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Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon, a member of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, holds a press conference at the National Assembly in Seoul on Jan. 26, 2017, to announce he will not run for president, citing his failure to win the hearts of voters. A poll, taken by RealMeter last week, shows his approval rating standing at just 3.4 percent. (Yonhap)

It is looking like whatever evidence Korean prosecutors have against Chung Yoo-ra it must be quite flimsy considering Denmark has suspended the ROK extradition request:

South Korea’s special prosecutors said Saturday that they will send documents requested by Danish authorities concerning the daughter of a woman at the center of a snowballing corruption scandal as soon as possible to speed up her repatriation.

Chung Yoo-ra, the 21-year-old daughter of President Park Geun-hye’s close friend Choi Soon-sil, was arrested in the northern Danish city of Aalborg earlier this year for illegal stay. She is suspected of receiving favors from a college in Seoul during its admissions process and on tests by taking advantage of her mother’s ties to the president.

Chung has been in the custody of Danish authorities and has showed no sign of voluntarily coming back home to face a probe.

South Korea’s special prosecutors looking into the alleged corruption scandal surrounding the president and Choi earlier asked local authorities to extradite Chung.

After weeks of review, the Danish prosecution released a statement on Friday that they suspended the repatriation process and asked South Korea to send extra information before making a final decision.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Unlike many other places in the world a popular uprising in North Korea I don’t think will do much.  This is because the Kim regime will just kill the people and then pretend it didn’t happen just like what their primary sponsors in Beijing did at Tiananmen Square back in 1989.  What I do see the outside information flowing in doing is discrediting the regime with the North Korean public.  This would make it easier for someone in the military down the road perhaps to launch a coup with little public resistance:

North Korea’s former deputy ambassador to Britain has told a group of reporters that a “popular uprising” against North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un is imminent. Thae Yong Ho, who defected to South Korea in August of 2016, said that sanctions against the regime and its inability to control the flow of information about the outside world were weakening its grip on authority.

Thae’s comments came during a press conference in Seoul, the first time he has spoken to international media since his defection.

During the press conference, Thae, who speaks fluent English, declared that “Kim Jong-Un’s days are numbered,” as information about the outside world becomes more accessible. “Low-level dissent or criticism of the regime, until recently unthinkable, is becoming more frequent,” he added.  [Yahoo News]

You can read more at the link.

This seems to me to be pretty sexist because I cannot remember a male Korean president being depicted like this and celebrated by an opposition party:

After the display of a satirical painting depicting a nude President Park Geun-hye the main opposition Democratic Party on Tuesday decided to refer its lawmaker, Pyo Chang-won, to its ethics panel for hosting the exhibition.

About 20 people, presumed to be members of a conservative civic group, rushed on Tuesday to the lobby of the Lawmakers’ Office Building attached to the National Assembly in Yeouido, western Seoul, where the painting was on display, to damage the painting titled “Dirty Sleep” by flinging it to the ground.

The artists participating in the exhibition, including Lee Guyeong, who made the painting, then gathered at the building to issue a statement demanding compensation for the damages and respect for freedom of expression.

The exhibition started on Friday and the painting quickly became the talk of the town.

The painting’s composition is generally based on the 19th-century French painter Edouard Manet’s famous “Olympia”(1863).

In it, Park is lying on a bed and her long-time friend, Choi Soon-sil, is offering up a bouquet of syringes while the Sewol ferry is seen out a window sinking into the sea.

The painting portrays the suspicion that Park was sleeping or receiving cosmetic treatment during the April 2014 Sewol ferry sinking. Park’s head is combined with a nude body from the painting “Sleeping Venus”(1510) by Italian Renaissance master Giorgione, which inspired Titian’s “Venus of Urbino” and later Manet’s “Olympia.” Unlike in “Olympia,” which is distinguished by the woman looking directly at the viewer, in the new work Park looks down, as if in shame.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Choi's attorney claims special prosecutor verbally abusing and threatening her with "3-generation extermination":https://t.co/gkaLOtjIhA

— Noon in Korea (@AllNewsKorea) January 26, 2017

This combined photo, provided by North Korea’s ruling party organ Rodong Sinmun on Jan. 26, 2017, shows a new developed district under construction in Pyongyang, named “Ryomyong Street.” North Korean leader Kim Jong-un toured the construction site, ordering the project to be completed by April 15, the birth anniversary of late founder Kim Il-song, according to the newspaper.  (Yonhap)

This is a sign of how importantly the new Secretary of Defense views the region by making this his first overseas trip:

James Mattis, secretary of defense in the Donald Trump administration, is expected to make his first overseas trip to Korea and Japan next month, according to multiple diplomatic sources. Mattis is expected to hold talks with Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo amid concerns over North Korea’s nuclear and missile provocations.

“Secretary Mattis, as his first overseas trip, is reviewing visiting Korea and Japan as his top priority,” one diplomatic source in Washington said Tuesday. “This shows that the Trump administration following its inauguration is unswervingly putting emphasis on its relationship with its two allies in Asia.”

Multiple officials said that retired four-star Marine general will visit Korea as early as next week.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Here is what General Brown, the US Army Pacific commander had to say about North Korea recently:

The U.S. Pacific Army commander said Wednesday North Korea is his biggest concern as the unpredictable communist nation has aggressively forged ahead with its nuclear and missile programs.

“The thing that keeps me up at night, though, the thing I worry the most about is North Korea. The most likely threat to all of us sitting here, in my opinion,” Gen. Robert Brown, commander of U.S. Army Pacific, said during a discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Brown said North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has conducted many more missile launches since taking power following the death of his late father in 2011 than the late leader did in his 17 years of rule. He also said the North’s leader is the only individual in the 21st century to test a nuclear weapon.

“There’s something going on there and there’s this belligerent aggressiveness,” he said.

The general highlighted the North’s unpredictability, calling its actions a “black swan.”

“I do worry about the most likely threat: North Korea, because obviously, every soldier that I lead, every individual that I am in charge of would be involved, would be there — some within hours, some are already there on the peninsula, and some would move in that direction very quickly,” Brown said.

“I have significant responsibilities. Things like: noncombatant evacuation operations on the peninsula and getting several half a million people out of there, minor and little things that are easy. Those types of challenges. I do worry about that. There’s just so many things,” he said.  [Yonhap]

Here is an odd story about a Buddhist statue believed to have been plundered from Korea by Japan, that thieves stole from a Japanese temple in 2012 and returned it to Korea:

A local court on Thursday ordered an ancient Buddhist statue, stolen from a Japanese temple in 2012, to be handed over to a temple in Seosan on South Korea’s west coast that has claimed ownership.

The Daejeon District Court ruled in favor of Buseok Temple, which filed a lawsuit against the Seoul government in April to take back the statue of the Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, which was stolen by Korean thieves from Kannon Temple in Tsushima, Nagasaki Prefecture, in October 2012.

“Based on (Buseok Temple’s) statements during court hearings and onsite inspections, it is assumed that its ownership of the statue is sufficiently acknowledged,” the court said in its ruling. “Considering its historical, religious values, (the government) has the responsibility to return it to the plaintiff.”

The Japanese temple has demanded the return of the statue. But a South Korean court granted an injunction in February 2013 to suspend its return to Japan following a request by Buseok Temple. Temple officials claim the statue was illegally plundered by Japan.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I wonder if this will become a new trend with Korean nationalists, trying to steal cultural items from Japan and bring them back to Korea?