ROK and Inter-Korean relations
February 2019
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'Kim's visit to Samsung factory in Vietnam still possible'
Posted : 2019-02-24 15:38
Updated : 2019-02-24 16:53
A train believed to be carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong-un leaves the railway station in the Chinese border city of Dandong, in this photo taken by Kyodo on Saturday. Reuters-Yonhap
Kim Jong-un begins journey across China for Hanoi summit using an armored train
By Kim Yoo-chul
HANOI _ There is still a chance North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will visit a cutting-edge Samsung Electronics handset factory in northern Vietnam before or after his second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Vietnamese capital, two sources said Sunday.
"Preparatory work on security and other issues is under way for a possible visit by North Korean leader Kim to Samsung Electronics' handset factory in Thai Nguyen during his visit to the Southeast Asian country," one source here said on condition of anonymity as she wasn't officially authorized to speak to the media.
[Kim Jong Un] [Vietnam]
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Income Disparity Widens to Record Level
By Choi Kyu-min
February 22, 2019 11:51
The gap between rich and poor grew even further in the fourth quarter last year as the government's income-led growth policy foundered on the rocks of reality.
According to Statistics Korea on Thursday, the bottom 20 percent of wage earners made W1.24 million a month in the last three months of 2018, down 17.7 percent from a year earlier (US$1=W1,126). That was the biggest plunge since the government began tallying the statistics in 2003.
Even in the years following the 2008 global financial crisis, income in the lowest bracket rose 3.2 and 6.8 percent in 2009 and 2010.
[Inequality]
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2019 Pyeongchang Global Peace Forum
Agenda for Peace, from PyeongChang to the World
PyeongChang Global Peace Forum 2019
PyeongChang Alpensia Convention Center, 9-11 Feb. 2019
???
Welcome to PyeongChang!
PyeongChang, a new name for peace in the Korean peninsula.
PyeongChang is a small town in the Gangwondo province in the Republic of Korea (South Korea) located approximately 180 km Southeast of Seoul, traditionally known for its natural beauty and organic agriculture.
PyeongChang has now become globally well-known for hosting the 2018 Winter Olympics and Paralympics which was a turning point in the peacebuilding and cooperation process between the two divided Koreas in the Korean peninsula.
The 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics opened the door of opportunity for a face-to- face encounter leading to the peace talks on all levels including the summits between the political leaders of South and North Korea as well as United States of America. Therefore, it is not without exaggeration that PyeongChang is considered the birthplace of the current historical peace-making process in the Korean peninsula.
[Pyeongchang Olympics] [Peace Forum}
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Labor unions of two Koreas to hold talks on exchanges
North Korea 15:47 February 11, 2019
SEJONG, Feb. 11 (Yonhap) -- Labor unions from South and North Korea will hold talks in the North's Mount Kumgang resort this week to discuss exchanges on various labor issues, officials said Monday.
Representatives of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), South Korea's two umbrella labor groups, are set to meet with their North Korean counterparts from the General Federation of Trade Unions of Korea from Tuesday to Wednesday.
Participants from Seoul will include Kim Ju-young and Kim Myoung-hwan, the respective heads of the FKTU and KCTU, the officials said.
The main topic of discussion at the meeting will be ways to boost exchanges between the labor groups, possibly by different industry sectors, they said.
The labor unions co-hosted a football match in August last year, marking the start of bilateral exchanges in the labor sector in step with the April agreement signed by President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at their landmark first summit.
[Detente] [Unions]
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South Korea to spend 13 trillion won to stimulate border area development
Posted : 2019-02-07 13:46
Updated : 2019-02-07 14:21
This 2013 photo shows foreign tourists at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Korea Times file
South Korea plans to spend more than 13 trillion won (US$11.6 billion) over the next decade to expand infrastructure areas that border North Korea, including the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), for closer inter-Korean exchanges, the government said Thursday.
The Ministry of the Interior and Safety said the government's Border Area Policy Deliberation Committee has approved a plan to invest 13.2 trillion won by 2030 to stimulate tourism and balanced growth of the border areas, whose development has been stalled due to military security and regulations.
The investment will be spent on 225 projects in four broad fields ? expanding the base for inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation, promotion of balanced regional development, stimulation of ecological and peace tourism and expansion of social infrastructure.
[Detente]
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Trying North Korean food in the South
Posted : 2019-02-06 09:35
Updated : 2019-02-06 09:35
By Jung Da-min
North Korean food in the South is popular among those who know where to go to try the original version made from the local recipes.
Among the restaurants that serve local food from the North, The Korea Times team visited one named Howolilga in South Incheon.
The restaurant was rather small ? about 284 square feet ? with four tables, each seating four people.
Run by North Korean defectors from Hyesan in Ryanggang Province, the restaurant serves food popular in the Mount. Paekdu area.
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The light and shadows of the Korean Peninsula
Posted : 2019-02-05 16:27
Updated : 2019-02-05 16:27
A satellite photo of the Korean Peninsula at night / Yonhap
By Emanuel Pastreich
How many times have I seen an American expert pointing to a satellite photo of the Korean Peninsula at night and remarking that the striking difference between the darkness the envelops North Korea and the bright lights that illuminate South Korea, as well as Japan, symbolizes the insularity, the oppressiveness and the pathetically backwards economic state of the North. The obvious point is that the brightly lit South is a model of progress, of technology, of democracy and of free markets.
This contrast between the light of progress and democracy and the darkness of dictatorship and ignorance has a certain aesthetic perfection that easily feeds the imagination of viewers; the narrative is intellectually predigested and it goes down smoothly.
In the political debate in South Korea, this narrative is not seriously questioned in the media, among scholars, or among politicians. The progressive politicians argue that we should engage with North Korea and invest more in such projects as the Gaesong industrial complex so that North Koreans can find opportunities for employment and South Koreans can make profits from the cheap labor and abundant natural resources that North Korea offers.
[N-S Comparison] [Cliché]
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“Families” of fugitives executed by police officers during Jeju Massacre
Posted on : Feb.4,2019 11:23 KST Modified on : Feb.4,2019 11:23 KST
Lee Sang-ha recalls how police show his family when he was a boy
Lee Sang-ha recalls his experiences in the Jeju Uprising in 1948, during which his family was executed by a police officer.
“Who shot them?”
“A policeman from the Jungmun police branch.”
“Are you telling me it was a police officer who shot your family?”
“Yes.”
It was 5 am on Sept. 24, 1989, and a Jeju resident was answering questions from a lawmaker while appearing as a witness at the 13th National Assembly Home Affairs Committee’s parliamentary audit of Jeju Provincial Office. The second question suggested the lawmaker was unwilling to believe the resident when he said that a police officer had been the one who shot his family members.
The witness that day was Lee Sang-ha, now an 84-year-old resident of the Jungmun neighborhood in Seogwipo. According to the parliamentary audit records, Lee had had to wait for 14 hours after the audit began on Sept. 23, only appearing as a witness at around five the following morning. After waiting so long to take the stand for a mere 20 minutes, Lee proceeded to relate the fate of his family during the events of the Jeju Uprising (known locally as Jeju April 3), despite having been told by a National Assembly member that day to stick to what he had promised to say beforehand.
[Jeju massacres]
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S. Korea shares nautical charts of Han River estuary with N. Korea
Posted on : Jan.31,2019 17:39 KST Modified on : Jan.31,2019 17:39 KST
Charts newly composed based on last year’s joint hydrographic survey
A nautical chart drawn up after a joint hydrographic survey of the Han River estuary conducted last year.
Nautical charts have been prepared that will enable South and North Korean vessels to navigate the Han River and Imjin River estuaries. Access to the estuaries has been restricted for 65 years, since the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed in 1953, but this will open a maritime route that can be freely used by ships from both sides.
South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) announced that it had sent the North Korean military on Jan. 30 nautical charts it had composed based on the findings of a joint inter-Korean hydrographic survey carried out at the end of 2018 along with a report on the survey’s findings. The charts were delivered during a working-level meeting between the South and North Korean military officials that was held for 35 minutes, beginning at 10 am, in the meeting room of the Military Armistice Commission (MCA) in the Joint Security Area (JSA) of the DMZ in Panmunjom.
Hwang Jun, head of the Waterways Investigation Team at the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries meets with North Korean military officials in the JSA on Jan. 30 to explain the nautical charts drawn up from the findings of last year’s joint hydrographic survey. (provided by the MND)
The charts contain information necessary for shared use of the waters by North and South Korean vessels, including water depth, the coastline and submerged rocks. The Han River Estuary is a 70km area that spans from the northeast end of Gimpo Peninsula to the southwest end of Kyodong-do in South Korea, and from Imhan-ri in Panmunjom, Kaesong to Haenam-ri in Yonan County, South Hwanghae Province in North Korea. Under the Armistice Agreement, private vessels from both Koreas are granted free passage in the estuary.
Regarding the meeting between military officials from both Koreas on this day, the MND stated that “an agreement was reached on a number of practical issues related to freedom of navigation for private vessels in the Han River Estuary. It was agreed that free passage in the estuary for private vessels will be permitted on a trial basis from Apr. 1, in accordance with the provisions of the September 19 military agreement, and that this will be gradually expanded in stages.”
[Detente] [Joint- Korean]
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Moon and Trump Delude Themselves When They Trust Kim Jong-un
January 31, 2019 13:09
U.S. National Intelligence Director Dan Coats has told a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, "We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its [weapons of mass destruction] capabilities, and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities."
"Our assessment is bolstered by our observations of some activity that is inconsistent with full denuclearization," he added. Other top U.S. intelligence officials including the heads of the CIA, NSA and DIA, were also present at the hearing and agreed that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is focusing on developing intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear payload to the continental U.S.
[Kim_Trump_second_summit] [Pushback] [Conservatives]
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North Korean waitresses send wreath for comfort woman Kim Bok-dong
Posted : 2019-01-31 10:36
Updated : 2019-01-31 14:26
A photo of former sex slavery victim Kim Bok-dong at her memorial altar set up at Yonsei Severance Hospital in Seodaemun-gu, Seoul. Yonhap
Members of a group of North Korean waitresses who fled a Pyongyang-run restaurant in China sent a condolence wreath to the funeral parlor of Kim Bok-dong, the former "comfort woman" who died late Monday.
Kim, who had repeatedly called on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to apologize directly to women forced to serve in wartime brothels, battled cancer and was hospitalized, Newsis reported.
A ribbon on the wreath from the North Korean women read, "From every member of Ryugyong restaurant waitress group," according to the report.
[Election defection] [Abductees] -
Koreas in talks over cross-border road connection
Posted : 2019-01-31 15:21
Updated : 2019-01-31 17:10
North and South Korean officials try to connect a railroad during a groundbreaking ceremony for a project for road and railway links, in this December 2018 photo. Korea Times file
Officials of South and North Korea met Thursday to discuss cooperation in modernizing and connecting roads across their border, a unification ministry official said.
The meeting at the joint liaison office in the North's border town of Gaeseong was attended by senior transportation officials of the two Koreas, according to the official.
"They are exchanging views on issues of mutual concern, including road-related technologies," he told reporters.
The leaders of the two Koreas agreed in April to modernize and link the railways and roads along the eastern and western regions of the Korean Peninsula for balanced development and co-prosperity.
In a related move, they conducted joint surveys of a North Korean section of the road along the western region last August. For the road in the eastern part, they carried out just a simple check without the necessary equipment.
Observers said the two sides were likely to discuss when to conduct joint in-depth surveys of the road along the east coast.
South Korea has reportedly completed consultations with the United Nations Security Council on sanctions exemptions for equipment needed to be taken to the North for the surveys.
The two Koreas held a symbolic groundbreaking ceremony for the road and railway connection project in December, but actual construction is yet to be launched amid ongoing denuclearization talks and existing multilayered sanctions on North Korea. (Yonhap)
[Detente] [Roads] [US dominance]
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Korea Deploys 1st Aerial Refueling Tanker
By Yu Yong-weon
January 31, 2019 09:34
Korea's first aerial refueling tanker was commissioned in a ceremony at Gimhae Air Base on Wednesday afternoon in the presence of Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo.
The KC-330 "Cygnus," bought from Europe's Airbus in November last year, was deployed warfare-ready after a series of tests here.
The aerial tanker "will further boost the combat capabilities of the military to respond to threats in a rapidly changing security environment," Jeong said at the ceremony.
The KC-330 can carry up to 111 tons of fuel, enough to refuel about 10 F-15K or about 20 KF-16 fighter jets in mid-air. It can also carry about 300 personnel and 47 tons of cargo.
[Military balance] [China confrontation] [Detente] [Pushback]
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