South Korean actors Lee Jung-jae (L) and Lee Beom-soo, who star in South Korean film “Operation Chromite,” pose at its premiere in Los Angeles on Aug. 10, 2016. The film is about unknown Korean heroes in the Incheon Landing Operation led by U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur during the 1950-53 Korean War. About 6 million South Koreans have watched the movie as of Aug. 11 since it hit local screens on July 27. (Yonhap)
A 75-year-old woman in Wonju, Gangwon, was arrested for allegedly killing her husband of 56 years with a hammer.
The suspect admitted the crime, according to police, saying she couldn’t stand her husband’s verbal and physical abuse any longer.
Wonju police filed a pre-trial detention warrant for the suspect. A local court will review it as early as today.
The alleged murder took place around 6 a.m. Wednesday, police said, after the 74-year-old victim fell off a chair while changing a lightbulb in a bathroom in the couple’s house.
The suspect heard a loud thump and went to check on her husband, and he allegedly berated her, saying, “It’s all because of you!” The woman told police during questioning that her husband’s head was bleeding and his eyes had rolled back.
The wife said she feared he would have to be hospitalized for a long period, which might prove expensive. She said she didn’t want to have to be his caregiver.
“I’ve put up with him all my life,” she said according to police. “I have even had to go to the hospital several times after he hit me.”
She left the bathroom, found a hammer and returned to finish him off. Autopsy results indicated she had hit him in about 20 different areas all over his body, including his face and neck. The direct cause of the victim’s death was “multiple injuries.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Next year the US military will be testing the THAAD missile system against a North Korean Musudan target:
In this photo taken on Aug. 11, 2016, U.S. Missile Defense Agency Director Vic Adm. James D. Syring answers questions from South Korean reporters on the planned deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea by 2017 to counter growing threats from North Korea during a group interview held at South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff headquarters in Seoul. (Yonhap)
The United States will carry out an interception test against Musudan-type intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM) next year with its advanced missile defense system, following successful trials on short and mid-range missiles, Washington’s missile defense chief said Thursday.
“As those (short-range and mid-range) tests have been done over a period of years and as that success has been achieved (with missile defense shield), we move to longer-range tests,” U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) Director Vice Admiral James D. Syring said in a group interview with local reporters at South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff headquarters in Seoul.
The agency chief said next year, the U.S. will test the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system against IRBMs to better counter the growing threats from North Korea in the Indo-Asia Pacific region. North Korea’s Musudan missiles are IRBM with a range of more than 3,000 kilometers and a capability of striking the U.S. territory of Guam and Japan. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but for those wondering how effective the THAAD interceptor is, it has been successful in 13 of 13 of its past tests to include shooting down six missiles that replicated current North Korean missiles.
In the least surprising news of the day North Korean soldiers are reportedly malnourished:
North Korean soldiers suffering from malnutrition are beginning to channel their grievances against the repressive regime, even blaming the inability of the military’s top political official, U.S.-based Radio Free Asia (RFA) said Wednesday.
A North Korean resident in Jagang Province told RFA that he was shocked by the news that his son, who entered the army in March, was suffering from malnutrition.
He said the rations given to ordinary soldiers are so poor that most are in a serious state of undernourishment.
The North Korean informant said that since his son went to the army, he ate only boiled corn with a soup of salted wild greens.
Another military source in Ryanggang Province said in the units he knew, the military food supply is not so bad as to cause malnutrition, but added that troops are starving due to deep-rooted corruption and greed for private profits by officers.
More often than not, army commanders embezzle food and even kitchen oil from the military, forcing soldiers into extreme undernourishment, the source said. [Yonhap]
Below is an excerpt from a much longer article that details what fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has been up to while in exile in Russia:
More than three years after fleeing the United States with a massive cache of top-secret documents, former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden remains a federal fugitive, living in Moscow courtesy of President Vladimir Putin of Russia.
But Snowden — who is the subject of a new Oliver Stone biopic that hits movie theaters next month — is making the most of his exile: Over the past year, he has collected over $200,000 in fees for digital speaking appearances that have been arranged by one of the country’s elite speakers bureaus, according to a source close to Snowden who is intimately familiar with his business affairs. At least three of these paid speeches were hosted by public American universities, and documents obtained by Yahoo News highlight various concerns raised by college officials about paying Snowden.
The former intelligence analyst uses video chat technology to address audiences around the globe: In the last five months, a larger-than-life Snowden has appeared on giant screens to a sold-out audience at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, northern Europe’s largest music festival, a symposium on surveillance and civil rights in Tokyo, and Comic-Con in San Diego. In all of these cases, as with most of his appearances, sympathetic crowds greeted him with thunderous applause and praise for his decision to leak classified documents to journalists about U.S. surveillance programs.
“Arguing you don’t care about privacy because you’ve got nothing to hide is no different than saying that you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say,” Snowden, using one of his classic lines, last month told the Roskilde Festivalin Denmark. After the crowd — reportedly Snowden’s largest ever — sang “Happy Birthday,” the 33-year-old said: “Everyone, thank you. Really. You guys staying with me… is overwhelming. But this is not about me. This is about us.” (………)
At this point, more than three years and many revelations later, Snowden’s backers are aiming at a full pardon. According to Wizner, they are creating a new nonprofit organization that will promote the cause starting this fall, after the Stone movie is released on Sept. 16. Among the advisers to the campaign, he said, is veteran liberal public relations executive David Fenton. [Yahoo News]
You can read more at the link, but you would think the federal government would ban US institutions from paying a wanted fugitive large speaking fees? As far as the pardon I just can’t see President Obama allowing something like that to define his legacy once he leaves office.
This is pretty significant if the South Korean government moves forward with this suggestion:
North Korea provocations are making Seoul reconsider intelligence sharing strategies with Tokyo.
Seoul’s defense ministry spokesman Moon Sang-kyun told reporters Thursday the radar information from the U.S. anti-missile defense system THAAD could be shared with Japan, local news service Newsis reported.
That response was a departure from a previous statement issued July 19, when Defense Minister Han Min-koo told parliamentarians the information from the THAAD radar would not be shared with Japan. [UPI]
You can read more at the link, but keep in mind that the South Koreans do not need THAAD to share data with Japan. That is because the ROK already has their Israeli bought Green Pine radars installed with coverage of North Korea that could also share the data with Japan if the ROK wanted to.
Even in Korea winning the lottery turns into a curse for some people:
When Mr. Kim won the lottery late last month and instantly went from rags to riches with nearly 3 billion won ($2.7 million), his life-changing story was told by none other than his own mother. Unlike most other winners who wish to keep their profile as low-key as possible, and who often urge their close family members to do the same, the 79-year-old woman refused to follow the norm and is now gaining media attention for the “tragedy” that has unfolded ever since.
She held a demonstration last Friday in front of the Yangsan City Hall in South Gyeongsang, holding a large picket sign describing how her own son became her worst enemy.
She wrote that her son “abandoned” her after winning the lottery, and that she felt betrayed because she had raised his children. Last week, when she knocked on the door of his house, he refused to meet her and called the cops to force her away.
A picture of her solo rally has gone viral online over the weekend. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
