I guess we will see if North Korea has one more launch left in them this year:

Japan has detected the radio signals which indicate that North Korea may be preparing for a new missile launch, authorities announced on Tuesday.

The radio signals pointed to the North Korean Army’s possible launch of a ballistic missile “within the next few days”, reports Efe news.

However, the authorities said that at the moment no satellite has detected the deployment of any launching platform; hence these signals could be linked to the winter manoeuvers of the North Korean troops.

Meanwhile, a South Korean government source told Yonhap news agency on Tuesday that all the military intelligence agencies of Seoul, Tokyo and Washington have detected in recent days the radio signals such as those that had been detected before a launch.  [Business Standard]

You can read the rest at the link.

I am willing to bet that if a similar situation at the JSA were to play out again the North Koreans will probably commit bigger armistice violations by going across the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) and try to drag the defector back.  In such a case would the US and ROK troops shoot at them?  I hope this is a response the JSA guards are trained to execute if need be:

North Korea violated an armistice agreement with South Korea this month when North Korean soldiers shot and wounded a North Korean soldier as he defected across their border and it must not do so again, South Korea’s defense minister said on Monday.

The defector, a North Korean soldier identified only by his surname, Oh, was critically wounded but has been recovering in hospital in South Korea.

The incident comes at a time of heightened tension between North Korea and the international community over its nuclear weapons program, but the North has not publicly responded to the defection at the sensitive border.

South Korean Minister of Defence Song Young-moo issued his warning to the North while on a visit to the border where he commended South Korean soldiers at a Joint Security Area (JSA), in the so-called Truce Village of Panmunjom, in the demilitarized zone, for rescuing the defector.

A North Korean border guard briefly crossed the border with the South in the chase for the defector on Nov. 13 – a video released by the U.N. Command (UNC) in Seoul showed – a violation of the ceasefire accord between North and South at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

“Shooting towards the South at a defecting person, that’s a violation of the armistice agreement,” Song said.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link.

Using high-decibel speakers, SK starts to broadcast into NK re the defector who crossed the MDL. FM radio station "Voice of Freedom" broadcasting that he survived the mass shooting, is being treated at Ajou & was found to be suffering from malnutrition.https://t.co/RxTy4ontKr

— Noon in Korea (@NoonInKorea) November 26, 2017

Undeterred trekkers head toward the snow-covered Baekdudaegan, a trail of mountains that starts in North Korea and continues to Mount Jiri in South Korea’s southwest, on Nov. 26, 2017, from the entry point in PyeongChang, east of Seoul. Much of the city and its vicinity saw heavy snowfall overnight, up to 16.2 centimeters in some parts. (Yonhap)

Good luck trying to convince people this is a good idea:

Japan has still not come to a consensus on what to do with a million tons of nuclear water six years after their primary nuclear power plant in Fukushima was rocked by a tsunami.

The water stored in 900 large, dense, packed tanks on site could spill if another major natural disaster should strike, The Japan Times reported.

The government has been urged by experts to gradually release the water to the Pacific Ocean, as all the radioactive elements of the water except tritium—which has been said to be safe in small amounts—have been removed through treatment. But if the tank breaks, the contents may not be able to be controlled.

Local fishermen are extremely hesitant to this solution because many consumers are still uncertain to eat fish caught off Fukushima, despite tests that say the fish is safe to eat.

“People would shun Fukushima fish again as soon as the water is released,” Fumio Haga, a drag-net fisherman, told The Japan Times.  (……..)

Currently, the amount of radioactive water at Fukushima is still growing by 150 tons a day.  [Newsweek]

You can read more at the link.

Chung Yoo-ra is the 21-year old daughter of Choi Soon-sil who is currently imprisoned for using her connections to ex-President Park Geun-hye to enrich herself.  Chung was in the national media spotlight when she was on the run in Europe and ultimately extradited back to South Korea.  Since being extradited her arrest led to no new groundbreaking information and was released.  It looks like new trouble has found Chung as some guy has apparently tried to murder her:

The daughter of Choi Soon-sil, the high-profile confidant of former President Park Geun-hye, avoided possibly being murdered Saturday as police caught a man who had broken into into her home with the alleged intention of killing her.

Chung Yoo-ra, 21, saw a man, identified by his surname Lee, 44, break into her home in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, around 3 p.m.

Lee threatened a security guard at the entrance of her apartment building and forced him to lead him to her suite. Entering her home, he stabbed a man inside.

Police received a report about the break-in and stabbing and arrived at the scene, where they grabbed Lee. The unidentified victim was taken to a hospital where he received a treatment.

During police questioning Lee confessed that he has a monetary issue with Chung.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link.

The “grind down” strategy by China against the US Navy appears to be working judging by recent incidents:

In regard to China, in particular, neither the Obama nor the Trump administrations has shifted forces to the Pacific in sufficient enough numbers or capability, said James R. Holmes, professor of strategy at the US Naval War College.

“China has come to this commonsense realization, and understands that it can grind down adversary sea services just by being active in its ‘near seas,’ mainly the China seas,” said Holmes. “Imposing a swift ‘optempo’ on your opponent, meaning keeping him on the go all the time, wearies him over time. And while that hasn’t been a direct cause of this year’s mishaps, it does contribute to crew fatigue, cut down on training time, and thus exacerbate the factors our navy cited in its recent collision reports.”

In response, the Navy has two options, said Holmes. “We can build up our navy to a level where it can do all of these things without wearing out crews and hardware, or we can ‘pivot’ or ‘re-balance’ more of our forces to the Pacific theater.”

Holmes points out that while large, the 7th Fleet represents only a part of the US Navy. “If we can no longer overpower opponents in both the Atlantic and Pacific, then we need to make some hard choices about where to apply the bulk of our effort — and accept that that means accepting risk in the other theater.”  [CNN]

Report on Federico Tenga teaching Bitcoin course at North Korea's PUST: https://t.co/wVqSdEA5HM

— Curtis Melvin 커티스 멜빈 (@CurtisMelvin) November 24, 2017

Officials of South Korea’s peacekeeping troops and South Sudan take a photo on a downtown street in the city of Bor, South Sudan, on Nov. 24, 2017, after the installation of street lamps. Thirty solar-powered light-emitting diode lamps were erected along the street that marks the two countries’ friendship, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, which provided this photo. South Korea’s Hanbit unit has been engaged in U.N. peacekeeping operations in the African nation since 2013. (Yonhap)

The usual caveats apply when it comes to these unnamed sources out of North Korea because it is so hard to independently verify what they are saying.  This source could just be telling a journalist looking for a click bait headline what they want to hear:

An artificial earthquake caused by a North Korean nuclear test in September reportedly caused buildings to collapse and killed scores of people, including schoolchildren, South Korean media reported this week.

On Sept. 3, North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test, successfully detonating a hydrogen bomb — one that could fit onto an intercontinental missile (ICBM).

The blast produced two shallow earthquakes in the Punggye-ri region, where North Korea’s nuclear test facility is located, U.S. and Chinese government seismologists reported at the time. Authorities in Japan, South Korea and numerous nongovernment experts in the United States confirmed that the earthquakes were likely the result of a nuclear test.

An unnamed source, who recently visited a village about 8 kilometers from Punggye-ri, described the damage to the South and North Development (SAND), a research institute that works with defectors from the North, according to the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo.

The source said houses and a school collapsed in the village of Sindong-ri and that dozens of people were killed and injured, the paper reported.

“September 3 was a Sunday, but some 150 students were waiting in their classrooms to do some work,” the source said, according to Chosun Ilbo. “Casualties occurred when half of the school building crumbled.”  [Voice of America]

You can read more at the link, but if this is true the team at 38 North who analyze commercial satellite imagery should be able to confirm if there has been collapsed buildings in the days after the nuclear test. So far I have seen no reports from them confirming damaged buildings after the earthquake in North Korea.