Yep…finally got to the tank bar, following some neighborhood New Years receptions. All I can say is pictures do not do it justice. Definitely getting one for the retirement hacienda. Thanks @PatDonahoeArmy for the hospitality. pic.twitter.com/A5I45FTQIT
— Robert Abrams (@DogFaceSoldier) January 12, 2019
The NCO in this article was right to take this to a court martial because she was acquitted of all charges:
A senior noncommissioned officer accused of pointing a pistol at one soldier, calling another fat and improperly touching a third’s hair was acquitted of all related charges at her court-martial Wednesday.
Stars & Stripes
Sgt. 1st Class Jessica Barboza was found not guilty of dereliction of duty, maltreatment and disrespecting an NCO by a panel of nine male officers and senior NCOs. At least four of them had to agree to acquit.
“I’m relieved,” said Barboza, 35, of the 2nd NATO Signal Battalion in Naples, “I’m just grateful to the jury members.”
Criminal charges were brought against Barboza after she declined to accept nonjudicial punishment, following a command investigation into complaints about her more than a year ago.
“You won’t see these crimes on ‘Law & Order,’” prosecutor Capt. Mike Gerrity conceded in his closing argument. “But this is the military. Sergeant 1st Class Barboza failed to put her soldiers’ needs above her own.”
Testimony against her included that of two soldiers who said she’d pointed a 9 mm pistol at one of them during weapons training, which Barboza said wasn’t true. Another soldier said Barboza humiliated her by repeatedly calling her fat, while an African-American staff sergeant said Barboza had touched her hair without permission and then called it “nasty” when rebuked.
You can read the rest at the link, but the NCO basically said that these soldiers were out to get her because she is too gung-ho. She said that in the future she will try to be more sensitive.
Enjoy it while it lasts:
Domestic gasoline and diesel prices continued to drop for the tenth straight week.
KBS World Radio
According to Opinet, a Web site on oil price information run by the Korea National Oil Corporation, the average price of regular gasoline sold at filling stations nationwide fell an average 20 won per liter to one-thousand-355 won in the second week of January, the lowest in 34 months since March 2016.
The price of gasoline has dropped 335 won in the past ten weeks since late October.
The price of diesel for automotive fuel also fell more than 19 won in just one week to one-thousand-253 won per liter, the lowest since August 2017.
Over at the East Asia Research Center, Dr. Tara O has a posting up about a question to President Moon asked by reporter Kim Ye-ryeoung (김예령) who works Kyonggi Broadcast Corporation. Some believe this question is inappropriate to ask a President:
Reporter Kim Ye-ryeoung asked:
[You said you will] create a society in which a dragon emerges from a sewer [rags to riches], but I believe you know well that in reality, the public opinion is chilly. The reality is that the economy is stagnant. The people are suffering a lot. They have not given up hope, but they’re very anxious about the future. Related to this, Mr. president, you have emphasized ‘I’m looking at it very seriously.’ Despite this, Mr. President, [you] have not altered the basic direction of the policy and have not changed, and I’d like to know the reasons. I’m asking directly, where does that confidence come from and what is the basis for it?
President Moon replied:
I’ve spent the last 30 minutes of today’s press conference explaining why we need the current economic policy and that the sustainable growth is impossible without changing the structure, including polarization [the gap increasing between the high income and the low income groups] and inequality. For that we need to take whatever supplemental measures we need to take, but I already amply said why. On the contrary, we need to continue the current policy. I don’t feel we need a new answer.
Journalist Kim’s question has caused a controversy in South Korea.
East Asia Research Center
Various comments online have attacked her for being “rude” to ask such questions to President Moon while others cheered her for asking what has been on their minds. Here are some responses:
You can read the responses at the link, but the usual suspects have criticized her by calling her “drunk”, “defiant”, “incompetent”, and that she needs to “study more”. I don’t see what the problem is with asking the President why he won’t change a policy that is not working. I think the real anger is that since KBC is a privately owned news network the Korean left has been able to take control of it like they did with the public broadcasters.
Neither Seoul nor Pyongyang will pass up this opportunity to reinforce "Uri minjok kkiri" (By the Korean People Exclusively) kinship vs foreign imperialists of the past & imagined present. Pyongyang's narrative will be more restrained, as Kim Il Sung was all of 7 yrs-old in 1919. https://t.co/5XaMfniT7F
— Sung-Yoon Lee (@SungYoonLee1) January 11, 2019
Here is the latest on a second Trump-Kim summit:
United States President Donald Trump has reportedly proposed holding the second summit talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in mid-February in Vietnam.
KBS World Radio
Quoting a source familiar with the matter, Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun daily reported on Sunday that North Korea is reviewing the U.S. proposal and has yet to give a formal response.
The report said that Indonesia and Mongolia are also being mentioned as possible candidates, but Vietnam is actually being considered as a venue.
Yomiuri said the focus of the second summit, if held, would be how the two sides will reach agreement on the North’s steps for denuclearization and the corresponding measures by the United States.
It seems to me that Kim Jong-un would only show up to this summit if he felt that he is going to get something he wants like dropping sanctions for little to nothing in return. I guess we will see what happens.
I wonder how long it will be before these F-35’s are in a photo op flying over Dokdo?:
South Korea will acquire two stealth fighters from the United States in late March, allowing the country to fly the latest fifth-generation aircraft in the world, sources said Sunday.
Korea Times via a reader tip
The two F-35A jets will arrive in Seoul, and they will likely be assigned to combat units that defend the country starting in April or May, several insiders familiar with the matter said.
South Korea has agreed to purchase 40 F-35As in a 2014 contract. The jets are designed to evade detection and have the latest electronics suite that can allow them to be effective even in well defended airspace. A single plane is reportedly priced at around 120 billion won (US$107.5 million). Korea may buy 20 additional F-35s as the Air Force has requested more assets.
You can read more at the link.
I have maintained that the USFK cost sharing talks will likely only be resolved as part of a North Korea denuclearization deal. If President Trump signs a peace treaty to end the Korean War and drops sanctions on North Korea, the Moon administration will likely give him what he wants on the cost sharing deal:
As Seoul and Washington are currently deadlocked in negotiations to renew their bilateral defense cost-sharing agreement, the next level of talks will likely happen at a higher level.
Joong Ang Ilbo
“An 11th round of [the current] talks likely won’t be scheduled,” a high-level Korean government official told reporters Thursday. “Instead, it may be negotiated at a higher level.”
On the possibility of the deal on sharing the cost of stationing of U.S. troops in Korea then being negotiated between Korean President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump, the official said, “all possibilities are open.”
Since last March, Seoul and Washington have been negotiating the renewal of the bilateral Special Measures Agreement (SMA), a multiyear cost-sharing deal under the Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, to maintain the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK).
Chang Won-sam has led the Korean delegation for the 10th SMA, while the U.S. delegation has been led by Timothy Betts, acting deputy assistant secretary for plans, programs and operations at the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.
The tenth round of talks took place mid-December, but the two sides failed to narrow their differences before the current deal expired on Dec. 31. As the two sides have been unable to resolve their differences, diplomatic sources have indicated that the issue now needs to be solved by the two leaders.
The government official, however, said that “various channels of negotiations for the cost-sharing deal are being considered,” including between ambassadors, the Blue House National Security Office and White House National Security Council, as well as between South Korea’s foreign minister and U.S. secretary of state.
You can read more at the link.
