South Korean President Park Geun-hye enters a voting booth in Seoul on April 13, 2016. The quadrennial polls are to elect a new 300-member National Assembly and take on extra significance as the results will affect how Park wraps up her remaining term in office, as well as set the tone for who will succeed her. (Yonhap)

It seems to me if anyone should get in trouble its the policeman who drew his weapon simply because a service member tapped his beer bottle and made the foam run out:

American troops involved in a bar brawl with Filipino policemen face possible disciplinary sanctions in an incident earlier this month that the Philippine military says has no bearing on ongoing large-scale combat exercises by the treaty allies.

Philippine military spokesman Capt. Celeste Frank Sayson said the April 2 scuffle in western Palawan province was a misunderstanding that was settled amicably. A Youtube video showed one of three Filipino policemen drawing a pistol during the confrontation.

The U.S. military said in a statement that “any potential misconduct of U.S. service members is completely unacceptable” and will be dealt with by the troops’ home unit. It did not give details of the incident nor identified the troops involved.

While off duty American troops appreciate the opportunity to experience the local culture while training in the Philippines, the U.S. military said it “demands high standards of conduct from service members at all times, and takes all incidents involving potential misconduct very seriously.”

Sayson said the incident would not affect Balikatan, referring to the name of the joint military exercises by U.S. and Philippine troops.  [Associated Press]

You can read the rest at the link.

If the ruling Saenuri political party loses its majority it will be interesting to see if that has any affect on President Park’s current tough stance on North Korea as well as the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system to the peninsula:

South Korea’s ruling Saenuri Party is slightly ahead of its main opposition rival in Wednesday’s tightly contested parliamentary elections, though it may not win a parliamentary majority, an exit poll said.

An exit poll by South Korea’s public broadcaster KBS predicted that the ruling Saenuri Party could win between 121-143 while the main opposition Minjoo Party could secure between 101-123 seats out of the total 300 seats up for grabs.

KBS conducted the joint exit poll with two other broadcasters MBC and SBS, though they have different predictions on the results of the elections as they use different tools.

The poll released by MBC showed the ruling party winning between 118-136 seats against the Minjoo Party’s 107-128 seats.

An SBS poll forecast the ruling party winning between 123-147 seats and the Minjoo Party securing 97-120 seats.

The minor opposition People’s Party is projected to win between 31-43 seats while independent candidates are expected to secure between 8-20 seats, according to the poll released by the three broadcasters.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Considering that this defection did happen a year ago it does seem like a legitimate question to ask if this had any political motivations:

A North Korean military intelligence officer has defected to South Korea, the South’s Unification Ministry announced on Monday. While declining to give details, ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee confirmed the man is a colonel and called the defection “meaningful.” He is believed to be one of the highest-ranking North Koreans to defect to the South.

Jeong said the defection could be read as a sign of fissure at the top levels of North Korea’s regime.

The announcement comes just days after South Korea said that 13 North Koreans who worked at a state-run restaurant defected en masse last week. Chinese officials confirmed Monday that the North Koreans were working in China, that they left China April 6 and that they were North Korean passport holders.

It is unclear when the high-ranking military official defected to the South. Defectors are often questioned and debriefed for months before news of their defections is publicly announced. In this case, South Korean news wire Yonhap reports the official defected sometime last year, which immediately sparked criticism that the government’s announcement is politically motivated: South Koreans go to the polls in parliamentary elections this week, and previous governments have similarly been accused of trying to influence elections with conveniently-timed announcements.  [NPR]

You can read more at the link.

North Korea calls defection of 13 North Koreans from China an "unprecedented kidnapping incident" https://t.co/ShDR2iPJuc

— Elizabeth Shim (@GlobalAsianista) April 12, 2016

A man (C) dressed in king’s clothes is flanked by two others in maids’ attire as they pose for an event to help foreign tourists experience traditional Korean costumes (hanbok) for free at Gwanghwamun Square in downtown Seoul on April 12, 2016. The costume was used during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). (Yonhap)

Much like the Kaesong Industrial Complex workers it is a pretty sad state of affairs when being a quasi-slave abroad is better than be a worker in North Korea:

One North Korean who worked abroad says that as a waitress in China, she was forced to put up with male customers who groped her and tried to get her drunk. Two others recall the frozen bodies of their countrymen stored in Russian logging camps. Another says he toiled for up to 16 hours a day at a Kuwaiti construction site surrounded by wire fences.

As difficult as those lives were, the four workers told The Associated Press, it beat staying in the North. The jobs actually conveyed status back home, and were so coveted that people used bribes and family connections to get them.

“I beat the odds of 1 in 12 to become a waitress … People’s views of jobs in North Korea are totally different from here,” said Lee Soung Hee, 42, who worked at a North Korean-run restaurant in the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian in the early 2000s and now lives in South Korea. “Women in North Korea have a fantasy about an overseas waitress job.”

The stories of Lee and the other three workers, all of whom have also defected to rival South Korea, speak volumes about how different life appears when viewed through a North Korean lens.

The country has sent tens of thousands of workers abroad with a mission to bring in foreign currency. Human-rights organizations have called those workers modern-day slaves, while also decrying human-rights abuses North Koreans face back home. To the workers themselves, there is little debate about which plight is more favorable.

The defectors, who worked overseas from the 1990s until the early 2000s, said they had to submit much of their salaries to Pyongyang authorities and never received some of their promised wages. But they said the money they did receive, sometimes earned through moonlighting, still greatly exceeded what they had earned at home.

They said they were also fed relatively well, placed under less strict surveillance and given a rare chance to see the world and learn truths about their homeland.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link.

The North Koreans continue to find different ways to mock President Obama.  At least this time they did not resort to racism:

North Korea has tried warnings of nuclear attack and racist diatribes to criticize U.S. President Barack Obama. Now it’s turning to Abraham Lincoln.

North Korea’s state media have constructed an imaginary letter from the 16th U.S. president that attacks Obama’s “deception” over Pyongyang’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. It is the latest response from the North to rising animosity with Washington following Pyongyang’s nuclear test and long-range rocket launch earlier this year.

The letter, posted only in Korean on the DPRK Today website, is likely aimed at a domestic audience. DPRK Today is a relatively little known outlet compared with the North’s main Korean Central News Agency and the Rodong Sinmun newspaper, which outsiders regularly check to find news from the authoritarian country.

The letter is titled “Advice from Lincoln to Obama.”

“Hey, Obama,” it begins. “I know you have a lot on your mind these days … I’ve decided to give you a little advice after seeing you lost in thought before my portrait during a recent Easter Prayer Breakfast.”

In the letter, Lincoln derides Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning push to build a nuclear-free world by questioning why the United States has not taken the initiative to scale back its nuclear arsenal first, even as it asks countries such as North Korea to scrap their atomic programs.

“If the United States, a country with the world’s largest nuclear weapons stockpile, only pays lip service, like a parrot, and doesn’t do anything actively, it will be a mockery to the entire world,” the letter has Lincoln say.  [Seattle Times]

You can read the rest at the link.

Close-up photo of ICBM “new type high power engine” carried by #DPRK media. pic.twitter.com/D69TLONBfM

— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) April 9, 2016