Japanese Naval Forces Join US Military Exercise in Korean Waters


nsnbc : As tensions rise, two Japanese destroyers joined a military exercise with the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group that is en route to the region around the Korean peninsula. Moreover, South Korea said on Monday it was in talks with Washington about holding its own joint drills with the U.S. naval strike force.

USS Carl Vinson_USA_South Korea_Apr 2017On Sunday the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea warned against provocations and a show of force saying that it is ready to sink the USS Carl Vinson with one single strike. The statement was published in the Rodong Sinmun party newspaper and (probably) primarily made for domestic consumption.

But Pyongyang’s traditionally bombastic rhetoric must not betray the fact that the United States’ proclaimed “end of strategic patience” in the light of repeated threats about a “decapitation of Pyongyang” or “a nuclear first strike against Pyongyang” gives the government in North Korea reason for justified concern and for defiance in the face of a superpower that, to quote Kim Jong-un “brandishes its nuclear stick like a cowboy”.

Adding to the tension, a Korean – American man named Tony Kim was reportedly arrested in North Korea. The man was teaching accounting at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST). He was arrested Saturday at the Pyongyang International Airport on his way out of the country. PUST was founded by evangelical Christians and opened in 2010, with students generally the children of the country’s elite.

That said, it is at this time uncertain whether “Tony Kim” has any links to trafficking networks run by evangelical Christians to help “alleged dissidents” – often people who just want to go to for example Thailand to earn extra wages” out of the country. This trafficking is often highly propagandized and aims to undermine social cohesion in the DPRK more than “evangelical altruism”.

That said, university chancellor, Chan-Mo Park, told the Reuters News Agency Sunday, “The cause of his arrest is not known but some officials at PUST told me his arrest was not related to his work at PUST. He had been involved with some other activities outside PUST such as helping an orphanage.” While Pyongyang allows some foreign religious organizations to undertake humanitarian work, a number of missionaries and purported missionaries who doubled as human traffickers have been arrested for violating a ban on proselytizing or committing alleged crimes against the state.

CH/L – F/AK – nsnbc 24.04.2017



Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2017/04/24/japanese-naval-forces-join-us-military-exercise-in-korean-waters/

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