If anyone wants to get a dose of live North Korean cultural propaganda next month is your chance:

North Korea has selected two concert venues in South Korea for its proposed art performances celebrating the PyeongChang Winter Olympics next month, the unification ministry said Tuesday.

In a message sent to South Korea on Tuesday night, North Korea said its art troupe hopes to perform at the Gangneung Arts Center in Gangneung on Feb. 8 and at the National Theater of Korea in Seoul on Feb. 11, the ministry said.

Gangneung, a coastal city located about 260 kilometers east of Seoul, is one of the Olympic venues along with nearby PyeongChang.

North Korea said its delegation plans to cross the land border into South Korea on Feb. 6 for the concerts before returning home on Feb. 12, according to the message, which was released by the ministry.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

This explains a lot of why this North Korean soldier was in such a rush to defect across the DMZ:

A North Korean soldier who made a desperate dash across the border in November escaped after causing a person’s death, a South Korean newspaper reported Tuesday, quoting an unidentified intelligence official.

According to the report in newspaper Dong-A, the confession came from Oh Chung Sung—or Oh Chong Song, depending on the translation—over the course of a routine interrogation led by the the South Korean spy agency.

“I committed a crime in North Korea, which caused a death,” Oh reportedly said. Though South Korean media reported his comments about killing someone, the nature of the alleged crime was not clear.

The South Korean Ministry of Unification did not confirm the reports. “The investigation has not been completed yet,” a ministry spokesperson told reporters at a press conference, quoted in South Korean news agency Yonhap. “We cannot confirm specific details of the incident.” [Newsweek]

You can read the rest at the link, but it is not expected that the ROK will send the defector back to North Korea despite the murder.

https://www.rokdrop.net/2017/11/north-korean-soldier-who-defected-across-the-dmz-will-survive-but-was-in-very-poor-health-before-being-shot/

What did Lester Holt expect them to do?  He is on a choreographed tour of the Masik Ski Resort that the Kim regime has been heavily marketing.  The regime clearly wants this resort to be part of a future tour scheme to bring in foreign currency and NBC News is giving them free advertising:

NBC News’ Lester Holt arrived in North Korea over the weekend, broadcasting a segment from a ski resort that will soon host athletes from both North and South Korea training for the upcoming winter Olympics.

Holt is catching some flack for a statement he made during one report that aired on Monday. “We have been treated with respect here,” Holt said.

The statement has been used in promos for the clip.

North Korea notoriously keeps a strict lid on press inside the country, and it’s likely Holt’s broadcast was subject to tight rules and restrictions. Previous reports, like this one from VICE, have noted how certain elements of their trip seemed choreographed.

Holt even says during his broadcast that the ski resort “certainly a part [North Korea] would like us to see.”

The NBC team flew into the country from Beijing, China on North Korea’s state airline, Holt said. The security check at the airport in North Korea was so stringent that they checked novels people brought along to read, and even one crew member’s toothbrush.  [Business Insider]

South Korean woman faces criminal charges for calling Moon Jae-in a communist. https://t.co/zEd5ncYm6z

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) January 22, 2018

This combined photo carried by a North Korean state propaganda site, DPRK Today, on Jan. 22, 2018, shows Masikryong Ski Resort on the North’s east coast. Last week, South and North Korea agreed to conduct joint training for skiers there before the opening of the Feb. 9-25 PyeongChang Winter Olympics in the South. (Yonhap)

Considering that the vast majority of the pollution is coming from China I doubt banning cars will make much of difference while highly inconveniencing the public:

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon said Sunday that his government would seek the power to ban vehicles based on license plate number during days with bad air pollution to reduce the number of cars running on city roads.The Seoul Metropolitan Government plans to request an amendment to the enforcement ordinance of the Clean Air Conservation Act that will allow city mayors and provincial governors to issue a directive that bans cars with even- or odd-numbered license plate numbers from operating on certain days with bad pollution.

The request will be sent to the Ministry of Environment, which has the authority to amend the enforcement ordinance.

“The ban will, in effect, be carried out by the local governments of Seoul and surrounding areas,” said Lee Byung-chul, head of the Seoul government’s air quality policy team. “It cannot be carried out by Seoul alone. We have yet to determine the exact system of how we would enforce the ban, such as having checkpoints to stop odd- or even-numbered license plates from entering the capital area, or whether to utilize police and CCTV cameras to enforce the ban.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Via a reader tip comes this news that the Blue House would like everyone to show respect towards North Korea during the upcoming Winter Olympics:

South Korea’s presidential office Cheong Wa Dae called on the public Tuesday to show more respect to all countries that will participate in the upcoming Winter Olympic Games, including North Korea, one day after a group of conservative activists staged a violent protest against the communist state.

“North Korea too is a participating country and we ought to respect it as we would respect all the others,” a ranking Cheong Wa Dae official told Yonhap News Agency.

The official added that the presidential office was set to release an official commentary on the issue.

The move comes one day after the South Korean activist group staged a protest rally in front of Seoul train station as a visiting North Korean delegation arrived there following its overnight visit to Gangneung, 240 kilometers east of Seoul, to inspect possible venues for a musical performance before or during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games.  [Korea Times]

I would like to know what is there to respect about the Kim regime?  Should Apartheid South Africa have been respected?  As bad as Apartheid was it was nothing compared to human rights violations and threats to world peace posed by the Kim regime and they were banned from the Olympics.

ROK citizens should have the right to show their displeasure with the Kim regime.  It will be interesting to see how the Moon administration tries to clamp down on protesters during the Winter Olympics.

Former President Lee Myung-bak is pictured in front of his office in Seoul on Jan. 22, 2018, amid reports that posecution investigators raided the residence and office of Lee Sang-deuk, an elder brother of the former president, as part of a probe into allegations that the elder Lee accepted illicit money from the state spy agency. (Yonhap)

The free agency in international sporting competitions continues to grow:

An American forward is set to play for South Korea men’s national basketball team, having completed the naturalization process on Monday.

Ricardo Ratliffe, who plays for the Seoul Samsung Thunders in the Korean Basketball League (KBL), passed his citizenship interview with the Ministry of Justice for special naturalization in the area of sports. He will be now eligible to play for the national team.

Ratliffe, a Virginia native, is considered one of the top foreign players in the KBL. The 28-year-old won the league championship in three consecutive seasons with Ulsan Mobis Phoebus from 2012 to 2015, before moving to the Thunders.

For the last six seasons, Ratliffe averaged 18.3 points and 10.3 rebounds per game. He also won the KBL’s top foreign player award twice.

Ratliffe is the fourth foreign basketball player to earn South Korean citizenship through the special naturalization process, following Moon Tae-young, Moon Tae-jong and Kim Han-byeol. However, since the previous players all had South Korean mothers, Ratliffe is the first naturalized player not of Korean descent  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

A typical North Korean gasoline coupon, good for 15 kilos (it’s a long story) at any of the locations listed on the back for one year. Today’s price was $1.8667. pic.twitter.com/a0lb3Iuf3U

— eric talmadge (@EricTalmadge) January 21, 2018