Author: GIKorea

There has been an uptick in COVID cases in Okinawa with five of them being US military personnel:

Okinawa prefecture on Sunday reported 231 newly infected people, a pandemic one-day high for the prefecture, according to its coronavirus tracking website. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suge declared a state of emergency there starting Sunday until June 20, according to public broadcaster NHK.

The Okinawa prefectural government is asking individuals traveling to Okinawa to have a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours of their arrival, according to a Monday post on Yokota Air Base’s Facebook page.

“This is not a requirement, but travelers are advised to check with their airlines prior to any scheduled departures for any airline specific changes,” the message said.

Okinawa expects bars and restaurants that serve alcohol to close and shopping malls and sport clubs to close at 8 p.m., according to NHK.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but total COVID deaths on Okinawa rose to 146 since the pandemic started with 5 in the last seven days.

Considering the poor shape many North Korean ships are in, it is surprising more of the don’t sink like this:

 A North Korean ship presumed to be on a U.N. Security Council blacklist has sunk in waters off Japan, a source said Sunday. 

The 5,500-ton freighter Chongbong sank in waters off Shimane Prefecture in western Japan at around 2:32 p.m. on Saturday, according to the source from Japan’s maritime authorities.

The vessel appeared to have been on its way to Songrim Port in North Korea’s southwestern province of Hwanghae after leaving Chongjin, a port in its northeastern region.

It was said to have been carrying about 6,500 tons of iron when it sunk. All 21 crew members on board were rescued by a North Korean oil ship passing nearby, the source said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

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

This is not the type of attention that US Army Recruiting Command was looking for with this ad campaign:

Two weeks ago, the Army’s official recruiting website released a series of animated advertisementsshowcasing the stories of several soldiers on their journey to join the nation’s oldest branch.

One in particular features Cpl. Emma Malonelord, a soldier raised in California by two moms.

Since its upload to YouTube, however, this video’s comment section has been disabled. It currently has nearly a million views, 36,000 dislikes and only 775 likes.

“Beginning May 12 we started noticing a significant uptick in negative commentary,” Laura DeFrancisco, public affairs chief for the Army Enterprise Marketing Office, told Army Times. “The comments violated our social media policy and were not aligned with Army values. Out of respect for the safety and wellbeing of our soldiers and their families, we have disabled the comments.”

Hers is one of five stories selected by the branch for recruiting advertisements under the series, titled “The Calling.”

Army Times

You can read more at the link, but Ted Cruz had to comment about all this using a Russian propaganda video:

The recruiting Youtube video is not at only 1k likes and 46 dislikes. You would think they would have turned off this feature by now. Plenty of bot accounts from foreign adversaries are sure to go and troll a US military video like this.

Apparently expats do not have a high opinion of living in South Korea and a lot of has to do with making friends and settling in. From a U.S. military perspective there are so many KATUSAs and other to make friends with on base that this is really not an issue. Additionally it is easier to settle in on base as well when you don’t have to worry about getting cheated by landlords:

Korea ranked 47th out of 59 countries in an index based on a survey to determine the favorability of the living environment and conditions for expats. In the Expats Insider 2021 index released by InterNations, the world’s largest expat community with around 4 million members, those in Korea had difficulty settling in, finding friends and feeling at home.

The community conducted the annual survey in January on 12,420 expat respondents, representing 174 nationalities and living in 186 countries or territories, regarding their satisfaction in areas including quality of life, ease of settling in, working life, personal finance and cost of living.

Korea ranked 13th in general living conditions among 61 countries in 2014, but its ranking fell to 55th in 2019. It bounced back slightly to 54th in 2020 and 47th this year.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I guess we will see what a “flexible” approach to the DPRK means in the near future. Hopefully it doesn’t mean being flexible on sanctions with little to nothing in return:

The new North Korea policy of the Joe Biden administration is designed to be flexible to enable the “best chance of diplomatic success” by learning from past unsuccessful efforts, a senior US administration official said Thursday.

“We are not going to lay out exactly our diplomatic strategy here and now, I would simply say that we’ve tried to design it to be flexible,” the official told reporters while speaking on condition of anonymity.

“We understand where previous efforts in the past had difficulties, and we’re determined to try to learn from those past efforts to give ourselves the best chance of diplomatic success,” he said.

After wrapping up its monthslong North Korea policy review last month, the United States said it will not seek a “grand bargain” with North Korea or rely on strategic patience.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.