growth rain forest needs to be cut down to put the launchers in.
You can read more at the link, but I would not be surprised if this is a political show to demonstrate to Moon’s supporters that the new administration is going to get tough on the Defense Ministry in regards to the THAAD deployment without actually changing the decision.
President Moon is very skilled politician because this announcement will go over very well with the Korean public:
President Moon Jae-in presides over a senior secretariat meeting in the Blue House on Thursday. It was the first meeting of its kind since President Moon was sworn in on May 10. [YONHAP]President Moon Jae-in has decided he will not use the Blue House budget to pay for his private expenses, including groceries for his wife and himself and even food for his pets.
“From now on, meals that are not parts of official meetings will be paid from the president’s own money,” said Lee Joung-do, general affairs secretary of the Blue House. “We will stop using the state budget to pay for meals and personal purchases of the presidential family. It is the president’s strong will to clearly distinguish what should be paid with tax money and what should not.”
Until now, money from the special expense account of the Blue House was used to pay the living expense of the president and his family. Lee said Moon’s decision will save a considerable amount.
Special expenses accounts exist for almost all government ministries for activities that require confidentiality. Because no receipts are required, the accounts are often used for non-official purposes.
Although the Blue House did not make a comparison, the move appeared to be the latest in a series of actions taken by Moon to differentiate himself from predecessor Park Geun-hye.
A minor part of the presidential abuse of power and corruption scandal that led to Park’s impeachment and removal involved a personal health trainer she hired as a presidential secretary. Park used the special expenses account to pay for her clothes and beauty treatments. She saved most of her annual salary of 210 million won ($187,835).
According to Lee, 16.2 billion won was allocated to the special expense account of the Blue House this year. As of now, 12.7 billion won remains, and Moon wants to save 5.3 billion won to use for job creation for the young and programs for needy people. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
This seems like a lot to ask of her daughter that grew up in the United States and has been a US citizen for over a decade:
Kang Kyung-wha
Foreign Minister nominee Kang Kyung-wha said Friday she expects her first daughter will give up her U.S. citizenship and switch to Korean soon.
“There will be a family meeting to discuss this matter,” Kang told reporters. “I think my daughter will decide to give up American nationality. What’s important is how she feels about it.”
Kang’s daughter, who was born and grew up in the U.S., chose to become American in 2006 when she was 22.
Her daughter’s nationality has emerged as a controversial point ahead of her confirmation hearing. Cheong Wa Dae earlier said it heard from Kang before she was nominated as the country’s first female foreign minister that her daughter may discard her U.S. nationality. [Korea Times]
Age was the biggest factor in SK's election. As age rises, Moon's support fades; starting w age 50, center-right candidates become majority pic.twitter.com/CWV5mgZZje
New ROK President Moon Jae-in was once a ROK Special Forces commando who served during the 1976 Operation Paul Bunyan. Moon’s involvement with this operation reminded me of this story of the crazy ROK commandos who accompanied the US soldiers who chopped down the tree:
Moon was a commando in the Korean Army in 1975, a year after a court gave him 10 months’ probation for leading an anti-government demonstration in 1972. [Korea Times]The dumptruck with the engineers pulls up next to the tree, so they can stand on it instead of having to use a ladder. The ROK’s with us, who are “supposed to” be limited as we are, with just .45’s and axe handles, begin throwing sandbags out of their deuces, Under the sandbags they have M-16’s, M-60’s, and a few M-79’s.
Several f them head over to Exum’s deuce and stand around watching the KPA guards across the bridge. I’m on the detachment that’s facing north, and I can see the 4 guards over there frantically running about and trying to get a hold of a superior on the phone. I look over at KP#3, a North Korean checkpoint just outside of the JSA and situated up on a hill, and I can see the guards up there run outside with a machinegun and set it up covering us. About two minutes later, a bunch of the KPA guard trucks and several buses pull up across the bridge from us. It seems like they sit there forever, several minutes at least. A few of the ROK marines with us unbutton their shirts, showing that they have claymore mines strapped to their chests and they have the clacker (firing mechanism) in their hands. They start yelling and waving at the KPA to come on over. One of the ROK’s is laying on his side, on the ground, supporting his head his his hand, looking all casual and care free. Once in a while he lifts his head a bit and hits the rear tire of Exum’s deuce with the back of his fist, shaking the entire truck bed. Anybody who’s ever been on a deuce knows that’s not easy.
Unfortunately President Moon was not one of the crazy commandos with claymores strapped to their chest. He was in a back up role to respond to assist the crazy commandos if trouble was to occur. Regardless it must have been interesting for Moon to be part of such a major moment in South Korea’s modern history.
TIME Magazine this week has a long profile and interview with the new ROK President Moon Jae-in that is worth reading for those unfamiliar with his background. Here is an excerpt about his views on North Korea:
Moon has seen these kinds of negotiations in action before and believes they can work again. As chief of staff to Roh, he helped engineer the South Korean President’s historic summit with Kim’s father Kim Jong Il in 2007, and the six-party denuclearization talks between North and South Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan, which ran from 2003 to 2009. A satellite launch by Pyongyang ended the talks, and critics say the $4.5 billion of aid funneled to the regime during the “sunshine policy” of engagement actually accelerated the weapons program. Moon, however, points to the Sept. 19, 2005, Joint Declaration — encompassing full dismantlement of North Korean nuclear weapons, a peace treaty and even normalized relations with the U.S. — as evidence the sunshine policy was better than the following decade of isolation and censure. “The North even blew up the cooling tower of its nuclear reactor,” he says. “The same step-by-step approach is still workable.”
Given Trump’s stated disdain for the nuclear deal the U.S. helped fashion with Iran, it’s hard to imagine he would be eager to pursue a similar agreement with the Kim regime, which has a track record of noncompliance. But Moon says he and Trump already agree that the Obama Administration’s approach of “strategic patience” with North Korea was a failure. Surely the U.S. President could be persuaded to take a different tack, he says. “I recall him once saying that he can talk with Kim Jong Un over a hamburger.” Trump, he adds, is above all a pragmatist. “In that sense, I believe we will be able to share more ideas, talk better and reach agreements without difficulty.” Indeed, on May 1, Trump told Bloomberg that he “would be honored” to meet Kim. [TIME]
You can read more at the link, but the destruction of the cooling tower was only in response to the Bush administration freezing millions of dollars of North Korean money in a Macau bank. Kim Jong-il would have never agreed to the deal without the pressure from the asset freezing. They will never agree to a deal today without similar pressure which it appears the Trump administration is trying to do.
At the time I called the 2007 deal a charade because there were no measures in place to ensure verifiable denuclearization and history has proven me right. I guess we will see in the coming months if history repeats itself and the Kim regime signs another deal to receive free aid without verifiably dismantling their nuclear weapons.
Good luck with this because chaebol reform has been something that Korean politicians have tried in the past and it never seems to create much change in how they are run:
Moon Jae-in, who is sure to be South Korea’s next president, is expected to focus on the country’s four biggest conglomerates as he pushes for a broad corporate reform drive, his economic aides said Wednesday.
The new Moon government has two major goals in reforming the business giants: one is to keep growth and wealth from being concentrated in large family-run companies known as chaebol, and the other is to improve their governance structure for transparency and fair competition, Moon’s chaebol policy adviser Kim Sang-jo told Yonhap News Agency.
South Korea’s four largest chaebol groups — Samsung Group, Hyundai Motor Group, SK Group and LG Group — currently account for half the assets held by the country’s top 30 companies.
In his campaign pledges, Moon vowed to “gradually but fully” achieve his reform goals during his five-year term in office that began Wednesday, a day after the people voted him in. [Yonhap]
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