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North Korea rejects South Korea's calls for talks

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North Korea on Sunday rebuffed a South Korean proposal to resolve rising tensions through dialogue, dismissing it as a “crafty trick” by its rival.

Tensions have been high on the Korean Peninsula for weeks, with Pyongyang threatening to attack Seoul and Washington for conducting joint military drills and for supporting U.N. sanctions imposed on North Korea for a February nuclear test.

While the threats are largely seen as rhetoric, U.S. and South Korean officials have said they believe North Korea may test-fire a mid-range missile designed to reach the U.S. territory of Guam.

Pyongyang also took a direct shot at Seoul by pulling more than 50,000 North Korean workers from their joint factory park in the border city of Kaesong and denying South Koreans access to the complex just north of the Demilitarized Zone.

The move has brought the South Korean-run factories to a standstill, threatening a shutdown of the last joint project left between the two Koreas.

Last Thursday, Seoul pressed Pyongyang to discuss restarting operations at the factory park. South Korean President Park Geun-hye has promoted seeking peace with North Korea, a change in policy from the hard-line stance of her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak.

But on Sunday, North Korea‘s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said Pyongyang has no intention of talking with Seoul unless it abandons its confrontational posture.

South Korea‘s presidential Blue House said North Korea‘s rebuttal of its dialogue offer was “very regrettable.” A Blue House statement urged North Korea to take responsible measures to help relieve difficulties facing South Koreans working at the joint factory park.

The two Koreas technically remain at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. The U.S. keeps about 28,500 troops in South Korea to help deter potential aggression by the North.

From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/Q11mCnOaH24/

News, Politics, Government

NKorea criticizes SKorea prez's 'swish of skirt'

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North Korea‘s first public, senior-level mention of South Korea‘s first female president ended up being a sexist crack. The body that controls Pyongyang’s military complained Wednesday about the “venomous swish” of her skirt.

But despite that swipe, and a continuing torrent of rhetoric from Pyongyang threatening nuclear war and other mayhem, President Park Geun-hye is sticking by her campaign vow to reach out to North Korea‘s young leader, Kim Jong Un, and to send the country much-needed humanitarian aid.

Public frustration with the last five years of North-South relations, which saw North Korean nuclear tests, long-range rocket launches and attacks that left dozens of South Koreans dead, is a big part of the reason Park is trying to build trust with Pyongyang, even as she and South Korea‘s military promise to respond forcefully to any attack from the North.

Park’s predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, infuriated North Korea by linking aid and concessions to what turned out to be nonexistent progress on North Korea‘s past commitments to abandon its atomic weapons ambitions. In doing so, he reversed past liberal governments’ policy of providing huge aid shipments with few strings attached.

Like Lee, Park is a member of South Korea‘s main conservative party, but she has promised to find a middle ground by re-engaging Pyongyang through aid shipments, reconciliation talks and the resumption of some large-scale economic initiatives as progress occurs on the nuclear issue. Park has also held out the possibility of a summit with Kim Jong Un.

Park’s point man on North Korea, Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae, said this week that regardless of the political situation, South Korea intends to eventually send humanitarian aid shipments for infants and other vulnerable people in North Korea.

Ryoo said South Korea won’t accept North Korea‘s nuclear development or any provocations and called for a dialogue between the countries to improve strained ties.

The Unification Ministry said Wednesday that South Korea hasn’t started discussing when to start making shipments, what aid items might be sent and how much it will send.

Park’s North Korea policy is of keen interest not only on the Korean Peninsula but also among officials in Washington, Beijing and Tokyo. Analysts believe her course will set the initial tone for new North Korea policy in those capitals.

Park’s officials have also kept a wary …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

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SKorea's 1st female leader yet to hire many women

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The country with the developed world’s biggest income gender gap now has its first female president, but Park Geun-hye already has South Koreans wondering whether she’ll improve the status of women in a society still dominated by men.

Wearing a traditional Korean dress of red and gold silk, Park strode up the steps of the presidential Blue House after her inauguration Monday. So far, she has chosen only two women to join her in top positions — two less than a male liberal predecessor.

Park faces expectations that she will do something about pervasive sexism, and many other issues. Those include authoritarian rival North Korea, which conducted a nuclear test two weeks ago and warned Monday of a fiery death for Seoul and its ally Washington.

South Korea also struggles with deep societal rifts that many trace back to the 18-year dictatorship of Park’s father. With a stagnant economy and job worries, there’s pressure for Park, a member of the conservative ruling party, to live up to campaign vows to return to the strong economic growth her father oversaw — the so-called Miracle on the Han River.

Park’s election in December was an important moment for women in South Korea, who on average earn nearly 40 percent less than men, the largest gap among the 26 member nations of the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development. South Korean women are often paid less for doing the same work as men and seldom rise to the top of high-profile industries.

During her presidential campaign, Park criticized “traditionally male-centered politics” for corruption and power struggles, saying that “South Korean society accepting a female president could be the start of a big change.”

Critics, however, are taking note that Park has nominated women for only two of 18 Cabinet posts — and that one of those positions, the minister responsible for gender equality, hasn’t been held by a man since being launched in 2001. Park’s conservative predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, also nominated two women to start his term, while former President Roh Moo-hyun, Lee’s liberal predecessor, named four.

Kyunghyang Shinmun, a liberal daily newspaper, pointed out in a recent editorial that there are no women among the 12 officials tapped as senior presidential advisers.

Park’s nomination of so few women is disappointing, as there was a high public expectation for better gender equality in her …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

News, Politics, Government

SKorea's new leader faces NKorea nuke crisis

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Even before she takes office Monday as South Korea‘s first female president, Park Geun-hye’s campaign vow to soften Seoul’s current hard-line approach to rival North Korea is being tested by Pyongyang’s recent underground nuclear detonation.

Pyongyang, Washington, Beijing and Tokyo are all watching to see if Park, the daughter of a staunchly anti-communist dictator, pursues an ambitious engagement policy meant to ease five years of animosity on the divided peninsula or if she sticks with the tough stance of her fellow conservative predecessor, Lee Myung-bak.

Park’s decision is important because it will likely set the tone of the larger diplomatic approach that Washington and others take in stalled efforts to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions.

It will also be complicated by North Korea‘s warning of unspecified “second and third measures of greater intensity,” a threat that comes as Washington and others push for tightened U.N. sanctions as punishment for the Feb. 12 atomic test, the North’s third since 2006.

That test is seen as another step toward North Korea‘s goal of building a bomb small enough to be mounted on a missile that can hit the United States. The explosion, which Pyongyang called a response to U.S. hostility, triggered global outrage.

Park has said she won’t yet change her policy, which was built with the high probability of provocations from Pyongyang in mind. But some aren’t sure if engagement can work, given North Korea‘s choice of “bombs over electricity,” as American scientist Siegfried Hecker puts it.

“Normalization of relations, a peace treaty, access to energy and economic opportunities — those things that come from choosing electricity over bombs and have the potential of lifting the North Korean people out of poverty and hardship — will be made much more difficult, if not impossible, for at least the next five years,” Hecker, a regular visitor to North Korea, said in a posting on the website of Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

As she takes office, however, Park will be mindful that many South Koreans are frustrated at the state of inter-Korean relations after the Lee government’s five-year rule, which saw two nuclear tests, three long-range rocket launches and attacks blamed on North Korea that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010.

Park’s policy calls for strong defense but also for efforts to build trust through aid shipments, …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News