North Korea looking for donations: shovels, pickaxes, nails, welding, gloves, soap and toiletries https://t.co/8TOyQpxTkb

— Elizabeth Shim (@GlobalAsianista) June 28, 2016

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un receives an applause at a meeting of the country’s parliament, the Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA), in Pyongyang on June 29, 2016, in this photo captured from the North’s Korean Central TV. The SPA newly created the “commission on state affairs” and appointed Kim as its chairman, strengthening his one-man rule. (Yonhap)

This study would have been more interesting if the follow up question was if they were having sex with someone else:

In a poll of 1,090 male and female adults nationwide, 784 married and 306 unmarried, 38.2 percent of respondents said they have sex once a month or less. An adult that has sex that infrequently is considered “sexless.”

For married respondents, the sexless percentage was slightly lower at 35.1 percent. Married people who have sex twice or three times a month comprised 30.4 percent of the respondents, followed by 19.2 percent who have sex once a week.

For married people in their 50s, 43.9 percent said they have no sexual relationship with their partners.

And yet nearly all respondents – 93.9 percent – said intimate physical interaction was a vital aspect of their lives and relationships with others.

Mr. Yoon, a 39-year-old office worker, is also in the sexless category, which he finds kind of natural.

“Since my wife gave birth a year ago, I haven’t had sex,” said Yoon, who lives in Seoul and has been married for three and a half years. “I would say the biggest reason is her pregnancy as she needed time to recover from giving birth.”

Yoon said such a way of life is common among his friends, especially after five years of marriage, and some even within two years, he said.

“My mother-in-law lives with us to take care of the baby, and that also hampers our ability to have sexual contact,” Yoon said.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

This test may not seem like much, but it is actually pretty significant because for the first time Japanese and South Korean naval ships were working together to share radar data as part of a missile defense exercise:

The US military said the drills, called Pacific Dragon, would enhance the “already strong relationship of all three nations participating”.

No missiles were fired, said the US Third Fleet, but each country tested its Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System and tested communications and data collection.

The Aegis system allows warships to shoot down enemy ballistic missiles while they are still in space, before there is any danger of causing any damage.

North Korea is banned by UN resolutions from any use of ballistic missile technology. [BBC]

You can read more at the link.

I like school uniforms considering some of the people I see now a days dressed like slobs going to school.  School should be a professional learning environment which school uniforms help create.  Really the only issue I see is the cost.  Whatever uniform is selected should not cost parents more than it does to buy regular school clothes:

Seoul American High School is considering a new dress code that would require students to wear uniforms.

The draft proposal prompted heated debate, with supporters saying more needs to be done to rein in students who dress inappropriately and critics calling it too strict. Many on both sides complained the uniforms would be expensive and get little use since most students will likely be moving soon as part of the relocation of most U.S. forces in Korea.

Students would have to wear collared polo or button-down dress shirts in a choice of three colors — blue, white or black — with chino-style pants, according to a draft copy obtained by Stars and Stripes.

The policy would ban shorts, skirts and jeans, as well as flip flops, shoes with wheels and headgear. The principal reserved the right to make exceptions based on a student’s religious beliefs or documented medical conditions.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

This picture tells a lot about what is wrong in this country #SouthKorea pic.twitter.com/Kabp3Gd5kl

— Fabian Kretschmer (@FabiKretschmer) June 28, 2016

The Dongchun Circus performs in downtown Seoul on June 26, 2016, as part of the culture show “I.Carnival. You.” The circus troupe, with a 91-year history, is the only remaining one in the country. (Yonhap)

You would think the adultery charges this guy is facing would be the least of his troubles considering he is charged with rape as well:

Lawyers for a Schriever Air Force Base colonel argued Monday that a half-dozen adultery charges against him should be thrown out because the military’s law banning extramarital sex discriminates against heterosexuals.

Col. Eugene Marcus Caughey is headed for an August court-martial on charges of rape, assault, taking a dirty selfie and the adultery counts. He was in court Monday for a formal reading of the charges and to argue pretrial motions.

Maj. Keith Meister, one of three attorneys defending Caughey, told Air Force judge Col. Wes Moore that the military’s definition of adultery as sex between a man and a woman hasn’t keep place with its definition of marriage, which now includes same-sex couples. That’s because the military’s adultery law requires “sexual intercourse” as an element of guilt, which the Pentagon defines as an act between a man and a woman.

“A homosexual man or woman couldn’t commit adultery as defined,” Meister argued.

Caughey’s defense team maintains that because gay people get a pass, the charges violate the colonel’s rights under the 14th Amendment, which mandates equal protection under law.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read much more at the link, but one way to look at this is that the defense lawyer thinks the rape charge is weak and needs to get the adultery charges dropped because that is what the Air Force could use to really crush this guy.  It will be interesting to see how this case turns out because it could lead to an entire redefinition of what is adultery in the US military.

This is just more evidence that the Kim regime is using the Chinese fishing boats as an asymmetric warfare tactic against South Korea:

South Korea urged North Korea on Monday to immediately stop making military threats such as shelling the South’s Yeonpyeong Island.

North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency called on South Korea to stop “reckless military provocations” by continuing its crackdowns on illegal Chinese fishing boats in the neutral waters of the Hangang River estuary near the western sea border. The state-run news agency said that such actions could spark a retaliation from the North similar to the attack on Yeonpyeong Island in November of 2010 which resulted in four people dead and 18 injured.

South Korea’s unification ministry responded by saying such rhetoric is not appropriate and do not help improve inter-Korean ties .  [Arirang News]

You can read more at the link.

Not that I don’t believe this is probably happening, but anonymous North Korean sources I always keep some skepticism about:

North Korea has been diverting U.N. food aid for its infants to other uses, a group of defectors from the communist state claimed Friday, stressing the need for stronger oversight over the humanitarian aid program.

The North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity said that North Korean officials have taken away powedered milk and other items for infants and toddlers, and provided them to ranking military and party officials, who then sold them on the black markets for profit.

“Many packs of flour and milk powder, which the United Nations has provided for North Korean infants, have been circulating on the market,” the group said, quoting an anonymous North Korean source.

“In the presence of outside monitoring staff, North Korean officials pretend to distribute food aid to infants as planned, but later they take it away,” the source was quoted by the group as saying.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.