Korean Sota Osa II ?

[ctg]

On Monday morning, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked about the report that North Korea had billed the United States $2 million for the hospitalization of American student Otto Warmbier. If it was true, did the Trump administration actually agree to pay it?

“At no time in this administration have we paid for any hostages to be released, and we have no intention of doing so,” Pompeo said, while at an event at the Council on Foreign Relations. He somehow neither confirmed that the bill was issued, nor denied that an agreement was made.

According to a Washington Post report last week, North Korea had classified the bill as a reimbursement for Warmbier’s medical care, and President Donald Trump had reportedly signed an agreement at the time of Warmbier’s release to pay Pyongyang the money. The 22-year-old was taken into custody in January 2016 while on a tourist trip to North Korea, and in June 2017 was released to his parents in a horrific state. He died within a week of returning to the United States.

When contacted by the Post about the agreement, the State Department said that it would not comment on hostage situations. The White House also declined to comment: “We do not comment on hostage negotiations, which is why they have been so successful during this administration,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told the Post.

https://thinkprogress.org/the-trump...mbiers-north-korea-medical-bill-69e5f6cbc148/

But on Friday, after the agreement became public, Trump tweeted about it. “No money was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier, not two Million Dollars, not anything else,” said the president on Twitter.

The president called The Washington Post report on the agreement “fake news” before quoting an anonymous source (something he excoriates news outlets for doing) allegedly calling him “the greatest hostage negotiator… in the history of the United States”

But two days later, his national security advisor, John Bolton, confirmed the report.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Bolton contradicted the president, saying that he was “told” that an agreement was, in fact, made via a “U.S. representative.” (Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun was not yet in the job, so it’s not clear who would have made the arrangements.)

This both contradicted the president’s denial and upended White House and State Department’s claims that the administration does not comment on hostage cases.

Bolton and the president have a history of contradicting each other on major policies.

Setting aside the fact that Warmbier was not technically a hostage (and technicalities do matter), as he was detained (however unfairly) by a government, the fact that the president agreed to pay North Korea and then renege might prove to be problematic in other situations.

Miten kukaan voi luottaa mitä Trump sanoo taikka tekee, kun hän heti kättelyssä lupasi maksaa PKlle kaksi miljoonaa sairauskuluja Warmbierin tapauksesta, mutta sen jälkeen kielsi tehneensä mitään.

 

[ctg]

Has your hiking holiday in Kazakhstan fallen through? Not to worry. The UN has greenlit the opening of trails along the heavily, heavily fortified border that divides South and North Korea.

How heavily fortified, you ask? Well the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the countries was once described as "military border fortification gone wild with almost 2 million troops, plus North Korean nukes" but has since been downgraded to "one of the world's most fortified borders".

General Robert B "Abe" Abrams, commander at the United Nations Command, told the world last week that he'd approved phase 1 of the Republic of Korea's "Peace Trail" project at Goseong, in Gangwaon Province. Yep, the Goseong that was part of North Korea before the 1953 Armistice which ended the Korean War. But what are we saying? Bygones, right?

"United Nations Command (UNC) and the ROK government have demonstrated superb teamwork, collaboration, and coordination throughout the entire 'peace trail' process and will continue to do so," said Abrams.

The programme launched at the weekend as part of the first anniversary celebrations of the Panmunjom Declaration, inked by President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last year.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/30/dmz_hiking_trail_opens/

 

[ctg]

North Korea has fired a number of short-range projectiles into the sea from the east coast city of Wonsan, South Korea’s military said.

South Korea initially described it as a missile launch, but subsequently gave a vaguer description using the word “projectiles”.

If Saturday’s missile launch is confirmed as a firing of a banned ballistic missile, it would be the first such launch since the North’s test in November 2017 of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

South Korea’s Office of the joint chiefs of staff said the North fired several unidentified short-range projectiles from north of the coastal city of Wonsan around 9am (midnight GMT). They flew about 70 kms to 200 kms.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...short-range-missiles-into-the-sea-report-says

 

[Kaarne]

USA ilmoitti takavarikoineensa pohjoiskorealaisen rahtilaivan jonka epäillään rikkoneen talouspakotteita:

North Korean Cargo Vessel Connected to Sanctions Violations Seized by U.S. Government

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman for the Southern District of New York, Assistant Director John Brown of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division and Assistant Director William F. Sweeney Jr. of the FBI’s New York Field Office...

www.justice.gov

 

[ctg]

USA ilmoitti takavarikoineensa pohjoiskorealaisen rahtilaivan jonka epäillään rikkoneen talouspakotteita:

The Wise Honest, one of North Korea’s largest bulk carriers, was used to illicitly ship coal from North Korea and to deliver heavy machinery to the DPRK. Payments for maintenance, equipment, and improvements of the Wise Honest were made in U.S. dollars through unwitting U.S. banks.

“Today’s civil action is the first-ever seizure of a North Korean cargo vessel for violating international sanctions,” said U.S. Attorney Berman. “Our Office uncovered North Korea’s scheme to export tons of high-grade coal to foreign buyers by concealing the origin of their ship, the Wise Honest. This scheme not only allowed North Korea to evade sanctions, but the Wise Honest was also used to import heavy machinery to North Korea, helping expand North Korea’s capabilities and continuing the cycle of sanctions evasion. With this seizure, we have significantly disrupted that cycle. We are willing and able to deploy the full array of law enforcement tools to detect, deter, and prosecute North Korea’s deceptive attempts to evade sanctions.”

Payments totaling more than $750,000 were transmitted through accounts at a U.S. financial institution in connection with the March 2018 shipment of coal on board the Wise Honest.

 

[Dr who?]

Kim Jong-un in Russia – in pictures

The North Korean leader arrived in Russia by train on Wednesday, a day before his much-anticipated summit with President Vladimir Putin. He visited with diplomacy over his nuclear programme deadlocked. Kim is travelling to the Pacific port city of Vladivostok for a meeting with Putin on Thursday

www.theguardian.com

Ei ole sama meininki kuin jenkkien kanssa. Tuo mattokin näyttää samalta kuin asemalla. Ehkä niillä on vladivostokissa vain yksi punainen matto.

ja sulle suosittelen silmälaseja jos noi matot näyttää sulle samoilta

 

[ctg]

ja sulle suosittelen silmälaseja jos noi matot näyttää sulle samoilta

Selvä. Maanantai vittuilusta laitan sut ignore listalle.

The Yusang-ni (유상리) missile operating base (39.449886 126.259682) is located within North Korea’s operational missile belt in Unsan-gun (Unsan County), Pyongan-namdo (South Pyongan Province) and sits 63 kilometers northeast of Pyongyang, 150 kilometers north of the demilitarized zone, 220 kilometers northeast of Seoul and 1,255 west-northwest of Tokyo. Disambiguation of references to reported missile bases or an ICBM base in Unsan-gun or the Sunchon area indicates that they are actually referring to the Yusang-ni missile operating base. This facility is sometimes referred to as the Milchon-ni (밀천리) missile operating base due to its proximity to the small village of that name (39.483333 126.233333) 4.5 kilometers to the north-northwest.

Subordinate to the Korean People’s Army (KPA) Strategic Force (the organization responsible for all North Korean ballistic missile units), the Yusang-ni missile operating base appears to house a unit of brigade-size or larger—likely with support units. What missile system(s) the unit at this base is equipped with is unclear. Reports from 2016 indicate that the base was equipped with a version of the Hwasong-13 (KN-08) intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).2 Subsequent reports from 2018 state that the unit was equipped with the Hwasong-14 (KN-20) or Hwasong-15 (KN-22) ICBMs.3 These reports should be viewed cautiously as the development and production status of these systems is unknown. Regardless, if ICBMs are based at the Yusang-ni missile operating base they would represent an important component of North Korea’s presumed offensive ballistic missile strategy by providing a strategic-level first strike capability against targets located throughout East Asia, the Pacific, and the continental United States. These systems undoubtedly represent crucial components of North Korea’s political bargaining strategy with the United States.

https://beyondparallel.csis.org/undeclared-north-korea-the-yusang-ni-missile-operating-base/

 

[Charananges]

KCNA: Pohjois-Korea kärsii äärimmäisestä kuivuudesta

Lähes puolet maan kansalaisista tarvitsee kiireellistä ruoka-apua.

yle.fi

En nyt ole varma tuliko tämä oikeaan vitjaan. Jos KCNA ilmoittaa noin, en ihan purematta niele, mikähän siellä on. Jos pitää paikkansa ovat kyllä aikasmoisessa kusessa.

 

[ctg]

The highest-ranking official to defect from North Korea has called for Europeans to stop being an audience for the “child exploitation” in the country’s famous mass games.

Thae Yong-ho, the former deputy ambassador to the UK, who defected in 2016, said travel companies and tourists should boycott the cultural displays, which attract large numbers of visitors and social media viewings. He said North Korean children already faced appalling rates of malnutrition, brainwashing and forced labour and the displays were yet another act of cruelty.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-...mane-mass-gymnastic-displays-says-ex-diplomat

 

[aj77]

Trumpin ja Kimin epäonnistuneissa neuvotteluissa mukana olleet laitettiin vastuuseen ja puhdistettiin leireille. Jopa Pullukan sisko pitää nyt matalaa profiilia eikä häntä ole näkynyt.

Reuters | Breaking International News & Views

Find latest news from every corner of the globe at Reuters.com, your online source for breaking international news coverage.

uk.reuters.com

 

[aj77]

Nyt sanotaan lehdissä Kimin teloituttaneen porukan ja mm Usan erikoislähettilään. Haiskahtaa propagandatempulta huolimatta onko totta. Trump oli olevinaan kova jätkä.

Lehti: Pohjois-Korea teloitti Yhdysvaltain-erityislähettilään ja neljä muuta virkamiestä
https://www.is.fi/ulkomaat/art-2000006126089.html

 

[ctg]

A senior North Korean official who was reportedly sent to a labour camp has attended a concert alongside the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, state media have said.

There had been speculation about the fate of Kim Yong-chol after a South Korean newspaper reported last week that he had been subjected to forced labour and “ideological education”.

This was said to be part of a purge of senior officials conducted after the collapse of Kim Jong-un’s summit meeting in February with Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam.

However, on Monday morning, the Pyongyang-run Korean Central News Agency reported that Kim Yong-chol attended an art performance presented by the wives of military officers on Sunday.

The report listed him as among “leading officials” of the Workers’ party of Korea central committee in the audience. He was identified in a photograph as the man sitting five seats to the left of Kim Jong-un, although his face appears to be partially obscured by his hands.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ong-chol-reappears-after-forced-labour-report

 

[ctg]

Kim Jong-un’s influential younger sister has appeared in public for the first time in more than 50 days, attending the “Mass Games” propaganda displays that the North Korean leader later criticised for their “wrong spirit”.

Kim Yo-jong, who was by Kim’s side throughout both of his meetings with the US president, was shown seated next to her brother at the event in Pyongyang on Monday evening.

Reports suggested that he had ordered her to keep a low profile after the failure of his recent nuclear summit with Donald Trump.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-leader-upset-with-wrong-spirit-at-mass-games

 

[ctg]

Scientists looking anew at a 2017 North Korean nuclear test discovered that the explosion was likely about two-thirds more powerful than U.S. officials previously thought.

Earlier data put the yield somewhere between 30 and 300 kilotons; the U.S. intelligence community said 140 kilotons. That was already the most powerful device tested by North Korea, topping a 2016 test by about an order of magnitude. But a new look at seismological data suggests that the blast was between 148 and 328 kilotons, and probably around 250 kilotons.

That’s the conclusion from a group of researchers from the University of California, Santa Cruz; the Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica; and elsewhere, as published Monday in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. The team combined sound-wave data recorded during the blast with information about North Korean nuclear tests since 2006 and plugged it all into models showing how sound would travel through various types of rock at an estimated depth of 430 to 710 meters.

A 250-kiloton weapon would be about 16 times more powerful than the one that leveled Hiroshima. Detonated over Washington, D.C., it would have knocked down virtually every residential structure in the downtown area and inflicted third-degree burns on everyone within a three-mile radius.

https://www.defenseone.com/technolo...er-previously-thought/157469/?oref=d-topstory

 

[ctg]

A human rights group says it has identified hundreds of sites where witnesses say North Korea carried out public executions and extrajudicial state killings as part of an arbitrary and aggressive use of the death penalty designed to intimidate its citizens.

The Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG), based in Seoul, said it had pinpointed at least 323 sites after four years of research and interviews with more than 600 North Korean defectors.

“Public executions are to remind people of particular policy positions that the state has,” said the TJWG research director, Sarah A Son. “But the second and more powerful reason is it instils a culture of fear among ordinary people.“

Purged members of the elite have been among those executed in public, such as leader Kim Jong-un’s uncle, Jang Song-thaek, in 2013.

But the most common charges levelled against the condemned ranged from “stealing copper and livestock” to, less frequently, “anti-state” activities and illegally crossing into China, the group said.

The survey of 610 North Korean defectors living in South Korea included 19 reports of more than 10 people being executed at the same time.

Crowds, often of hundreds of people, and sometimes 1,000 or more, would gather to watch the executions. The youngest person to witness a public execution was seven, the group said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-execution-sites-identified-says-rights-group

 

[totuuskomissio]

Trump lupasi KJU:lle, ettei CIA lähesty enää PK:n silmäätekeviä. Aivan uskomatonta . Vastineeksi Trump, vapaan maailman johtaja (sic!), sai jälleen kauniin kirjeen diktaattorilta.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1138536973382115329

 

[ctg]

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has received a personal letter from Donald Trump and will put serious thought into its content, North Korea’s state-run news agency KCNA has said.

In a report published early on Sunday in Asia, KCNA did not give details on the letter, but said Kim described it as “of excellent content”.

“Kim Jong-un said that he would seriously contemplate the interesting content,” the report said.

White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump recently said he had received a “beautiful” letter from Kim.

US-North Korea talks have been stalled since a failed summit in February between Trump and the North Korean leader in Hanoi, Vietnam.

A US official said on Wednesday that the United States had no pre-conditions for new talks but progress would require meaningful and verifiable North Korean steps to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.

Trump is due to visit South Korea next week for meetings with President Moon Jae-in after taking part in the G20 meetings in Japan.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ong-un-and-trump-write-letters-back-and-forth

 

[tienvarsipummi]

Jaahas, että oikein kirjeitä on taas vaihdeltu. No, eipä yllätä, että Putinin kirjoittama näytelmä jatkuu.

 

[ctg]

Laitetaan tänne vaikka ei liity suoraan PKhon. Vähän aika sitten Kiinalainen isä piipahti perheineen Etelä-Koreaan. Hänen harmikseen ja hänen kohtalokseen perheen pienimmäinen päätti että iskän passi tarvitsi hieman väritystä. Rajalla viranomaiset eivät olleet tyytyväisiä kun he näkivät tämän.

Child draws on dad's passport, dad gets stuck in South Korea

A four-year-old boy showed his talents as a budding artist in this nice drawing he did... all over his dad's passport.

metro.co.uk

 

[ctg]

North Korea is experiencing an explosive outbreak of HIV amid limited access to diagnostic testing and treatments, according to an exclusive report by Science.

Independent researchers and government health officials tell the outlet that the isolated East Asian country confirmed its first HIV case in 1999 and has quietly watched infections balloon to over 8,300 cases in the last few years. The researchers and North Korean officials have submitted a report on the matter to the new medical preprint server medRxiv, which is scheduled to go live on Tuesday, June 25.

The case estimate stands in stark contrast to a celebration in Pyongyang last year on December 1—annual World AIDS Day—in which government officials declared that North Korea is an “AIDS-free zone” and that there is “not a single AIDS patient” in the country.

The truth of the matter came to light after an unusual collaboration formed. In 2013, North Korean health officials reached out to a US NGO called DoDaum for help tracking the infections. DoDaum already worked on health, education, and development programs in North Korea, and it built up a good rapport with officials. Together, the team worked on assessing the extent of disease spread, particularly in rural areas, as well as the factors driving it.

Blood donors and people who inject drugs appear to be the hardest hit by the outbreak. Efforts to halt the spread of infections have been difficult because there are only three labs in the country that use modern tests to screen for HIV infection. Additionally, international sanctions have made it difficult to import drug treatments, which are not produced domestically. DoDaum says it has helped 3,000 patients gain access to treatment.

North Korean officials at first wanted to stay mum about the outbreak, but they changed their minds amid the discouraging circumstances. Kim Mun Song, a physician and external affairs director at the North Korean Ministry of Public Health in Pyongyang, explained to Science:

On the one hand, reporting the existence of these patients may lead to a backlash from the central government, as they are very much afraid of communicable diseases in general. On the other hand, not reporting and not recognizing the existence will perpetuate the issue of not having treatments.

Moreover, DoDaum co-founder Taehoon Kim expressed concern that the government could criminalize HIV status and detain or deport patients if the situation worsens. Kim Mun Song called this a “realistic concern... But we hopefully will not have to take measures that violate human rights.”

https://arstechnica.com/science/201...v-outbreak-after-claiming-to-be-disease-free/