Here is another case of people being caught smuggling gold into South Korea in their underwear:
The gold bars and the underwear two Vietnamese flight attendants working for Asiana Airlines attempted to smuggle into the country. /Courtesy of the Korea Customs Service
Two Vietnamese flight attendants working for Asiana Airlines, Korea’s second largest carrier, have been detained after trying to smuggle 19 kilograms of gold into the country, the Korea Customs Service (KCS) said Thursday.
According to the KCS Incheon office, the attendants were concealing 1-kilogram-gold bars ― 10 on one and nine on the other ― in their underwear when they arrived at Incheon International Airport on June 5 from Vietnam.
The KCS said this was not their first smuggling attempt, saying it has confirmed that the two succeeded in smuggling 13 kilograms of gold into Korea on three occasions in April.
They will face charges of attempting to smuggle 32 kilograms of gold, worth about 1.5 billion won ($1.33 million), into the country. Â [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but I wonder if the flight attendants were dressed like this?
Here the latest on the medical status of Otto Warmbier after his release from a North Korean prison:
A man believed to be Otto Warmbier was transferred from an airplane to an ambulance at Lunken Airport in Cincinnati on Tuesday.
An American college student who was imprisoned in North Korea and returned to his home state of Ohio in a coma suffered a “severe neurological injury,” a hospital spokeswoman said Thursday.
Otto Warmbier is in stable condition at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center with his mother by his side, hospital spokeswoman Kelly Martin said. Doctors planned an update later Thursday.
His father, Fred Warmbier, said he does not believe North Korea’s explanation that the coma resulted from botulism and a sleeping pill. He said there was no reason for North Korea to keep his 22-year-old son’s condition a secret and deny him top medical care.
Fred Warmbier called his son’s return bittersweet.
“Relief that Otto is now home in the arms of those who love him and anger that he was so brutally treated for so long,” he said at a news conference at Wyoming High School, where Warmbier graduated in 2013 as class salutatorian and played soccer. Blue-and-white ribbons in the school’s colors were tied around the trees and utility poles all the way along the city’s main road in a show of support.
To honor his son, Fred Warmbier wore the same jacket Otto wore when North Korea presented him before the media in March 2016 at an event where he tearfully confessed that he tried to steal a propaganda banner while visiting the country.
Fred Warmbier said that he doesn’t know why North Korea released his son but that the country doesn’t do anything out of “the kindness of their hearts.” He called on the country to release other Americans currently held there.
“There’s no excuse for the way the North Koreans treated our son,” he said.
Warmbier also accused North Korea of luring Americans to the country with a Chinese tour company making the false promise they will never be detained. Â [Associated Press]
You can read more at the link, but I don’t buy the botulism claim either considering the North Koreans are saying he went into a coma the day after his sentencing.
That leads me to believe one of two things happened; a guard could have possibly struck him in the head which the New York Times is reporting that US intelligence have reports of him being beaten. Â Another possibility is maybe he was so depressed from a 15 year jail sentence and beatings that he had a botched suicide attempt? Â Either way the Kim regime is responsible for what happened and should be held accountable for it.
There were reports out there that Kim Jong-nam was running short on cash in Macau so a US intelligence agency trying to take advantage of this seems possible. Â It also seems very possible that this would give Kim Jong-nam the excuse he needed to take out his brother as well:
KIM Jong Nam’s alleged ties with a US intelligence agency contact may have been the reason behind his spy novel-like assassination, Malaysian authorities said.
According to Japanese daily The Asahi Shimbun, Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was carrying US$120,000 when he was killed in February at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (klia2) and is believed to have received the money from the contact.
Malaysian investigators said Jong Nam had met with an American man who is believed to have links with a US intelligence agency during his eight-day trip in the Southeast Asian country. This, they said, may have prompted North Korea to silence Jong Nam.
Quoting unnamed sources, The Asahi Shimbun report said Jong Nam received the money during his time in Malaysia and had not planned to declare the cash when leaving the country. The authorities also said there were no records of Jong Nam making any large cash withdrawals from Malaysia.
A check of Jong Nam’s belongings, however, revealed wads of cash – all in US currency and in four bundles of US$100 bills – in his black carry-on bag,  [Asian Correspondent]
I think the President of the KATUSA Veterans Association makes a good point that South Korea is lucky that the abrupt cancellation of a concert recognizing 2nd Infantry Division troops has not received media attention in the US:
Kim Jong-wook
The recently disrupted concert meant to celebrate a key U.S. military unit’s centennial could trigger a bout of anti-Korean sentiment in the United States, a keen observer told The Korea Times Wednesday.
“We should put ourselves in their shoes,” Kim Jong-wook, president of the KATUSA Veterans Association, said. “Naturally, they would feel unappreciated for their service. After all, they are here, being a half world away from home, to defend Korea.”
On Saturday, Uijeongbu, the city north of Seoul, which is home to the U.S. Army 2nd Infantry Division, hosted a farewell concert for its members ahead of its centennial in October. Most of the Korean performers canceled their participation after receiving a flood of protests triggered by NGOs.
The civic groups demanded the singers stay away, arguing that the concert was preempted by the 15th anniversary of two Korean girls who were crushed to death by a U.S. armored vehicle in 2002.
“If the American public find out about what happened, I would have little doubt that they would want their children home,” Kim said. Â [Korea Times]
You can read the rest at the link, but I don’t see this story getting any traction either in the US because all the American media cares about now is anything with the word Russia and Trump in it.
This makes me wonder how many drones have successfully completed their reconnaissance missions over South Korea?:
THAAD site on former South Korean golf course outside of Seongju.
A North Korean drone found last week by a South Korean civilian had spied on the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) antimissile site in Seongju County, North Gyeongsang, before crashing into a mountain in Inje, Gangwon, on its way back to the North, according to local military officials.
The drone had traveled at least 270 kilometers (168 miles), the distance between the demilitarized zone and Seongju, to reach the Thaad field.
The South Korean military had not known about the flight until an Inje resident retrieved the drone from a mountain last Thursday at 11 a.m. and reported it to authorities the following day.
“Around 10 photos were found in the Japan-made Sony camera attached to the drone,” said a South Korean military official Monday, who embargoed the story until Tuesday. The photos of Thaad, he said, were among “several hundred,” which mostly featured mountains and civilian areas.
Local officials had to restore the camera because it was initialized, or formatted, by the time they got it. Further analysis was underway.
The South Korean military said the drone had started taking photos from the north side of Seongju all the way down to the south, then continued as it flew back towards North Korea. Â [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but these drones are so cheap to make it seems like the Kim regime can just keep sending them over the DMZ until they are successful at capturing the imagery they want.  It looks like the US military needs to consider getting one of these systems to counter North Korea’s drones.
Via a reader tip comes this news of the murder of high rise building window worker:
A 41-year-old man was arrested for murder in Yangsan this morning after he cut a worker’s safety cord because the music playing from his cell phone was “too loud”.
Yangsan police say the man went to the top of the 15 story apartment and cut the two men’s safety cord with a knife at 8:13 a.m. this morning who were applying silicon sealant on a 12th floor window.
A 46-year-old worker plunged to his death, while a 36-year-old worker survived as his rope wasn’t completely cut. [Busan Haps]
You can read the rest at the link, but unsurprisingly the suspect who cut the cord was an unemployed drunk.
Via reader tip comes this story of a Yonsei University professor injured by a homemade bomb. Â Hopefully this professor was not too seriously injured and is able to recover quickly:
A special police force unit enters Engineering Hall 1 at Yonsei University in western Seoul on Tuesday after a homemade bomb detonated in a professor’s office on the fourth floor. [YONHAP]A homemade bomb containing screws, gunpowder and batteries went off at Yonsei University in western Seoul on Tuesday morning, injuring a professor after he opened the mysterious box that had been left hanging on the doorknob of his office door.The professor, surnamed Kim, who works at the School of Mechanical Engineering, arrived at his office on the fourth floor of Engineering Hall 1 on Tuesday morning and found a paper bag hanging on the doorknob to his office. Inside was a box.
Kim brought the bag into his office, took out the box, and opened it. The bomb went off immediately. It was around 8:40 a.m.
He suffered first and second degree burns on his wrist, arm, chest and neck, and was treated at Severance Hospital next to the university campus.
About 70 police officers were dispatched to the university. They quarantined Engineering Hall 1, but did not find any more bombs and ended the quarantine at 1 p.m.
The culprit was not identified as of Tuesday afternoon. Police have begun examining the CCTV camera footage from the building, but said the scope of the two cameras on the fourth floor of the building does not entirely cover the door to Kim’s office.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but don’t bother because the article speculates whether this was an ISIS terrorist attack. Â I doubt ISIS has a mechanical engineering professor at Yonsei University high on their hit list. Â This more than likely had to have been linked to a disgruntled student.
Here is a picture of the homemade bomb:
This photo provided by a Yonhap reader shows the explosive device that went off at a Yonsei University campus building on June 13, 2017. A professor suffered minor burns from the blast traced to a delivered parcel that was left outside his office. Witnesses said they saw nails fly in the air when the parcel exploded. (Yonhap)
Hopefully authorities are able to get fingerprint or other physical evidence from the bomb fragments.
