Like I have been saying since the beginning of this story, the real issue is not what Trump said, but that the Chinese President thinks Korea was once part of China:

The White House said Friday it is well aware that Korea has been “independent for thousands of years,” after President Donald Trump quoted Chinese President Xi Jinping as claiming, falsely, that Korea used to be part of China.

“We generally do not comment on the details of what is said between the President and other leaders. We know well that Korea has been independent for thousands of years,” Michael Anton, deputy assistant to the president for strategic communications, told Yonhap News Agency.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Here is something you don’t see happen very often in South Korea, a bank robbery:

Police said Saturday it has arrested a suspect in an armed bank robbery that took place in the country’s southeastern provincial county two days earlier.

The Gyeongsan Police Station in North Gyeongsang Province said it caught a 43-year-old man, identified only by his last name Kim, at a parking lot of a large accommodation facility in Danyang, North Chungcheong Province, at around 6:47 p.m.

Police had suspected the robber may be a foreigner as one of the bank employees claimed he had a poor Korean accent, but it turned out that he was a native.

Kim is suspected of robbing a branch of the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, also known as Nonghyup, in a county in Gyeongsan early Thursday, threatening the employees at gunpoint and fleeing the scene on a bicycle with some 15.6 million won (US$13,700) in cash, all of which took him only four minutes.

During the heist, he apparently fired one shot from what the police believe to be a homemade gun, but no one was hurt as it was aimed at the wall. [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but as expected the man was tracked down by piecing together camera footage from neighborhood cc cameras.

The gap is now 11% bet. Moon(41%) & Ahn(30%). But undec voters went up to 12% as 15 candidates made it to the ballothttps://t.co/O8a1kCBllX

— Noon in Korea (@NoonInKorea) April 21, 2017

This satellite image, provided by U.S. research monitoring website 38 North, shows the nuclear test site in the Punggyeri region in North Korea on April 22, 2017. The Web site said Saturday some movements of equipment were detected through the satellite, an indication that Pyongyang is ready to conduct another nuclear test at any time. (Yonhap)

North Korea’s response to Australia’s announcement of sanctions enforcement perfectly justifies why they are enforcing sanctions in the first place:

North Korea has bluntly warned Australia of a possible nuclear strike if Canberra persists in “blindly and zealously toeing the US line”.

North Korea’s state new agency (KCNA) quoted a foreign ministry spokesman castigating Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop, after she said the rogue nation would be subject to further Australian sanctions and for “spouting a string of rubbish against the DPRK over its entirely just steps for self-defence”.

“If Australia persists in following the US moves to isolate and stifle the DPRK and remains a shock brigade of the US master, this will be a suicidal act of coming within the range of the nuclear strike of the strategic force of the DPRK,” the report said.

“The Australian foreign minister had better think twice about the consequences to be entailed by her reckless tongue-lashing before flattering the US.”

Bishop had said this week on the ABC’s AM program that North Korea’s nuclear weapons program posed a “serious threat” to Australia unless it was stopped by the international community.  [The Guardian]

You can read more at the link.

Any American currently in North Korea or planning to travel there in the near term is an absolute fool that I have little sympathy for:

North Korea has detained a U.S. citizen, officials said Sunday, bringing to three the number of Americans now being held there.

Tony Kim, who also goes by his Korean name Kim Sang-duk, was detained on Saturday, according to Park Chan-mo, the chancellor of the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.

Park said Kim, who is in his 50s, taught accounting at the university for about a month. He said Kim was detained by officials as he was trying to leave the country from Pyongyang’s international airport.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link, but Tony Kim is reportedly a professor in the Yanbian prefecture of China across the border from China.  What he was doing in North Korea is unclear, but really it doesn’t matter there is no good reason for an American to be in North Korea. All this guy has done besides greatly stressing his family is given the Kim regime a third American detainee bargaining chip to assist them with any future negotiations with the US.

I think I would pass on eating this, looks horrible:

On Air Koryo, North Korea’s state airline, flight attendants are known to serve one thing, and one thing only: a burger as mysterious as the secretive country itself.

The burger is always served cold, and always on a paper doily. Inside the bun is a piece of unidentified meat, a slice of processed cheese, a dash of shredded cabbage or a lonely lettuce leaf, and a dollop of sweet, brown sauce.

The “Koryo Burger” features in countless Instagram feeds and online reviews, not many of them complimentary. It has “gained cult status among passengers,” the British tabloid Daily Mail remarked in 2015. Many wonder: Why a burger, of all things? What’s with the doily? What exactly is that meat?

“The Air Koryo burger was the worst example of soft power I’ve ever tasted,” said Alec Ash, a writer in Beijing who sampled the burger on a flight to North Korea last year.  [LA Times]

You can read more at the link.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

Part of me wonders if this whole Chinese enforcement of sanctions and North Korea’s reaction is all for show to appease the Trump administration in the short term while nothing really changes in the long term?:

North Korea has apparently asked China not to step up anti-North sanctions, warning of “catastrophic consequences” in their bilateral relations.

Pyongyang issued the warning through commentary written by a person named Jong Phil on its official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), which was released Saturday.

It’s rare for Pyongyang’s media to level criticism at Beijing, though the KCNA didn’t directly mention China in the commentary titled “Are you good at dancing to the tune of others” and dated Friday.

The commentary instead called the nation at issue “a country around the DPRK,” using North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

I find it funny that the company's name is "Dangjin Eco Power" #korea https://t.co/hcyA7a72Rs

— KingSejong (@KingSejong) April 22, 2017