Obviously these two knuckleheads are not readers of the ROK Drop because if they were they would know that smuggling drugs through the US military mail is now an easy way to get yourself arrested:

Two 2nd Infantry Division soldiers have been indicted in connection with a $10 million methamphetamine smuggling case involving the U.S. military postal service, officials said Wednesday.

The shipment of nearly eight pounds of meth — in three packages with labels saying they contained candy — was discovered in late October by the customs service at the Incheon airport near Seoul.

Authorities then monitored the shipment and detained the soldiers, both 19, for questioning days later when they moved to collect it.

The men were indicted Tuesday on charges of violating the narcotics control act.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but these two were getting paid $3,000 and $1,000 for agreeing to have the drugs mailed to them on behalf of a Korean-American in Uijongbu who denying all the charges.

Did you enjoy that Trump press conference? That was Park Geun-hye for four years. I'm telling ya. Koreans lived thru this already.

— T.K. of AAK! (@AskAKorean) January 11, 2017

North Korea’s newly built satellite control center in Pyongyang. [CNN]

According to the article the ship was transporting rice from North Korea’s west coast to its east coast.  I wonder if there was anything else was on the ship?:

The Japanese Coast Guard (JCG) went to the rescue after receiving a distress signal from the ship, which had run into difficulties off Japan’s Kyushu Prefecture, 38 miles (61 kilometers) southwest of the Goto Islands, a spokesman said.

The crew members spent a short time in Japanese custody before being collected by a tanker to take them back to North Korea.  [CNN]

CNN has a good article published where various pictures recently taken in North Korea are commented on by North Korean defectors.  Here is my favorite comment:

It seems like an unwritten law of South Korean politics that every politician has a relative involved in a corruption scandal:

US prosecutors have charged relatives of former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon with conspiracy to bribe a government official.

Mr Ban’s younger brother and his nephew stand accused of offering money to a Middle Eastern official, through an American middleman.

They allege the two men bribed the official to use state funds to buy their building project.

Mr Ban served as UN secretary general from 2007 until 2016.

He was succeeded by former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres on 1 January 2017. Mr Ban is now being seen as a possible future president in his home country of South Korea. [BBC]

You can read more at the link.

Under blistering attack from former DA, Cho Yoon-sun admits artists have been blacklisted based on political belief https://t.co/artbxPvt3x

— All News Korea (@AllNewsKorea) January 11, 2017

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sits on the bed during a visit to a silk factory in Pyongyang, his second public outing of the year, in this photo taken from the North’s Central TV Broadcasting Station on Jan. 8, 2017. (Yonhap)

It may not be legal to purchase or smoke marijuana in North Korea, but the North Koreans are well known for smuggling drugs into other countries to raise foreign currency.

North Korea has been getting some pretty high praise lately from the stoner world.

Marijuana news outlets including High Times, Merry Jane and Green Rush — along with British tabloids, which always love a good yarn — are hailing the North as a pothead paradise and maybe even the next Amsterdam of pot tourism. They’ve reported North Korean marijuana to be legal, abundant and mind-blowingly cheap, sold openly to Chinese and Russian tourists at a major market on the North’s border for about $3 a pound.

But seriously, North Korea? Baked?

The claim that marijuana is legal in North Korea is not true: The penal code lists it as a controlled substance in the same category as cocaine and heroin. And the person who would likely help any American charged with a crime in North Korea emphatically rejects the idea that the ban is not enforced.

“There should be no doubt that drugs, including marijuana, are illegal here,” said Torkel Stiernlof, the Swedish ambassador. The United States has no diplomatic relations with the North, so Sweden’s embassy acts as a middleman when U.S. citizens run afoul of North Korean laws.

“One can’t buy it legally and it would be a criminal offense to smoke it,” Stiernlof said. He said that if a foreigner caught violating drug laws in North Korea happened to be an American citizen, he or she could “expect no leniency whatsoever.”  [ABC News]

You can read more at the link.

The deployment of the Apache helicopters is supposed to be complete by October this year:

U.S. Forces Korea will deploy 24 Apache helicopters to South Korea as the allied forces face a growing threat from the North.

But the battalion will be temporarily split between two bases because a new parking apron hasn’t been completed, the military said Monday.

The scheduled rotational deployment of the AH-64D attack helicopters next month will replace 30 OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters, which are being retired.

Sixteen of the Apaches will be temporarily stationed at Suwon Air Base until a new parking apron is completed at Camp Humphreys, which will eventually house the bulk of U.S. forces as part of a long-delayed relocation from Seoul and bases to the north. The other eight will be at Camp Humphreys, according to the USFK public affairs office.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.