If North Korea was to conduct an above ground nuclear test it would be interesting to see what the Chinese reaction to it would be since they would be affected by the fallout:

A Japanese daily says North Korea could go ahead with a nuclear test in the atmosphere as its final means of a threat to hold direct talks with the United States.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun said in a Thursday column that there are skeptical views of North Korea conducting an anachronistic atmospheric nuclear test. However, it noted the North’s past behavior such as the shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island, torpedoing of the South’s Cheonan vessel and infiltration of special forces into the South using a submarine.

The paper argued the North will find it necessary to bring forth something even more shocking to draw U.S. attention, and quoted expert opinions that the possibility of an atmospheric nuke test can no longer be excluded.

At atmospheric nuclear explosion causes radioactive fallout in all directions and poses a devastating impact on the environment.

No country in the world has conducted such a test since China in 1980.  [KBS World Radio]

The North Koreans recently test for the first time their Musudan missile which has the potential range of targeting the US island of Guam:

North Korea conducted its first test-launch of the medium-range ballistic missile Musudan early Friday from its east coast, but the launch ended in failure, officials said.

“North Korea seems to have tried a missile launch from the East Sea area in the early morning today, but it is presumed to have failed,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

Sources said the launched missile was the Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), also known as the BM-25.

The missile lifted off at 5:30 a.m. but deviated from a “normal” trajectory, a JCS official told reporters.

After their joint assessment, South Korea and the United States concluded the launch as a failure, he added without elaborating further.

One military official said the IRBM disappeared from the South Korean side’s surveillance radar shortly after liftoff.

“It is highly likely that it may have exploded in the air. A further analysis is under way,” according to the official.

It was North Korea’s first test-launch of a Musudan missile, which the North is believed to have deployed against South Korea and other countries since 2007. The North has reportedly deployed some 30 Musudan missiles.  [Yonhap]

Reuters is reporting that it blew up on the launch pad which seems to contradict the ROK military saying that it fell off of their radar screens shortly after launch:

A U.S. government source told Reuters on Friday the missile never got off the launch pad, instead bursting into flames on the ground. It was not yet clear what caused the failure but further tests are expected, said the source, who asked not to be named.  [Reuters]

Whatever the failure was, this does not mean the North Koreans did not receive valuable data from this launch.  So hopefully people are not too quick to dismiss the North’s Musudan missile threat because of this one test.  It took them multiple launches to perfect their Taepodong-2 rocket technology which has had two straight successful launches putting objects into space.  If they continue to test the Musudan which I would think they will likely do, they are bound to figure out the errors that occurred in this test and perfect the technology.

I would think the term “patrols” used in the article would be referring to Japan’s Aegis ships that have ballistic missile defense capabilities.  It seems prudent for the Japanese to do this considering the possibility of the Musudan being fired over their country:

Japan says it is tightening patrols as a contingency against news that North Korea has deployed its Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missiles near Wonsan in Gangwon Province.

Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani told reporters Thursday that the possibility of an additional provocation by North Korea can’t be denied.

He said the Japanese government will continue to keep close tabs and do its best in patrolling and surveillance.

Speaking to reporters, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga also said the government was highly attentive to North Korea’s nuclear and missile issue and has been gathering and analyzing intelligence.

He said the Self-Defense Forces were also maintaining defense readiness.

When asked if Pyongyang could launch a missile on Friday, the birthday of late North Korean founder Kim Il-sung, Suga said the Tokyo government is aware and coordinating with South Korea and the U.S. on response measures. [KBS World Radio]

You can read more at the link.

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Canadian Ambassador to Seoul Eric Walsh (C) pays tribute at the grave of late Dr. Frank William Scofield at the National Cemetery in Seoul on April 12, 2016. Scofield, a Canadian doctor, served as a medical professor and a Christian missionary in Korea in the latter half of the 1910s and engaged actively in efforts to liberate Korea from Japanese colonial rule. This year marks the 46th anniversary of his passing and the centennial of his arrival in Korea. (Yonhap)

This Yonhap report claims that the North Koreans currently have two Musudans deployed near Wonsan in preparation for a possible test fire this week.  This would be a significant test since the Musudan has never been tested before and is believed to have enough range to target Guam.  What would be even more provocative is if they fire this missile over Japan:

North Korea has deployed one or two Musudan mid-range ballistic missiles to near the eastern port city of Wonsan for a possible launch to mark its founding father’s birthday this week, government sources said Thursday.

“North Korea has been detected to have deployed a Musudan missile(s) in the vicinity of Wonsan’s Hodo Peninsula,” one source told Yonhap News Agency.

“After deploying them some 20 days ago, the North has not withdrawn them,” the source said. “Given the fact, North Korea is likely to venture a launch on the occasion of Kim Il-sung’s birthday.”

On Friday, North Korea marks the 104th birthday of the late North Korean founder and leader Kim Il-sun.

The North has celebrated the “Day of the Sun” with elaborate military events in the past, with experts predicting that the event for this year will be marked with a ballistic missile launch.

Other military sources said the missile or the missiles were loaded onto a transporter-erector-launcher or TEL, a mobile missile launcher.

If the launch takes place, it will be North Korea’s first test-launch of the intermediate-range ballistic missile also known as BM-25.

With a range of up to 4,000 kilometers, the missile could fly over South Korea and Japan to reach as far as Guam, where United States military forces are stationed.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

It is now official that President Park Geun-hye’s Saenuri Party has lost their majority in the Korean parliament after recent elections:

“We will make sure to get rid of our arrogance and self-righteousness by gravely reflecting upon the warning issued by the people through this election,” read a group text message a defeated Saenuri Party candidate sent to his constituents on Thursday.

Such humble words were echoed by a number of his colleagues, as the ruling party was reeling from the crushing defeat that stripped it of the status of majority and No.1 parliamentary party.

Indeed, protracting economic doldrums, the party’s factional fighting, and the Park Geun-hye government’s inflexibility and lack of interaction with the legislature, ordinary citizens and other members of society are blamed for the party’s landslide loss in Wednesday’s general election, observers said.  [Korea Herald]

The big winner in the parliamentary election was former presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo:

Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo, co-chair of the minority People’s Party, was seen as the biggest winner in the elections. His party won 38 seats, far more than the 20-seat requirement to form a parliamentary negotiating bloc.

The party pledged to become a “genuine representative” to realize people’s aspirations for a change in politics.

“We will pay back with the kind of politics that changes politics, the government and the lives of the people,” he said during a meeting with his party officials.  [Yonhap]

Ahn’s parliamentary electoral success may end up being a good jumping board for him to launch another presidential election campaign, especially if the economy continues to be flat in Korea.  Ahn could use his businessman background much like Donald Trump does in the US to burnish his credentials to be the next President.

From a US perspective what I think people should look at is whether the election results will cause any softening in President Park’s current hardline policy on North Korea and the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system to Korea.

Could North Korea be showing off its nuclear and ICBM weapon tests to simply make people think they have more capability than they really have?  That is what some researchers think:

 

Ahead of a rare ruling party Congress next month, secretive North Korea is revealing details of its weapons development program for the first time, showcasing its push to develop long-range nuclear missiles despite international sanctions.

Until recently, information on the North’s weapons program was hard to come by, with foreign governments and experts relying on satellite imagery, tiny samples of atomic particles collected after nuclear tests and mangled parts and materials recovered from long-range rocket launches.

No longer. In just over a month, the North has published articles with technicolor photographic detail on a range of tests and other activities that point to fast-paced efforts to build a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

The reason for the revelations, many analysts say, is that Pyongyang believes convincing the world, and its own people, of its nuclear prowess is as important as the prowess itself. Nevertheless, isolated North Korea’s true capabilities and intentions remain unknown.

“Close-up pictures of ground test activities are almost unprecedented from the DPRK,” John Schilling, an aerospace engineer specializing in satellite and launch vehicle propulsion systems, told Reuters.

DPRK stands for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s official name. The reclusive state has conducted four nuclear tests in the past 10 years, the last in January.

“The openness suggests that the underlying strategy is as much diplomatic as military: it is important to Pyongyang not only that they have these capabilities, but that we believe they have these capabilities,” Schilling said.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link.

Here is another example of a race baiting article being pushed by the media insinuating that the poor black soldier in this article that could not afford an attorney is some how getting treated unfairly compared to the white soldier who’s family could afford a civilian attorney.  The article claims they committed similar crimes and received very different sentences.  However, upon closer scrutiny the two crimes were very different and tried in different court systems thus different outcomes not that facts matter in click bait articles like this:

Two soldiers from the same Joint Base Lewis-McChord infantry battalion experienced two very different kinds of justice when they came home from training events a year apart and carried out deadly crimes.

Pvt. Jeremiah Hill, prosecuted in Army court, received a sentence of 45 years in prison for knifing another soldier in the heart on a Lakewood street.

The rookie soldier from a poor Chicago family had an Army-provided defense attorney and rarely showed remorse when he testified.

Spc. Skylar Nemetz, prosecuted in Pierce County Superior Court, last week received a sentence of less than 14 years for causing the death of his wife, Danielle, when he accidentally shot her in the head with a rifle.

His Northern California family reached deep into their savings to hire an experienced private attorney. Nemetz wept on the witness stand and persuaded a jury he didn’t mean to kill his wife.

The disparities in outcomes for two soldiers from the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment show the differences in what can happen when the Army and Pierce County carry out their informal agreement to decide which agency should prosecute soldiers who commit crimes outside of JBLM. [News Tribune]

You can read the rest at the link to learn the details of each case.

Rising discontent as control reinforced to prepare the 7th Workers Party Conference in May…Forced labor to the … pic.twitter.com/YGkXNVBZWh

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