The only conviction to stick to Lee Jae-yong was sponsoring equestrian training for Choi Soon-sil’s daughter:

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong was released Monday after an appellate court handed him a suspended sentence dismissing most of the key charges against him in a bribery and corruption scandal that led to the ouster of former President Park Geun-hye last year.

The Seoul High Court sentenced Lee to 2 1/2 years in prison with a stay of execution for four years. He was immediately freed from a nearly yearlong incarceration.

Two former group executives were also released on suspended sentences. They were given four-year jail terms by the lower court.

Lee, 50, was arrested on Feb. 17, 2017 on five charges, including bribery, embezzlement and hiding assets overseas.

A lower court sentenced him to five years in prison, on Aug. 25, for giving 8.8 billion won (US$8.1 million) in bribes to Park and her confidante, Choi Soon-sil, in return for government backing of the merger of two key Samsung units, a process that was deemed vital to tighten Lee’s control of South Korea’s biggest conglomerate. The prosecution had demanded 12 years in prison for Lee.

But the appeals court acknowledged as bribes only some 3.6 billion won which Samsung sent to Choi’s German-based firm to sponsor the equestrian training of her daughter, Chung Yoo-ra.

The court found Lee “passively” complied with Park’s request to sponsor the former dressage rider after he was apparently intimidated by Park and Choi.  [Yonhap]

Here is the strangest thing about the court ruling:

But the appeals court acknowledged as bribes only some 3.6 billion won which Samsung sent to Choi’s German-based firm to sponsor the equestrian training of her daughter, Chung Yoo-ra.

The court found Lee “passively” complied with Park’s request to sponsor the former dressage rider after he was apparently intimidated by Park and Choi.

What did former President Park tell him that was so intimidating that is what I want to know?

Here is the cost so far of paying off the Kim regime to attend the Winter Olympics:

The government had already diverted more than W250 million from the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund as of Thursday to help North Korea take part in the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang (US$1=W1,072).

That is expected to snowball once all 500 members of a massive cheerleading squad, an orchestra, and a Taekwondo demonstration team arrive here around the time the Olympics open.

The government is not saying what the money has been spent on, despite fears that its support could violate UN and U.S. sanctions against the North Korean regime.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but this is likely just the tip of the iceberg of the money spent on the Kim regime to attend the Winter Olympics to essentially prevent them for causing provocations during the games.

I guess if Apartheid South Africa had moved forward with developing a nuclear program and threatened to nuke everyone they could have not only attended the Olympics, but had the red carpet rolled out for them and had someone else pay to compete in the games.

For me there is absolutely nothing surprising about this news:

North Korea violated United Nations sanctions to earn nearly $200 million in 2017 from banned commodity exports, according to a confidential report by independent U.N. monitors, which also accused Pyongyang of supplying weapons to Syria and Myanmar.

The report to a U.N. Security Council sanctions committee, seen by Reuters on Friday, said North Korea had shipped coal to ports, including in Russia, China, South Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam, mainly using false paperwork that showed countries such as Russia and China as the coal origin, instead of North Korea.

The 15-member council has unanimously boosted sanctions on North Korea since 2006 in a bid to choke funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, banning exports including coal, iron, lead, textiles and seafood, and capping imports of crude oil and refined petroleum products.

“The DPRK (North Korea) is already flouting the most recent resolutions by exploiting global oil supply chains, complicit foreign nationals, offshore company registries and the international banking system,” the U.N. monitors wrote in the 213-page report.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link, but announcing that North Korea is violating UN sanctions is like saying the sky is blue.

Every Olympic athlete will walk away with a spiffy new Samsung smartphone and some Nike gear—except for N. Korea's athletes, because sanctions. Sad.https://t.co/sYXbsVJhLh

— Jonathan Cheng (@JChengWSJ) February 3, 2018

It seems like Korean far left is attempting to try and implement their long alleged plan to confederate with North Korea on the terms of the Kim regime:

The fiasco of the ruling Democratic Party correcting its outline of a rewrite of the 1987 Constitution a few hours after its release raises serious concerns about the liberal party’s real motive for pursuing constitutional reform. In its original outline, the party removed the word “free” from Article 4, which defines the national policy direction of pursuing peaceful unification based on basic free democracy principles. The party restored the word “free” four hours later after the outline’s release and claimed it was a typographical error. But skepticism lingered.

The issue of leaving out the word “free” from the democratic order has long been disputed among liberal scholars. As the party’s floor spokeswoman Je Youn-kyung explained, a reunified Korea may not be able to stick to its political system of free democracy once it becomes one with North Korea, which has lived under a socialist system for more than a half a century. The unified Koreas may have to choose a different or unique hybrid system of free or socialist democracy with respect to North Koreans. The constitutional reform drafted by an advisory commission of the National Assembly, which also stirred controversy over being left-leaning, also took out the word “free” in its proposal.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but I think this was clearly a trial balloon by the Korean far left to see what the reaction would be.  The Korean far left also want to change the make up of the national parliament to get more left wing politicians inside of it.  Finally, they are pushing to make the South Korean presidency a four year term with the option for a four year reelection.  The Korean far left likely knows that they likely need at least eight years of ROK governmental control to completely transform the government and thus why they are pushing for this.

I guess we will see in the coming months if the ROK public wants to embrace these leftist policies.

Here is an interesting read about Stephen Bradner the former advisor to 14 different USFK commanders.  He retired from his position in 2013 and unfortunately passed away last month at age 86:

Bradner returned to the US in 1961 to earn a Harvard master’s degree in Asian Studies. He returned to Korea in 1964 to begin a career of nearly 50 years as a civilian employee of the US government. Starting as an intelligence analyst for the US Army, Bradner worked his way up until in 1973 he became deputy special advisor to the US Army 4-star general in command of both UN Command and US Forces in Korea.

As Michael Breen, author of “The New Koreans” later recalled, “When I first met Steve back around 1986, I showed his business card to a politician friend who was running [then-opposition leader] Kim Dae-jung’s camp. He got quite excited, and put on a whispered voice, although there was no need to, and said, ‘He is the most powerful man in Korea!’”  [Asia Times]

You can read more at the link.

Jon Dunbar from the Korea Times had a fun night in jail at the Trump Hotel in Naju:

The hotel, newly opened in July, has a glitzy neon exterior. And a prison cell theme room! What could they be thinking? I had to stay there myself.

So the next available weekend, I filled up my cats’ bowls and headed south, mum to friends about my destination.

Trump Hotel is a short walk from the station, right next to a Lotte Mart. Unsure how it works, I entered the building and took the elevator to the third floor, only to find no lobby. I met owner Hur Jung-oun, his wife Kim Hyo-won and Hur’s brother and co-owner Jun-chul and they kindly helped me check in. I got my wish, the prison cell room, for only 55,000 won. I did not identify myself or reveal intentions to write an article.

Guests are expected to enter through the garage, where they get a private parking spot and can walk up a short flight of stairs to the room and a check-in system. But non-drivers are welcome too. The garage displays the hotel logo — a bunch of playing cards. A reference to Trump’s failed casinos?

Once I was alone in the room, I pulled out my camera and took pictures of everything. Trump bathrobes, Trump bed sheets, Trump hairdryer and, of course, the prison bars. They were real metal and if you brought your own padlock you could lock someone in there. I imagined waking up in the morning to find myself locked in.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Feb. 8 expected to be ‘Big Day’ for peace on Korean Peninsula https://t.co/NoEpk3nf4P

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) February 3, 2018

Woo Sang-hyun (R), head of W Hospital, raises the transplanted arm of Sohn Jin-wook during a press conference on the first anniversary of the successful transplant at the hospital in Daegu, 302 km southeast of Seoul, on Feb. 2, 2018. Woo performed the country’s first arm transplant a year ago. (Yonhap)

The Korean left wing newspaper of choice, the Hankyoreh is extremely concerned about a US pre-emptive strike on North Korea:

According to Cha’s Washington Post piece, some ultra-hardliners have argued that the risk of endangering the lives of the 230,000 Americans living in South Korea if the bloody nose strategy escalates is worth taking in terms of “long-term interests” and the “safety of Americans living in the continental US.” The fates of 50 million South Koreans don’t even warrant a mention.The reason hardline voices have gotten so much louder in the White House lately has much to do with the discussions occurring between South and North Korea for the Pyeongchang Olympics. It appears to be an attempt to stop a climate of reconciliation from forming on the peninsula.

Given their lack of faith in denuclearization, they seem to believe the North Korean nuclear program will become irreversible if reconciliation occurs at a time of intensifying sanctions. Meanwhile, the Russia scandal is raising the possibility that Trump not only faces a difficult road to re-election but could end up impeached. Depending on how the mid-term elections in November turn out, he could find himself a lame duck.

This raises the troubling question of whether he might consider a strike against North Korea as a way out of his domestic political crisis. Indeed, White House National Security Council senior director for Asian affairs Matthew Pottinger reportedly said in a recent closed-door meeting with US experts on Korean Peninsula issues that a limited strike on the North might help in the midterm elections.  [Hankoryeh]

It seems to me the logic of this article does not add up.  If a pre-emptive strike leads to a bloody war with millions of people dead that will not help President Trump in the mid-term elections.  However, if the pre-emptive strike is successful that will help in the mid-term elections.  It almost seems like the Korean left is more concerned that the pre-emptive strategy could work thus boosting President Trump’s political chances, than doing anything to stop North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons.