Here is anecdote from this week’s US midterm elections:

Young Kim appeared certain to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday, becoming the first Korean-American woman to serve in Congress.

With 97 percent of the ballots counted, the 56-year-old Republican garnered 51.4 percent of the vote against 48.6 percent by Democrat Gil Cisneros in California’s 39th district.

If finalized, she will succeed outgoing Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The only other Korean-American to serve in Congress was Jay Kim, a Republican who represented California’s 41st district from 1993 to 1999.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but it should be no surprise that Young Kim is against President Trump’s executive order to end chain migration.

I have been suspecting that once the US mid-term elections were over that the White House would begin taking a harder line on North Korea’s denuclearization.  This meeting cancelation could be the first sign of it:

High-level talks between the U.S. and North Korea set for this week in New York have been postponed.

The U.S. State Department said Wednesday the meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the vice chairman of the North Korean ruling Workers’ Party Central Committee Kim Yong-chol on Thursday has been called off.

Without providing a reason, the department said the two sides will reconvene talks when their respective schedules permit, adding the U.S. remains focused on fulfilling the commitments agreed to by their leaders in June.  [KBS World Radio]

Yongsan US military base in central Seoul will be open to the public for the first time in 114 years to solicit South Korean public’s views on how to transform the base into a park. Yep and it seems like it’s open to Koreans only… https://t.co/icQEoMfqFs

— Minseon Ku (@minseon_ku) November 6, 2018

Nursing students hold candles during a ceremony at Tongmyong University in the southeastern port city of Busan on Nov. 6, 2018, as they make the Nightingale pledge. The pledge, named after Florence Nightingale, is a statement of principles for the nursing community. (Yonhap)

This is a lot of people to get rolled up all at once for drug crimes:

Two sailors are already heading to court-martial for using, possessing and distributing the hallucinogenic drug, while three are waiting to see whether they will be charged as well, according to 7th Fleet spokesman Lt. Joe Keiley.

Another 10 sailors with the Japan-based ship were administratively disciplined on LSD-related charges, Keiley said.

A 15th sailor was also disciplined, but that person was not assigned to the carrier’s reactor department.

It looks like Kim Jong-un is continuing his strategy of looking like a normal world leader by receiving presidents for state visits:

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un has received Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel with “magnificent” welcoming events, North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Monday, with Kim repeatedly stressing “the strategic and comradely friendship with Cuba.”

Diaz-Canel’s visit to North Korea marked the first by a Cuban president since former President Fidel Castro’s 1986 visit, though Diaz-Canel has traveled to North Korea before, meeting Kim Jong-un as Cuban vice president back in 2015.

According to the KCNA, Kim Jong-un and his wife Ri Sol-ju greeted Diaz-Canel and his wife Lis Cuesta Peraza at Pyongyang International Airport on Sunday.

Following a 21-gun salute from the Korean People’s Army, Kim and Diaz-Canel reviewed the honor guards of the KPA. The two leaders also took part in a car parade through the streets of Pyongyang to arrive at the Paekhwawon State Guest House, where the Cuban delegation would stay.  [Korea Times]

Could you imagine the precedent this would set for the tech companies if they have to pay taxes to every country where citizens use its services?  Users are already paying a fee to the Internet provider in the country that is being taxed:

South Korea is considering launching probes into global tech companies that have come under suspicion for not paying their dues, the government here said Wednesday.

The move comes amid growing criticism that global tech giants, including Google Inc. and Facebook Inc., have not properly paid their taxes to local authorities while generating profits every year.

“The government is aware that it is a problem that needs to be more actively addressed,” ICT Minister Yoo Young-min said during an annual audit with lawmakers. “The ministry is mulling over the launch of a joint investigation with the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Financial Services Commission and the Fair Trade Commission.”

The lawmakers at the gathering argued that the government should come up with countermeasures to properly deal with alleged wrongdoings by the multinationals if they do not follow local regulations.

“It is vital that an organization should be set up to come up with joint countermeasures against global companies that may not be paying their taxes here,” said Rep. Kim Kyung-jin, adding that it’s important to find out how much foreign companies make.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I think Dr. Tara O may be on to why the ROK government is looking at going after the tech companies:

Park Kwang-on, Deoburreo Minju Party, “asked” Google to remove 104 YouTube cases. When Google didn’t, he called Google Korea head for questioning re alleged tax evasion& alleged fake YouTube. High pressure tactics to suppress voices for freedom, rule of law, pro-ROK-US alliance https://t.co/QKZcsRkRaY

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) November 6, 2018

You can read more about the Moon administrations’ attempt to suppress conservative critics in South Korea at the below link.

https://www.rokdrop.net/2018/10/gordon-change-gives-address-to-the-national-press-club-on-south-korean-governments-attacks-on-freedom-of-speech/

China’s decision to put an estimated 1 million Muslims in internment camps is this year’s biggest religion story, in my opinion. https://t.co/30ZfUD9aG1

— Sigal Samuel (@SigalSamuel) November 2, 2018

Gen. Park Han-ki (L, back row in vehicle), chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Vincent Brooks (R, back row in vehicle), the outgoing commander of U.S. Forces Korea, review troops at a farewell ceremony for Brooks at the JCS headquarters in Seoul on Nov. 6, 2018. (Yonhap)

It is amazing to me that something so insecure was used to communicate with spies in Iran and China.  The US military gets non-stop information security training about using commercial websites and social media and here is American intelligence agencies operating an entire spy network on one:

Dozens of American spies were killed in Iran and China after a flawed communications service that allowed foreign foes to see what the agents were up to using Google, official sources have claimed.

Between 2009 and 2013 the US Central Intelligence Agency suffered a “catastrophic” secret communications failure in a website used by officers and their field agents around the world to speak to each other, according to a report in Yahoo News, which heard from 11 former intelligence and government officials about the previously unreported disaster.

“We’re still dealing with the fallout,” said one former national security official. “Dozens of people around the world were killed because of this.”

The internet-based communications platform was first used in the Middle East to communicate with soldiers in war zones and had not been intended for widespread use but due to its ease of use and efficacy, it was adopted by agents despite its lack of sophistication, the sources claimed.

Cracks only began to show when Iran, angered that the government under Barack Obama had discovered a secret Iranian nuclear weapon factory, went out with a fine tooth comb to find moles.

It discovered the existence of one of the websites used by US agents using Google. US officials believe that Iranian spies were able to use Google as a search tool to find secret CIA websites, unbeknown to those using them.

By 2011, Iran had infiltrated the CIA spy network and in May it announced that they had broken up a 30-strong ring of American spies.

Some informants were executed and others imprisoned as a result, the sources claimed.

This was corroborated by a report on ABC news at the time, which referred to a compromised communications system after a tip off from the CIA.