South Korea is due to withdraw its last workers from the Kaesong industrial complex on Monday, leaving the park, a highly symbolic joint-venture with North Korea, empty for the first time since it opened almost a decade ago.
The withdrawal of the 50 remaining managers will mark a serious deterioration in cross-border ties, coming soon after the North issued a string of threats against the South and its allies in protest at UN sanctions over its nuclear test in February and joint US-South-Korea military drills that ended on Monday.
The regime has toned down its rhetoric in recent days as both sides moved to defuse tensions on the peninsula, but Kaesong’s de facto closure is a serious blow to Seoul’s attempts to maintain at least some form of engagement with its neighbour.
The latest major setback on the Korean peninsula, though thankfully one which doesn’t involve threats of nuclear war (for now). The South Korean government has pledged financial support for companies affected by the closure; however, the shutdown could have a sharp impact on North Korea’s already weak economy.
“We are trying to be provocative in the best use of that term.” –Jon Rubin, Conflict Kitchen co-director
GREAT story we just posted about Conflict Kitchen, a Pittsburgh restaurant that only serves food from countries in conflict with the USA. Check this out, a great concept, and some great quotes.
“Reaction’s been great,” Rubin says when asked the obvious. “There’s never been this kind of food in Pittsburgh, and we didn’t know whether people would be into that. But people are starving for food and diversity.”
Such an amazing idea.
Psy’s new music video “Gentleman” is not only breaking YouTube records, hitting more than 145 million views in less than a week, it just got banned by his home country’s biggest TV broadcaster.
South Korea’s KBS, a state-funded broadcaster, said Thursday it was banning the video because it shows Psy kicking a traffic cone with a “no parking” sign on it. The TV network says it has a policy prohibiting the showing of videos that abuse public property.
That traffic cone totally deserved it.
knivesandcoffee asks: But isn't that graphic useless without some context? I mean what is the size of North Korea's military compared to the South or to the US?
» SFB says: I think that’s a fair point (and it’s one a lot of people in the comments on that link have raised), but I think it also shows that the country has enough firepower that it could do something. As the article itself puts it: “While North Korean arms are mostly antiquated, much of it dating back half a century, what they lack in modernity they make up for in both volume and location.” Now, whether or not the graphic was particularly useful because it was designed to be never-ending is another question entirely (it could use some compare/contrast), but just because the size of the military may perhaps be smaller than the United States or South Korea, if they’re the first to launch an attack, does it really matter? — Ernie @ SFB
North Korea’s statement advising foreigners to make plans to evacuate Seoul is more unhelpful rhetoric that serves only to escalate tensions. This kind of rhetoric will only further isolate North Korea from the international community, and we continue to urge the North Korean leadership to heed President Obama’s call to choose the path of peace and to come into compliance with its international obligations.White House spokesman Jay Carney • Responding to North Korea’s rather surprising anti-tourism warning on Tuesday, mere hours after North Korea’s state-run KCNA news agency warned foreigners in South Korea that the country’s military couldn’t be blamed if they were hurt should war break out on the Korean peninsula. The latest threats from North Korea come on the eve of previously announced ballistic missile testing which has already put a number of countries in the region on edge. source
North Korea has moved a missile with “considerable range” to its east coast, South Korea’s defense minister said Thursday, but he added that there are no signs that Pyongyang is preparing for a full-scale conflict.
The report came hours after North Korea’s military warned that it has been authorized to attack the U.S. using “smaller, lighter and diversified” nuclear weapons. It was the North’s latest war cry against America in recent weeks. The reference to smaller weapons could be a claim that Pyongyang has improved its nuclear technology.
South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin said he did not know the reasons behind the North’s missile movement, and that it “could be for testing or drills.”
While officials continue to downplay the North’s rhetoric, it’s hard to imagine U.S. and South Korean officials writing off the North’s actions for much longer. Particularly considering a United States missile defense system will be sent to Guam in response to Thursday’s saber-rattling. Any guess on how this all ends?
In the present situation, China believes all sides must remain calm and exercise restraint and not take actions which are mutually provocative, and must certainly not take actions which will worsen the situation.Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei • Responding to the news that North Korea has barred South Korean workers from entering the jointly-run Kaesong Industrial Region six miles north of the infamous Demilitarized Zone which separates the North and South. While North Korea has apparently decided to deny South Koreans’ access to the complex, those already inside of Kaesong are reportedly not being threatened or held against their will. source
The bottom line is simply that what Kim Jong Un is choosing to do is provocative. It is dangerous, reckless. The United States will not accept the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) as a nuclear state. …the United States will do what is necessary to defend ourselves and defend our allies, Korea and Japan. We are fully prepared and capable of doing so, and I think the DPRK understands that.U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry • Speaking sternly on a North Korean declaration to reopen its primary nuclear reactor complex in Yongbyon. North Korean state media reported that the reactors, as well as a uranium enrichment facility, were shut down and disabled as part of a 2007 agreement with the United States, which the government now plans to “readjust and restart.” This is not the first indication of a renewed international belligerence on the part of North Korea and its hereditary leader, Kim Jong-un — they also declared last week that they were entering a “state of war” with neighboring South Korea. source
We’ve seen reports of a new and unconstructive statement from North Korea. We take these threats seriously and remain in close contact with our South Korean allies. But we would also note that North Korea has a long history of bellicose rhetoric and threats and today’s announcement follows that familiar pattern.Caitlin Hayden, spokesperson for the National Security Council • Speaking on the vocal threats by the North Korean state of impending military action, be it against the United States (they recently released a video showing a fantasy invasion/overthrow of the U.S. mainland), or South Korea (they’ve also announced a “state of war” against their southern neighbors). The response from the U.S. is instructive in the difficulty of assessing North Korean threats — at the same time as all such proclamations must be taken with a requisite level of seriousness, their state has long made militaristic threats boisterously, and uneventfully. source
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Reclusive North Korea is to cut the last channel of communications with the South because war could break out at “any moment”, it said on Wednesday, days of after warning the United States and South Korea of nuclear attack.
The move is the latest in a series of bellicose threats from North Korea in response to new U.N. sanctions imposed after its third nuclear test in February and to “hostile” military drills under way joining the United States and South Korea.
The North has already stopped responding to calls on the hotline to the U.S. military that supervises the heavily armed Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and the Red Cross line that has been used by the governments of both sides.
While officials in South Korea and the United States continue to downplay recent threats from the North Korean government, both have also repeatedly condemned the increasingly incendiary rhetoric, which follows the implementation of new U.N. sanctions against the North. The United States has also bolstered its missile defense systems in the region as an added precaution.
North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has urged frontline troops to be on “maximum alert” for a potential war, state media reported, in its latest rhetorical volley following new UN sanctions. Analysts believe the sabre-rattling is aimed at shoring up domestic support as much as reaching the international community, possibly in part because Kim is a young and relatively new leader.
He told troops stationed near disputed waters where previous clashes with the South have occurred that “war can break out right now”, state media reported. The North has also said it has cancelled the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean war and threatened the US with a pre-emptive nuclear strike.
While it’s widely believed that Kim Jong Un’s recent actions have been the result of a concerted effort to bolster his own image in the region, as opposed to actually scaring South Korea or the United States; however, it’s hard to simply write-off a man who controls a nation’s nuclear arsenal. Despite the North Korean government’s recent antics„ the United States has imposed new sanctions against the country following a UN vote on the matter last week.
North Korea is suspected of its third nuclear test after a seismic event was detected near the site of the regime’s previous tests. A UN Security Council diplomat has anonymously told Reuters that the event was in fact a test.
Read more about the event from CNN.
Follow updates on BreakingNews.com.
From the CNN report: “‘It’s a nuclear test,’ said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. ‘That magnitude and that location — it’s awfully unlikely it’s anything else.’”
In what might be an all-time low for Washington political journalism in terms of understanding cultural context, CBS News lumps PSY (he of “Gangnam Style”) in with “rappers” who have caused controversy at the White House, despite a) The situation touching upon clear cultural differences between the U.S. and South Korea during a particularly poor time for relations between the two countries and b) PSY being nothing like Kanye West, who Obama once jokingly called a “jackass.” This article also refers to a controversy involving Cee-Lo Green, who raps but is far better known to the public as a risk-taking R&B artist, and a song (“Fuck You”) in which he doesn’t actually rap. Lumping PSY, who apologized for the incident and noted the incident was a product of its time, into the same boat as some stupid made-up incident with the rapper Common, is totally a misrepresentation of the situation — and an attempt to taint the president with bad press over something that happened at a time when Obama wasn’t even a senator. Leave the pop culture to Tumblr, guys.
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