This is actually pretty applicable training these helicopter crews are doing that could be used not only in wartime, but during disaster response missions as well:

If war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, it could be waged in and around thousands of high-rise apartment blocks that fill valleys south of the Demilitarized Zone.

Aware of the challenging environment, the Army has acquired its own high-rise facility at Rodriguez Live Fire Range — a training area near the DMZ — where troops can hone their urban combat skills.

Medics participating in Foal Eagle exercises, underway this month in South Korea, gathered on the roof of the seven-story building Wednesday to learn how to hoist casualties onto a hovering Black Hawk helicopter.

Buffeted by wind from the aircraft’s rotors, the medics took turns strapping into a yellow “jungle penetrator” — a heavy device designed to be dropped through jungle canopy to troops on the ground — and riding the hoist up to the Black Hawk and back down to the roof.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.

https://twitter.com/staffordnetnz/status/712486979192037376

This photo taken on March 22, 2016, shows a shamanic ritual, ” Chilmeoridangyeongdeunggut,” being staged on South Korea’s largest resort island of Jeju. The UNESCO-designated ritual, held every year in the second lunar month, welcomes the goddess of diving women and fishermen. (Yonhap)

This is not good if true because it means that North Korea could fire their long range rockets without fueling.  Fueling of rockets if detected gives the US and the ROK militaries forewarning of a possible attack which solid fuel rockets prevents:

Leader Kim Jong-un claimed North Korea successfully tested a solid-fuel rocket engine that boosts the power of its ballistic missiles, state media reported Thursday, in his latest boast of military technology breakthroughs following United Nations sanctions.

The North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Kim led a test of solid-fuel rocket engines, stressing that the result of the test was in line with previous estimations.

“He noted with great pleasure that the successful test provided a guarantee for attaining the high goals of national defense science and technology without fail this year when the Seventh Congress of the Worker’s Party of Korea [meets],” the KCNA said, “and helped boost the power of ballistic rockets capable of mercilessly striking hostile forces.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

I think this guy got off light with a 12 year sentence for trying to kill US Ambassador Mark Lippert so any more time in prison the Koreans can give him the better:

 A local court on Wednesday sentenced the 56-year-old man, who attacked the top U.S. envoy to South Korea last year, to an additional 18 months in prison for assaulting prison staff.

The Seoul Central District Court found Kim Ki-jong guilty of hitting a prison officer and a surgeon when he was denied the right to go to a hospital for his ankle injury. The staff rejected Kim’s request as the injury was treatable in jail, prosecutors said.

Kim is currently serving a prison term for attacking U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert with a knife at a function in Seoul in March last year.

“The defendant denies the allegations and only emphasizes the legitimacy of his (action), without showing any remorse,” the court said.

In September, the same court sentenced the 56-year-old to 12 years in prison on a string of charges, including attempted murder.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

This has been an ongoing complaint for troops deployed in Korea, but I don’t see this decision changing considering the fiscally constrained environment the Army finds itself in:

 Efforts to encourage U.S. soldiers to eat at on-base dining facilities haven’t gone down well with some hungry troops, who say they’d rather spend subsistence allowances at fast-food joints or off-base restaurants.

A new Army policy called Essential Unit Messing — which went into effect Feb. 1 — requires soldiers deployed with rotational units on the peninsula to eat at the dining facilities or pay out of pocket for food.

Under the policy, the Army deducts meal costs from a subsistence allowance that troops used to be free to spend wherever they liked, Army spokesman Paul Prince told the Army Times.

Despite the change, several dozen soldiers, including some from the 1st “Ironhorse” Armored Brigade Combat Team, were eating lunch Wednesday at Camp Casey’s food court. The Fort Hood, Texas-based unit is there on a nine-month rotational deployment.

Spc. Dartanian Pina, 21, of Rio Rancho, N.M., said he quickly tired of dining facility food and prefers to go off base, paying out of pocket for local fare such as bulgogi (beef stew).

“It’s better than the DFAC (dining facility),” said Pina, adding that he liked the freedom of the old system.

Adding insult to injury, some have complained the dining facilities weren’t giving them enough to eat.

Amanda Ramirez, of Killeen, Texas, whose husband, Steve, is a sergeant serving with the Ironhorse brigade, posted photos online showing the small food portions that soldiers from the unit were getting at dining facilities last month.

“I cannot form a well-written response as to how mad I am right now,” Ramirez said on her Facebook page above the pictures of fairly small portions of chicken, eggs and potatoes. [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.

North Koreans say sanction hits hard on Kim Jong-un, but inevitably it will hit people’s lives as well https://t.co/nwuapDkdX4

— RimjingangNK (@RimjingangNK) March 23, 2016

This still image captured from video footage of North Korea’s key propaganda website, “Uriminjokkiri,” on March 22, 2016, shows Cheong Wa Dae being placed in crosshairs before President Park Geun-hye and the presidential office are shattered like glass. (Yonhap)

How many nations openly discuss assassinating the leader of a neighboring nation like the North Koreans do?  The rhetoric from North Korea recently seems to have reached a new level which makes me wonder if the sanctions really are beginning to bite?:

North Korea threatened Wednesday to wage a retaliatory war against President Park Geun-hye in the latest show of defiance against tougher U.N. sanctions and joint military drills between Seoul and Washington.

North Korea vowed to “launch a retaliatory battle of justice to resolutely eliminate” the United States and Park, warning that it is ready to turn South Korea’s presidential office into a sea of fire.

“The powerful large-caliber multiple rocket launching systems of invincible Korean People’s Army artillery units are highly alerted to scorch Cheong Wa Dae… in a jiffy,” the North’s committee handling inter-Korean affairs said in a statement carried by the country’s official Korean Central News Agency.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

The below article actually doesn’t surprise me considering how I have accidentally dropped money before and had people return it to me on the street.  It is good to see how honest people can be even when it involves thousands of dollars of money:

Korean news sources have reported that a woman dumped W22 million cash (US$19, 030) in Seoul Square and not one single person stopped to pick any of it up.

According to reports, the stunt was largely ignored with no one stopping to collect any of the hundreds of bank notes that littered the area. Instead, many simply gave the scene a passing glance or stopped to take photos – but none of the free cash.  [10Mag]

You can read more at the link.