Quotes of the Day:
“In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisors, but they have to win it, the people of Vietnam, against the communists.”
- President John Kennedy in a televised interview with Walter Cronkite on September 2, 1963.
"Nothing of real importance changes: modern history is not modern."
- Colin Gray
“By and large, strategy comes into play where there is actual or potential conflict, when interests collide and forms of resolution are required. This is why a strategy is much more than a plan. A plan supposes a sequence of events that allows one to move with confidence from one state of affairs to another. Strategy is required when others might frustrate one’s plans because they have different and possibly opposing interests and concerns.”
- Lawrence Freedman, Strategy: A History
1. South Korea faces tough choices amid U.S. exercise plans, threats from North
2. North Korea’s hackers target South Korea’s hacks
3. The strange bipartisan push to give North Korea a peace treaty
4. Bad Idea: The New Yorker’s Nuclear Option
5. Navy receives first 3,000-ton-class SLBM submarine
6. North Korea military threats ‘intended to deflect from economic crisis’
7. North Korea mocks U.S. over eviction crisis as new deadline looms
8. North Korea's propaganda and agitation department orders journalists to "take lead" in ideological education
9. North Korea accuses US of involvement in anti-gov't protests in Cuba
10. Korean infections surge amid worst-ever outbreak
11. An Israeli-style ‘Iron Dome’ won’t improve South Korea’s defence
12. Top U.S., South Korean trade officials discuss supply chain resiliency efforts -USTR
13. North Korea to Impose Hard Labor Sentences for COVID-19 Gathering Violations
14. ＜Inside N. Korea＞ Forced to provide flood support by saying “give voluntarily." Residents protest that “the government has no money and is forcing the people to bear the burden.”
1. South Korea faces tough choices amid U.S. exercise plans, threats from North
Actually the choice should not be so tough. Either choose national security or appeasement.
South Korea faces tough choices amid U.S. exercise plans, threats from North
Newsweek · by Tom O'Connor · August 12, 2021
South Korean President Moon Jae-in is faced with tough choices as he sets out to pursue peace with North Korea while maintaining his country's decades-old military alliance with the United States amid yet another round of tensions on the peninsula.
During a meeting of South Korea's National Security Council standing committee on Thursday, National Security Office Director Suh Hoon urged North Korea not to escalate frictions between the two countries as Pyongyang lashed out at Seoul for preparing to hold military drills with Washington in the upcoming days.
On the third day of radio silence on cross-border communication lines with North Korea, Suh said that he and other security officials have "closely analyzed North Korea's move linked with the South Korea-U.S. combined training as well as South-North Korea, North Korea-U.S. and North Korea-China relations," according to the Hankyoreh newspaper.
"Reaffirming the importance of maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and refraining from actions that escalate tensions, they agreed to focus on cooperation with relevant countries to resume dialogue as soon as possible," Suh said.
The remarks came a day after back-to-back warnings delivered by senior North Korean officials regarding the upcoming U.S.-South Korea maneuvers set to begin Monday.
North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in review honor guards during a welcoming ceremony at Pyongyang Sunan International Airport on September 18, 2018 in Pyongyang, North Korea. Kim and Moon met for their third and latest Inter-Korean summit, the fifth ever since the 1945 division of the peninsula and the war that followed, to discuss peace, but tensions would return in the three years since. Pyeongyang Press Corps/Pool/Getty Images
Kim Yong Chol, director of the ruling Korean Workers' Party Central Committee United Front Department, issued a press statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency on Wednesday in which the elite general castigated South Korea for beginning preliminary training with the U.S. a day earlier.
He said such a move, made just about two weeks after inter-Korean communications were reestablished after a 14-month silence, constituted Seoul "defying the opportunity of a turn hardly made amid unanimous expectation of all the compatriots at home and abroad for peace and stability on the Korean peninsula."
Kim Yong Chol accused South Korea of disregarding its northern neighbor's advice when it "opted for alliance with outsiders, not harmony with compatriots, escalation of tension, not détente, and confrontation, not improved relations," and warned of retaliation.
He asserted that North Korea would ensure Moon's administration "realize by the minute what a dangerous choice they made and what a serious security crisis they will face because of their wrong choice," and accused South Korea of "answering our good faith with hostile acts."
"It is clear that there is no other option for us as South Korea and the U.S. opted for confrontation with our state, without making any change," Kim Yong Chol said. "We will keep going on with what we should do."
That same day, during an interview with the state-run Tass Russian News Agency, North Korean ambassador to Russia Sin Hong Chol demanded that the U.S. immediately withdraw its troops and military equipment from the Korean Peninsula, accusing Washington of deliberately sabotaging reconciliation efforts between Pyongyang and Seoul.
"The actions of the United States, who persistently forced through the aggressive military exercises at such an extreme time when the international attention is concentrating on Korean Peninsula developments, show that they are the instigators who destroy peace and security of the region," Sin said, "while 'commitment to diplomacy' and 'dialogue without preconditions' that the current U.S. administration is ranting about are nothing but hypocrisy."
He said North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), remained committed to the principle of "force for force" and "good for good" in its dealing with the U.S.
The dual warnings came a day after Kim Yo Jong, vice department director of the ruling Korean Workers' Party Central Committee and sister of Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, called the exercises "the most vivid expression of the U.S. hostile policy towards the DPRK, designed to stifle our state by force, and an unwelcome act of self-destruction for which a dear price should be paid as they threaten the safety of our people and further imperil the situation on the Korean peninsula."
She added a warning of her own.
"The dangerous war exercises pushed ahead by the U.S. and the South Korean side in disregard of our repeated warnings will surely make them face more serious security threat," she said in a statement published by the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
"Whatever the scale and mode," she added, "the joint military exercises are of aggressive nature as they are a war rehearsal and preliminary nuclear war exercise for further rounding off the preparations for putting into practice the operational plan with the pre-emptive strike at us as the gist."
She also accused the U.S. of provoking unrest, and accused South Korea of squandering an opportunity for peace that has eluded the two Koreas since their 1940s division by the Soviet Union and the U.S. after World War II and the deadly three-year war that erupted between the two neighbors the following decade.
In what was once seen as a significant sign of hope, the two Koreas held a record three inter-Korean summits in 2018, the same year that former President Donald Trump met with Kim Jong Un for an unprecedented bilateral sit-down between the two foes.
The process began to unravel the following year, however, as two follow-up meetings between the U.S. and North Korean leaders failed to produce an agreement for lifting sanctions and denuclearization, and Pyongyang ultimately pulled back from the process and severed communications with Seoul.
Since President Joe Biden came to office in January, Moon has sought to encourage him to pursue engagement with North Korea. The White House has said it's open to such diplomacy, while at the same time reserving the right to respond to any perceived escalations.
Biden Wants North Korea Meeting, South Korea Says Now's the Time
Read more
A spokesperson for the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs recounted the efforts by the country, officially known as the Republic of Korea (ROK), to rekindle inter-Korean talks and U.S.-North Korea negotiations beginning with Moon's meeting with Biden for their first bilateral summit in May.
"The ROK government laid the groundwork for restoring a virtuous cycle between the two Koreas and U.S.-DPRK relations at the ROK-U.S. Summit held on May 21," the spokesperson told Newsweek. "The ROK and the U.S. are committed to continuing close coordination to resume dialogue with the DPRK."
"During the Summit, the Leaders of the ROK and the U.S. reaffirmed their shared commitment to complete denuclearization and establishment of permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula through diplomacy and dialogue, based on previous agreements such as the 2018 Panmunjom Declaration and Singapore Joint Statement," the spokesperson said. "They also agreed to continue facilitating the provision of humanitarian aid to the neediest North Koreans and the reunion of separated families of the two Koreas. President Biden expressed his support for inter-Korean dialogue, engagement, and cooperation."
The spokesperson also reviewed recent discussions that have occurred on the issue. These included telephone conversations between the two countries' top diplomats in June and early August, vice foreign ministerial-level meetings in June and a strategic dialogue in July, a consultation in June and a phone call in July between their chief negotiators on the North Korea issue, and the discussion between the director generals of the two allies last week.
During the most recent interaction last Thursday involving U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-young, the spokesperson noted that "the two sides had in-depth discussions on ways to cooperate with the DPRK in such areas as humanitarian cooperation and agreed to make continued efforts to engage with the DPRK."
The State Department's readout of that call also made reference to potential humanitarian routes for cooperation regarding North Korea.
"The Secretary and the Foreign Minister reaffirmed their commitment to complete denuclearization and establishment of permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula, and the Secretary confirmed U.S. support for inter-Korean dialogue and engagement," the State Department said at the time. "The Secretary and the Foreign Minister also discussed recent developments in the DPRK and agreed to explore humanitarian initiatives on the Korean Peninsula."
South Korea has not ruled out providing vaccines to North Korea, which is not known to have accepted outside offers of vaccine assistance, even from friendly neighbors China and Russia. The infamously insular state has also not reported a single COVID-19 case since the outbreak of the pandemic, but South Korea has been skeptical of this claim.
An official with South Korea's Ministry of Unification told Newsweek last week that "inter-Korean cooperation on COVID-19 response including vaccine sharing is a matter that can be discussed once the government ensures access of South Korean nationals to vaccination, and confirms North Korea's willingness to cooperate."
So far, no such plan has materialized.
"However, specific plans aimed at the provision of COVID-19 vaccines to North Korea has not been reviewed by the government at this point," the official said.
The Foreign Ministry spokesperson later offered a similar assessment, saying that, so far, "the ROK government has not reviewed plans on providing vaccines to the DPRK."
The State Department also said vaccine-sharing plans have not yet been established.
"The DPRK has created significant barriers to the delivery of assistance by closing its borders and rejecting offers of international aid, while also limiting the personnel responsible for implementing and monitoring existing humanitarian projects," a State Department spokesperson told Newsweek last week. "We do not currently have plans to share vaccines with the DPRK."
Both the State Department spokesperson and a senior administration official also said that "diplomacy and dialogue are essential to achieving complete denuclearization and to establishing permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula" and welcomed the recent resumption of communications between the two Koreas.
"We remain prepared to engage in diplomacy toward our objective of the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," the senior administration official added. "As we've said, we have reached out to the DPRK in line with our policy of openness to diplomacy. Our offer remains to meet anywhere, anytime without preconditions. Ultimately, we hope DPRK will respond positively to our outreach."
U.S. Air Force Colonel John Gallemore, 8th Fighter Wing commander and F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot, and Republic of Korea Air Force Colonel Do-Hyoung Kim, 38th Fighter Group commander and KF-16 pilot, fly together in formation over the Yellow Sea, June 29. The U.S. and South Korea have practiced joint maneuvers since their 1950s war against North Korea, which was supported at the time by China and the Soviet Union. Staff Sergeant Mya M. Crosby/Commander, Task Force 71/Destroyer Squadron 15/U.S. Air Force
But the messages from Pyongyang have so far only suggested otherwise.
In response to the latest North Korean warnings, State Department spokesperson Ned Price declined to speak directly to what the message from Pyongyang might be, but did reiterate the U.S. message.
"The joint military exercises, they are purely defensive in nature," Price said. "We have long maintained the United States harbors no hostile intent towards the DPRK. It is true we remain committed to the security of the Republic of Korea and our combined defense posture in accordance with the ironclad alliance we have with the ROK."
"We support intra-Korean dialogue, we support intra-Korean engagement, and will continue to work with our ROK partners to that end," he added.
U.S. Army Colonel Lee Peters, a spokesperson for U.S. Forces Korea, told Newsweek last week that joint exercises were not discussed with the media as a matter of policy, but, "that being said, any discussions on combined training events are a ROK-U.S. bilateral decision and reached with a mutual agreement."
Moon, meanwhile, continues to face a more imminent threat at home in the final months of his second and final term, which will end after elections in March, as the COVID-19 Delta variant takes hold in South Korea and infections continue to sweep the nation, including individuals associated with the U.S. military presence there.
On Tuesday, just as the preliminary joint training began, U.S. Forces Korea announced that eight more service members tested positive for the disease. As the U.S. military raced to curb the coronavirus' spread among its own ranks, it also emphasized that it remained prepared to defend the host country.
"USFK continues to maintain a robust combined defense posture to protect the Republic of Korea against any threat or adversary, while maintaining prudent preventive measures to protect the force," the U.S. command said in a statement Wednesday.
Newsweek · by Tom O'Connor · August 12, 2021
2. North Korea’s hackers target South Korea’s hacks
An important warning here.
Excerpts:
The hacking attempts on South Korean media outlets took place in the form of e-mails sent to dozens of reporters and editors. Messages contained PDF attachments and requesting responses to a survey. This also marked a change from the North’s hackers’ previous use of Word and Hangul documents.
Once opened, the PDF attachments downloaded a malicious code onto the victim’s computer, which would check for the presence of anti-virus software before attempting to enter the internal network of the media outlet.
The downloaded malware collected documents and passwords stored on the computer. The code was also capable of monitoring screen activity and, in the case of mobile phones, stealing contact information and photographs.
An official with knowledge of the investigation into the latest hacking attempts said that the motive behind the hacking attacks was “to understand the current political sentiment regarding the U.S.-South Korean joint military drills and next year’s presidential election.”
He added, “Although the hackers sought personal information on the journalists who opened the e-mails, their main targets were the internal networks of media outlets.”
Thursday
August 12, 2021
North Korea’s hackers target South Korea’s hacks
North Korea recently conducted numerous hacking attacks on prominent journalists from around 10 South Korean media outlets, according to a cyber-security source who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
According to the source, signs of attempted hacking of media organizations began on Aug. 5. These were tracked to North Korean hackers based on analysis of the tactics and technology employed.
The attacks on people in the media were a shift from the North’s recent cyber intrusions targeting South Korean agencies and former and current government officials.
The hacking attempts on South Korean media outlets took place in the form of e-mails sent to dozens of reporters and editors. Messages contained PDF attachments and requesting responses to a survey. This also marked a change from the North’s hackers’ previous use of Word and Hangul documents.
Once opened, the PDF attachments downloaded a malicious code onto the victim’s computer, which would check for the presence of anti-virus software before attempting to enter the internal network of the media outlet.
The downloaded malware collected documents and passwords stored on the computer. The code was also capable of monitoring screen activity and, in the case of mobile phones, stealing contact information and photographs.
An official with knowledge of the investigation into the latest hacking attempts said that the motive behind the hacking attacks was “to understand the current political sentiment regarding the U.S.-South Korean joint military drills and next year’s presidential election.”
He added, “Although the hackers sought personal information on the journalists who opened the e-mails, their main targets were the internal networks of media outlets.”
The source noted that the hacking attempts on media outlets bore certain similarities with the May hacking of the Korea Atomic Energy Institute.
In the case of both, hackers used Virtual Private Networks (VPN) utilized by employees to connect directly to their companies’ internal servers.
One weakness of VPNs is that once malware finds its way into a company’s internal network from an e-mail recipient, all information saved on the server can be stolen. It is also possible for such malware to alter articles, fabricate news stories, or destroy the network itself.
Following the ramping up of attacks by hackers tied to North Korea in the first half of this year, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) has raised the cyber alert level for public agencies from the lowest “normal” stage to “attention,” the first rise in the five-tie cyber alert level since the inter-Korean summit between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in April 2018.
A slew of hacking attacks on South Korean government bodies and companies, which include Korea Aerospace Industries – the manufacturer of Korea’s first indigenous fighter jet – and Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering, have led to criticism that the country has let down its guard against cyber-intrusions.
In early July, opposition People Power Party (PPP) lawmaker Han Ki-ho chastised the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, the country’s main defense development agency, for failing to conduct on-site inspections into defense companies’ security set-ups since last year.
BY MICHAEL LEE, PARK YONG-HAN [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]
3. The strange bipartisan push to give North Korea a peace treaty
This is troubling. Members and staff are being influenced by those who do ont have the security of the ROK in their best interests and are basing their agenda on the erroneous assumption that Kim seeks an end of war declaration as a security guarantee. Instead if the regime did agree to some kind of peace regime it will be because it supports the objective to split the ROK/US alliance and drive US forces off the peninsula. Congress needs to read the alternative arguments and analysis rather than being taken in by those who seek to appease north Korea.
I concur with this conclusion. I too want pace on the Korean peninsula. But I want the ROK and the Korean people protected from the regime.
Of course, a negotiated end to the Korean War is a worthwhile enterprise provided it is equitable and honorable — not the one-sided concession to North Korea that is inexplicably en vogue at the moment. We have to face facts here: The world wants a peace agreement with North Korea more than North Korea needs one. That is not a strong foundation for negotiations.
The strange bipartisan push to give North Korea a peace treaty
The Hill · by Anthony W. Holmes, Opinion Contributor · August 12, 2021
One of more persistently odd proposals bandied around in North Korea diplomacy is offering Pyongyang a peace settlement at the beginning of negotiations. Often referred to as “the peace first approach,” this ranges from a symbolic declaration recognizing that fighting in the Korean War has ended, to a formal peace treaty that the U.S. can offer unilaterally and unconditionally or in trade for some reciprocal North Korean concession.
Like so many things dealing with North Korea, this proposal has it backwards — concessions first, then negotiations. The “peace first” approach assumes the reason North Korea behaves belligerently is that the rest of the world has not acted reliably enough to appease North Korean bellicosity. It is the rest of the world, not North Korea, that is responsible for ending the war.
Support for this diplomatic malpractice crosses the political spectrum. During former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy John Rood’s January 2020 testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) praised the idea of a “peace declaration as a first step” in negotiations. In February of this year, the Libertarian CATO Institute approvingly cited the far-left Korea Peace Now! organization in calling for a unilateral U.S. peace declaration.
Advocates argue that North Korea would relish a peace offering because it would be the clearest symbol yet that the United States has no aggressive designs on North Korea. They hope this will start a virtuous cycle of negotiations. North Korea complains about the U.S. “hostile policy,” advocates argue, so we can blunt that criticism by offering a peace agreement front and center as the starting point of negotiations.
In February, I wrote an article for Nikkei critical of the “golden concession” approach to North Korea, of which the “peace first” approach is the natural conclusion when everything else has failed. And this tactic will fail, for three reasons.
First, there is no evidence that North Korea actually wants it, or Pyongyang would have accepted it when it was offered before. In fact, it has rejected concessions covering almost everything the “peace first” advocates assure us North Korea really wants but is too proud to ask for. It is easy to see why. Such a peace agreement would attack the foundations of the state’s civic religion of antagonism toward the outside world. This garrison-state enmity is as woven into the fabric of its institutions, rhetoric and way of life as reverence for the leader. The leader leads because he protects.
Secondly, we have to ask why North Korea would trade substantive concessions for a legally non-binding resolution acknowledging fighting stopped in 1953. If, on the other hand, North Korea were to accept a unilateral legally-binding peace treaty, what possible motive would North Korea have to act in good faith going forward? From Pyongyang’s perspective, the United States handed it the ultimate legal instrument to bludgeon the alliance. China and Russia would waste no time in calling for a UN Security Council Resolution to abolish the United Nations Command and other supporting legal infrastructure. Even though the United States would veto such resolutions, in military terms we would have clearly ceded the initiative to Pyongyang and Beijing.
Finally, the unilateral peace treaty would do nothing to change North Korea’s designs on the entire Peninsula or ameliorate how the rest of the world misinterprets North Korea’s criticism of the U.S. “hostile policy.” To North Korea, U.S. “hostile policy” is an all-encompassing censure of U.S. alliances, security guarantees, the nuclear umbrella and diplomatic power.
Proponents try to square this rhetorical circle by arguing that the 1953 Armistice causes continued militarization because it ended the fighting but not the war. If both sides still believe war could erupt at any second, the argument goes, there will be continued mistrust. So, proponents of “Peace First” apparently practice something approaching an occult textual incantation — war continues because both sides say it does, so if the U.S. unilaterally declares peace there will be peace.
Of course, a negotiated end to the Korean War is a worthwhile enterprise provided it is equitable and honorable — not the one-sided concession to North Korea that is inexplicably en vogue at the moment. We have to face facts here: The world wants a peace agreement with North Korea more than North Korea needs one. That is not a strong foundation for negotiations.
Anthony W. Holmes was special adviser for North Korea in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2017-2021 and is principal consultant at Holmes-ASIA, LLC.
The Hill · by Anthony W. Holmes, Opinion Contributor · August 12, 2021
4. Bad Idea: The New Yorker’s Nuclear Option
I missed this New Yorker article in 2019 which shows the simulated aftermath of a nuclear attack on the Korean peninsula. The essay below criticizes the New Yorker for that article after it recently tweeted a link to it.
The 2019 article can be accessed HERE.
Excerpt:
The New Yorker recently tweeted an archival story from the generally well-regarded Photo Booth. The 2019 piece featured South Korean photographer Anna Lim’s project Rehearsal of Anxiety – a series of staged photographs “to show how the moments following a nuclear strike from North Korea or a terrorist attack with a dirty bomb might unfold.”
...
The horrors of nuclear war are unfathomable. The indiscriminate and instantaneous killing of tens of thousands of civilians needs no fictionalized reimagining. In a time when critics have blasted social media platforms for amplifying disinformation, the New Yorker might consider saving itself from shame and deleting its tweet.
Bad Idea: The New Yorker’s Nuclear Option
On August 6, 1945, the U.S. detonated the world’s first wartime nuclear bomb over Hiroshima. An estimated 70,000 people died that day with another 70,000 perishing within four months from injury and radiation poisoning. On the ground, photojournalist Yoshito Matsushige miraculously survived unharmed despite living 1.7 miles from ground zero. Over the course of 10 hours, he could only bring himself to take 7 photos.
In an account of the bombing, Matsushige recalled passing by a girls junior high school, “Having been directly exposed to the heat rays, they were covered with blisters, the size of balls, on their backs, their faces, their shoulders, and their arms. The blisters were starting to burst open and their skin hung down like rugs.”
West end of Miyuki Bridge. This photograph was taken moving in closer to the people after taking the photograph on the left.From in front of the police box, both sides on Miyuki Bridge were full of dead and injured people. From that evening, the injured were taken by truck to Ujina and Ninoshima Island.Just after 11 a.m. Photo by Yoshito Mastushige
Three days later, the U.S. detonated a second nuclear bomb over Nagasaki. The following day, Yosuke Yamahata, a military photographer, spent 12 hours photographing the devastation. His 100 photos are a graphic and disturbing reminder about the horrors of nuclear war.
Photo by Yosuke Yamahata.
Yamahata died on his forty-eighth birthday in 1965 from terminal cancer of the duodenum. After retiring from his newspaper job, Matsushige spent the rest of his life as a dedicated peace activist.
The New Yorker recently tweeted an archival story from the generally well-regarded Photo Booth. The 2019 piece featured South Korean photographer Anna Lim’s project Rehearsal of Anxiety – a series of staged photographs “to show how the moments following a nuclear strike from North Korea or a terrorist attack with a dirty bomb might unfold.”
The South Korean photographer Anna Lim’s series “Rehearsal of Anxiety” shows how the moments following a nuclear strike from North Korea might unfold. https://t.co/xDVrDGVpJu
The look-and-feel of the images are reminiscent of 2016’s Train to Busan, a top-grossing zombie movie from South Korea. That is to say, the photos evoke a comedic kitschiness, and nothing about them bears any resemblance to the known photos from the world’s only two nuclear attacks. Fake blood is accented by smoke machines and Fresnel lights that are curiously placed in the frame.
Lim holds a Ph.D. in Photography from Hongik University in Seoul, and the project won the Photo Folio Review prize at the 2019 Recontres d’Arles photography festival in France. Given her pedigree, one can surmise that she expended a lot of thought, time, and resources into developing the project.
But rather than denigrate the artistic vision of the photographer (and because many Koreans have normalized the fear of catastrophic war in a way that citizens of other countries can’t comprehend), I’m more interested in the New Yorker’s motivation for amplifying the content through social media. Perhaps in light of Lim’s 2019 prize, it made sense to feature her work that year.
Two years later, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and as the Doomsday Clock marches closer to midnight, it’s a very different circumstance. What motivated the New Yorker to tweet Lim’s work? Nihilism? The Summer intern?
A few days ago, journalist Max McCoy recounted his 1986 interview with Matushige. They hoped to meet again but never did. Matsuhige died in 2005 at the age of 92. In 2015, during a return trip to Japan, McCoy was approached by a close friend of Matsushige who relayed an untold part of his Hiroshima bombing story. McCoy wrote:
After developing the film, he was overcome by regret. In one of the photos from the bridge, at the edge of the frame, was a mother clutching a dead baby. He remembered the woman calling the child’s name. Using the point of a pair of scissors, he scratched the woman’s face from the negative, to save her — and himself — from the shame.
The horrors of nuclear war are unfathomable. The indiscriminate and instantaneous killing of tens of thousands of civilians needs no fictionalized reimagining. In a time when critics have blasted social media platforms for amplifying disinformation, the New Yorker might consider saving itself from shame and deleting its tweet.
About the author: Allen Murabayashi is the Chairman and co-founder of PhotoShelter, which regularly publishes resources for photographers. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. Allen is a graduate of Yale University, and flosses daily. This article was also published here.
5. Navy receives first 3,000-ton-class SLBM submarine
Excerpts:
The latest submarine was domestically designed with 76 percent of its component parts locally made.
The 83.5-meter-long and 9.6-meter-wide submarine can carry 50 crewmembers and is capable of firing submarine-to-ground ballistic missiles with six vertical launching tubes. It can operate underwater for 20 days without surfacing, officials said.
The Navy said the Dosan Ahn Chang-ho will be deployed by August next year after yearlong evaluations.
"After the deployment, the submarine will take an active role as the country's strategic weapons system against threats," the Navy said in a release.
Navy receives first 3,000-ton-class SLBM submarine | Yonhap News Agency
SEOUL, Aug. 13 (Yonhap) -- The Navy on Friday received the country's first 3,000-ton-class indigenous submarine capable of firing submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) to bolster underwater defense capabilities, officials said.
The commissioning ceremony for the mid-class diesel air-independent propulsion submarine, named after prominent South Korean independence fighter Dosan Ahn Chang-ho, took place at the Okpo Shipyard of Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Co. on the southern island of Geoje.
It is the first of three 3,000-ton-class Changbogo-III Batch-I submarines that South Korea plans to build by 2023 with its own technologies under a 3.09 trillion won (US$2.7 billion) project launched in 2007.
The latest submarine was domestically designed with 76 percent of its component parts locally made.
The 83.5-meter-long and 9.6-meter-wide submarine can carry 50 crewmembers and is capable of firing submarine-to-ground ballistic missiles with six vertical launching tubes. It can operate underwater for 20 days without surfacing, officials said.
The Navy said the Dosan Ahn Chang-ho will be deployed by August next year after yearlong evaluations.
"After the deployment, the submarine will take an active role as the country's strategic weapons system against threats," the Navy said in a release.
South Korea currently operates 1,200-ton and 1,800-ton submarines.
North Korea is believed to have 70 subs, most of which are known to be outdated and unfit for operations beyond coastal waters. It has been working to build a new submarine believed to be a 3,000-ton one capable of carrying SLBMs.
scaaet@yna.co.kr
(END)
6. North Korea military threats ‘intended to deflect from economic crisis’
This of course is an obvious and likely possibility. The regime needs the external threats it creates to justify the sacrifice and suffering of the Korean people. However, Kim may be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. It does not mean that he is still not trying to execute his political warfare strategy to drive a wedge in the ROK/US alliance or set conditions for sanctions relief as well as potential future negotiations (in that sense the increased tensions and regime rhetoric has multiple objectives). So I would be wary of assessing that recent events are only due to domestic considerations.
North Korea military threats ‘intended to deflect from economic crisis’
Regime looking to shift focus from domestic problems with rhetoric around US-South Korea military drills, say analysts
North Korea’s threat to boost its military capacity to counter hostility from Washington before joint US-South Korea military drills is intended to divert attention from its economic crisis but could lead to a resumption of missile tests, according to analysts.
While there is nothing unusual about North Korean opposition to the summer exercises involving American and South Korean forces, its warning this week that Seoul and Washington faced “greater security threats” comes from a position of weakness not seen since Kim Jong-un came to power a decade ago.
Battered by extreme weather, coronavirus restrictions and international sanctions imposed in response to its ballistic and nuclear missile programmes, North Korea is facing one of the worst economic crises in its 73-year history.
Kim has taken the unusual steps of apologising for the parlous state of the economy and imploring his 25 million people to prepare for challenges he likened to the “arduous march” of the 1990s, when as many as three million people are thought to have died during a famine.
The US and South Korea insist the drills are intended only to test their defence capabilities against a belligerent and nuclear-armed North Korea, but Pyongyang claims they are rehearsals for a US-led invasion.
That the latest condemnation of the drills came from Kim Yo-jong, Kim’s influential sister, suggests the stakes are being raised as the regime attempts to shift the focus away from its myriad domestic challenges, including food shortages and disruption to trade with China caused by anti-coronavirus restrictions.
“North Korea’s amped up rhetoric against scaled down US-South Korea defence exercises appears to be more about domestic politics than signalling to Washington,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
“The Kim regime is shifting blame for its struggles to restart the economy after a long, self-imposed pandemic lockdown. Pyongyang is also trying to pressure South Korean presidential candidates to express differences with US policy on sanctions and denuclearisation.”
Kim Yo-jong, who is widely considered the de facto second-in-command in North Korea, this week condemned South Korea for pushing ahead with “dangerous” joint exercises with the US in comments carried by the official KCNA news agency.
North Korea would boost its “deterrent of absolute capacity”, including for “powerful preemptive strike”, to counter the ever-increasing US military threat, she said in a statement that observers assumed had been approved by her brother.
“The reality has proven that only practical deterrence, not words, can guarantee peace and security on the Korean peninsula, and that it is an imperative for us to build up power to strongly contain external threats.”
The statement was more explicit than those issued in previous years, calling on Washington to remove its 28,500 troops from South Korea, as South Korean forces and their American counterparts began preliminary training ahead of 10 days of computer-simulated drills from Monday.
Analysts said Kim’s tone, and the specific demand for a troop withdrawal, was designed to cause friction between Washington and Seoul as South Koreans prepare to elect a new president next spring to replace the liberal Moon Jae-in, who has invested considerable political capital in reaching out to his neighbour.
The regime is hoping that some of the candidates looking to succeed Moon, who can govern only for a single five-year term, will take issue with the US’s uncompromising stance on denuclearisation and sanctions relief – major obstacles to progress since talks broke down after Donald Trump’s disastrous summit with Kim Jong-un in Hanoi in February 2019.
Pyongyang’s warning over the joint drills came after it agreed last month to resume cross-border hotlines after more than a year – another attempt, analysts say, to pressure South Korea into convincing Washington to make concessions on denuclearisation. On Friday, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said officials north of the countries’ heavily armed border had not answered calls for a third straight day.
While the allies have scaled down their joint exercises in an attempt to encourage North Korea to join negotiations, US officials said this year’s drills would proceed as planned.
“Let me reiterate that the joint military exercises are purely defensive in nature,” US state department spokesman Ned Price said, when asked about Kim Yo-jong’s threat.
“As we have long maintained, the United States harbours no hostile intent towards the DPRK,” he added, using the North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“We support inter-Korean dialogue, we support inter-Korean engagement and we’ll continue to work with our South Korean partners towards that end.”
After 18 months in which North Korea’s focus on containing the pandemic appeared to rule out any dramatic rise in tensions on the Korean peninsula, this week’s warning could signal it is ready to return to more provocative measures, including missile tests, to demonstrate its frustration at the lack of progress with Washington.
But Cheong Seong-chang, director of the Centre for North Korean Studies at the Sejong Institute in Seoul, pointed out that little had come of previous threats by North Korea timed to coincide with US-South Korean wargames.
“They would suddenly switch to a policy of appeasement whenever it was deemed necessary, when the drills were over,” he said.
With Agence France-Presse
7. North Korea mocks U.S. over eviction crisis as new deadline looms
This propaganda is truly mirror imaging. The regime is actually describing itself.
In an article published Thursday under the title "Dismal American Society Where Even Elementary Right to Existence Is Ruthlessly Violated," the North Korean Foreign Ministry railed against what it claimed to be U.S. hypocrisy for criticizing the human rights situations of other nations while the nation faced a looming crisis at home.
North Korea mocks U.S. over eviction crisis as new deadline looms
Newsweek · by Tom O'Connor · August 12, 2021
The North Korean Foreign Ministry has issued a scathing commentary on the United States' debate over extending a moratorium on evictions adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic and the White House's lack of authority to renew the measure as a new deadline loomed.
In an article published Thursday under the title "Dismal American Society Where Even Elementary Right to Existence Is Ruthlessly Violated," the North Korean Foreign Ministry railed against what it claimed to be U.S. hypocrisy for criticizing the human rights situations of other nations while the nation faced a looming crisis at home.
"Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their precious lives because the U.S. has not properly responded to COVID-19 pandemic," the ministry said. "Beyond this shocking happenings, the living people are wandering in despair and pain without enjoying even the elementary right to existence. This is where the United States stands now."
Citing data that appeared to originate from a recent study by the Aspen Institute and the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project, the ministry noted that "6.5 million families and over 15 million inhabitants in the U.S. are now in the position to be forcibly evicted from their homes for their inability to pay the rents due to the insufficient income caused by COVID-19 pandemic, and this number is projected to further increase over time."
The ministry also referred to the initial measures to halt evictions taken under former President Donald Trump last September as "merely a stopgap measure designed to silence their complaints."
The commentary then referenced the extent of the internal political debate in the U.S. regarding legal authorities to maintain the anti-eviction order.
"The Administration and the Congress busied themselves with shifting responsibilities onto others, with the former insisting that the budgetary matter is within the competence of the Congress and the latter asserting that it hadn't received notification from the former that the 'eviction moratorium' is due to be expired," the ministry said. "The emergency meeting of the Congress convened somehow to discuss the extension of 'eviction moratorium' degenerated into a fruitless, point-scoring partisan fight.
As the moratorium expired, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an emergency extension of the ban for 60 days in COVID-19 hotspots, but this too was scolded by the North Korean Foreign Ministry as it argued: "a great number of inhabitants without ability to pay the rents are spending every day in worries and panic for fear of unforeseeable eviction."
Given the seriousness of the situation, the ministry chastised the U.S. for continuing to weigh in on the internal affairs of other nations.
"Notwithstanding this reality," the ministry said, "the United States, instead of taking measures to ensure the elementary right of the inhabitants to existence, is engrossed in meddling with others' internal affairs, impudently poking its nose into human rights situations of other countries."
The North Korean Foreign Ministry criticized the U.S. for being concerned about other countries' human rights issues while unable to tackle a crisis at home. Above, activists hold a protest against evictions near City Hall on August 11, 2021, in New York City. Spencer Platt/AFP/Getty Images
A day before the message was issued, State Department spokesperson Ned Price reiterated to reporters what he called Biden's "commitment to placing democracy and human rights at the center of our foreign policy."
While the administration, like others before it, has called out alleged abuses in North Korea in the past, U.S. officials under Biden have focused more on the likes of Belarus, China and Cuba, which North Korea has defended in past statements criticizing the U.S. approach.
North Korea is currently going through a crisis of its own, and this has been acknowledged in recent remarks by Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, as well as by North Korean ambassador to the United Nations, Kim Song, during a meeting last month of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.
The diplomat said that, in his country, the state provided full support for its citizens, including free healthcare and housing.
But a report issued shortly thereafter by Human Rights Watch accused North Korea of taking "hypocrisy to new heights" at the U.N. by claiming major accomplishments while actually failing to provide basic services and committing mass human rights abuses such as forced labor and imprisonment of its population.
South Korea Faces Tough Choice Amid U.S. Exercise Plans, Threats from North
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The organization also alleged that China conducted forced repatriations of North Korean refugees, an allegation that the North Korean Foreign Ministry denied earlier this month.
"When it comes to 'Human Rights Watch,' it is a villainous 'human rights' plot organization which, describing itself as an international human rights body, has actively engaged in the anti-China 'human rights' rackets by the successive U.S. administrations," the ministry said at the time.
As for the U.S., the ministry said in its article on Thursday that "ensuring human rights in the U.S. is tantamount to building a castle in the air."
"Before talking impudently about 'human rights issue' of other countries, the U.S. should address the human rights problems of its own society which are daily getting worse owing to its anti-popular policies," the ministry said.
The White House also addressed the eviction issue on Thursday in a press release contending that the Biden administration, "has continued its all of government effort to keep Americans safe and housed."
"The Administration has been engaged for months in an all-out effort to push states and localities to get available emergency rental assistance delivered to families most in need and to take every step possible to protect renters at-risk of eviction," the White House said. "Those steps include engaging the local court system to ensure renters are aware of their rights and available assistance as well as implementing eviction diversion programs to help landlords and tenants find agreements that keep tenants housed."
North Korea has criticized the White House's lack of authority to extend the eviction moratorium. Above, North Korea Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un attends the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of 10,000 new apartments in Pyongyang on March 23, 2021. Korean Central News Agency
Despite a brief detente in 2018 as Trump and Kim pursued peace, the U.S. and North Korea remain at deep geopolitical odds since the collapse of peace talks between the longtime foes.
The Biden administration has said it was open to diplomacy with Pyongyang but reserved the right to respond along with allies such as South Korea and Japan in the event of any perceived provocations.
South Korea, for its part, has encouraged cross-border engagement, but, after a brief resumption of communications late last month, North Korea once again cut off contact on Tuesday as Washington and Seoul began preliminary training for joint military exercises set to begin Monday.
While Price reassured that such drills were "purely defensive in nature," North Korean officials have described them as disruptive to regional peace and stability.
In one of the most recent warnings, Kim Yong Chol, director of the ruling Korean Workers' Party Central Committee United Front Department, issued a press statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency on Wednesday that slammed the planned military maneuvers.
He accused South Korea of having "opted for [an] alliance with outsiders, not harmony with compatriots, escalation of tension, not détente, and confrontation, not improved relations."
"As we have already clarified, we will make them realize by the minute what a dangerous choice they made and what a serious security crisis they will face because of their wrong choice," Kim Yong Chol said. "They must be made to clearly understand how dearly they have to pay for answering our good faith with hostile acts after letting go the opportunity for improved inter-Korean relations."
Newsweek · by Tom O'Connor · August 12, 2021
8. North Korea's propaganda and agitation department orders journalists to "take lead" in ideological education
I suppose I could make a snarky comment about "journalists" and "ideological education."
Excerpts:
According to the source, the department strongly criticized journalists for failing to play their “proper role” as propagandists, despite their mission to encourage and inspire people in all sectors, including politics, the economy and culture, “leading them from the front.”
In particular, the department emphatically decried that the so-called “cultural warriors” who are the “buglers for achieving party policy” — namely, the reporters of newspapers affiliated with the propaganda departments of provincial parties and the writers of the Korean Writers’ Union — have grown lax.
North Korea's propaganda and agitation department orders journalists to "take lead" in ideological education - Daily NK
The Central Committee’s Propaganda and Agitation Department has reportedly issued an order to “bolster the skill and party loyalty” of local journalists who “should take a lead in politically awakening and ideologically educating the people.”
In a telephone conversation with Daily NK on Wednesday, a source in Yanggang Province said the Propaganda and Agitation Department recently issued an order calling for journalist “innovation,” pointing to the important role officials in the press sector “tasked with agitprop activities in each province” play in “politically awakening residents who are working to achieve the policies set forth in the Eighth Party Congress and inspiring them in economic construction.”
According to the source, the department strongly criticized journalists for failing to play their “proper role” as propagandists, despite their mission to encourage and inspire people in all sectors, including politics, the economy and culture, “leading them from the front.”
In particular, the department emphatically decried that the so-called “cultural warriors” who are the “buglers for achieving party policy” — namely, the reporters of newspapers affiliated with the propaganda departments of provincial parties and the writers of the Korean Writers’ Union — have grown lax.
Moreover, the department said reporters and writers “are severely deficient in creativity” and that the “cultural warriors” should first boost their skills to “vividly convey the struggles and efforts of workers, farmers, soldiers and officials of worker organizations who are passionately working to carry out this year’s planned economic tasks and achieve party policy.”
The department said only reporters and writers “with heads full of loyalty and hearts full of the will to truly obey the party can most accurately penetrate reality.” It said “cultural warriors” can “vividly convey dynamic scenes full of people achieving party policy” only by strengthening their party loyalty.
The source said the department directed leading officials such as the head and deputy head writers at newspapers affiliated with the propaganda departments of provincial parties and the head of the Korean Writers’ Union to bolster their skills, and called for stronger ideological reviews and internal training so that everyone becomes “cultural warriors loyal to the party.”
The department also reportedly called for skillful personnel management to produce reporters and writers “under the concrete guidance and close watch of provincial party branches.”
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
9. North Korea accuses US of involvement in anti-gov't protests in Cuba
The Kim regime is deathly afraid of the Cuban example (if it gets out of control and Cuba falls). It is setting the information environment conditions to blame the US if Cuba does fall to popular resistance. And it is subtly implying that the US could try to do the same in the north (and it is really the US actually doing so).
The irony is that in Cuba programs from some US organizations and agencies probably have provided support to political opponents, such as the National Endowment for Democracy, USAID's Democracy Human RIghts and Governance, and State's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. They will be very upset when I say this but these are some of the best organizations we have in the US to support unconventional warfare campaigns. Of course UW is not their mission or intent. They are truly trying to do the right thing and help oppressed people exert their political rights and they are not trying to foment rebellion against governments only non-violent political change.. But they do embody my translation of the Special Forces motto, "de oppresso liber," which is "to help the oppressed free themselves."
North Korea accuses US of involvement in anti-gov't protests in Cuba
North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Son-gwon / YonhapNorth Korean Foreign Minister Ri Son-gwon on Friday accused the United States of meddling in Cuba's internal affairs and instigating anti-government demonstrations to bring down the Caribbean country.
Ri made the remarks in a rare statement released on the ministry's website in celebration of the 95th birth anniversary of the late former Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
"We resolutely condemn and reject the latest anti-government protest that occurred in Cuba, as it is an anti-revolutionary move taken by reactionaries at the urging and backing of the United States in an attempt to obliterate the cause of Comrade Fidel Castro Ruz and to bring down socialist Cuba," Ri said.
Ri also expressed support and solidarity to the Cuban people in their fight against the current challenges, as well as "high respect" for making "vigorous efforts for socialist construction."
This marks the first time Ri has released a statement on the Cuban situation, though the ministry has published several articles blaming the U.S. for causing the recent instability.
Earlier in the day, the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the ruling Workers' Party, carried an editorial stressing that the North and Cuba have maintained "special comrade relations" in the struggle for socialism.
"Our people will always stand in line with our Cuban brothers in the struggle to advance socialism with our banners for the revolution held high and use our best efforts to advance the friendly partnership between the two countries," the paper said.
The paper also claimed that the recent anti-government demonstrations in Cuba are a challenge by "hostile forces" to wipe out Castro's achievements and destroy socialism in the country.
North Korea and Cuba have maintained close relations since establishing diplomatic ties in 1960.
Fidel Castro visited the North in March 1986 at the invitation of late former North Korean leader and state founder Kim Il-sung.
Pyongyang has been seeking to maintain closer ties with its traditional allies amid an impasse in nuclear negotiations with Washington.
In April, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent multiple congratulatory messages to Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, expressing hope that relations between the two countries will "grow stronger." (Yonhap)
10. Korean infections surge amid worst-ever outbreak
Korean infections surge amid worst-ever outbreak
New cases hit record of 2,223 as a laggard vaccination campaign leaves South Korea vulnerable to the fast-spreading Delta variant
SEOUL – Bad news is piling up for South Korea as Covid-19 daily infections hit a record high of 2,223 on Wednesday, defying a month of the toughest social distancing guidelines implemented yet in the country.
At the same time, vaccine suppliers are failing to consign promised shipments to the country and signs of economic damage are mounting a month before the country is due to enter its longest national holiday and end tax holidays for small and medium enterprises.
KDCA officials said a continuation of infections at the current pace could strain the country’s health care system, according to news agency reports.
South Korea has struggled since July to tame sporadic outbreaks that were at first concentrated largely in the capital Seoul but have since spread nationwide.
But the news is not all bad. Data shows that despite the record infection numbers, deaths from the disease are falling far below the mortalities recorded during the deadliest period of the pandemic in January.
Wednesday‘s record number of infections marked the first time the figure breached 2,000, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, or KDCA. South Korea’s daily caseload first exceeded 1,000 infections as recently as July 6 and has not dropped below that threshold since.
Moreover, the highly transmissible Delta variant is spreading fast: Of the 2,641 variant cases reported last week, 97% were Delta, the KDCA said.
It is a depressing state of affairs for a Covid-weary country that saw the world’s second major outbreak after China in February 2020.
While the country has so far not enacted a single lockdown, it implemented its toughest social distancing guidelines on July 12. With foreign vacations still a virtual no-no, the rules have severely hampered social gatherings during the summer holiday season.
Last year, South Korea appeared to have implemented a highly effective containment policy based on extensive testing and high-tech contact tracing.
However, the success of that formula, and a resultant lack of urgency, led to a slow vaccination drive. Now, even that sedate drive is hitting new speed bumps – albeit for reasons beyond South Korea’s control.
An empty marketplace street at Geumbit market in Geumsan Gun, South Korea on July 22. Restrictions are starting to hurt businesses. Photo: AFP / Seung-il Ryu / NurPhoto
Sluggish vaccinations
On Monday, Health Minister Kwon Deok-cheol apologized to the nation after a US pharmaceutical company said it would not be able to supply contracted amounts of vaccine to the country.
South Korea has contracted to acquire 40 million doses from Moderna, though only 2.4 million have arrived so far, according to the KDCA.
The development looks set to decelerate the country’s overall vaccination drive – already among the slowest in the developed world.
Forty-two percent of South Korea’s 52 million citizens have had one dose of a vaccine, but only 15.4% have been fully vaccinated. That means the world’s 10th largest economy falls below the global average of 15.7%, according to Our World In Data.
Meanwhile, according to the same data set, 19.2% of Russians have been fully vaccinated, as have 34.3% of Japanese, 35.5% of Turks, 50.8% of Americans, 55.2% of Germans, 59.3% of Britons and 62% of Canadians.
All this raises questions over South Korea’s oft-stated aim of reaching herd immunity by November.
Still, South Korea has prioritized vaccinations of vulnerable people – medical workers, the aged and those with high-risk health conditions. This, combined with ever-improving treatment protocols, appears to be having a positive impact of reducing death rates from the disease.
In a stark contrast, yesterday’s seven-day average was four, while just one patient died..
Since the first Covid-19 case was reported on January 20, 2020, South Korea, with a population of 52 million, has suffered at total of 2,135 deaths.
Despite the social and economic havoc it has caused, Covid-19 is proving to be far less lethal to South Koreans than traditional respiratory diseases.
A rapid self-test kit for Covid-19 for visitors before a music festival at Olympic Park in Seoul on June 26, 2021. Photo: AFP / Jung Yeon-je
Economic warning signs
In the face of related data streams and analyses, the question now is which way Seoul will move with its Covid-19 policies.
Will it maintain – or upgrade – current social distancing restrictions in an attempt to keep infection numbers at a manageable level? Or will it consider easing these, given the apparently low mortality risks?
Some economic red lights are already flashing.
South Korea’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 0.7% quarter-on-quarter in the second quarter – a slowdown from a 1.7% rise in this year’s first quarter.
South Korea reported job additions for the fifth straight month in July, Yonhap News reported on Wednesday – but the rate of growth is slowing. In July, the country added 542,000 jobs year-on-year – a slowdown from June when the figure was 582,000.
While exports and the quarterly results of blue chips like Samsung remain robust, the domestic face-to-face service sector is taking a hammering from the pandemic.
Social distancing measures that have been in place since July 12 include restrictions on restaurants and cafes that only allow for serving tables of two after 6pm and closing by 10pm. Bars and clubs are shuttered and indoor sports facilities face a broad range of restrictions.
Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said Wednesday that the third quarter’s performance will be critical if the economy is to achieve its 2021 growth target of 4.2%.
11. An Israeli-style ‘Iron Dome’ won’t improve South Korea’s defence
It is a South Korean "tradition" that liberal governments spend more on defense than conservative ones.
Excerpts:
Why would the Ministry of National Defense pursue a Korean-style Iron Dome now? One possible answer is that it is part of a change of general defence policy under the Moon Jae-in administration, which saw a significant increase in defence spending. Contradicting its dovish reputation, the Moon administration increased South Korea’s defence budget by 7.5 per cent each year on average, far outpacing the 4.2 per cent annual increase under his conservative predecessor Park Geun-hye.
Another answer is that DAPA’s plan is just that — a plan, subject to modification. As bureaucracies frequently do, DAPA submits its wish list to those who hold the purse strings (in this case, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance and the National Assembly) knowing that not all of it will be approved.
An Israeli-style ‘Iron Dome’ won’t improve South Korea’s defence | East Asia Forum
Author: S Nathan Park, Washington DC and Sejong Institute
In early 2021, Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ system was seen in action as numerous spiralling interceptors illuminated the night sky, defending against the straight lines of Hamas rockets. South Korea is weighing the possibility of introducing a similar military technology — but don’t expect it to change the inter-Korean military posture in a meaningful way.
On 28 June, the Defence Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) — under South Korea’s Ministry of National Defence — announced that the country would pursue an artillery interception system, dubbed a ‘Korean-style Iron Dome’. The system is expected to be completed around 2035 at the cost of 2.89 trillion won (US$2.6 billion). But the South Korean Dome will not be the same as Israel’s, as it is likely to serve different functions adapted to different security needs.
On a conceptual level, an artillery interception system would be useful for South Korea. Although North Korea’s nuclear program commands all the headlines, its rocket launchers have always presented a more imminent threat. The South Korean capital city of Seoul — where nearly half of the country’s population lives — is only 40 kilometres from the demilitarized zone that splits the two Koreas, a range that even a World War II era howitzer could reach. South Korean military intelligence estimates that North Korea could fire up to 10,000 rockets per hour into the Seoul metro area in the case of a military conflict. The rockets could potentially be equipped with chemical and biological weapons to wreak further havoc.
But this does not mean that Israel’s Iron Dome system makes sense for South Korea. The Ministry of National Defense had previously considered purchasing the Iron Dome system from Israel and decided against it. The major reason was that, while the Israeli system may competently protect against rockets from a paramilitary organisation like Hamas, it is inadequate to neutralise North Korea’s artillery.
Made up of Qassam rockets with a range of approximately 10 kilometres, Hamas’ arsenal is rudimentary compared to North Korea’s in terms of both quantity and quality. Unlike Hamas, North Korea can fire tens of thousands of rockets that travel up to 60 kilometres. The KN-09, North Korea’s newest rocket artillery, can fire guided rockets over 190 kilometres, capable of striking high-value targets with precision.
Rather than intercepting rockets, South Korea’s deterrence strategy primarily relies on destroying North Korea’s artillery. As Jungsup Kim, Senior Research Fellow at the Sejong Institute, explained: ‘It is much more effective to destroy one rocket launcher capable of firing 500 rockets than attempting to intercept 500 rockets mid-air’.
South Korea’s military would strike North Korea’s missile launchers with its own set of artillery and air force as soon as it becomes evident that North Korea is preparing for an attack. The goal is to neutralise most North Korean artillery capable of striking the Seoul metro area within the first several hours of conflict.
Why would the Ministry of National Defense pursue a Korean-style Iron Dome now? One possible answer is that it is part of a change of general defence policy under the Moon Jae-in administration, which saw a significant increase in defence spending. Contradicting its dovish reputation, the Moon administration increased South Korea’s defence budget by 7.5 per cent each year on average, far outpacing the 4.2 per cent annual increase under his conservative predecessor Park Geun-hye.
Another answer is that DAPA’s plan is just that — a plan, subject to modification. As bureaucracies frequently do, DAPA submits its wish list to those who hold the purse strings (in this case, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance and the National Assembly) knowing that not all of it will be approved.
At any rate, if the South Korean-style Iron Dome should come to be, its role is likely to be a complement to, rather than a replacement of, the existing strategy. North Korea can always respond by adding more rocket launchers relatively cheaply, while enhancing the interception capabilities to match the increase will cost South Korea a lot more.
Because of this imbalance, South Korea will not shift to the inefficient strategy of attempting to intercept North Korean rockets mid-air. Instead, South Korea will attempt to destroy most of North Korea’s rocket launchers in the early stages of the conflict and rely on the Iron Dome system to intercept whatever surviving rockets are headed toward the Seoul area, mitigating the damage.
Rockets are not the only conventional North Korean threat directed toward the Seoul area — also significant are nearly a thousand North Korean short-range ballistic missiles along the demilitarised zone. The potential South Korean-style Iron Dome would work alongside South Korea’s Patriot missile system designed to intercept these missiles. In other words, the Iron Dome system is intended to be a gap-filler, rather than a game-changer. It may somewhat shift the balance of power between the two Koreas, but not significantly.
S Nathan Park is a Washington DC-based attorney and Non-Resident Fellow at the Sejong Institute.
12. Top U.S., South Korean trade officials discuss supply chain resiliency efforts -USTR
The ROK/US alliance is more than a security relationship.
Top U.S., South Korean trade officials discuss supply chain resiliency efforts -USTR
Author of the article:
Reuters
Publishing date:
Article content
WASHINGTON — U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and South Korean Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo on Thursday discussed supply chain resiliency efforts, tackling climate change, and reform of the World Trade Organization, the press office of the USTR said in a statement.
“They agreed on the importance of a strong U.S.-Korea bilateral trade relationship and committed to maintaining an open dialog moving forward,” the statement added. (Reporting by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
13. North Korea to Impose Hard Labor Sentences for COVID-19 Gathering Violations
It seems so obvious that the regime is afraid of COVID. But why have we not seen an outbreak? Is it because these draconian population and resources control measures are working and preventing an outbreak or is it because the regime has been able to so tightly control information? But there are so many contacts with Koreans inside the north it would seem as if we would be getting more reports of outbreaks.
North Korea to Impose Hard Labor Sentences for COVID-19 Gathering Violations
No more than three people can gather for weddings and funerals.
North Korea will impose hard-labor sentences on citizens who gather and dine in groups of more than three in violation of coronavirus quarantine rules, sources in the country told RFA.
The measure is the latest aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19 in North Korea, which claims to be virus-free but has steadily ratcheted up preventative measures since the pandemic began 18 months ago.
Pyongyang has locked down entire cities and counties, closed its economically vital border with China, and hastily cremated bodies of people who died of coronavirus symptoms. In 2020, authorities told the public in educational lectures that the virus was spreading in geographically distant areas of the country.
The government is now telling citizens they will be punished for gatherings of more than three people, unless they live in the same household.
“If four or more people except immediate family gather to eat or drink these days, even if they are relatives, the disease control authorities will send them to a disciplinary labor center for violating the coronavirus quarantine,” a resident of South Pyongan province, near the capital Pyongyang, told RFA’s Korean Service Aug. 7.
“There was an order from the central disease control authorities to take preventative measures against coronavirus variants,” said the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.
The measure has put a damper on weddings, 60th birthday celebrations, and other key family events, so it is particularly harsh, according to the source.
“If guests sit around to eat or drink together even in a small gathering for an event like a parent’s 60th birthday or a baby’s first birthday, not only the guests, but the owner of the house who serves the meal will be sent to the disciplinary labor center or given a large fine,” the source said.
“When a resident of Songchon county had his son’s wedding at home in mid-July, he served meals and alcohol to the guests… He was fined a large sum of money instead of going to the disciplinary labor center,” said the source.
The moratorium on gatherings has caused people to give up on getting married during the pandemic, according to the source.
“There are no weddings these days, and children who prepare for their parents’ 60th birthday even in a small way can’t invite relatives or coworkers to celebrate even if they want to. So instead they spend the 60th birthday quietly with their immediate family,” the source said.
“Even if the people meeting are relatives, they cannot eat or drink with four or more people unless they live in the same house,” the source said.
Another source, a resident of the northwestern province of North Pyongan, told RFA that weddings, funerals and other huge events have been on hold there since the beginning of the pandemic early last year.
“Residents’ opposition to the ban on events is growing, so the authorities have eased quarantine regulations, including exempting weddings from the ban,” the second source said.
“But as the number of ‘suspected coronavirus patients’ with high fever continues to increase here since June, the disease control authorities have begun to crack down on gatherings of more than three guests as a quarantine violation,” said the second source.
RFA previously reported that North Korea isolates people who are sick with coronavirus symptoms, labelling them as “suspected” coronavirus patients, but the government maintains that it has not confirmed a single case.
Even though they previously exempted weddings, the authorities are justifying the renewed crackdown by saying that the weddings are still allowed, if people observe the quarantine rules, according to the second source.
“Residents say that the measures the authorities have come up with to stop the coronavirus is nothing more than grounding and controlling us, without even providing a single mask,” the second source said.
“If we keep with the authorities’ disease control rules, not only will we miss celebrations…we will find it even more difficult to make a living.”
South Korea has also banned large gatherings as a pandemic prevention measure.
Reuters news agency reported on Aug. 6 that South Korea extended recently enacted rules that limit gatherings in Seoul and the surrounding areas to two people after 6 p.m. and four people elsewhere in the country.
But unlike in North Korea, South Korean violators pay fines instead of serving a sentence in a labor camp.
According to the Korea Herald newspaper, the fine for violating similar rules that limited gatherings to five people at the end of 2020 was three million won (U.S $2,600) for restaurants and 100,000 won for customers.
Reported by Hyemin Son for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Jinha Shin. Edited by Joongsok Oh.
14. ＜Inside N. Korea＞ Forced to provide flood support by saying “give voluntarily." Residents protest that “the government has no money and is forcing the people to bear the burden.”
How much of this can the population ensure? It is amazing the resilience among the Korean people living in the north. To be able to put up with this abuse and still survive is nothing short of amazing.
Excerpts:
The people's group decided to organize support for Hamhung and other areas in South Hamkyung Province. Our reporting partners explained the situation as follows:
"There are many people who have lost their homes and have nowhere to go, so although the authorities say we should help them voluntarily, it is all words. I had no choice but to pay for it since it was mentioned so often in the meetings. Everyone was contributing 20,000 to 100,000 won. Since the state doesn't have money, people have to pay for it whenever something happens. The pressure is so strong that even those who don't have money can't help but pay the executives. It's tough."
＜Inside N. Korea＞ Forced to provide flood support by saying “give voluntarily." Residents protest that “the government has no money and is forcing the people to bear the burden.”
Houses submerged by torrential rain in South Hamkyung Province.Korean Central Television Screen.
The torrential rains that hit the eastern part of North Korea in August caused flooding in the South Hamkyung Province. The state-run media reported that about 5,000 people were evacuated, and more than 1,000 houses were damaged.
However, the extreme quarantine measures against the coronavirus have caused the economy to deteriorate significantly, and residents are vehemently complaining about it. The authorities said that "it is not obligatory. Support them voluntarily. However, in reality, it's coercion," said a reporting partner living in the northern region.
It seems that the flood damage was most severe in Hamhung, the second-largest city after Pyongyang. It is said that "Hamhung has suffered the most economic damage, and many people have been dead due to the coronavirus restrictions imposed since last year."
The people's group decided to organize support for Hamhung and other areas in South Hamkyung Province. Our reporting partners explained the situation as follows:
"There are many people who have lost their homes and have nowhere to go, so although the authorities say we should help them voluntarily, it is all words. I had no choice but to pay for it since it was mentioned so often in the meetings. Everyone was contributing 20,000 to 100,000 won. Since the state doesn't have money, people have to pay for it whenever something happens. The pressure is so strong that even those who don't have money can't help but pay the executives. It's tough."
By the way, 10,000 won in North Korea is about 3 USD at the exchange rate in early August. So, you can buy less than two kilograms of white rice for that price.
After last year's torrential rains caused widespread agricultural damage in North Korea, the Kim Jong-un regime had ordered the construction of rivers in preparation for flooding in the spring. However, since the damage occurred this time, "the officials in charge will face legal punishment," said our reporting partner (Kang Ji-won).
※ASIAPRESS contacts its reporting partners in North Korea through smuggled Chinese mobile phones.
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
