Free Republic

SEONGNAM, South Korea (Reuters) - South Korea should redouble its efforts to become a global defence industry leader, President Moon Jae-in told a military expo in the outskirts of Seoul on Wednesday, after landing at the site in an air force fighter jet. Clad in a flight suit, Moon arrived at the biennial Seoul International Aerospace & Defense Exhibition in the back seat of an FA-50 jet fighter, South Korea's first indigenous supersonic aircraft and a major defence export... ...At least 440 companies from 28 countries are participating in what organisers said was the largest ADEX ever. About 300 government,...

Ammon Bundy wants to be the next Governor of Idaho and President Trump is getting back on the campaign trail but first... The federal prison guards on duty when Jeffrey Epstein died in August of 2019 cutting a plea deal... Former President Trump planning campaign rallies in four states... He's been in the forefront of opposition to Idaho Republican Governor Brad Little's state of emergency...Now libertarian activist Ammon Bundy is in the race to challenge incumbent Brad Little... A subscriber exclusive story from "OregonLive" says that Oregon businesses have two bad choices from the latest mask mandate... Oregon Governor Kate...

The process – or non-process – of North Korean denuclearization and inter-Korean relations may well be decided on Thursday when two meetings take place: North Korea’s newly-inaugurated Supreme People’s Assembly meets and later that day, South Korean President Moon Jae-in meets US President Donald Trump in Washington. In the wake of February’s failed North Korea-US summit in Hanoi, which broke up without any agreement, experts will be watching the SPA meeting for clues toward future North Korean policy. But more mission-critical matters will be discussed in Washington. There, South Korea’s Moon faces the sternest task. In a bid to restart...

President Moon Jae-in’s government is seeking ways to circumvent international sanctions against North Korea to reopen an inter-Korean industrial park. The Kaesong industrial complex north of the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas was shut down in February 2016 after Pyongyang conducted its fourth nuclear test. The ensuing moves by Seoul officials suggest the Moon administration is seeking to resume the inter-Korean projects, particularly the joint industrial park, as a catalyst for the North’s denuclearization rather than a step to be taken after a significant progress is made. But it would prove practically impossible to bypass sanctions imposed by a...

Donald Trump wants North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to know that he likes him and will fulfill his wishes, South Korea's President Moon Jae-in has said, a day after meeting the US president at an economic summit in Argentina. Moon, who is hoping to host Kim soon on the first ever trip to Seoul by a North Korean leader as agreed earlier this year, said Trump had asked him to pass on a message. "The message is that President Trump has very favourable views toward Chairman Kim and he likes him," Moon told reporters aboard a flight from Argentina...

South Korean President Moon Jae-in called on the U.S. to officially declare an end to the Korean War during an interview Friday, adding that the North had “promised complete denuclearization.” “If North Korea takes certain measures, the end-of-war declaration would be a political statement that would announce that the long-standing hostile relations between Pyongyang and Washington had ended,” Moon told the BBC, adding that he wanted the declaration to happen at the “earliest possible date.” The Korean War, which began in 1950, technically never ended, as only an armistice was signed in 1953. It will only officially be declared over...

A South Korean court has sentenced former President Lee Myung-bak to 15 years in prison over a slew of corruption charges. His conviction is yet another blow to conservatives in South Korea. His conservative successor Park Geun-hye is serving a 33-year prison term over a separate corruption scandal. The Seoul Central District Court issued the sentence on Friday after convicting Lee of bribery, embezzlement and other charges. Lee, who has denied most of the charges leveled on him, has one week to appeal. Lee, who served as president from 2008-2013, has been held at a detention center in Seoul since...

North Korea's Chairman Kim Jong Un wants to meet with President Trump again, says South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has just returned from Pyongyang. Moon also spoke directly to the North Korean public, describing a peaceful future to an audience of some 150,000 people. "We had lived together for five thousand years but apart for just 70 years," Moon said in his speech on Thursday, in which he repeatedly addressed the crowd as "Citizens of Pyongyang, fellow Koreans." Moon continued, "Here, at this place today, I propose we move forward toward the big picture of peace in which the...

• Can Trump go from “fire and fury” to receiving the Nobel Peace Prize? • The President is currently among the favorites to receive the award, behind only Kim Jong-Un and Moon Jae-In • Is there value in picking Trump or the Korean leaders? Donald Trump was met with chants of “Nobel! Nobel! Nobel!” at one of his Michigan rallies back in April, and back then it seemed ridiculous that a man who once threatened to nuke North Korea could be in the running for the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet here we are. Donald Trump is now one of the...

South Korean President Moon Jae-in says he and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will take a "bold step" in their upcoming summit to formally ending the six-decade old war that split the two sides. President Moon made the declaration Wednesday during a ceremony in Seoul marking the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of the Korean peninsula from Japanese colonial rule. The two Koreas announced earlier this week that Moon and Kim will meet in Pyongyang sometime next month. The two leaders have already met twice this year, both times in Panmunjom, the truce village in the border zone that...

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea lambasted South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in on Friday for “needlessly kibitzing” about relations between Pyongyang and Washington and dismissed Moon’s pledge to take the driver’s seat on the Korean Peninsula as “sophistry”. {snip} "It’s a known fact inside and outside that the South does not have the capability to resolve the peninsula affairs and elicit an agreement,” the report said. “When we and the United States are making efforts to implement the Singapore agreement, who would listen to such rude, atrocious sophistry with a presumptuous forecast lacking reality?”

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Thursday (Jul 12) that North Korea's criticism of the United States after recent talks on denuclearisation was part of its strategy and negotiations between them are on the "right track". North Korea accused the United States on Saturday of making "gangster-like" demands in the talks in North Korea late last week, contradicting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who said the old enemies had made progress. Moon, speaking in Singapore during a state visit, said that talks on the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula between North Korea and the United States may face...

Moon considering joining US-N.Korea summit South Korean President Moon Jae-in is considering joining US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at their planned summit next month. The US and North Korea are aiming to hold their first-ever summit in Singapore on June 12th. Officials from both countries have been holding talks at the truce village of Panmunjom and in Singapore. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is due to meet the vice chairman of the Korean Workers' Party, Kim Yong Chol, in New York later this week. NHK has established that officials from South Korea's presidential...

When I wrote about the meeting between Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in yesterday I suggest we should probably temper our expectations as to what might come of it. Now that we’ve heard from Moon and gotten his report of what took place, I’m not much more confident. Reuters has most of the details that South Korea released in a press conference and it contains a lot of flowery, hopeful talk, but remains perilously short on details. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reaffirmed his commitment to “complete” denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and to a planned meeting with U.S. President...

- South Korean President Moon Jae-in could make a trip to Singapore for a three-way summit with his U.S. and North Korean counterparts next month, depending on the outcome of ongoing discussions between Washington and Pyongyang, a ranking government official here said Monday. A three-way summit was originally proposed by Moon and the North Korean leader when they held their first-ever meeting at the border village of Panmunjom on April 27. The trip, if made, will likely be made around June 12 when U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un are scheduled to hold their bilateral summit,...

So is the on again, off again summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un… on again? There was a surprise announcement from the DMZ today, showing Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in once again greeting, hugging and smiling in the DMZ on the North Korean side. Moon has been struggling to hold some sort of deal together ever since the event planning went sour this past week. The fact that the two were meeting face to face is raising the question of whether or not the deal may be back in motion. (New York Post) South Korean President Moon...

Last December, I published a surprisingly controversial hypothesis that Korean War II would not be a conventional war, but is a hybrid war to alternately cajole and coerce South Korea into gradual submission to the North’s hegemony, aggressive implementation of a series of joint statements, and eventual digestion into a one-country, two-systems confederation. I argued that this plan would only work if a sufficiently submissive government in Seoul yielded to Pyongyang while going only so far and so fast as possible to avoid a domestic backlash among a population that was, at least until recently, deeply distrustful of Pyongyang. Rather...

Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong Un hold surprise second summit: Blue House Leaders met at Panmunjom for the second time, Seoul says, with results to be announced tomorrow South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held a surprise meeting at Panmunjom on the inter-Korean border on Saturday, according to a statement issued by the Blue House. The meeting is the second between the two leaders, with the first having taken place at the same location and resulting in the signing of the Panmunjom Declaration. “President Moon Jae-in held a second summit meeting with Kim Jong...

President Trump and his South Korean counterpart reemphasized their commitment to ensure a summit between North Korea and the United States remains on track after the reclusive regime threatened to pull out of the talks, according to a report on Sunday. South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Trump spoke for about 20 minutes about the Hermit Kingdom’s recent warning that it wouldn’t participate in the June 12 meeting in Singapore if the US continues to demand it relinquish its nuclear arsenal. “The two leaders will work closely and unwaveringly for the successful hosting of the North Korea- U.S. summit set...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed to strengthen their defense posture amid rising tensions with North Korea, the White House said on Friday. Trump and Moon, who met on Thursday, committed to strengthen their "combined defense posture, including through South Korea’s acquisition and development of highly advanced military assets" and "agreed to the enhanced deployment of U.S. strategic assets in and around South Korea on a rotational basis," the White House said in a statement....