It appears the North Koreans are determined to keep testing the Musudan until they get it to work:

North Korea is said to have deployed an intermediate-range missile to Wonsan, Gangwon Province on Tuesday.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said that it is closely monitoring the North for possible missile launches.

A military official said that such preparation follows four failed test-firings of Musudan intermediate-range missiles in April and May.

The military is said to believe that the North will launch a Musudan missile as early as Tuesday or Wednesday.  [KBS World Radio]

You can read more at the link, but four of these Musudans have exploded shortly after launch.  If they keep executing these tests the North Koreans will probably through trial and error eventually get it to work.  The significance of them getting this missile to work is that they can then range US military bases on Okinawa and Guam with the Musudan.

North Korea has "no trust, no expectations" for Trump or Clinton, officials say https://t.co/QJEWa1PCy1

— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) June 20, 2016

The crew members of South Korea’s Aegis-equipped destroyer, the King Sejong the Great, pose aboard the decommissioned USS Missouri in Hawaii on June 17, 2016. The battleship participated in World War II and the Korean War (1950-53). The South Korean Navy dispatched the destroyer to join the U.S.-led multilateral maritime warfare exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) set to be held from June 30 to Aug. 4. (Yonhap)

This is yet another example that Okinawa has turned into South Korea circa 2002:

An overflow crowd of some 65,000 people packed a sports stadium Sunday to demand that U.S. forces leave Okinawa and drop a plan to move Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to a more remote area on the island.

Similar demonstrations were also scheduled in 41 of Japan’s 47 prefectures. More than 7,000 people gathered outside the Japanese parliament building in Tokyo to join the demand for a U.S. pullout and to bash Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

A recent rash of crimes, including the slaying of a 20-year-old woman that has been linked to a U.S. civilian base worker, have tapped into Okinawa resentment over the disproportionate number of U.S. troops here, compared with the rest of Japan, and a sense of abandonment and betrayal by the central government even after it regained control of the island in 1972.

With U.S. servicemembers, family members and others with SOFA status strongly encouraged to avoid the protest area, Gov. Takeshi Onaga called for a total withdrawal of Marines.

“I will never forgive the inhumane and brutal act that trampled women’s human rights. I am indignant,” said Onaga, who won election on an anti-base platform.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but it is interesting that the anti-US base Governor is only calling for an end to the US Marine presence on the island.  It would be interesting statistic to see if the Marines really do cause more crime than the other service branches on Okinawa?  It has already been shown that the US military overall commits far less crime per capita than the local population, but of course none of this matters to activists looking to use any crime they can to advance their political agenda.  It is an impossibility for such a large population of US military servicemembers on Okinawa to be completely crime free which means the activists will continue to find incidents to protest.

Well known North Korean sympathizing professor Bruce Cumings thinks a Trump presidency would be interesting based on some of his campaign rhetoric about North Korea:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump could bring a number of “interesting” things to the U.S. presidency, including how the real estate tycoon would deal with North Korea, an American professor said.

Bruce Cumings, a University of Chicago professor with deep expertise on Korea, made the remark in a recent article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, noting that Trump has expressed a willingness to hold direct talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

“If Hillary Clinton becomes president, she will undoubtedly continue the policy of isolation and denuclearization of North Korea. Any number of things would make a Trump presidency interesting, to say the least, but one of them is to see what he would really do in regard to Korea policy,” Cumings said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

I guess everyone in the military who regularly fire M-16s must have an even worse case of PTSD compared to this guy firing an AR-15:

I’ve shot pistols before, but never something like an AR-15. Squeeze lightly on the trigger and the resulting explosion of firepower is humbling and deafening (even with ear protection).

The recoil bruised my shoulder, which can happen if you don’t know what you’re doing. The brass shell casings disoriented me as they flew past my face. The smell of sulfur and destruction made me sick. The explosions — loud like a bomb — gave me a temporary form of PTSD. For at least an hour after firing the gun just a few times, I was anxious and irritable.  [NY Daily News]

Normally I say read the rest at the link, but don’t bother; instead read how Gertz Kushman has been awarded the National Defense Service medal and VA compensation over at the Duffel Blog.

https://twitter.com/freekorea_us/status/743939139310096384

Children play with water guns at the “Summer Splash” festival arranged by Everland, South Korea’s No. 1 amusement park, in Yongin, south of Seoul, on June 19, 2016.   [Yonhap]

It looks like ISIS wants to spread their war against the West all the way over to South Korea now:

The Islamic State jihadist group has designated U.S. Air Force installations here and South Korean citizens as targets for attacks, Seoul’s state spy agency said Sunday.

In a press release, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said that the group incited terrorist attacks against them through Telegram, a messaging service, and revealed location data of 77 Air Force installations of the United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and of individuals in 21 countries.

The extremist group, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), obtained the location data from its own hacking group, named the “United Cyber Caliphate,” the spy agency explained.

“While disseminating the location data of the installations and information on the individuals, (the group) incited (its sympathizers around the world) to retaliate for the benefit of Muslims,” the NIS said.

Through the messaging program, the IS unveiled the locations of U.S. Air Force units in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, and Gunsan, North Jeolla Province, and of one employee of a South Korean welfare organization.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link, but ISIS is a bunch of fools if they think the location of US military bases in South Korea is secret information.

Should South Korean society be more accepting of obesity?  That is what some advocates are saying:

Alina Shamsutdinova thinks she can’t dress up to her potential in South Korea. The 23-year-old Kazakhstani arrived in Seoul in 2011, as an international student, in hopes to learn about the country of her ethnic origin. Born to third-generation ethnic Koreans in Kazakhstan, she grew up thinking she was beautiful, feeling confident and comfortable in her skin.

Yet things started to change when she realized some people in Korea didn’t see her the way she saw herself. “Among the things I heard was ‘It’s okay to be ugly, but being fat is unforgivable,’” she said in an interview with The Korea Herald.

“Another was ‘You’re really lucky that you have a pretty face. Otherwise you would never be able to have a boyfriend.’”

While she has always considered herself a confident person, Shamsutdinova said a part of her struggled with her self-image during her stay in Korea. She was often told by Koreans that she should lose weight. Most local clothing stores didn’t have any items available in her size.  [Korea Herald]

You can read more at the link.