Threats from North Korea - A Week in Review (June 1, 2013)

And now, the week in review of what's what at the Korean peninsula...

May 27, 2013

- South Korea on Monday brushed off an apparent offer by North Korea to resume nuclear disarmament talks, and chided Pyongyang for a recent personal attack on its president Park Geun-Hye.

May 28, 2013

- North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Unification of Korea said that Pyongyang is willing to hold talks on normalizing the Kaesong Complex when South Korean businessmen visit their factories at the border town.

- A group of young North Koreans, who were defected to the South via a third country...were caught recently in Laos...and have been deported to China.

May 29, 2013

- Korea's Nuclear Safety and Security Commision shut down two more nuclear reactors Tuesday for being built with parts that had fake safety certificates. Putting the Shin-Kori Reactor number 2 in Busan and Shin Wolsong Reactor number 1 in North Gyeongsang Province offline for six months would render damage costs of more than 1.7 billion US dollars

- South Korean president Park Geun-hye has convened her administration;s first National Economic Advisory Council meeting

May 30, 2013

- South Korean president Park Geun-hye held summit talks with visiting Ugandan president Yoweri Museverni. It was the first ever bilateral summit that took place in Seoul since Park Geun-hye took office in February.

- South Korea's power reserves have dipped to dangerously low levels just a few weeks ahead of the peak season...as two more nuclear reactors were shutdown this week.

- A former senior analyst at the US Defense Intelligence Agency says that North Korea is still likely providing arms to terrorist groups around the world.

May 31, 2013

- The South Korean government is exploring alternative measures to prevent rolling blackouts in the summer. This ias 10 of the nation's 23 nuclear reactors are out of operation...after two were recently shutdown for containing parts with fake quality certificates. The Energy Ministry plans to announce a set of power-saving measures such as considering a fine against businesses that fail to cut their electricity consumption during peak hours as well as restricting the temperature range inside large or public buildings.

- The US State Department released its annual State Sponsors of Terrorism list and it designated Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria as nations which "repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism". Those countries are heavily sanctioned by Washington for their illicit activities. Despite North Korea throwing too much provocations, testing nuclear weapons, and launching ballistic missiles, they're still not on the list for the fifth straight year since North Korea was pulled off from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list since 2008.