Category: Uncategorized

This is called recognizing reality, North Korea is not going to give up their nuclear weapons:

Donald Trump in his second term as president is likely to accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state and ask for more defense spending by America’s Asian partners, a Japanese foreign policy expert told reporters Thursday.

Those close to Trump see no hope of denuclearizing North Korea during his second term, according to Meikai University professor Tetsuo Kotani, a senior fellow at The Japan Institute of International Affairs.

“According to President-elect Trump, he’s going to recognize that (nuclear weapons power) status for North Korea so that he can bring North Korea to the negotiation for nuclear arms control,” Kotani, an expert in international relations, said in translated remarks during an online conference at the Foreign Press Center Japan.

Stars and Stripes

You can read more at the link.

The timeframe to denuclearize North Korea has already passed. It was possible in the 1998-2010 time period, but instead of insisting for denuclearization before giving financial incentives, the South Korean government instead gave billions to North Korea. The Kim regime did not use this money to improve their economy or the lives of their people as the Korean left thought they would, instead the money was used to expand their nuclear weapons program.

The Kim regime rightly strategized that a larger nuclear threat would give them greater bargaining power to get more funding from South Korea, bring the regime international prestige, and most importantly better security for the regime. Why would they give this up? This is why the best deal the U.S. can hope for now is to get them to scrap their ICBM program and put a limit on their nuclear weapons in return for sanctions relief.

Sue Mi Terry is very smart and I have linked to various articles she has been featured in before. I have not always agreed with her, but she is definitely well informed on North Korea issues. With that all said, it appears she has shattered her creditability and is facing criminal charges for really a pultry amount of money:

 A renowned Korean American expert on North Korea has been charged with having acted as an agent for the South Korean government in return for expensive dinners and handbags, a U.S. newspaper reported Tuesday, citing federal prosecutors in New York.

Sue Mi Terry, a senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former analyst of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), has been indicted on the charges, according to The New York Times. Her lawyer called the charges “unfounded.”

She began operating as a foreign agent in June 2013, five years after leaving the CIA, the newspaper said.

She was first contacted by a person posing as a minister for the Korean mission to the United Nations in New York. In return for her work over the ensuing decade, she received handbags, clothing and at least US$37,000 in covert payments, according to the report.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is interesting that Kim Jong-un has come out and publicly acknowledged the failed satellite launch. I think this is probably because the Kim regime wants satellite launches to be viewed as a civilian action and being transparent about them supports that narrative:

North Korea’s leader acknowledged Monday’s failed attempt to place a spy satellite into orbit but vowed to work harder to boost his country’s space capabilities, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency. Kim Jong Un made the rare admission during a speech to scientists at the Academy of Defense Sciences in Pyongyang on Tuesday, the day after a rocket carrying the satellite exploded roughly two minutes after launch.

“This launch failed … but there is something that we need to clarify, whether it was successful or not,” he said, according to Wednesday’s KCNA report. “The possession of military reconnaissance satellites is necessary for our country to strengthen self-defense. “Through failure, we can learn more and develop in a bigger way,” he added.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

You have to be an idiot if you think the ROK Defense Minister’s prior Facebook posting in anyway supports Japan’s claim to Dokdo. However, there are parliamentary elections in April in South Korea so expect a lot of stupid stuff like this to get brought up:

Defense Minister Shin Won-sik is facing criticism for his past remarks describing the nation’s easternmost islets of Dokdo as “disputed territory,” which critics claim reflects a distorted view of history.

“It is true that there are ongoing historical disputes, and territorial disputes regarding sovereignty over Dokdo between Korea and Japan,” Shin wrote in a Facebook post dated March 23, 2023, when he was a ruling People Power Party (PPP) lawmaker.

This view contradicts the official stance of the Korean government that the nation has long maintained effective territorial control of Dokdo – which Japan claims is its own territory – and therefore, there is no territorial dispute over the islets.

Shin further criticized liberal politicians for fueling anti-Japanese sentiment based on “outdated animosity towards the long-gone Imperial Japanese militarism.”

The Facebook post is currently hidden following several media reports about it.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The fat Rocketman is ringing in the holidays the only way he knows how with missile tests:

President Yoon Suk Yeol on Monday asked his national security team for an “instant and overpowering response to any North Korean provocations” following the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile by Pyongyang earlier in the day.

The North’s fifth ICBM launch of the year was fired into the sea off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula on Monday morning, as previously predicted by a senior Seoul official last week.

In a National Security Council meeting called hours after the test-firing, the president said three-way cooperation with the US and Japan would be bolstered with the real-time North Korean missile data scheme to be activated soon.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the ICBM was fired eastward from Pyongyang at around 8:24 a.m. Monday and traveled some 1,000 kilometers before falling into the sea. The JCS said the ICBM used solid fuel. Less than half a day prior at around 10:38 p.m. Sunday, North Korea had also launched a short-range missile into the sea east of the peninsula. (…..)

Based on information from the JCS, Yang said the ICBM appeared to have reached an altitude of at least 6,000 kilometers, flying for more than an hour before landing in the sea. He noted that the last ICBM fired in July also flew as high as 6,000 km, far surpassing the maximum altitude of 3,000 km reached by the ICBM tested just before that in April.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but the belief is that North Korea is once againing signaling to the U.S. that it can hit the continental United States with their ICBMs.

Considering how the activists and politicians sensationalized the Fukushima waste water release, it is not surprising it became a dead issue when nothing bad happened after its release:

One reporter sits in the mostly empty briefing room as a government official speaks on issues regarding waste water release from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant at the government complex in Seoul, Nov. 10. Newsis

The discharge of treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant would “doom all fishing industries” in Korea, Lee Jae-myung, the opposition leader, said, vowing an “all-out effort” to stop it.

After the Japanese government proceeded with the plan on Aug. 24, the chief of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) went on a hunger strike a week later, urging President Yoon Suk Yeol to do more to protect the safety of the public. “It’s not too late yet,” he added.

But now, Lee and other DPK politicians barely raise the topic. The attention of the media and the public appears to have waned. Once crowded with journalists, the briefing room for issues relating to Fukushima’s wastewater release is almost empty these days.

“Usually, three to four reporters come for the regular briefing recently,” an official told The Korea Times on Monday.

Experts said that Fukushima wastewater, once seen as a major issue ahead of the general elections, slated for early next year, appears to be “dead.”

“To stay in the attention of the public, there should be new developments on the issue. But so far, there have been no safety problems found,” said Cho Jin-man, a professor of politics and international relations at Duksung Women’s University.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the science on this issue was always very clear that the waste water could be released with very minimal impacts to the environment. The opposition party and the protesters actually do not care about the saving the oceans, if they did they would be protesting the stopping of dumping of waste water from Korea’s nuclear plants as well. Better yet they need to protest hospitals that give out CT scans which is more dangerous than the waste water being released.  This was all about politics and sliming the Yoon administration over an issue they could really do nothing to stop anyway.

Considering President Yoon’s very low approval rating, being seen with the ousted former President Park Guen-hye probably won’t help:

President Yoon Suk Yeol on Thursday praised late President Park Chung-hee as he met with Park’s daughter at a memorial ceremony, a symbolic gesture amid calls for more unity among conservatives ahead of next year’s general elections.

It marked the first time that a sitting president attended the memorial ceremony for Park Chung-hee, whose legacy remains a subject of controversy in South Korea.

Yoon said that former President Park is recorded as promoting industrialization and rallying the nation under the slogan “it can be done.”

“He achieved a historic global accomplishment known as the miracle on the Han River,” Yoon said in his address at the ceremony at Seoul National Cemetery in southern Seoul, referring to South Korea’s economic rise from the ashes of the 1950-53 Korean War.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.