Kim Jong Un

US Cancels August Military Drill With South Korea, Kim Visits China

The United States has canceled a major joint exercise with South Korea as a sign of good faith with the summit meeting with North Korea. Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrived in Beijing on Tuesday, where he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“Consistent with President Trump’s commitment and in concert with our Republic of Korea ally, the United States military has suspended all planning for this August’s defensive ‘wargame’,” Pentagon spokesperson Dana White, said in a statement.

“The South Korean and U.S. military authorities have been having close consultations over the combined exercises that U.S. President Donald Trump has said he will stop,” South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

The suspension of the military exercises reportedly will include a clause to resume the exercises if North Korea stops bargaining in good faith.

This is Kim’s third trip to China this year, coming a week after he met Trump in Singapore for historic talks.
Trump agreed to work with Kim toward complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, committed to provide the North’s regime with security guarantees and pledged to end “war games”, which Pyongyang and Beijing have long seen as provocative.
South Korea and the Pentagon announced they would halt the annual Freedom Guardian military drill scheduled for August.
In an unusual move, Chinese state media announced Kim’s visit and said he would stay for two days. Previously China would only confirm Kim had visited after he had left the country.

While critics of Trump are saying that he conceded these exercises with no assurances, they should recall that at the request of South Korean President Moon Jae-in, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis postponed the start of the Foal Eagle air, sea and land exercises prior to the Winter Olympics and Paralympics in South Korea.

To read the entire article from Reuters, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Summit Surprise: Trump Agrees to Curtail Military Exercises in Korea

President Trump extended an olive branch to North Korea during the summit by agreeing to stop the large United States-South Korean military exercise, something Pyongyang has long called a “grave provocation” that is a preparation for an invasion.

The president’s revelation that he planned to put the “war games” on hold as part of the agreement with Kim to work “toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
“Under the circumstances that we’re negotiating a very comprehensive complete deal, I think it’s inappropriate to be having war games,” Trump told reporters.
He also described the exercises as “very provocative” and said the move would “save us a tremendous amount of money.”
The next round of the joint drills were due to be held in August.
But both the Pentagon and South Korea’s military appeared to have blindsided by Trump’s statement.
U.S. Forces Korea said it had “received no updated guidance,” and Seoul said it would need to clarify the “intention behind his comments.”
Around 28,000 U.S. troops are based in South Korea. The U.S. and its allies maintain the drills are purely defensive in nature.
As well as putting the North on edge, the drills highlight the gulf between the capabilities of the South Korean military and its advanced U.S. ally, and the sizable but aging North Korean forces.
In December, joint exercises named Vigilant Ace involved some 230 planes and 12,000 U.S. military personnel in what was described as “a realistic air combat exercise.”
Despite signing the statement with Kim, Trump told reporters Tuesday that reducing the number of U.S. troops in South Korea was “not part of the equation right now.”

While the many detractors of Trump point out that he made concessions while the North Koreans promised only to do what they’ve promised before, it was extending an olive branch as a show of faith only. Those war games can be turned back on as quickly as they’re turned off.

It was a first step, nothing more, to generate further talks between the two sides.

Just a few months ago, there was worry about a nuclear confrontation between North Korea and the United States. That potential event seems much less likely today.

To read the entire article from NBC News, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Trump, Kim Jong Un Get a Deal Done, Sign “A Pretty Historic” Document

And just like that, after meeting for several hours in the morning in Singapore which was in the middle of the night as America slept, President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un came to an agreement.

Trump and Kim signed the agreement on Tuesday while Trump said the North Korean leader “reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” In exchange, Trump agreed to “provide security guarantees” to North Korea.

Trump has agreed to a second summit and will eventually host Jong at the White House, something that was completely unheard of just a few months ago.

For Kim Jong Un, this agreement and the meeting with Trump is a huge gamble. The despotic, iron-fisted ruler of a closed, paranoid country that has committed countless acts of human rights abuses against its own people, is a sign they may indeed come out of the dark.

Speaking thru an interpreter, Kim Jong Un said, “It has not been easy to come to this point,” Kim said. “For us, the past has been holding us back and old practices and prejudices have been covering our eyes and ears, but we have been able to overcome everything to arrive here today.”

Trump also promised to stop the Korean war games, something which the North Koreans viewed as provocative. As to withdrawing U.S. troops from Korea, Trump said that is the goal but it probably wouldn’t happen for some time.

Mike Pompeo, while he was the CIA Director traveled to the North twice to set the stage for the historic summit. He got a lot of the obstacles cleared and where the two countries were taunting each other with nuclear war a few months ago, a deal, perhaps just the preliminary one has been reached. It was Kim Jong Un’s first time he was seen outside of his own country since taking power in 2011.

The Text of the Agreement:

Convinced that the establishment of new US-DPRK relations will contribute to the peace and prosperity of the Korean Peninsula and of the world, and recognizing that mutual confidence building cam promote the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un state the following:

The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new US-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.
The United States and DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula
The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.

Having acknowledged that the US-DPRK summit — the first in history — was an epochal event of great significance in overcoming decades of tensions and hostilities between the two countries and for the opening up of a new future, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un commit to implement the stipulations in the joint statement fully and expeditiously.

The United States and the DPRK commit to hold follow-on negotiations, led by the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and a relevant high-level DPRK official, at the earliest possible date, to implement the outcomes of the US-DPRK summit.

President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have committed to cooperate for the development of new US-DPRK relations and for the promotion of peace, prosperity, and the security of the Korean Peninsula and of the world.

DONALD J. TRUMP
President of the United States of America
KIM JONG UN
Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
June 12, 2018
Sentosa Island
Singapore

US: North Korea Replaces Top Three Military Officers

In a move U.S. officials say is to jump-start the country’s economic development and engage more with the outside world, North Korea has replaced their top three military officers.

Kim Jong Un is preparing for a high-stakes summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Singapore on June 12, the first such meeting between a North Korean leader and a sitting U.S. president.
The U.S. official, who spoke on Sunday on condition of anonymity, was commenting on a report by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency that all three of the North’s top military officials were believed to have been replaced.
Kim’s motivation remains unclear but analysts said the shake-up allows him and the ruling party to tighten control over the Korean People’s Army (KPA) at a critical time of international engagement and domestic development.
“If Kim Jong Un is set on making peace with the U.S. and South Korea and dealing away at least part of the nuclear program, he will have to put the KPA’s influence in a box and keep it there,” said Ken Gause, director of the International Affairs Group at CNA, a non-profit research and analysis organization.
The United States is seeking a negotiated end to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and U.S. officials believe there was some dissension in the military about Kim’s approaches to South Korea and the United States.
Trump wants North Korea to “denuclearize”, or get rid of its nuclear arsenal, in return for relief from economic sanctions. North Korea’s leadership is believed to regard nuclear weapons as crucial to its survival, while Kim has said he plans to focus on economic development.
Citing an unidentified intelligence official, Yonhap said No Kwang Chol, first vice minister of the Ministry of People’s Armed Forces, had replaced Pak Yong Sik as defense chief, while Ri Myong Su was replaced by his deputy, Ri Yong Gil.
North Korean state media previously confirmed that Army General Kim Su Gil had replaced Kim Jong Gak as director of the KPA’s General Political Bureau.

The moves are seen by some officials as a way of Kim Jong Un of consolidating his power by installing younger, more capable officers in charge who are totally loyal to him and have the military at the forefront of all of his economic development programs.

Photo: Wikipedia

To read the entire article by Reuters, click here:

North and South Korea Agree to Hold Military, Red Cross Talks

While the on-again, off-again summit meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong Un is still in flux, the divided Korean states, both North and South have agreed to conduct military and Red Cross talks later this month. They are trying to finally end the war that began 68 years ago and hopefully set the table for families to be able to reconnect since the war began.

The rivals also agreed at a meeting of senior officials at the border village of Panmunjom to soon establish a liaison office at the North Korean border town of Kaesong and hold sports talks on fielding combined teams in some sports at the Asian Games in August, as they continue to take steps toward reconciliation.
South Korea says building trust with North Korea is crucial amid a U.S.-led diplomatic push to persuade the North to give up its nuclear weapons.
The high-level meeting between the Koreas followed talks in New York between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol on a possible summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. American delegations are also meeting with North Koreans at Panmunjom and in Singapore.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reported that “good progress” has been made with North Korea and setting up the meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong Un.

The US is pressing a demand for “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization.” The US has promised the North Koreans security guarantees as well as helping them achieve economic prosperity.

To read the entire article from Fox News, click here:

Photo: screenshot of North and Korean leaders meeting

North Korea Still Willing to Meet With President Trump

Kim Jong Un has stated that North Korea is still willing to meet with President Donald Trump “at any time” despite the recent cancellation of the summit meeting between the two leaders.

The two leaders were slated to meet in Singapore on June 12^th. The language of their message was not as bombastic as usual for the North’s Foreign Ministry.

Kim Kye Gwan, a top official at North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, said Trump’s decision to cancel the talks runs counter to the global community’s wishes for peace on the Korean Peninsula.
“We would like to make known to the US side once again that we have the intent to sit with the US side to solve problem(s) regardless of ways at any time,” said Kim in comments published by the country’s state-run news agency KCNA Friday.
Kim said Trump’s decision is “not consistent with the desire of humankind for peace and stability in the world, to say nothing of those in the Korean Peninsula.”
President Trump canceled the summit Thursday in a letter addressed to Kim Jong Un, citing recent hostile comments from top North Korean officials and concern over Pyongyang’s commitment to giving up its nuclear weapons. Trump said it would be “inappropriate” to have the summit given his worries.
The final straw, US officials said, was a statement Thursday from North Korea’s Foreign Ministry calling US Vice President Mike Pence a “political dummy” and hinting that Pyongyang was ready for a “nuclear showdown” should diplomacy fail.
Trump’s administration claimed there had been hiccups behind the scenes. In a background briefing a senior White House official said the North Koreans had failed to turn up to a meeting with a White House official in Singapore to talk planning and logistics. “The North Koreans didn’t tell us anything. They simply stood us up,” the official said.
But despite President Trump’s abrupt cancellation, he appeared to leave the door open for talks to resume at some point, telling reporters Thursday that “if and when Kim Jong Un chooses to engage in constructive dialogue and actions, I am waiting.”

The two sides can still meet and South Korea, who was acting almost as a middleman in the earlier negotiations will be key if future talks are planned. The North Koreans did destroy their nuclear test site in a show for western media.

To read the entire article from CNN News, click here:

Photo courtesy CNN Video Screenshot

Kim Yo Jong is the Darling of the Olympics….Why?

If there is a bigger head-scratching moment out there right now, please inform the world. Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has been representing her brother and the regime at the 2018 Olympics at the PyeongChang Games. Yo Jong has smiled, and shook hands and played the part of the young smiling face of the regime in front of the world and they are lapping it up.

The western media as a whole has been totally reporting on the North Korean propaganda reports as if they were the official news service of the North’s government. Kim Jong Un has to be extremely pleased. The words used to describe Yo Jong’s dance at the Olympics have been,“ stealing the show” with the benefit of “her warm smile and message.” And the kicker was that she was “earning a gold medal for her diplomatic dance.” These are being reported by American journalists. But the fact that his sister is wooing the masses there would be funny if it were not so scary.

And scariest of all, the South Koreans are buying it. The same ones who live right next to one of the most repressive regimes in the world and constantly have to worry about the next missile launch, as Jong Un fires ICBMs into the Sea of Japan with the care a 12-year old playing with Roman candles on the 4th of July.

The official South Korean news agency, Yonhap reported that Yo Jong was “wearing a wine-colored jacket and black pants,” at a dinner as if she were a member of the Hollywood elite’s beautiful people, instead of what she truly is.

Yo Jong is a member of the North’s Politburo and is the deputy head of the Propaganda and Agitation Department. Reportedly she’s one of the very few trusted advisors that the dictator Jong Un has and she has run interference for him, being the advance party prior to his appearances.

And her position within the Propaganda Department has been well-served in the last few days. She’s smiled and said the right things and then wrote in a guestbook message that, “I hope Pyongyang and Seoul get closer in our people’s hearts and move forward the future of prosperous unification,” she penned.

She is the first member of the ruling family to visit South Korea since the Armistice was signed in 1953. That shows the trust that Kim Jong Un, who is as untrusting as anyone alive has in his sister. And she’s totally won over the media in a brilliant move. The North has done its homework in the manner of winning over the Korean people and the international media.

Even western analysts are dropping the ball here. One called Yo Jong’s appearance, the answer to having Ivanka Trump representing the U.S. for the closing ceremonies. Another, Ken Gause was quoted by CNN as saying, “And it also is a signal that North Korea is not this crazy, weird former Cold War state — but it too has young women that are capable and are the future leadership.”

Except that it IS a crazy, weird Cold War state. The North still has gulags where thousands of people get sent for the slightest infractions. Kim Jong Un is a paranoid dictator who will kill hundreds in public executions if he feels even the slightest bit of uneasiness from his people. He’s executed senior party officials and even had his own half-brother assassinated in an airport last year with a VX nerve agent.

The North Korean people have no fundamental human rights of any kind. No freedom of expression, of the press, or any outside communication. If a North Korean citizen is found in possession of a cell phone, they risk being sent to a prison camp.

Thousands of citizens starve to death or die of disease every year in the north. Kim Jong Un survives all of this because the people are completely controlled by the party, which is him. And his sister, “The Ivanka Trump” of North Korea is in it up to her neck.

It is not at all surprising that the western press has forgotten about Otto Warmbier. He was visiting the North in 2016 when he was arrested and charged with attempting to steal a propaganda poster from his hotel. He was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor where he was tortured so bad in 17 months, the North Koreans shipped him home in a coma, where he died a few days later. His “hostile acts”, the supposed theft of a propaganda poster cost him his life.

The only cracks we saw into what really lies behind the smile was when the South sat her next to U.S. Vice President Mike Pence. The two didn’t shake hands, smile blankly at one another or even make eye contact. But when Pence was cheering the U.S. squad marching by, Yo Jong gave him the side eye. If looks could kill…

That is the North Korea of Kim Jong Un and his sister Kim Yo Jong. But the western press will keep smiling and repeating their propaganda verbatim for the North like good little “useful idiots”, right up until the next missile launch. Hopefully, that one too will end up in the Sea of Japan and not on a western city.

Photos: Wikipedia

South Korea Seizes Ship Allegedly for Illegal Oil Shipments to the North

The South Korean government seized a Hong Kong-registered ship last month for allegedly supplying oil to the North in breach of United Nations sanctions. The Koreans, armed with U.S. satellite photos said the ship Lighthouse Winmore transferred 600 tons of refined oil to a North Korean ship.

The UN Security Council resolution bans any ship-to-ship transfers of goods destined for Pyongyang.

The revelations came as China denied claims by President Donald Trump it had allowed oil shipments to the North.
The ship entered Yeosu port in South Korea on 11 October to load up with refined oil and left for Taiwan four days later, Yonhap news agency reported.
But instead of going to Taiwan it transferred the oil to a North Korean ship and three other vessels in international waters on 19 October, South Korean officials were quoted as saying.
This defies a UN Security Council resolution imposed on 11 September.
The New York Times said the transfer was captured in US satellite photos, released by the US Treasury in November, although the Lighthouse Winmore was not named by the Treasury.

The ship is registered in Hong Kong but the company that owns it is a shadowy group supposedly based in Taiwan. President Trump announced that the Chinese were behind it, which Beijing reported “was not consistent with the facts.”

North Korean state-owned news services have responded with the usual bluster that the sanctions are “an act of war” by the U.S.

To read the entire article from The BBC, click here:

US Special Operations Troops Train To Capture Korean Nukes

The U.S. is reportedly conducting training to enter North Korean territory with the objective of “infiltrating” and “removing weapons of mass destruction,” according to foreign military sources.

The recently finished military exercise conducted with South Korean forces called Warrior Strike IX, shows a military unit conducting training with night-vision equipment, armored vehicles, and full-face protective gear, including gas masks. However, the pictures that were made public look more like conventional troops than SOF.

According to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, which quoted anonymous military sources, the combined exercise was designed to simulate “infiltrating North Korea and removing weapons of mass destruction in case of conflict.” An Army spokesperson stationed in South Korea declined to comment.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has suggested repeatedly that one of his main goals in Korea was to avoid sending U.S. forces into North Korean territory. But he also seemed to concede last week that is a scenario that might need to be addressed.
On Dec. 13, State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert reiterated to reporters what Tillerson has described as the four things he won’t do when it comes to North Korea – a list he calls the “four no’s.”
“We are not seeking the collapse of the North Korean regime. We are not seeking regime change. We are not seeking the accelerated reunification of the Korean Peninsula. And we are not seeking an excuse to send our military north of the [border with South Korea],” according to Nauert.
John Bolton, a former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and a Fox News contributor …sees when it comes to North Korea’s nuclear arsenal is to convince China to support a regime change in Pyongyang.
“We’re either going to have to kind of play it using military force, or accept that North Korea will be the nuclear arms sale center of the world – to Iran, to terrorist groups, to other third-world countries that have nuclear aspirations,” Bolton said. “That is not a future I look forward to,” he added.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has become terrified about an assassination plot and is now paranoid about his security according to the report. So, he’s bought in totally that the U.S. and South Korea are serious about regime change.

To read the entire article from Fox News: click here:

Photo courtesy: US Army

North Koreans are Suffering from Nuclear Tests Say Defectors

North Korean citizens who live near the country’s nuclear test site believe that they are suffering from radiation exposure and fear that the health of many others is in jeopardy, according to defectors who made their way south.

One former North Korean, Lee Jeong Hwa tells her story with a familiar twist. That North Korean citizens are paying the price for Kim Jong Un’s nuclear testing. Lee says she’s in constant pain.

But back home, things are much worse, she says.
“So many people died we began calling it ‘ghost disease,'” she said. “We thought we were dying because we were poor and we ate badly. Now we know it was the radiation.”
As Lee rubs her sore right leg in the office of SAND, a nongovernmental organization in Seoul that advocates human rights in North Korea, she recounted how she was caught trying to flee the country in 2003.
She eventually escaped in 2010 from her home in Kilju County, home of North Korea’s nuclear testing site, Punggye-ri.
During the last seven years Lee lived in the North, the leader at the time, Kim Jong Il, test-detonated two nuclear bombs near her home. Since Kim’s death in 2011, his son and heir, Kim Jong Un, has tested four more. He claimed the one tested in September was a hydrogen bomb.

While researchers and scientists in the south believe the defectors and their stories, they are suffering from a lack of data to completely document the cause of so many maladies. The South Koreans did detect a trace of radioactive Xenon after a North Korean test.

To read the entire article from NBC News click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia