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.

This makes me wonder how people without legal immigration status were able to access Camp Humphreys every day to go to work?:

Ten people at retail businesses at this base were cited or deported earlier this month on suspicion of working illegally in South Korea, according to a South Korea immigration investigator Friday.

Army Criminal Investigation Division agents and South Korean investigators apprehended the 10 during a sting operation Nov. 5, an investigator in the Suwon Immigration Office told Stars and Stripes by phone. The group, including people from Turkey and the Philippines, were allegedly working for a restaurant and jewelry store at Humphreys without work visas, according to the investigator with the Justice Ministry branch in Suwon city.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This should lead to fresher produce for customers:

Produce at U.S. bases in South Korea was temporarily in short supply as the Defense Commissary Agency began replacing U.S. imports of certain fruits and vegetables with their locally grown counterparts.

Commissaries plan this month to start stocking “the highest quality” local fruits and vegetables that are “consistent with what is available in commercial grocery stores,” U.S. Army Garrison Daegu announced in a Facebook post Oct. 29.

These include apples, potatoes, yams, sweet potatoes, radishes, pumpkins, kale, leeks, green onions, tomatoes, pomegranates, persimmons, citrus and grapes from the United States, along with squash from Mexico, DeCA spokesman Keith Desbois said by email Friday.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This is laughable if the Unification Ministry has any expectation that the Kim regime will ever pay back these loans. Giving money to North Korea is like giving money to a methhead, you know what they are going to use the money for and should not expect to get it back:

The unification ministry said Monday it is reviewing measures to reclaim loans granted to North Korea for building inter-Korean roads and train tracks after the North blew them up in October.

The unification ministry unveiled the tentative measures as part of its policy plan for the second half of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s administration, which is now at the midpoint of his five-year term.

On Oct. 15, North Korea demolished parts of the roads and train tracks connected to South Korea — the Gyeongui Line in the western border region and the Donghae Line along the east coast — in its latest display of escalating hostility toward the South.

The unification ministry said a review is under way, in collaboration with other related ministries, to seek the collection of loans to North Korea amid concerns the country may refuse to repay them following its detonation of inter-Korean roads and train tracks.

From 2002-2008, South Korea provided in-kind loans worth US$132.9 million to North Korea to construct roads and train tracks along the two inter-Korean lines.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

More tit-for-tat between North Korea and the ROK:

 North Korea’s jamming of GPS signals across the border with South Korea continued Sunday for the 10th consecutive day, the military said.

GPS jamming was detected in the northern part of Gangwon Province early Sunday morning, according to the military. 

The latest jamming attacks began near the northwestern islands before they began spreading to the northern parts of Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces last Thursday.

The military has said the jamming has involved weaker signals than in May and June and lasted for shorter periods over various directions.

The jamming appears to be a North Korean military exercise in responding to the possible appearance of drones, according to the military.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I seriously doubt that the North Korean troop dispatch to Russia was not cordinated with China in the first place. This phone calls seems more about optics of appearing to do something instead of actually expecting something to be done:

U.S. President Joe Biden called Saturday for China to use its clout to prevent an escalation of Russia’s war in Ukraine through the dispatch of more North Korean troops, while raising concerns over the possibility of Pyongyang engaging in provocations, a senior U.S. official said Saturday.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan elaborated on the discussions that Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping had during their talks on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima, amid mounting concerns about broad security implications of a military alignment between Moscow and Pyongyang.

“(Biden) also pointed out (to Xi) that the PRC does have influence and capacity and should use it to try to prevent a further escalation or further expansion of the conflict through the introduction of even more DPRK forces,” Sullivan told reporters in a press briefing.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.