Author: GIKorea

This is a pretty strange disappearance case over at Yokota Airbase:

Britni, 31, said she’s posted dozens of fliers with her missing husband’s photograph around Yokota and in nearby areas and appealed, in her Facebook post, for help hanging more. A Facebook group about the search for Trevor has also been created.

Air Force investigators have removed Trevor’s possessions, including his laptops, from the couple’s home, which they share with two cats and a corgi, Britni told Stars and Stripes Sunday while walking through Yokota’s east side housing area. (……..)

That evening, Trevor told his wife he was going out at around 8 p.m. to search for a neighbor’s lost cat, which he’d earlier spotted near the base movie theater.

Gate guards report Trevor coming onto the base through its east gate at 9:09 p.m. while carrying a bag from a convenience store and talking on his cellphone, Britni said.

“We have been unable to track who he was talking to – it is nobody in our joint network, which really is the only network that I knew he had,” she said.

Britni said she last saw Trevor when he returned home at 1:30 a.m. Feb. 1 without his jacket.

The couple slept in separate bedrooms and Britni, who went to work the next morning, didn’t realize her husband was missing until she finished work and saw a message from somebody who had found his wallet near a vacant townhome on base, Britni said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read the rest at the link, but his jacket, shoes, mask, cellphone, keys and empty cans of alcohol were later found as well on base not far from the wallet. It appears he has a secret cellphone that he was talking to someone on and went out late at night to supposedly look for a cat, but doesn’t come back until 1:30 AM. It seems reasonable to conclude he was out meeting someone that night. Finding out who he met could determine where he went. Hopefully he turns up safe.

Besides the changing of restaurant closing times it is also important to point out that nearly everyone in Japan follows the masks rules. That is why such a policy would not work as well in the U.S. where so many people still do not wear masks:

Call it the Zen art of lockdowns. In the fight to suppress Covid-19, Japan has found success by stripping down its policy to one simple measure: closing restaurants and bars at 8 p.m.

When the government declared a state of emergency in Tokyo and other urban areas on Jan. 7, it changed little, except to urge places that serve food and drinks to close by 8 p.m. Most complied in exchange for support that includes payments of about $600 a day. 

Infections since then have fallen by more than two-thirds nationwide, even though other daily activities such as shopping and commuting have continued. The government hopes to lift the state of emergency by March 7.

Wall Street Journal

You can read more at the link.

Like I said before signing a new cost sharing deal would be a simple win for the Biden administration. The reported 13% rise allows the administration to say they were able to get the ROK to pay more when the Trump administration with their hardline tactics could not:

The United States and South Korea are just weeks away from coming together on a new cost-sharing deal for stationing 28,500 U.S. troops on the peninsula, CNN reported Wednesday.

The report, which cited five anonymous sources familiar with the discussions, said the contract taking shape is a multiyear deal that increases Seoul’s contribution by about 13%.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Some good news for parents looking to get their kids back to school in South Korea:

U.S. Forces Korea is lowering the coronavirus risk level across more of the peninsula, including at its largest installation, leaving only the Seoul region under the strictest prohibitions for the U.S. military.

The change takes effect 7 a.m. Monday, after the three-day Lunar New Year holiday in South Korea. It coincides with level two social distancing rules in the country, which limit some businesses’ hours and social gatherings to no more than 100 people, according to the Tuesday announcement.

Area I includes the north and northeast region of the country up to the border with North Korea. Area III covers the central region where Osan Air Base and Camp Humphreys are situated. The Seongnam area south of Seoul and the Han River is also included in the change. (………..)

Under condition Bravo, students in Department of Defense Education Activity schools at Camp Humphreys and Osan Air Base will return Tuesday to in-person classes, DODEA-Korea district superintendent Jeff Arrington said in a memo emailed to parents on Tuesday.

Students moved to online learning after USFK raised the HPCON level to Charlie in late December when schools let out for winter break. Students at Camps Walker and George, in the country’s south, returned to school on Tuesday.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It is an amazing phenomenon that it appears only U.S. military training causes noise and not ROK military training. It is kind of like how American radars are supposedly dangerous and Korean ones are not:

 A planned live-fire exercise involving Apache attack helicopters of the U.S. Forces Korea has been suspended following noise and other complaints from residents near the firing range in the southeastern city of Pohang, officials said. 

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission said the drill, which had been scheduled to begin on Tuesday and continue until next month, will be suspended while a mediation procedure is under way with residents near the Suseong firing range in Pohang.

“As the live-fire drill cannot be suspended for a long time, we expect the commission’s prompt and reasonable mediation,” defense ministry spokesperson Boo Seung-chan said during a regular press briefing.

Earlier, some 2,800 residents living near the range filed a petition with the agency calling for the cancellation of the exercise and closure of the facility, citing noise and vibration caused by the exercise. 

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.