https://twitter.com/pearswick/status/714660235458117632

A model stands beside the CRF 1000L Africa Twin motorbike, manufactured by Japan’s Honda Motor Co., during a motorbike exhibition at the Convention and Exhibition Center in Seoul on March 31, 2016. It marks the first time for the new motorbike to be showcased in the South Korean market. (Yonhap)

Good news for Mexico because obviously the ROK leadership views their country as one worthy of seeking investment in:

More than 100 business executives plan to travel to Mexico this week along with President Park Geun-hye, officials said Monday, in an apparent effort to try to forge new business opportunities with the large North American country.

Park is set to meet with her Mexican counterpart Enrique Pena Nieto next Monday to discuss how to boost cooperation in a wide range of issues between the two countries.

The trip follows Park’s visit to Washington for the Nuclear Security Summit with U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders set to be held on Thursday and Friday.

A total of 108 companies, including Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor, plan to send their senior executives to Mexico on the occasion of Park’s visit to try to explore new business opportunities.

It marks South Korea’s largest business delegation ever to Mexico. In 2010, only a dozen business executives traveled to Mexico with then-President Lee Myung-bak.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Alicia Watkins who has more than received her 15 minutes of fame over the past few years claiming to be a wounded warrior from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  However, she has now been officially outed as having lied about her background.  The Air Force Times was able to get a copy of her DD-214 that shows she was not a recipient of the Purple Heart and never deployed to Iraq:

Official military records contradict several claims made by an Air Force veteran whose story of surviving the 9/11 terror attacks and battling severe combat injuries gained her access to prestigious events and captivated  celebrities, most recently Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump.

Alicia Watkins, who retired from the Air Force in 2008 for undisclosed medical reasons, has since appeared on multiple mainstream news and TV programs, including “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and the TLC reality series “Say Yes to the Dress,” to discuss her struggles after sustaining a career-ending back injury from an improvised explosive attack in Afghanistan. However, there is nothing in the list of awards and decorations contained in Watkins’ military personnel file indicating she was ever involved in an enemy attack. A spokesman for the Air Force Personnel Center in San Antonio, Texas, Mike Dickerson, provided Air Force Times with Watkins’ decorations, awards and deployments, as noted on her DD-214 discharge form.  [Air Force Times]

I recommend reading the entire article at the link, but the Air Force Times piece has still left some questions unanswered.  For example she was assigned to the Pentagon during the timeframe of the 9/11 attack.  However, was she there the day the attack happened like she claims?  The fact she was not awarded a Purple Heart directly contradicts the claim she has made that she was injured during the attack.  This also proves she was not wounded by an IED in Afghanistan as well.  The other part of her narrative that has yet to be resolved is if she really knew the Army soldier who died during the 9/11 attack that she supposedly started a charity for.

Then her personnel records show she was only awarded 8 awards, but she has been seen wearing 19 awards to include the Purple Heart.  Then there is the fact that she was not awarded an Afghanistan Campaign Medal. The Air Force Times says she deployed to Afghanistan, but if she did not receive the campaign medal that means she was not in theater long enough to receive it.  Personnel receive the medal after 30 consecutive days in theater or 60 non-consecutive.  So she may not have even been in Afghanistan longer than 30 days.  I am also amazed that after nearly 10 years in the Air Force she did not receive an Air Force Achievement Medal.  This really makes me wonder about her performance if as an E-5 she did not receive at least an achievement medal.

Anyway this should close the book on her, but I am sure she will defend herself by saying the Air Force screwed up her records like many other people caught inflating their service tend to do.  It will be interesting to see if any legal action is pursued because she has profited from her wartime injury claims which is against the law.

You can read more about the DD-214 findings over at Guardians of Valor as well as John Q. Public.

The regime has shown in the past that it is more than willing to let hundreds of thousands of citizens to starve to death because of sanctions and it appears they are getting ready to do it again:

North Korea is telling its citizens to prepare for famine.

State-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun published an editorial Monday telling the people of North Korea that food shortages and economic hardship are on the horizon, Time reports.

The news comes less than a month after the United Nations Security Council handed down  harsh sanctions for North Korea continuing its nuclear and missile programs. The sanctions, targeted at the nation’s elite and their assets, prohibit certain luxury items and ban exports of resources being used to finance the country’s weapons pursuit.

A result of this struggle, the editorial says, “We may have to go on an arduous march, during which we will have to chew the roots of plants once again,” invoking a metaphor used by North Korean leadership for the four-year famine in the country beginning in 1994, during which approximately 3 million people died.

“The road to revolution is long and arduous,” it continued, calling for renewed support for Kim Jong Un in the form of a “70-day campaign of loyalty” that involves each already-struggling residents of Pyongyang donating two pounds of rice per month to state warehouses. Farmers are also being forced to “donate”portions of their crops to the military. [US News and World Report]

You can read more at the link.

With the nuclear threat North Korea is building and the continued territorial aggressiveness of the Chinese developing nuclear weapons in both South Korea and Japan may happen eventually anyway:

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has reiterated that he is open to allowing South Korea and Japan to have nuclear weapons so as to defend themselves against threats from North Korea.

Trump made the remark during a town hall meeting televised on CNN Tuesday night, stressing that the North has nuclear weapons and the U.S. is no longer rich enough to defend other wealthy nations, like Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia.

“Can I be honest are you? Maybe it’s going to have to be time to change, because so many people, you have Pakistan has it, you have China has it. You have so many other countries are now having it,” Trump said, referring to nuclear weapons.

“At some point we have to say, you know what, we’re better off if Japan protects itself against this maniac in North Korea. We’re better off, frankly, if South Korea is going to start to protect itself,” Trump said, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Asked again if he means it’s OK for Japan, South Korea and even Saudi Arabia to have nuclear weapons, Trump said, “It’s going to happen anyway. It’s going to happen anyway. It’s only a question of time. They’re going to start having them or we have to get rid of them entirely.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

People's Discontent Rises as Restrictions Reinforced to Prepare KWP Conference #NorthKorea https://t.co/RJ1lTHpqyT pic.twitter.com/nd1vSFBYRt

— RimjingangNK (@RimjingangNK) March 30, 2016

A woman representing a nationwide association of brothel owners, known as Hanteo, sobs at the Constitutional Court in Seoul on March 31, 2016, after the court declared the law punishing voluntary prostitution constitutional. (Yonhap)

Some people should not be allowed to board a airplane.  This story makes me wonder if alcohol was in any way involved or if he is just an old guy with mental issues?:

 A Japan-bound airplane returned to Hawaii because of a violent passenger who wanted to do yoga instead of sit in his seat, the FBI said.

The pilot of the March 26 United Airlines flight from Honolulu International Airport to Narita International Airport turned the plane around after hearing that Hyongtae Pae was yelling at crew members and shoving his wife, the FBI said in a criminal complaint.

Pae told the FBI he didn’t want to sit in his seat during the meal service, so he went to the back of the plane to do yoga and meditate. He became angry when his wife and flight attendants told him to return to his seat. “Pae pushed his wife because she was trying to make him stop,” the complaint said. “He felt that she was siding with the flight crew.”

He tried to head-butt and bite Marines who were passengers on the flight and tried to force him back to his seat, Assistant U.S. Attorney Darren Ching said at Pae’s detention hearing Wednesday.

According to the complaint, he threatened to kill passengers and was yelling that there is no god.

Pae went into a rage because he felt the flight crew was ordering him around, Ching said.

Ching said Pae shouldn’t be released because he’s a danger to his wife, himself and others. Pae urinated on himself and was on suicide watch at the Honolulu Federal Detention Center, Ching said.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link.

ROK Drop favorite Park Sang-hak and his group have continued with their propaganda balloon campaign against North Korea in the wake of the Kim regime’s repeated weapons tests:

An organization made up of North Korean escapees and a conservative civic group have distributed some 100-thousand leaflets denouncing the North’s nuclear and missile tests across the border.

Amid the heightened inter-Korean tension, Fighters for Free North Korea and the National Action Campaign for Freedom and Democracy in Korea distributed the leaflets on Monday in Paju, Gyeonggi Province near the border.

The organizations said that the people have the obligation to chastise Kim Jong-un’s threats and provocations regardless of whether or not the South’s government and military engage in psychological warfare.

The organizations then called on the public to join movements to send balloons containing leaflets to the North.

Last Saturday, Fighters for Free North Korea distributed 80-thousand leaflets condemning the North from Gimpo and Paju, as the day marked the sixth anniversary of the sinking of the South Korean naval corvette Cheonan torpedoed by Pyongyang.

Park Sang-hak, the head of the group, said that the organization will continue to send what will be a combined ten million leaflets critical of Pyongyang over the next three months.  [KBS World Radio]