The Kim regime keeps telling the Moon administration that it is time to forget the international community and just go ahead and break sanctions:

A senior North Korean official called on the two Koreas on Wednesday to go their own way without being swayed by outside influence in pushing for an ambitious inter-Korean project to modernize and reconnect railways and roads over their border. 
Kim Yun-hyok, the North’s vice railway minister, made the remarks at the project’s groundbreaking ceremony that the two Koreas jointly staged at Panmun Station in the North’s border town of Kaesong. 
“It is time to firm up our determination until we can hear the strong sound of a ‘reunification whistle’ and go forward without vacillation in the face of headwinds,” Kim said.
“Whether to make an achievement in the North-South railway and road project depends on our people’s determination and willingness. A unified federation that Korean people want cannot be realized ever if we mind how others think,” he added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The Japanese are now claiming that its patrol plane was targeted by the South Korean Navy ship multiple times which means this was likely no accident if true:

A diplomatic row between South Korea and Japan escalated for a third day since a South Korean destroyer allegedly locked its radar on a Japanese surveillance plane Thursday during an operation to rescue a distressed North Korean vessel.

A Japanese Defense Ministry official on Sunday said that the South Korean warship targeted a Japanese patrol plane “multiple times for several minutes using its attack-purpose radar.” He reiterated demands by Japan’s Minister of Defense Takeshi Iwaya a day earlier that Seoul apologize for what he called an “extremely dangerous act.”

Iwaya said that the South Korean Gwanggaeto the Great-class destroyer aimed its fire control radar at a Japanese P-1 patrol plane that was conducting surveillance operations over its waters near central Honshu on Thursday. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

The Moon administration is saying this all lies and that the Japanese government is using this distract domestic attention:

 

South Korea voiced “strong regrets” Monday over Japan’s repeated claim that its Navy ship directed fire-control radar at Tokyo’s patrol aircraft last week, a Seoul official said.
Korea’s foreign ministry expressed its view during director-general talks with Japan in Seoul.
“We have voiced strong regrets that Japan has unilaterally made its own claims to the media,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
“The two sides sufficiently explained their positions, but there appear to be gaps in their views. But we have agreed to continue communication going forward, if need be,” he added.
On Friday, Tokyo publicly accused a South Korean warship of having targeted its Maritime Self-Defense Force’s P-1 patrol aircraft on Thursday. 
Seoul rejected the claim, saying Tokyo misinterpreted its naval operation to help a North Korean ship drifting near a sea border in the East Sea. 
Despite Seoul’s denial, Tokyo has repeatedly raised the issue, sparking speculation that the Japanese government appears to be trying to divert attention from its waning public support.

Yonhap

Reading this Korean government statement has me wondering if the ROK Navy ship locked its weapons control radar on the Japanese aircraft to divert it from collecting intelligence on whatever they were doing with the North Korean ship.

I also find it ironic that the ROK government is claiming that the Japanese government is using the incident to divert domestic political attention when the ROK government regularly uses the Dokdo or comfort women issues to do the same thing.

Here is another statement from the ROK government that does not make sense:

South Korea’s Defense Ministry on Saturday dismissed the claims that its destroyer aimed its radar at the Japanese plane, and said that the ship had been carrying out routine operations at the time. A source within the South Korean Navy later clarified that the radar had been used to search for a North Korean vessel that had been marooned for several days off the peninsula’s east coast on Thursday. 

The South Korean Navy that day rescued three North Korean sailors off the distressed fishing boat and recovered one body. They were then handed over to the North across the demilitarized zone on Friday.

Though it acknowledged the South Korean navy had indeed been carrying out a search and rescue operation that day, Japan’s Defense Ministry refused to accept Seoul’s explanations over the use of the radar, saying it was not an appropriate instrument for a maritime search maneuver. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

As the Japanese Defense Ministry stated, a maritime search radar is different from the weapons control radar. The only explanation that makes sense is that the ROK Navy ship locked on the aircraft to divert it away from their operation with the North Korean vessel. The obvious next question is what was so sensitive about a supposed search and rescue mission that a ROK Navy ship did something as provocative as locking a weapons control radar on a Japanese patrol plane to divert it?

Or could this all just be simple incompetence by the ROK Navy?

I hope everyone has a great Christmas holiday this year. What says Christmas in Korea better than re-reading Chickenhead’s hilarious Twas the Night Before Christmas on the DMZ.

Anyone inside the People's Republic of #China should be "very scared" because #XiJinping is increasingly devoting the resources of the state to control, censor, imprison, and repress. https://t.co/hH9Xa8oWFL

— Gordon G. Chang (@GordonGChang) December 22, 2018

It seems like every week President Moon Jae-in’s approval rating continues to fall to a new low, however I don’t think it is low enough to really effect any change in his current North Korea policies yet:

President Moon Jae-in’s approval rating dropped to a record low last week, a poll showed Monday.

According to a survey by pollster Realmeter, 47.1 percent of the public said they approved of Moon’s performance, down 1.4 percentage points from last week. 

Amid an ongoing controversy over the alleged surveillance of civilians by Cheong Wa Dae, the approval rating fell to the lowest in three weeks, according to Realmeter. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but his approval rating continues to fall despite controlling most of the news media in South Korea and imprisoning and launching lawsuits against journalists that oppose him.

Here is an analysis piece in the Stars & Stripes about what the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis means for the US-ROK alliance:

Mattis didn’t mention South Korea, but his departure will deprive officials in Seoul of somebody they considered a voice of reason in the Trump administration. It also comes as the president’s surprise decision on Syria earlier this week underscored the unpredictability of U.S. foreign policy.
“It’s certainly going to cause concern, I think, in South Korea,” said Jenny Town, a Korea specialist at the Washington, D.C.-based Stimson Center. “Mattis is one of the few people they looked to for direction and reason in an administration where it has been often difficult to decipher what our policy is and where our relationship is going.”

She noted that Trump has said he may be willing to pull troops out of South Korea to save money.
“It’s hard to see where this goes until we have a better sense of who’s coming next, but it’s also hard to see that this move is going to improve relations both with our friends or our adversaries at this point,” Town said.

[Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but trying to equate withdrawing troops from Syria with withdrawing USFK is quite a stretch as speculated on later in the article. The US has treaty obligations with South Korea that cannot cause a quick troops withdrawal like what is expected in Syria.

Something that could lead to a partial US troop withdrawal in South Korea it is the ongoing US-ROK cost sharing negotiations. Another possibility to save money as well as send a message to North Korea if denuclearization talks are not going well, is restricting US military dependents from South Korea:

The friction escalated in January when Trump ordered Mattis to end the practice of allowing the family members of U.S. troops stationed in South Korea to accompany them during their deployments. But Mattis, with the assistance of chief of staff John Kelly, put off implementing the directive, say one defense official and one former administration official, angering Trump.
Trump repeatedly said he wanted to sign an order changing the policy on military dependents in South Korea, but Mattis and other officials, including Kelly, tried to stall him, according to three former officials. “It was kind of like a game of tag. There were plenty of other people, in addition to Mattis, who slow-walked that,” the former official said. The order was never implemented.
“He knows that he told them to do it and they didn’t do it,” another former senior White House official said.

NBC News via a reader tip

I guess we will see how all of this plays out over the next year.

Here is an article by a ROK Drop favorite and historian Robert Neff about how a US military unit in 1954 brought Christmas cheer to a group of Korean kids in post-war Korea:

For a soldier, Christmas is one of the hardest seasons to be away from family and friends but the military does its best, not only for its service members but also for the local community, to provide holiday cheer.

Through the lens of Corporal Marburger’s camera, we get a glimpse of what Christmas was like for an engineer unit and a group of Korean children in Seoul in 1954. 

Santa Claus’ arrival naturally drew a large crowd of children. For many of them, this was their first encounter with the jolly old man. Some were thrilled but others seemed terrified. 

Korea Times

You can read the whole thing and view many more historical pictures at the link.

However, I would imagine seeing a big fat foreigner dressed in red trying to grab you would be a pretty traumatic experience for a young Korean kid back then.

Korea’s smokers will now have even more gruesome images to look at every time they buy a pack of cigarettes:

Tougher anti-smoking warnings will be applied to cigarette packages from Sunday.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare said that it is replacing all the eleven graphic warnings on cigarette packs starting from Sunday. Tobacco companies will now have to insert new warnings on the packaging of cigarettes including electronic cigarettes.

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link.