Why should anyone be surprised by this?:

North Korea has been working to protect its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities from military strikes, according to UN monitors.

Citing a confidential report drafted by UN sanction monitors, Reuters on Monday said the group “found evidence of a consistent trend on the part of North Korea to disperse its assembly, storage and testing locations.”

The North Korean mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the 300-page report, which was submitted to a 15-member UN Security Council sanctions committee on Friday. 

KBS Global

What did the UN expect, Kim Jong-un to lay out his missile and nuclear facilities and equipment in a big open field with an X marks the spot for easy targeting by the US? Of course the North Koreans are going to disperse and then harden all their facilities, they would be fools not to.

If this report is accurate it appears the ROK government has once again gotten what they wanted from the US-ROK cost sharing negotiations with the caveat that it is only a one year deal:

South Korea and the United States are expected to strike a deal this week on splitting the cost for the stationing of American troops here as the allies consider the need to work closely together to denuclearize North Korea, a diplomatic source said Sunday.

The U.S. will likely accept South Korea’s request for a contribution of less than US$1 billion (1.1 trillion won) in 2019.

Seoul plans to sign a one-year contract as Washington demands, according to the source.

Last year, South Korea paid around 960 billion won for the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) under a five-year deal signed in 2014.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but since this is a one year deal I would expect the Trump administration to ratchet up the pressure again for the ROK to pay $1.2 billion when negotiations begin again later this year.

Another Park Geun-hye era official is about to be indicted:

Prosecutors are expected to indict former Supreme Court Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae later this week on charges that he abused his power to influence high-profile trials as a political tool to lobby the previous government. 
Yang, 71, is under pre-indictment detention upon a court approval of his arrest warrant on Jan. 24. He’s the first former chief of South Korea’s top court to have been arrested as a suspect and now to face a criminal trial.
The retired veteran justice with a law career over 40 years is accused of using or seeking to use trials as leverage to lobby the office of then President Park Geun-hye to get her approval for the establishment of a separate court of appeals, his pet project. Yang headed the top court from 2011-2017. 
The Seoul Central District Court ruled that his charges were proven and that he posed a risk of destroying evidence. 
Prosecutors are widely expected to formally indict Yang later this week, right after the Lunar New Year holiday, which ends Wednesday.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but if Yang is such a risk to destroy evidence that he needs to be jailed why did they not jail him before the Lunar New Year?

Will Pyongyang also stop its assassinations, threats & subversion of South Korea's democracy? No more coded numbers broadcasts? No more United Front Dep't recruiting teachers, union leaders & students? And won't Pyongyang see VOA & RFA broadcasts as "toppling"? https://t.co/zwrahxstRw

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) February 1, 2019

Here is the latest US military servicemember getting himself in drunken trouble in Japan:

A U.S. servicemember was arrested Saturday in the home of a Japanese couple who found him naked after he’d used their shower, according to local news reports.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Nathaniel Williams, 27, is accused of walking through the unlocked front door of a home in Ebina City while intoxicated ‪at about 5:10 a.m.‬, the Kanagawa Shimbun reported Saturday.
Williams is assigned to the Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Depo at Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Navy officials said Saturday evening.
Williams was discovered after an unidentified 44-year-old man who lives in the home woke up to use the bathroom and heard water running, the Kanagawa Shimbun report said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but at least he smelled good while sitting in the Japanese jail after his shower.

This is a lot of garbage with no place to put it for now. Hopefully they don’t just decide to dump it in the ocean:

Part of some six-thousand tons of plastic garbage that was illegally exported to the Philippines has returned to South Korea.

A vessel carrying about one-thousand-200 tons of garbage arrived at 6:40 a.m. on Sunday at Pyeongtaek Port in Gyeonggi Province, three weeks after it departed from the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.

The garbage, mainly consisting of used batteries, electronic devices and medical waste, was exported to the Philippines in July of last year after a joint venture firm between the two countries reported the contents as synthetic plastic.

As the company that illegally exported the garbage failed to respond, the Seoul government used emergency funds to cover the transport cost to bring the garbage back.

The Environment Ministry said it will look inside a couple of containers to check the conditions and types of garbage on Thursday after the Lunar New Year holiday. The Pyeongtaek City government is expecting it will take about six months to dispose the garbage through due procedures.

KBS World Radio

The Japan Times recently had an editorial advising against getting tattoos and working in the english teaching industry Japan:

Reader PP is arriving in Japan soon to begin a stint as an assistant language teacher (ALT). He writes: “I am very interested in getting an irezumi (traditional tattoo) in Japan. Are there any artists that will tattoo a foreigner? If so, who and where? My interviewer for the teaching position tried to warn me that tattoos are a ‘no-no’. ”
He goes on to describe a story he heard about another ALT: The man had taken off his shirt to water some plants on his balcony, when a student’s parent happened to walk by and saw his tattoo-riddled back. The parent apparently called the school, claiming that they had hired a member of the yakuza — the Japanese mafia, who traditionally have tattoos. The ALT had to change jobs and cities as a result.

Japan Times

You can read the rest at the link, but this article got thinking what experiences English teachers in Korea have had with having tattoos?

So, it appears South Korea is already wired for takeover. https://t.co/9im3iP4Of0

— Edward Oh 🇺🇸 (@EdwardHBOh) February 1, 2019