It is a bit ironic that October 10th is the World Day Against the Death Penalty and the Pentagon recently announced it will be livestreaming the execution of mass murderer Nidal Hasan. It will be interesting to see if that actually happens. Anyway for its part South Korea hasn’t executed anyone since 1997 and this researcher is pushing for the ROK government to end the death penalty all together because the killers are old and regret what they did:

Every weekday before 1997, death row inmates in Korea braced themselves between 6 and 9 a.m. — the hours when executions could happen. If 9 a.m. passed uneventfully, they felt relief. Then they went to sleep wondering if the next morning would be their last.

No one has been executed since Dec. 30, 1997, but 56 people remain on death row — 52 in Ministry of Justice correctional facilities and four in military prisons. Kim Dae-keun, a research fellow at the Korean Institute of Criminology and Justice, interviewed 42 of them. 

“Most of them were ashamed, distressed or regretful about what they did,” Kim said in an interview with The Korea Times. “I imagine they were brutal and frightening when they committed their crimes. But many I met in prison now were older, frail men.”

Oct. 10 marks World Day Against the Death Penalty, an annual international observance calling for the abolition of executions as judicial punishment. In Korea, the day arrives with the death penalty still on the books but widely regarded as unenforceable. Most inmates now believe executions will not resume — a belief that has fundamentally reshaped how they live.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but this is just another example of suicidal empathy. In this article, this researcher shows a lot of sympathy for the criminals on death row, but does not mention one word about the impact these criminals have had on the lives of the families of the victims they killed.

It looks like there is still some serious concerns from the U.S. on sharing intelligence information with South Korea:

 A senior U.S. official said Friday that Washington expects Seoul to “uphold” the standards of their decadeslong alliance, amid heightened concerns over apparent friction in the countries’ intelligence cooperation.

“We expect the ROK to uphold the standards of our decadeslong alliance, in particular concerning matters of intelligence and counterintelligence,” the senior U.S. administration official told Yonhap News Agency in a written statement, referring to South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea. 

The statement was provided in response to an inquiry from Yonhap News Agency regarding the state of bilateral intelligence cooperation.

The remarks follow growing speculation over bilateral friction after South Korea’s National Intelligence Service acknowledged it was excluded from a June trilateral meeting, also involving Japan, on North Korean cyber threats. Local media reports indicated the agency was left out at Washington’s request.

South Korea and the United States have faced signs of friction in the intelligence field after Seoul Unification Minister Chung Dong-young’s public disclosure of a North Korean uranium enrichment facility in Kusong, North Korea in March.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

The U.S. Marine Corps leadership on Okinawa is practicing the typical playbook in response to criminal acts happening on the island by implementing a curfew:

U.S. service members on Okinawa will not be prohibited from drinking alcohol during a monthlong overnight curfew that begins Friday, according to the Marine Corps. “Standard off-duty regulations and responsible-use policies will remain in effect outside of curfew hours,” III Marine Expeditionary Force spokesman 1st Lt. Tyler Thomas told Stars and Stripes by email Thursday. The update follows a Tuesday order by III MEF’s commander, Lt. Gen. Benjamin Watson, imposing a 48-hour “Period of Training” that prohibited alcohol consumption, even in private residences, and barred troops from off-base liberty. The subsequent 30-day “Period of Reflection” requires all U.S. service members on Okinawa to remain in their assigned quarters on base or at their off-base homes between midnight and 5 a.m.

Stars and Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This response from Kim Yo-jong demonstrates how the mentality of the regime has changed under Kim Jong-un. Before North Korea would gladly suck as much aid out of South Korea and the international community as possible, now they view aid as an insult to the regime:

Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, on Friday reiterated Pyongyang’s rejection of South Korea’s offer to provide humanitarian medical assistance, criticizing the gesture as a “farce.”

Kim’s statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) came a day after she rejected Seoul’s plan to send 1,431 medical items across 166 categories to a hospital in Pyongyang, as part of a humanitarian medical support program. She called the offer an “insult” and “political provocation.”

“The racket of ‘mine explosion’ and the farce of ‘medical equipment support’ orchestrated by the ROK are just the two sides of the same coin minted by its inveterate bad habit of escalating confrontation with our state.” ROK stands for the Republic of Korea, South Korea’s official name.

Kim claimed that South Korea’s medical aid proposal and its accusations against North Korea over a recent land mine explosion near the inter-Korean border were intended to damage Pyongyang’s reputation and image.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

If this survey was done correctly, this shows pretty broad support for South Korea to build its own nuclear powered submarines:

Nearly six in 10 Americans support South Korea’s project to develop nuclear-powered submarines, a survey showed Thursday, while a strong majority oppose Seoul acquiring nuclear weapons.

The survey, conducted jointly by the Washington-based Korea Economic Institute of America and data analytics firm YouGov among 1,207 American adults from Aug. 21-Sept. 1, found that 58 percent supported South Korea’s development of nuclear-powered submarines, with 42 percent opposing it.

Support was broadly bipartisan, with 56 percent of self-identifying Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans backing the development of the submarines. Among independents, 62 percent expressed support.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.