Mid-Week Post

The soft, chewy centre of the work-week ...




The daughter of a North Korean defector was kidnapped and returned to Pyongyang:

The 17-year-old daughter of North Korea’s acting ambassador to Italy, Jo Song-gil, was forcibly taken to Pyongyang from Italy after her father tried to defect, reports say.

Italy’s ANSA news agency says the incident happened in November, after the high school student’s father and mother went missing in Italy in what was a suspected attempt by the father to switch allegiance.

As his term in Rome neared its end, Jo and his wife are said to have gone underground. The parents’ whereabouts are unknown and Italy has only said that Jo hadn’t requested asylum.

South Korean media reports that Jo is with his wife and is under Italian government protection, but that his daughter was forcibly taken as she was trying to link up with her parents.

But Trump, who will meet Kim Jong-Un next week in Vietnam, does not appear to be concerned about matters like this or denuclearisation, for that matter:

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he wants North Korea to end its nuclear program, but has no pressing time schedule for this, as he dispatched his special envoy to finalize preparations for a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next week.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said sanctions against North Korea would remain in place in the meantime and noted Pyongyang's freeze in nuclear and missile testing since 2017.

"I'm in no rush. There's no testing. As long as there is no testing, I'm in no rush. If there's testing, that's another deal," he said. "I'd just like to see ultimately denuclearization of North Korea."

Yes, about that: 

• Located 250 kilometers north of the DMZ, Sangnam-ni (상남리) missile operating base is an operational missile base that houses a battalion- or regiment-sized unit equipped with Hwasong-10 (Musudan) intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM).¹
• The deployment of the Hwasong-10, with 3000+ kilometer ranges, at Sangnam-ni is a component of North Korea’s presumed offensive ballistic missile strategy that provides a strategic-level first strike capability against targets located throughout East Asia as far as U.S. forces in Okinawa and Guam.
• The base is defended against by a single anti-aircraft artillery position and nearby surface-to-air missile bases.
• Repeated flight failures of the Hwasong-10 may lead to the Strategic Force’s replacing it with the successful Hwasong-12 IRBM (KN-17) or Pukkuksong-2 (KN-15) medium-range-ballistic missiles (MRBM). The Hwasong-12 has a flight range up to 4,500km and the Pukkuksong-2 has an operational flight range estimated at between 1,200km-2,000+ km.
• Sangnam-ni is one of approximately 20 North Korean ballistic missile operating bases that has never been declared by North Korea. The base does not appear to be the subject of denuclearization negotiations between the United States and North Korea.
• Some have argued that North Korea is under no obligation to declare these operational missiles bases. But ten standing United Nations Security Council Resolutions, including the most recent UNSCR 2397, explicitly ban North Korea from developing and testing ballistic missiles.²
• Any potential agreement that decommissions the Tongchang-ri (Sohae) rocket test stand alone would obscure the extant military threat to U.S. forces and South Korea from this and other undeclared ballistic missile bases in this CSIS study.

Either North Korea is no longer a priority for Trump or he has fallen into the same rut as previous presidents - let tensions drag on until North Korea appears conciliatory and sanctions are eased. That or a conclusion of a more craven nature - prepare North Korea for economic exploitation as pro-North Korea president Moon is ready to do.


(Kamsahamnida)




Who says people can't be bought?:

Wilson-Raybould, who resigned from cabinet at the height of the SNC-Lavalin scandal, attended Tuesday’s Liberal cabinet meeting and sat in the seats normally reserved for cabinet ministers.

All of that lead to speculation that the woman Justin Trudeau often simply calls “Jody” was back in cabinet.

Not so, apparently.

Wilson-Raybould remains in the Liberal caucus but sources say she simply addressed cabinet then sat with them for question period.

Is this the price of her co-operation?

Well maybe that and the resignation of Gerry Butts as the PM’s principal secretary.

**
 

Former justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould will be called to testify before a parliamentary committee probing the SNC-Lavalin scandal — but opposition critics are furious that no past or current aides in the Prime Minister's Office will be invited to appear.

After a two-hour closed door meeting, members of the justice committee emerged today with a list of witnesses that includes a handful of academics and Justice Minister David Lametti, in addition to Wilson-Raybould.

But Conservatives and New Democrats accused the Liberals of blocking key players from appearing — among them Gerry Butts, who suddenly resigned Monday from his position as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's top adviser.

Butts goes and Jody re-appears.

Whatever she might have said must have been so big that someone too big to fail might have gone to jail for. 

Also - from the most "transparent" government in the country's history:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says it’s important there be an “airing” of what happened in the SNC-Lavalin affair.

But he dodged questions on why his government is refusing to support a public inquiry into allegations of political interference at the heart of the matter.

Don't get the government to do a business' job:

Frustrated by persistently low prices for their product, Seven Generations Energy Ltd, Peyto Exploration and Development Corp. and Advantage Oil & Gas Ltd. and seven other producers have formed a consortium with the aim of building a new liquefied natural gas export project in Canada.

The more leftists speak, the more they convince even the ovine and apolitical that they are nuisance the entire province can do quite well without. Sooner or later, people will tire of subsidise any education and it will become completely privatised. How many private groups or individuals will shell out money for a gender studies degree or how many jokes about Trump one can tell when they can fund math classes and medical degrees?:

Doug Ford admonished protesting students for their "filthy" mouths on Tuesday after a group decrying cuts to post-secondary grants disrupted a session at Ontario's legislature by shouting obscenities at the premier.

A handful of student protesters seated in the public gallery interrupted legislators by shouting chants of "free tuition" followed by profanity directed at the premier. Ford chastised the group and blamed the Opposition for influencing them.

The article neglected to add the racist slurs hurled at Ford but that kind of content would only divert the Narrative, so ... 

Good:

The family of the Kentucky teen who was involved in an encounter with a Native American advocate at the Lincoln Memorial last month filed a defamation lawsuit against The Washington Post on Tuesday, seeking $250 million in damages for its coverage of the incident.

She is not really a citizen of anything other than whatever bombed-out building ISIS is crouched in ... and she can stay there:

Isis schoolgirl Shamima Begum is not a Bangladeshi citizen and will not be allowed to live there, according to the country’s ministry of foreign affairs .

“The government of Bangladesh is deeply concerned that she [Begum] has been erroneously identified as a holder of dual citizenship,” Shahrial Alam told the Guardian.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid ordered the 19-year-old Londoner, who wants to return to the UK with her newly-born child as the so-called caliphate crumbles, be stripped of UK citizenship, claiming she is also a citizen of Bangladesh due to her parentage. 

Britain cannot remove the citizenship of a person who does not have dual nationality as doing so would make them ‘stateless’ and is illegal under international law.

And now, Tokyo - one hundred and twenty two years ago: