Someone has leaked the footage captured at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport of the attack and murder of Kim Jong-nam:

The biggest thing I take from this footage is that this was supposed to be a prank as the suspects have claimed what was supposed to be so funny about it?  The Indonesian woman Siti Aisyah can be seen talking to Kim Jong-nam and then almost immediately afterwards the Vietnamese woman Doan Thi Huong violently puts a cloth around his face and they both casually walk off. Looking at the video I could understand how Aisyah may have thought she was part of a prank, but Huong looked like she knew this wasn’t a prank in my opinion.

I was surprised that Kim did not immediately try to get to the restroom and get some water to wash off his face.  Instead he wasted time talking to authorities who eventually walked him over to a medical clinic.  Who knows if it would have made a difference, but I would think immediately washing the poison off his face at least would have given him a better chance to survive the attack.

Here is an interesting theory on why South Koreans hate the Japanese so much:

If South Korea can only weakly legitimate itself through democracy, and with race-nationalism so powerful, Seoul must go head-to-head with Pyongyang over who is the best custodian of the minjok and its glorious 5000 year history. This is a tussle South Korea cannot win, not only because of the North’s mendacious willingness to falsify history, but South Korea’s Westernized culture, massive U.S. presence, rising multiculturalism leading to mixed race citizens, and so on.

The North’s purer minjok nationalism will always have resonance in the South, where for a generation former dictator Park Chung Hee invoked race for legitimacy, 10% of the public voted for an openly pro-North Korean party in the last parliamentary election, and the main left-wing party has consistently equivocated on whether the U.S. represents a greater threat to South Korea than North Korea does.

Enter Japan, then, as a useful ‘other’ to South Korea, in the place that really should be held by North Korea. All Koreans, north and south, right and left, agree that the colonial take-over was bad. The morality of criticizing Japan is undisputed, whereas criticizing North Korea quickly gets tangled up in the ‘who-can-out-minjok-who’ issues raised above.   [The National Interest]

I recommend reading the whole article at the link, but likewise the anti-Japanese hatred is irrational when compared to the Chinese as well.  The Chinese are actively conducting anti-Korean initiatives because of the THAAD issue, have a territorial dispute with Korea, are the chief benefactor of North Korea, a country committed to the destruction of the ROK, and China was the last country to invade the ROK and nearly destroyed it during the Korean War.  Heck the Chinese embassy even sent protestors into the streets of Seoul to beatdown Koreans during the Olympic torch protest.

Despite all of this, hatred is directed towards the Japanese who should be a natural geopolitical ally.  I have always believed that the persistent anti-Japanese sentiment and rotating bouts of anti-US sentiment is because South Koreans know they can protest both countries without repercussions.  As the current THAAD dispute shows the Chinese government does not sit idly by without retaliating against Korea, likewise for North Korea.  If South Koreans push North Korea too much a ROK ship may get sunk or artillery rounds may land in the ROK.  Protest Japan or the United States and little to nothing happens.  That makes both countries easy targets to direct Korean nationalism towards especially for domestic political reasons.

I don’t expect this dynamic to change unless South Koreans are put into a position where they have to forgive and forget with Japan for national security reasons.  As long as the US-ROK alliance this is something Koreans do not have to worry about.

This is so stupid I don’t even know where to begin:

Local United States Department of Veterans Affairs staffers were left horrified after a coworker put up a “Make Killing Great Again” poster on his office door.

It all played out earlier this month at a VA office building on Clairmont road in DeKalb County.

After a source inside the agency sent Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Aaron Diamant a picture of that disturbing poster Thursday night, he spent this afternoon working to find out what the agency is doing to ease workers fears and hold the staffer who put it up accountable.

“I’m afraid. I’m truly afraid,” a VA staffer, who spotted the poster and asked not to be identified, told Diamant.

The long-time VA employee, who asked not to be identified, told Diamant she’s terrified every time she returns to work at the building that houses the Healthcare Eligibility Center.

The poster on a 3rd-floor office door contained an image of Secretary of Defense James Mattis and the words, “Make Killing Great Again.”

“I thought that he would come in there any day and at any time and start shooting the office up,” the employee said.  [WSB-TV Atlanta]

You can read more at the link, but this poster is clearly a parody of President Trump’s “Making America Great Again” tagline that anyone with a sense of humor would understand.  The fact the media is calling the poster “disturbing” and someone working at the VA is “truly afraid” of the poster I think says more about them then the person who put the poster up in their cubicle.

With that all said the work place should be a professional environment which the poster clearly does not contribute to.  When asked to take the poster down by the union the worker took the poster down.  Yet people going running to the media hoping to blow this up and want the guy investigated, for what?

Political crisis in South Korea leaves 'comfort women' deal in limbo https://t.co/BPtxvMNhCn

— South Korea Daily (@SouthKoreaDaily) February 18, 2017

The North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur is filled with an air of silence on Feb. 16, 2017, following the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s half brother Kim Jong-nam. Kim was killed allegedly by North Korean agents at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Feb. 13. (Yonhap)

What this Japanese Kindergarten is doing is wrong, but South Korea has little creditability to complain considering the anti-Japanese hatred taught to kids in their country:

Tsukamoto Kindergarten, a preschool in Osaka city, Japan, is being investigated for allegedly handing out flyers containing hate speech against Koreans living in Japan and against Chinese people, Kyodo News reported on Thursday.

“Korean residents in Japan and Chinese people are devious,” read the flyer that the kindergarten allegedly distributed.

Kyodo News also pointed out that the flyer called Chinese people “shinajin,” a derogatory term.

The kindergarten is known to have sent out flyers in December 2016, criticizing Korean residents in Japan.

“The problem is that people, who are Korean at heart, reside in Japan as Japanese,” read the flyer.

The school has previously been criticized for making students memorize the “Imperial Edict on Education,” used during Japan’s imperial rule of other countries.

During a field day in 2015, the school also allegedly made students take an oath blaming Korea and China for making Japan a malevolent nation.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but the Osaka government has sent a warning to the school to stop their anti-Korea and China activities.  Has the Korean government ever warned any of their schools to stop anti-Japanese activities?

I have to wonder if this coal import ban from China has anything to do with the North Koreans murdering Kim Jong-nam who was under Chinese protection?:

China said it would suspend all imports of coal from North Korea for the rest of the year, putting it further in line with UN Security Council sanctions meant to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile weapons program.

The Chinese Commerce Ministry said Saturday that the ban, which went into effect Sunday, would last through Dec. 31, which comes after Pyongyang’s universally condemned intermediate ballistic missile launch one week ago.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but the other thing to keep in mind is what China says and what it actually does in regards to sanctions against North Korea are two different things.

I figured that the real North Korean agents would have fled the country immediately after Kim Jong-nam was killed; they are all probably safely back in North Korea by now:

Malaysia’s police are looking for four more North Korean suspects who they say left the country the same day the North Korean leader’s brother died after being attacked at the Kuala Lumpur airport.

Deputy national police chief Noor Rashid Ibrahim identified all four at a news conference on Sunday. He also identified a fifth person of interest and showed photographs of two more North Koreans who were not identified by name but are also wanted in connection with Kim Jong Nam’s apparent assassination on Monday.  [Stars & Stripes]

Here are the names of the four suspects, so if anyone happens to run in them please let Police Chief Ibrahim know:

Deputy Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Noor Rashid Ibrahim said the suspects, all North Koreans, left the country on Monday Feb 13, the day of Jong-nam’s murder.

“We can confirm that the four left the country on the same day of the attack.

“We are cooperating with Interpol and other relevant bodies in the region,” he told a press conference in Bukit Aman on Sunday.

The press conference is the first that the police have conducted since Jong-nam was assassinated.

The four wanted suspects are:

1. Rhi Ji Hyon, 33, arrived in Malaysia Feb 4, 2017

2. Hong Song Hac, 34, arrived Jan 31, 2017

3. O Jong Gil, 55, arrived Feb 7, 2017

4. Ri Jae Nam, 57, arrived Feb 1, 2017    [The Star]

Of interest is that according to The Star article the North Korean man that they did arrest has a background in chemistry which means they must think he is the guy that put the poison together.  It seems like if he did why didn’t he leave the country with the other four agents?

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

Kim Jong-nam's murder suspect Siti Aisyah knew some Korean, according to her mom. Siti is 25, divorced & has 3 sons https://t.co/yeqD61NKgO

— Noon in Korea (@NoonInKorea) February 18, 2017