Local residents and policemen clash near the deployment site of a U.S. anti-missile defense system in Seongju, some 300 kilometers south of Seoul, on June 15, 2017. The residents have been blocking the roads with desks and other small furniture to stop the installation of the system, known as THAAD. Scuffles erupted when police tried to remove the blockage and ended 10 minutes after the police stepped back. (Yonhap)

This is a horrible murder committed in China by a deranged man upset with people having kids:

Chinese police said Friday that they think that a 22-year-old school dropout planted a homemade explosive device outside a kindergarten, killing eight people including himself.

Written on a wall near the school was a manifesto-style rant: “Giving birth is a crime,” it said, and added that India, China and Bangladesh will not “have a good end.”

The explosion took place at 4:48 p.m. Thursday outside the kindergarten in the city of Xuzhou in the eastern coastal province of Jiangsu, as mothers were gathered at the school gates to pick up their children.

There was speculation initially that the source of the blast might have been a gas cylinder from a streetside food vendor, but it now appears that the explosion is the latest in a long series of puzzling and disturbing attacks on schools in China in recent years, perpetrated by people with grievances against society or with mental health issues.

Although other attacks were aimed at young children, the manifesto, if confirmed to be written by the perpetrator, would suggest that mothers might have been the target.   [Washington Post]

You can read more at the link.

Here is an update from the anti-THAAD frontlines in Seongju county:

In Soseong-ri, a small farming village of about 80 residents in southern South Korea, a band of elderly women is at the forefront of protests against the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system next to their neighborhood.

A dozen or so women, in their 60s to 80s, stand watch each day around the clock to make sure no military vehicles enter the deployment site through the only road to it — a former golf course owned by a leading conglomerate, the Lotte Group.

The vigil has forced the U.S. military to use helicopters instead to shuttle fuel and supplies to the site hosting the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.  (………..)

The women, who brandish canes and umbrellas at the military helicopters and shout for them to go away every time one flies through the village, say they have no interest in the politics of the deployment.

But they protest, longing for the peace they had before.

“I can’t sleep. I’m taking sedatives at night but I still get only two hours of sleep,” said 87-year-old Na Wi-bun, who lives within a kilometer (0.62 mile) of the site and says she can hear the generator that powers THAAD humming around the clock.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link, but it is ironic they are complaining about noise when their protest is causing the noise.  The helicopters would not be flying if trucks were allowed to drive up the road to the site.  Also the generators as we have seen in with the radar site in Japan can be muffled and the noise ultimately eliminated when the radar is hooked up to commercial power.  However, if construction crews cannot drive up the road to hook up to commercial power then the noise will remain.

This is a horrible accident the USS Fitzgerald has been involved in that has caused 7 sailors to go missing and more injured:

The guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald suffered damage to its starboard side above and below the waterline in the incident.

Cmdr. Bryce Benson, commander of the Fitzgerald, was one of three injured sailors who needed to be flown to a naval hospital in Yokosuka, Japan.

The two ships collided about 2:30 a.m. local time in the Pacific Ocean about 56 nautical miles from the port of Yokosuka and 12 miles off the Izu Peninsula, the Japanese coast guard said.

The Fitzgerald had left the US naval base in Yokosuka earlier Friday for routine operations in the area, a US Naval Forces Japan spokesman said. The damage to the Fitzgerald resulted in some flooding.  [CNN]

Chilling to watch this: Video shows a happy Otto Warmbier before arrest, throwing snowballs with North Korean kids https://t.co/6xrzU6cPmq pic.twitter.com/2k5KWTspNL

— Anna Fifield (@annafifield) June 15, 2017

Bulls lock horns at the 18th Changwon Bullfighting Festival in the namesake city, 398 km southeast of Seoul, on June 16, 2017. (Yonhap)

The Navy has a new hide and seek champion:

An American sailor whose disappearance at sea last week prompted a search by American and Japanese ships of thousands of square miles (square kilometers) of ocean was found alive onboard his ship on Thursday, the U.S. Navy said.

The U.S. 7th Fleet said the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Peter Mims of Interlachen, Florida, were being investigated. It said Mims would be transferred to another ship for a medical evaluation and recommendations for follow-on care.

In a statement, the Navy did not comment on Mims’ condition or say where he was found on his ship, the guided missile cruiser USS Shiloh.

Mims disappeared last Thursday when the ship was in Japan’s southern waters and was believed to have fallen into the sea. A search was suspended Sunday after more than 50 hours of effort by the U.S. and Japanese navies and Japan’s coast guard.

The Navy said a search onboard the Shiloh continued, and Mims was located on Thursday.  [Associated Press]

I wonder if anything like this has ever happened before in the Navy because this is the first I have heard of something like this happening?

The deputy commanding general of the 2nd Infantry Division has his game face on as he receives an award from the 2ID commander Major General Martin:

A Korean two-star general has received a U.S. military award for his contribution to the ROK-U.S. Combined Division.

According to the Army, Thursday, Maj. Gen. Yin Sung-hwan, the commander of the 56th Infantry Division, got the Legion of Merit ― a decoration issued to members of the U.S. Armed Forces as well as to military personnel of foreign nations.

The Combined Division, comprised of the 2nd Infantry Division (2ID) of the Eighth U.S. Army and the 16th Brigade from the ROK Army, was established in 2015 to effectively contain North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction. Yin served as the deputy commander for one year. The division is headed by the 2ID commander.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the cable car from Osaek to near the summit of Mt. Sorak is now going to be come a reality:

A government arbitration commission on Thursday ruled in favor of a county in Gangwon province that has been planning to set up a cable car on a popular mountain range near the nation’s eastern coast.

In the ruling, the Central Administration Appeal Commission under the Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission called for the Cultural Heritage Administration to allow Yangyang County to build a cable car system on Mount Seorak.

The project calls for a 3.5-kilometer-long cable car system to be built in the southern region of Mount Seorak in Yangyang, some 215 kilometers east of Seoul, providing a means of convenient transportation all the way up to the peak of the Osaek area hiking course.

The cable car project has been a controversial issue among environmentalists here, who have argued that the mountain’s natural environment must be preserved.  [Yonhap]

I have not supportive of this cable car because of how the summit of the mountain is already over crowded with tourists leaving trash every where.  There are so many hikers already accessing the mountain that a lodge has been constructed to house them in near the summit.  Now there is going to be a cable car station to bring more tourists up the mountain which means that restaurants and shops will need to be constructed to service them as well.  The summit of the mountain is basically going to turn into the craziness that is Sorak-dong at the base of the mountain.

This is an artist’s rendering of a unified emergency bell which the Seoul government will install for women and children at public facilities, including public restrooms, parks and tunnels. (Photo courtesy of Seoul City) (Yonhap)