By It must be an election year because the ruling party in South Korea is now moving forward with Sunhine-lite with the North Koreans:
The Unification Ministry has announced a set of measures to revitalize operations at the inter-Korean Gaeseong Industrial Complex.
Ministry spokeswoman Park Soo-jin told reporters Wednesday that the ministry produced the measures at the request of bipartisan lawmakers who recently visited the joint complex in North Korea.
The government plans to allow construction activity and the import of facilities into the complex necessary for plant operation. The government will also work to build housing facilities for South Koreans working at the complex, while working to have goods made at the complex recognized as South Korean products.
In addition, the ministry said the government will consult financial authorities to find ways to help companies in financial trouble and consider inter-Korean working-level talks to resolve labor shortages at the complex. [KBS Global]
Here are a few facts about the Kaeseong Industrial Complex for those that don’t know much about it. The North Korean workers at Kaeseong are reportedly forced to work shifts of up to 24 hours, plus the proceeds from the complex are nearly all used to fund the Kim Jong-un regime that continues to threaten the United States. It would be political suicide for the US President or any other politician in the US to agree to anything coming out of Kaesong as South Korean made. Also these are not South Korean made goods anyway, these are goods made by underpaid North Korean laborers. Also not only is the complex a cash cow for the North Korean regime, it continues to give them the option to take South Korean hostages if necessary as they have already attempted a trial run of. The fact that the ruling conservative party in South Korea is promoting this it appears to me that they are just trying to take an issue away from their left wing political rivals before the election.
It is pretty clear that in South Korea the victims of the Cheonan and the Yeonpyeong Island attacks are long forgotten.
7:36 pm on February 15th, 2012 1
It’s now used to fund the Kim Jong-Un regime, you may want to edit out your like (aka KJI).
8:04 pm on February 15th, 2012 2
@1 – Good catch, just a force of habit to type that, especially when I am posting stuff pretty quickly like I did with this posting.
11:48 pm on February 15th, 2012 3
Q: How is George Micheal’s boyfriend like a South Korean company in a North Korean industrial complex?
A: Gaeseong makes them take it in the butt.