Author: GIKorea

This is a chilling statistic to see on the increase which appears to be influenced by the poor economy:

Kim Sung-kwan, 37, had a habit of telling lies. 

He told his wife and his in-laws that he was working at a well-known company and was about to inherit a fortune from his grandfather, but in reality, he was relying on money from his mother.

Unable to deal with her son any longer, Kim’s mother drew a line and told Kim that she could not give him any more money. Kim grew furious with her and his family. He created a plan with his wife to murder his mother, stepbrother and stepfather.

“We can buy time to get away by killing everyone in the family,” Kim said to his wife.

Kim went to his parent’s house in Yongin, Gyeonggi, on Oct. 21, 2017, and killed his mother and stepbrother. To confuse police, he sprayed flour over the bodies and covered the bodies with a blanket.

“Two down, one to go,” read Kim’s message to his wife.

Later that day, Kim killed his stepfather and took 120 million won ($102,625) from his mother’s bank account. He fled to New Zealand with his wife and two children. Kim was arrested by New Zealand police and was extradited to Korea 80 days later.

Kim was sentenced to life in prison by a Korean court.

The number of crimes toward family members is on the rise, as the number of people arrested for the murder of a family member increased from 60 in 2015 to 91 in 2018, according to data from the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office. From January to April, 32 people have been arrested for killing a family member and experts estimate this number will surpass 100 by the end of the year. The number of people arrested for domestic violence increased from 988 in 2014 to 2,414 in 2018, doubling in just four years. Criminal psychology experts said that there are many cases where people take out their stress and anger on their families.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

I am not surprised that the U.S. government would not side with anyone over this dispute. I would think the U.S. government may look at this as why should it put its relationship with Japan at risk because the Moon administration over reached in its Japan bashing for domestic political reasons and is now paying the consequences.:

The United States takes the tensions between Korea and Japan very seriously but cannot play a “mediating role,” according to the chair of the Korean National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Committee who said the message was relayed to him by the U.S. State Department point man for East Asian affairs. 

Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun, a third-term lawmaker of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, met with David R. Stilwell, the new U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, Wednesday evening amid the diplomatic spat over Japan’s recent export restrictions on Korea.  

Yoon told the JoongAng Ilbo over the phone that Stilwell told him that the United States “could not take one side or the other because taking one side means losing the other.” 

Stilwell then conveyed, according to Yoon, that Washington “encouraged its two friends,” Seoul and Tokyo, “to resolve the issue through dialogue.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

NYT revealed Mercedes imported to N.Korea via Busan to Vladivostok then to Pyongyang by the ships. Ships once reached Vladivostok, they bring Coal to S.Korea.S.Korea became the route for N.Korea sending Mecedes and take Coal. No wonder why JPN sanction us.https://t.co/W5hUNTKoxx

— Dong Yon Kim/김동연 기자 (@dongyonews) July 16, 2019

ROK Heads may remember the story about the Air Force NCO who was demoted after making comments about black female service members. Well she has now been separated from the Air Force:

An Air Force noncommissioned officer who made headlines last year for a racist rant that she posted to social media is no longer in the service, personnel officials confirmed.

Geraldine Lovely, who last served as a staff sergeant at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, was separated from the Air Force on April 5, according to information provided by the Air Force Personnel Center. The reason for her separation and the nature of her discharge were not provided due to privacy restrictions, the Air Force said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It looks like it will be a wet weekend for the Korean peninsula:

Typhoon Danas is moving toward the Korean Peninsula after forming off the Philippines. 

The storm ― classified as “small,” with central pressure of 996 hectopascals (hPa) ― is moving northeast at a speed of 23 kilometers an hour. 

Danas ― packing maximum sustained winds of 54 kph and gusts of 82.8 kph as of Tuesday ― is expected to slam into Taiwan on Thursday, advance to Shanghai on Saturday and reach the West Sea on Sunday, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA). 

Taiwan authorities have warned people in central, southern and eastern areas to brace for torrential rain. 

If it travels as expected, the entire Korean Peninsula will be under the typhoon’s influence this weekend. 

Korea Times

This guy was clearly having a bad day, and the next day was even worse when he was detained by the MP’s for this stupidity:

The soldier was in full uniform when a decidedly civilian conflict unfolded outside a shopping mall in Savannah, Georgia.

But by the end of a shouting match — which lasted at most a couple of minutes — the man had ripped off his camouflage jacket, twisted a woman’s arm behind her back and declared in an expletive-laden tirade that he didn’t care about the Army and he didn’t care about the country its members are sworn to protect.

The dispute apparently began over a parking space in what local media identified as a lot outside the sprawling Oglethorpe Mall, which is less than a mile from Hunter Army Airfield in the coastal Georgia city. Videos of the incident surfaced on social media Monday, quickly racking up tens of thousands of shares and over a million views.

On Tuesday, an Army spokesperson told the TV outlet WSAV that the man pictured was detained by military police in connection with his actions in the parking lot.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but this guy needs to find another profession because the Army does not need people like this around other soldiers.

I've spent the last week in DC, and it seems a deal with NK is, at last, in the works. Instead of chasing the impossible, diplomats now hope to achieve a more realistic “small deal," and both Trump and Kim have good reason to accept it, I write @nknewsorghttps://t.co/CrCDLu4bvz

— Andrei Lankov (@andreilankov) July 15, 2019

It seems President Trump thinks that threats in the North Korean media to restart nuclear and ICBM testing is a bunch of hot air:

After North Korea threatened to end its moratorium on nuclear and missile tests if U.S.-South Korean military drills go forward, U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that “time is not of the essence” in his administration’s negotiations with Pyongyang.  

The president’s words reinforced his ever-sanguine view of his relationship with North Korea and new talks about denuclearization, brushing aside two statements issued by Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday warning that talks “would be affected” by joint U.S.-South Korean summertime exercises, which it described as “rehearsals for war.”  

In one statement given in a Q&A with the Korean Central News Agency, a spokesman for the North’s Foreign Ministry said the country would “formulate our decision on the opening of […] working-level talks, while keeping watch over the U.S. move hereafter.”

A second statement released by the ministry pointed out that the North’s 20-month self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and missile tests was a voluntary gesture to improve relations with Washington and not a binding promise of any sort. It said the United States was “unilaterally reneging” on Trump’s alleged vow to not conduct further joint drills that he made during the summit held with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the border village of Panmunjom on June 30.

The drills, known as the Dong Maeng exercises, were described by Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Dave Eastburn as routine combined training that had already been “adjusted” for the sake of engagement with North Korea. Eastburn said the exercises would proceed as scheduled this August between U.S. and South Korean troops and that they are intended to show the U.S. commitment to South Korea’s defense.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but the Dong Maeng exercise is what has replaced the prior UFG exercise.