We know this is all political theater, but the Japanese politicians are all showing who is more outraged after the murder of a Japanese woman on Okinawa:

In this screenshot from security footage, a woman who appears to be Anna Yagi walks in front of the Tesio sausage shop in Okinawa city, Okinawa, Oct. 2, 2026. (Tesio)

Japan’s prime minister criticized the U.S. military response to a Marine’s arrest in an Okinawa homicide investigation Tuesday, calling a monthlong overnight curfew for American troops inadequate. Sanae Takaichi questioned whether the midnight-to-5 a.m. restriction would prevent further incidents after Lance Cpl. Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, was arrested Oct. 4 on suspicion of killing and robbing a Japanese woman at a Naha hotel.

She made the remarks during a House of Representatives budget committee meeting in reply to Okinawa lawmaker Masahisa Miyazaki, who challenged the effectiveness of the U.S. response. “I question how banning outings during the time people are asleep actually fosters reflection or leads to realistic measures to prevent a recurrence,” Miyazaki said, according to a livestream of the meeting on the assembly’s website. Takaichi said she considered the measure “insufficient” after reviewing it in her office.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but on top of the curfew the Okinawa politicians want action taken against the Marine’s supervisors:

The Okinawa Prefectural Assembly passed a resolution and statement Friday calling on the U.S. military and Japanese governments to apologize to Yagi’s family, provide compensation and revise the status of forces agreement governing U.S. military personnel in Japan. The documents also seek “disciplinary action against those with supervisory responsibility.”

This is a ridiculous request because I have seen plenty of great NCOs and officers have Soldiers screw up and do something criminal. Personnel sometimes do criminal things and they should be held accountable for it, not people that had nothing to do with it. Now if a unit shows a consistent trend of indiscipline then that unit’s leadership is held accountable by being relieved of duty which most times ends their careers. This is something I have seen happen before. Does this Marine’s unit have a long indiscipline problem? I don’t know, but I am sure the leadership in USFJ is closely looking at it and will take action if warranted.

With that all said, if the Okinawa politicians want to play this game, then who should be held accountable for all the murders on Okinawa not committed by U.S. military personnel? The last murder on Okinawa committed on Okinawa by a U.S. servicemember was a 2019 murder suicide. That means there two murders committed by a U.S. servicemember in 7 years.

According to ChatGPT there was 13 total murders on Okinawa in 2025 and the island typically averages about 15 a year. Presumably, the vast majority of these murders are committed by Japanese. The facts show that someone on Okinawa is far more likely to be murdered by a Japanese person than a U.S. servicemember. Because of this fact, is the Okinawa legislator going to demand that all these Japanese who are parents of a criminal be brought up on charges as well? Better yet maybe they should also go after the mangers of whatever business the criminal worked at?

The long arm of the law caught up with this alleged British criminal:

A British man in his 30s who fled to his home country after stabbing a woman in Seoul has been arrested in the United Kingdom, Korean police said Saturday.

The Korean National Police Agency said the suspect was arrested in the UK on Thursday, local time, in cooperation with the UK’s National Extradition Unit (NEU).

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

If this is the type of crime that Korea is worried about, as a society they are overall doing pretty good. Can you imagine what would happen to an unstaffed shop in a major U.S. city? It would be far worse than accidentally forgetting to plug back in a freezer:

Frozen desserts at an unstaffed shop were left melted after a woman unplugged a freezer to charge her phone and left without plugging it back in.

The shop owner on Monday vented the frustration in a post on FMKorea, a major South Korean online community and internet forum, sharing a photo of a notice posted inside the store. (…..)

“Reported for obstructing business. Turned off the freezer to charge her phone,” the notice read. It added that the melted ice cream could no longer be sold and had to be thrown out.

A similar incident occurred in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, in March 2022, when a woman in her 60s unplugged a freezer at an unstaffed ice cream shop, causing about 500,000 won ($375) worth of ice cream to melt.

The woman received a four-month prison sentence, suspended for one year, as she reportedly had a history of similar offenses.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the FBI has shutdown the IT worker scheme being run by North Korea:

The US Justice Department said Tuesday it has clamped down on North Korean remote IT worker schemes that affected more than 70 American companies and generated millions of dollars in revenue allegedly linked to the North Korean regime.

The department announced a series of recent coordinated law enforcement actions in Ohio and Texas, including an indictment, two arrests and the seizure of 187 computers used by North Korean IT workers to obtain fraudulent employment at US companies.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but the scheme the North Koreans were running is fooling legitimate U.S. businesses into thinking they were contracting legal remote workers. However, due to sanctions the North Koreans cannot provide remote IT services to American businesses. So the North Koreans were doing actual work, but most of the money was probably being funneled into illicit programs. Supposedly this scheme was generating up to $600 million a year for the regime. Maybe legaling IT workers from North Korea is something that President Trump can offer to Kim Jong-un as a carrot if they do restart any negotiations again.

If the Lee administration has its way, they will take over OPCON whether they are ready or not because the issue is not about enhancing national defense, but instead politics and nationalism:

On the envisioned transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) from Washington to Seoul, Brunson reiterated his support for a conditions-based transition, stressing the importance of meeting agreed military requirements before proceeding with the handover.

“I am in full support of OPCON transfer that is conditions based, full stop,” he said. 

“At the end of the day, if my president, if my secretary of war tell me, ‘Execute right now,’ I go, ‘Yes, but here are the risks inherent in doing this without having fully met the conditions, securing the critical capabilities that are necessary.'”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see if General Brunson can pull this off. There is so much inertia to do things the way they have always been done in Korea to overcome:

The general suggested that the allies consider conducting exercises across a much broader geographical area rather than in fixed locations.

“What would it look like if we train from Jeju all the way up to Gyeonggi Province in the north?” he said. “So just imagine if we trained across the entirety of the peninsula.”

Brunson said the allies should take into consideration lessons from the war in Ukraine, where the widespread use of drones and other modern battlefield technologies has left forces operating from fixed positions vulnerable.

He stressed the importance of distributing forces across different locations to reduce their vulnerability to potential attacks. “We won’t be moored in place.”

Brunson also raised the possibility of conducting more training between the two major annual exercises, rather than focusing preparations primarily on those events.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It looks like another Trump-Kim summit may happen next month:

U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that he may meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during his upcoming trip to Asia, raising the possibility of renewed summit diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang.

Asked by a reporter at the White House on whether he plans to meet Kim during the trip, Trump replied, “I may,” adding, “That’ll be exciting, won’t it? But I get along with him.”

Trump plans to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in China, scheduled for November 18-19 in Shenzhen.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.