I am surprised USFK did not already have a unit dedicated to doing human intelligence analysis already:

The U.S. troops in South Korea are pushing to set up a unit that will be charged with gathering and analyzing human intelligence on North Korea, local authorities said Sunday.

Human Intelligence, known as HUMINT, is intelligence gathered by means of interpersonal contact.

The move comes as the North’s development of communications security technology is increasingly making signals surveillance of the country’s internal communications more difficult.

According to the authorities, the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) plans to create a specialized unit around October under the 501st Military Intelligence Brigade of the Eighth U.S. Army. The new unit will be called the 524th Military Intelligence Battalion, they said.

In the brigade, the 532nd Military Intelligence Battalion is in charge of human intelligence affairs, but its main duty is analyzing intelligence, not directly gathering it.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Condolences to the effected families; this is absolutely horrible:

A fiery accident in a tunnel in Shandong Province, eastern China, killed 12 people, including 11 kindergartners heading to a Korean international school on Tuesday.

A school bus was passing through a tunnel in Huancui District in Weihai, a port city in eastern Shandong, at around 9 a.m., local time, when the vehicle suddenly burst into deadly flames.

The Korean Embassy in China confirmed that 10 of the 11 kindergartners killed were of Korean nationality and the other child was Chinese.

There were 13 passengers on the bus, including the teacher in charge, who is reported to have been severely injured, and the driver, who was killed. Both were Chinese.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Koreans will be waking up with Moon Jae-in as their new President:

Moon was estimated to have garnered 41.4 percent of all votes, according to the exit poll conducted by three major local broadcasters — MBC, KBS and SBS.

The front-runner was followed by Hong Joon-pyo of the conservative Liberty Korea Party with 23.3 percent.

The outcome of the exit poll was announced as the one-day voting came to an end at 8 p.m.

Apparently seeing no possibility of the actual outcome of the vote being any different from the exit poll, Moon said his election, if confirmed, would mark the people’s and the party’s victory.  [Yonhap]

What surprised me about this election was how far the software mogul and populist candidate Ahn Cheol-soo dropped by getting 21% of the vote when at one point in the campaign it appeared he was challenging Moon Jae-in’s polling numbers.  Something else surprising is how well the conservative candidate Hong Joon-pyo did considering the drag that the scandal plagued former President Park Geun-hye created for conservative candidates.

I think what this means that instead of conservative voters rallying around Ahn Cheol-soo to deny Moon an election victory, they instead voted for Hong.  Hong and Ahn’s numbers together would have been enough to defeat Moon.

Here is what Moon Jae-in had to say about his election victory:

Seemingly moved by the overwhelming support, he threw his hands up to the sky and gave his symbolic thumbs-up gesture, prompting thunderous applause from party members and supporters there.

“This crushing victory was expected and is a victory of longing,” Moon told jubilant party members. “‘I will achieve reform and national unity, the two missions that our people long for.”

He went on: “The results will come in hours, but I truly believe that today is the day that opens the gateway to a new Korea. I will embody the public’s passion. Your sweat and tears will never be forgotten within me.”  [Korea Times]

I am not sure what the new Korea is going to look like, but everyone will find out over the course of the next five years of Moon Jae-in’s presidency.

South Korea is well known for its affordable and expansive cosmetic surgery industry, but still this number seems extremely high to me:

A vast proportion of Korean women have had either botox or filler treatments, a study out last Friday suggests.

Pharma giant Allergan polled 450 women aged 21 to 55 here, and 42 percent admitted they have had the cosmetic treatments. And a quarter of the women who have not had the treatments yet would be willing to have them in the future, while 17 percent said they would think about it.

Only 16 percent said they had no intention of getting the treatments, which either plump up the face to make it look more youthful or immobilize facial muscles so no laugh lines or other wrinkles form.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Dudes under 40 with nukes: pic.twitter.com/3jOrygkApk

— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) May 8, 2017

Residents from the southeastern town of Seongju and nearby Gimcheon rally in front of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul on May 8, 2017, to urge the U.S. Army to stop introducing equipment for the deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system to a former golf course in Seongju. They were blocked from presenting a basket of melons (front) to the embassy, as quality melons are a specialty produced in Seongju. In April, U.S. troops began deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense near the town, about 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul. (Yonhap)

The Kim regime is cheering for a liberal to win the upcoming Presidency likely in hopes they will get another pay day for little or nothing in return like during the Sunshine Policy years:

With South Korea’s presidential election just one day away, North Korea on Monday called for an end to the history of inter-Korean confrontation.

“The tragic North-South Korea relations today have been wrought by the conservative groups which, having been in power for the past 10 years, revived the foregone period of confrontation and maximized the political and military rivalry between the same race,” the leading ruling party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said in a column on its Monday issue.

On Tuesday, South Korea is to pick a new president to replace Park Geun-hye who was removed from her presidency in March over corruption charges.

The last poll before the election showed Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party leading the race by a wide margin. If elected as president, Moon is likely to tilt toward engagement with North Korea, a departure from the sanctions-focused policy under Park and her previous conservative administration led by Lee Myung-bak.

“Our people’s yearning for peace has been mercilessly trodden by the conservative groups, manic followers of confrontation,” the North Korean newspaper said. “The history of inter-Korean confrontation, led by the conservatives, should be put to an end and a new era of unification should open up in collaboration between our race .. To that end, the conservative groups’ scheme to seize power again should be resolutely shattered.”  [Yonhap]

Admiral Harris must be something right to have the Chinese this upset with him:

China urged the United States to sack the head of the U.S. Pacific Command in return for exerting more pressure on North Korea amid concerns over its growing nuclear and missile threats, a source close to U.S.-China ties said Saturday.

The Chinese leadership headed by President Xi Jinping made the request, through its ambassador in the United States, to dismiss Adm. Harry Harris, known as a hard-liner on China, including with respect to the South China Sea issue, the source said.

China’s envoy to the United States, Cui Tiankai, conveyed the request to the U.S. side, to coincide with the first face-to-face, two-day meeting between President Donald Trump and Xi in Florida from April 6, but the Trump administration likely rejected it, the source said.  [Japan Times]

You can read more at the link, but this is probably directly related to Admiral Harris’ backing of the “freedom of navigation” patrols he continues in the South China Sea in response to China’s island building campaign there.

I thought this was a funny response from Bruce Klingner:

@freekorea_us Or make him Ambassador to China.

— Bruce Klingner (@BruceKlingner) May 7, 2017

It looks like TIME magazine has declared Moon Jae-in the winner of the upcoming ROK Presidential election already:

Appearing on the cover of the U.S. magazine TIME is sometimes more than just being a cover model — especially before important political events.

The news magazine used to wrap its front cover with a staged portrait of the most likely new leader of a country before his/her formal election (or victory by any means). And in recent memory, there was no case denying the accuracy of its model-winner matchup.

Four years ago, TIME bet on Park Geun-hye, not knowing that she — described as the Strongman’s Daughter in its cover story — would defeat Moon by a very narrow margin.

On Thursday, Moon appeared on the cover of TIME’s Asian edition, which indicates that the magazine firmly believes he will be South Korea’s next leader, replacing the ousted Park Geun-hye, when the presidential election is held on May 9.

The photo shows Moon glaring forward with his lips shut tightly -– somewhat resolutely –- against a black backdrop, under the headline “The Negotiator.”

The story covers Moon’s life, from a front-line commando who put his life on the line in 1976 for a deadly mission in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), to his family background, the time he served as a human rights lawyer, political philosophy (especially on North Korea and the United States) and how he made his way toward the nation’s top job.

Moon told TIME that his destiny is to bring the two Koreas closer together after seven decades being apart.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

The State Dep't's official view = North Korea has not supported acts of terrorism since 1987. Discuss.https://t.co/gwdsIEXtQZ via @nbcnews

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) May 7, 2017