The ongoing saga around the hangbag from hell political hit job continues for Korea’s First Lady:

First lady Kim Keon Hee was interrogated by prosecutors over allegations that she illegally accepted a luxury handbag from a Korean American pastor and was involved in a stock manipulation scheme, according to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, Sunday,

Kim was summoned on Saturday for an investigation into graft and stock manipulation cases. She was questioned face-to-face at an undisclosed government building for about 12 hours.

Kim faces allegations that she illegally accepted a Christian Dior handbag valued at around 3 million won ($2,158) from pastor Choi Jae-young during their meeting in Seoul in September 2022, four months after President Yoon Suk Yeol’s inauguration.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This tit-for-tat is better than the two Koreas shooting at each other:

South Korea’s military blared K-pop songs and news through its loudspeakers across the border with North Korea on Sunday as it stepped up its psychological campaign in response to North Korea’s repeated launches of trash balloons.

The move came five days after Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, warned of “gruesome and dear” consequences over continued leaflet campaigns seen by North Korea as psychological warfare.

North Korea has sent more than 2,000 trash-filled balloons into the South over nine occasions in a tit-for-tat retaliation for anti-Pyongyang leaflets that North Korean defectors in South Korea send to North Korea using balloons.

“As we have warned numerous times, we will conduct loudspeaker broadcasts in full-scale at all fronts starting from 1 p.m.,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a notice to reporters.

The propaganda broadcasts typically comprise news, a message urging North Korean soldiers near the border to escape to South Korea as well as K-pop songs, including global K-pop sensation BTS’ megahit singles “Dynamite” and “Butter.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

This should come as no surprise that J.D. Vance to echoing Donald Trump’s call for U.S. allies to do more for national defense:

Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate has vowed to ensure U.S. allies share the burden of promoting world peace, and warned them against what he called “free rides.”

Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio made the remarks during a speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Wednesday amid concerns that Trump, if reelected, could put pressure on South Korea to increase its financial contributions for stationing the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK).

“Together, we will make sure our allies share in the burden of securing world peace,” he told a cheering crowd at the convention. “No more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the American taxpayer.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

There has been a lot of concern in South Korea that a second Trump presidency would see him asking the ROK to pay more for the upkeep of U.S. forces, instead it appears Trump will be targeting Taiwan instead:

“Tariffs are great economically and good for negotiations. U.S. President Joe Biden’s policies to foster electric vehicles have only added to inflation with subsidies.”

Former President Donald Trump hinted in an interview with U.S. economic media Bloomberg Business Week that there will be an upheaval in overall economic and industrial policies if he takes power. The interview was held at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida at the end of June before the shooting, but it was relentless as if it had already been elected. In fact, attention is drawn to the disclosure of the sketch of “Trumpnomics.”

In an interview released on the 16th (local time), former President Trump said, “The interest rate should remain as it is until the economy recovers,” and stressed, “The interest rate level is high now, so (the Biden administration) may want to cut interest rates, but it should not be done before the election.”

Maeil Business Newspaper

Here is where Trump discusses Taiwan:

Former President Trump attacked Taiwan for taking the U.S. semiconductor industry and saying it should be returned as defense expenses. Asked if he would defend Taiwan against China, he replied, “Taiwan has taken the U.S. semiconductor industry, so I think it should pay us for defense.” Former President Trump said, “Taiwan gives us nothing. But the United States is giving them billions of dollars to get them to produce semiconductors in the United States,” he pointed out. 

You can read much more about Trumpnomics at the link.

Here is some good news for South Korea nuclear industry:

A view of the new Dukovany nuclear power plant site in the Czech Republic. [YONHAP]

The Czech Republic picked Korean companies as the preferred bidder to build two nuclear reactors in Dukovany, an estimated 24 trillion won ($17 billion) project that could serve as a catalyst for the country’s renewed drive to export nuclear power facilities.

The decision marks the first overseas nuclear power deal for local firms in some 15 years since securing a contract to build nuclear power reactors in Barakah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2009.  

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.