Britney Spears performs at her first concert in Korea to a 18,000-seat full house audience at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul on June 10, 2017. The last time she visited Korea was in December 2003 to promote her fourth album. (Photo provided by iMe KOREA) (Yonhap)

Here is the latest on Dennis Rodman’s trip to North Korea:

Mr. Rodman declined to say whether he had spoken about the trip with Mr. Trump, who four years ago endorsed Mr. Rodman’s visiting North Korea.

“Well, I’m pretty sure he’s pretty much happy with the fact that I’m over here trying to accomplish something that we both need,” Mr. Rodman said, as reported by The A.P.

Mr. Trump spoke to Fox News in 2013 about Mr. Rodman and North Korea, a year in which Mr. Rodman also appeared on his “Celebrity Apprentice” show. “Maybe Dennis is a lot better than what we have,” he said.

Suzanne DiMaggio, a director and senior fellow at the New America think tank who had been involved in unofficial talks with North Korea, said on Twitter that there was a “high probability” of communication between the Trump administration and Mr. Rodman.  [New York Times]

You can read more at the link, but the media’s interpretation of President Trump’s comments four years ago about Rodman’s trip to North Korea I think are not interpreted correctly.  Trump was clearly taking a shot at President Obama by claiming that Rodman was a better diplomat than what the State Department had to offer.  To link those comments to Trump than actually using Rodman in a diplomatic role I think is a stretch.

This latest Rodman trip I think was arranged by the Kim regime to take media attention away from their treatment of American detainee Otto Warmbier who they just happened to release the same time as Rodman’s visit.

Here is another one of those only in North Korea stories:

University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier has been medically evacuated from North Korea in a coma after being detained for 17 months, his parents told The Washington Post on Tuesday.

Warmbier, 22, is due to arrive home in Cincinnati on Tuesday evening, having been evacuated through a U.S. military base in Sapporo, Japan.

Warmbier has been in a coma for more than a year, since shortly after his last public appearance during his trial in Pyongyang in March 2016.

“Our son is coming home,” Fred Warmbier told The Post on Tuesday morning after Otto Warmbier was evacuated. “At the moment, we’re just treating this like he’s been in an accident. We get to see our son Otto tonight.”  [Washington Post]

You can read much more at the link, but readers my remember Warmer was the guy who visited North Korea and tried to steal a Kim regime propaganda poster off the hotel wall and received a 15 year prison sentence.  The sentencing was obviously completely inappropriate for the crime, but like I have said repeatedly that is the risk that any American going to North Korea takes and why no one should travel there.

With that said I hope Warmbier is able to recover from the botulism he received while in captivity likely from food poisoning.  It is horrible that the Kim regime allowed Warmbier to be in coma for a year before having him released for proper medical treatment.  Additionally the Kim regime is now trying to take media attention away from their treatment of Warmbier by allowing top US diplomat to North Korea Dennis Rodman to visit North Korea at the same time.

Ian Buruma a very notable author in regards to Asian affairs had this to say in the New Yorker about the US military presence in South Korea and Japan:

The problem is that the existing order, put in place by the United States after the Second World War, might be exactly what hampers efforts to thicken that web. In a sense, America is experiencing the dilemmas typical of an empire in its twilight years. Imperial powers in the middle of the twentieth century used to argue that they couldn’t withdraw as long as their colonial subjects were not ready to rule themselves. But, as the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan once explained to a rather baffled William F. Buckley, Jr., the continuance of colonial rule would not make them more ready. If the United States were to give up its policing duties in Asia too quickly, chaos might ensue. The longer its Asian allies remain dependent on U.S. military protection, however, the harder it will be for them to take care of themselves.

The most desirable way to balance the rising power of China would be the creation of a regional defense alliance stretching from South Korea to Burma. Japan, as the leading economic and military power, would be the logical choice to lead such a coalition. This would mean, in an ideal world, that Japan should revise its pacifist constitution after a national debate, led not by a government of chauvinistic revanchists but by a more liberal administration. But we do not live in an ideal world. Abe’s revisionism (he has currently set 2020 as a deadline for the amended constitution) is unlikely to achieve its aims in Japan. Most Japanese are no keener than most Germans to play a major military role once again. And as long as Japanese leaders insist on whitewashing their country’s recent past they will never persuade other countries in the region to trust them.

This is the status quo that dependence on the United States has frozen into place. As much as Abe’s government wishes to remain under the American military umbrella, the American postwar order, including the pacifist constitution, still inflames right-wing resentment. Yet Washington, and especially the Pentagon, which shapes much of U.S. policy in East Asia, has consistently supported conservative governments in Japan, seeing them as an anti-Communist bulwark. Meanwhile, as long as the United States is there to keep the peace, the governments of Japan and South Korea will continue to snipe at each other, instead of strengthening their alliance.  [The New Yorker]

You can read much more at the link, but Buruma’s comments are based on a book he reviewed titled “Avoiding War with China: Two Nations, One World” by Amitai Etzioni.  This analysis seems pretty accurate, does anyone disagree with it?

Co-hosting the World Cup would be the ultimate propaganda win for North Korea because it legitimizes the Kim regime and can be used to show how the world is groveling in awe of the Kim regime’s nuclear and ICBM programs which should be perfected by then:

South Korea will face roadblocks in its bid to bring the world’s greatest football competition to Northeast Asia.

In his meeting with FIFA chief Gianni Infantino on Monday, President Moon Jae-in suggested forming a regional bloc with communist North Korea and other Northeast Asian countries to jointly host the FIFA World Cup in 2030.

According to the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, Infantino said there will likely be “difficulties,” but also said such a vision itself “can be a very powerful message.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

This is an aerial view of the Hwaseong Dream Park, a youth baseball complex in Hwaseong, west of Seoul, that opened on June 9, 2017. The 242,000-square-meter complex, Asia’s biggest, houses eight ballparks, including four for players in elementary school and one for female players. (Yonhap)

Report: Slain Kim Jong Nam was carrying $120,000 cash https://t.co/biT1UVCDIQ

— UPI.com (@UPI) June 12, 2017

Here is the latest country to jump on the global warming bandwagon:

North Korea has accused U.S. military and environmental policies of causing climate change and producing pollution around the world.

In a scathing report cited Friday by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the state-run Institute for International Studies of the DPRK (an acronym for the country’s official title: the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea), asserted that the U.S.’s use of nuclear weapons, involvement in foreign conflicts and style of production had most harmed the environment since the Cold War. The study, attributed to researcher Kim Kum Hui and titled “The U.S. Is Chiefly to Blame for Global Environmental Pollution,” advised the U.S. to change course and safeguard the environment.

“All facts clearly show that the U.S. is not only a ringleader which spawned global warming threatening the human existence and future of the earth but the enemy of mankind driving into an irretrievably catastrophic consequences by disturbing even the worldwide efforts to prevent it,” the article read.

“If the U.S. continues swimming against the trend of the times protecting the global environment, it will not escape from the stern judgment of mankind,” the piece added  [Newsweek]

You can read more at the link.

This is yet another example of how empowered the anti-American left currently is in South Korea:

Korean singers on Saturday boycotted a government-backed concert for United States Forces Korea troops after workers and netizens revived a bitter episode involving the American military.

The municipal government of Uijeongbu in Gyeonggi Province organized the concert to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 2nd Infantry Division, which is stationed in the city.

USFK commander Vincent Brooks, the 8th U.S. Army commanding general Lt. Gen. Thomas Vandal, 50 officers and 400 soldiers as well as more than 3,000 civilians attended the free concert at the Uijeongbu Sports Complex.

But the musicians invited ― including soloist Insooni, K-pop bands EXID, Oh My Girl, Sweet Sorrow, punk band Crying Nut and rapper SanE ― neither showed up nor performed.

Insooni, 61, whose father was an African-American USFK soldier, told the audience at the start of the concert that she would not perform her three songs.

Shorty after this, the audience was told that all planned performances had been cancelled, causing many people to leave.

The concert, scheduled for three-and-a-half hours, was cut short by an hour, and went ahead with gigs by the 8th Army Band, the city orchestra and dancing troupe, a gukak (Korean traditional music) band and a taekwondo demonstration.

The boycott stems from a tragedy in 2002 when a 2nd Infantry unit tank accidentally ran over and killed two female middle school students on a street in Yangju, Gyeonggi Province.

Even though the unit commander apologized and compensation was paid, two soldiers were found not guilty of killing the students because a U.S. military court at Camp Casey in Dongducheon ruled their deaths were an accident.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but for those that have not, I highly recommend reading my entire prior posting on the 2002 Armored Vehicle Accident that provides the context of what happened:

https://www.rokdrop.net/2008/06/gi-flashback-2002-armored-vehicle-accident/

The threats against these groups must have been very serious considering that Insooni pulled out of the concert and her father was a USFK servicemember and grew up around US military bases in Korea.  So who was behind the threats?  None other than the anti-US Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU):

Hours before the event, 10 members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions’ northern Gyeonggi branch also demonstrated against the city government in front of the complex.

A confederation spokesperson said, “Forcing students to congratulate USFK’s establishment with celebrities goes against our educational ethics,” according to the Chosun Ilbo.

So what ethics does the KCTU preach then?  The KCTU was linked to a massive North Korea spy scandal a decade ago and were key members in the violent anti-US protests against the 2005 Camp Humphreys expansion.

The KCTU also played a key role in the violent 2008 anti-US beef protests.  Yes you heard that right these thugs from the KCTU launched violent protests against US hamburgers and steaks being sold in South Korea.

US beef protestors beat a Korean riot policeman in 2008.

10 years of conservative rule had forced the KCTU and other anti-US groups to lower their profile after the anti-US beef protests since the government took action against them and put their leaders in jail.  With the new Moon Jae-in administration in charge, it is clear that these leftist agitators feel they have free reign to once again conduct aggressive anti-US activities just like what we just saw happen in Uijongbu.  Expect more of this to happen in the coming months and years.

It will be interesting to see if this drug arrest and possible dishonorable discharge from the ROK military will effect his K-Pop career:

T.O.P of K-pop boy band BIGBANG was officially suspended from mandatory military service on Friday after being indicted for smoking marijuana on multiple occasions.

T.O.P, whose real name is Choi Seung-hyun, is accused of smoking the banned substance four times with a trainee female singer, 21, at his home in Yongsan-gu, Seoul last October.

Choi, who began his military service as a policeman in February, was indicted without detention Monday. He was admitted to Ewha Womans University Medical Center in Yangcheon-gu, Seoul the next day suffering from an apparent overdose of benzodiazepine. He became unconscious.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.