We have all probably made online posts we regret and would later delete.  What if the service you left the posting on would not delete it?  In Korea it may become law that postings that people wanted removed have to be deleted.  Even if this does become a law it just seems like it would be extremely difficult to enforce if the content is kept on servers outside of Korea:

But it was not until 2014 that the Korea Communications Commission (KCC), a media regulation agency, took further steps to discuss the concept, following the European Court of Justice’s landmark ruling for a right to be forgotten.

The result of years of consultations came in the form of a guideline last month, which will go into effect next month. But the guideline, though much anticipated, faces controversy for its blurry standards and lack of specific directions for implementation. Still, proponents support the notion of a right to be forgotten for purposes of privacy and personal dignity.

Unlike the decision by the European Union’s top court, the KCC’s guidelines primarily concern online users’ own posts rather than articles posted by a third party, since Korean law already grants people the right to request the deletion of information by a third party if it is deemed damaging to one’s reputation. And yet the guidelines seek to expand on the right to be forgotten, since it orders Internet companies to accept removal requests in some “exceptional cases” that formerly blocked or limited the original writer’s autonomy over their content.

“People sometimes face trouble accessing and deleting their own posts for different reasons,” said Choi Yoon-jeong, director of the privacy protection and ethics division at the KCC. “For instance, when a platform bans the deletion of a post by a user who has lost his or her ID or password. The guidelines are designed to ensure users’ rights under precisely these kinds of circumstances.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Asahi jumps on the G7 bandwagon. (Photo from a Japanese friend who has a house near the su… https://t.co/GzYJrcV3CG pic.twitter.com/S2GyiLFxJe

— Demetri (@Dimi) May 15, 2016

The dome is an architectural marvel.

Gocheok Sky Dome is the city’s newest indoor baseball stadium. The stadium, based in western Seoul, has a capacity of 16,000 and is home to the Nexen Heroes baseball team. The dome officially opened in 2015 and is the country’s first stadium of its kind containing transparent soundproof panels keeping the noise from the game from disrupting the neighbors. The Gocheok Sky Dome is also used to host concerts and has a swimming pool as well as other sporting facilities at the site. With a fantastic, futuristic exterior and an almost guaranteed super atmosphere inside, Gocheok Sky Dome is certainly worth a visit! [Seoul Flickr Page]

This just proves what I have always said, that action speak louder than words when it comes to Chinese government claims they are complying with sanctions on North Korea:

While the Chinese government claims in official trade figures that it no longer exports oil to North Korea, a JoongAng Ilbo reporter visited a pipeline facility located in the outskirts of the border city of Dandong and witnessed crude oil being loaded into the pipeline for transport across the border.

Located on the China-North Korea border along the Yalu River, this facility is where crude oil goes through a last inspection before being transported across the river.

When the reporter visited the pipeline facility, crude oil was being loaded into the pipeline from oil tankers. The crude oil, which comes from the Daqing Oil Field – the biggest oil field in China located in Heilongjiang Province – was transported there by train and would be piped to a storage facility in Baekma, North Pyongan Province, from which it will be distributed among state agencies, military bases and transport-related factories in the energy-hungry country.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but I have never believed that the Chinese government would fully comply with sanctions because even though the Kim regime is a foreign policy headache for them, a collapsed North Korean state would be even worse.

Basically this advisor is stating in the interview that Trump has to say one thing on the campaign trail, but once elected President he will be more flexible on the policies he is campaigning on:

A President Donald Trump will neither abandon South Korea nor let the Asian ally defend itself against threats from North Korea, a top foreign policy adviser to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said.

Walid Phares, an international relations scholar who serves as Trump’s foreign policy brain, made the remark in an interview with Yonhap News Agency and Yonhap News Television, stressing that Trump’s remarks, such as his call for Seoul to shoulder all costs for U.S. troop presence, should be taken only as an expression of “principles.”  (………..)

“At this point in time he is a candidate. He’s a Republican candidate, practically speaking. So, he will talk about principles, and those principles mean burden-sharing. He wants the South Korean government to share more,” Phares said. “There is a principle … that America alone cannot be defending the world. It does not mean that America wants to withdraw from the world.”

Trump will see “what the South Koreans can offer, or what the Japanese would offer, what our friends in the Middle East could offer. Then he would negotiate. He is good at negotiations,” Phares said of the call for defense burden-sharing.

Such negotiations do not mean Trump will abandon South Korea, Phares said.

“If South Korea is threatened by either North Korea, or other players, a Trump administration would be standing by the South Koreans. There is no idea that we’re going to let South Korea or Japan defend themselves against a threat,” he said.

Referring to Trump’s call for South Korea to shoulder all costs for American troop presence, Phares said that the real estate tycoon “wants to show the maximum” as a negotiator before settling for reality. And such maximum positions could evolve over time, he said.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest of the interview at the link, but the bottom line is that if Trump is elected the ROK government best be ready to pay more USFK cost sharing than the 50% they are paying now.  Considering Japan is currently paying 75% I would not be surprised if that is the number that Trump may want to settle on.

Here is another story of a senior military leader in big trouble.  This time Colonel David Cockrum the former commander of the 51st Medical Group on Osan Airbase was charged with sexually assaulting two male servicemembers, but was found not guilty of those charges, but was instead found guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer for fraternizing with the male servicemembers:

An Air Force colonel with nearly 20 years of service was found not guilty of sexual assault during his court-martial last week.

Col. David Cockrum, former commander of the 51st Medical Group at Osan Air Base, South Korea, was found not guilty of two specifications of sexual assault and one specification of abusive sexual contact in violation of Article 120 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Pacific Air Forces spokesman Col. David Honchul told Air Force Times on Tuesday.

Cockrum was found guilty of one charge of conduct unbecoming an officer. According to court documents, he faced that charge because he did “knowingly fraternize with enlisted persons, on terms of military equality  … such conduct being to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces,” between July 2014 and March 2015.

The military judge sentenced him to 30 days confinement, forfeiture of $5,000 pay per month for eight months ($40,000 total), and a reprimand, Honchul said.  [Air Force Times]

You can read more at the link.

Over at The DMZ War there is a very interesting document posted that is a transcript of a 1976 phone conversation between Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft. Kissinger and Scowcroft talk about a lot of interesting things in regards to the US response to the killing of two US Army officers during the DMZ Axe Murder Incident. For example Kissinger believed that the North Korean barracks inside of the Joint Security Area (JSA) should have been bombed.  Something else I did not know was that the two officers killed in the attack had their bodies shipped home in coffins made from the wood of the tree that was chopped down:

You can read the rest of the transcript at this link.

#DPRK reportedly releases detained Russian yacht, Russia still requesting explanation from DPRK over detention of vessel.

— Nathan J Hunt (@ISNJH) May 15, 2016

North Korean residents use machines to transplant rice seedlings for the first time this year at a collective farm, southwest of the country’s capital Pyongyang, in this photo released on May 13, 2016, by the Rodong Simmun, the organ of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party of Korea. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

Over the past two months two US military colonels have found themselves facing a number of serious charges to include sexual assault.  The first one Colonel Shane Tomko has already found himself in jail for violating a pretrial agreement:

A Marine officer facing a general court-martial over allegations of sexual assault has been sent to a county jail for violating the terms of his pretrial agreement.

Col. T. Shane “Rhino” Tomko, the former commander of the Marine Corps’ Wounded Warrior Regiment, was sent to the Rappahannock Regional Jail in Stafford, Virginia, on May 6, said Rex Runyon, a Marine Corps spokesman. Tomko is in the process of being transferred to the U.S. Navy brig in Chesapeake, Virginia, he added.  (………)

Tomko faces charges of abusive sexual contact, fraternization, conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, wrongful possession of anabolic steroids, obstructing justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice and violations of lawful orders, according to the charge sheet against him.  [Marine Corps Times]

According to Marine Corps Life he forcibly kissed a female Marine on the mouth and supposedly said that she was “a hot and intriguing dyke that makes me wish I were a woman.”

Then over in Colorado there is an Air Force colonel who seems to be quite the ladies man when he isn’t being accused of sexual assault:

The former vice commander of the 50th Space Wing, charged with rape, assault, adultery and other lewd acts, will head to a general court-martial in August, according to the 21st Space Wing at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado.

Col. Eugene Marcus Caughey, currently assigned to Air Force Space Command at Peterson, was charged Dec.10 with rape and assault at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado, after in late 2014 or early 2015 he allegedly used “unlawful force” to hold the victim “against the wall and floor” while committing a sexual act, charge sheet documents reveal. He was also charged with various acts of alleged misconduct — which includes taking photos of his genitals while in uniform — dating back to 2013, according to his charge sheet.  [Air Force Times]

You can read more at the link, but this guy supposedly had six different girlfriends while being married and his defense is that they are spurned lovers.

These two colonels are of course innocent until proven guilty, but regardless they are quite the embarrassment for the US military.