This undated file photo shows an outlet of the supermarket chain Homeplus, British retail giant Tesco’s South Korean unit. A consortium led by MBK Partners, a Seoul-based private equity fund, signed a 7.2 trillion won (US$5.98 billion) deal to buy Homeplus, industry sources said on Sept. 7, 2015. (Yonhap).

This may seem insignificant, but I think it is another small step towards improving relations between the two countries that strategically have more to gain by working together instead of bickering for internal domestic political reasons:

This year will be the first time in 13 years that South Korea has dispatched a vessel to the review

For the first time in 13 years, the South Korean navy will dispatch a vessel to the international fleet review hosted by the Japanese navy. “The South Korean navy is planning to have one vessel participate in the international fleet review hosted by Japan‘s Maritime Self-Defense Forces on Oct. 18. The two navies are currently working out the details,” South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement on Sep. 7. A fleet review is a kind of maritime naval parade in which various military vessels are inspected together. South Korea agreed to participate in Japan’s fleet review during the meeting of the two countries’ defense ministers this May. During the meeting, the two ministers agreed that South Korea would take part in the review in the interest of strengthening bilateral defense cooperation. The last time that South Korea sent a ship to join a naval review hosted by Japan was 2002. Japan deployed vessels to fleet reviews hosted by South Korea in 1998 and 2008. The countries participating in the fleet review, which is being held at Yokosuka Harbor, Japan, include the US, Australia, India, and France.  [Hankyoreh]

You can read the rest at the link.

It was a tough day at work for the K-Pop group GFriend which saw band member Yuju fall eight times during the course of a song.  Another singer also wiped out during the performance as well.  It looks like someone needs to get some traction on that stage:

During a performance Saturday in South Korea, one of the members of girlband GFriend took a number of painful looking falls onstage.

Yuju, easily identified by a white knee guard, fell eight times over the course of one song, and another member SinB took a big spill in the middle of the stage.  [Mashable]

You can read more at the link.

Here is a feel good story about a Korean adoptee and US soldier stationed at Camp Casey who found her biological family in South Korea:

Sgt. Faith Vazquez calls Defiance, Ohio, home, but she also lived in Hawaii and other duty stations with her mother and Navy father. Her then-childless parents adopted her through a Seoul agency when she was 4 months old.

“I never grew up feeling adopted,” said Vazquez, 23, American Forces Network detachment commander at Camp Casey.

She joined the Army after high school graduation. Her first assignment was a one-year tour at South Korea’s Yongsan Garrison.

Vazquez yearned to know more about her heritage but let her tour pass without searching for her origins. “I was 18, and I didn’t feel mentally ready,” she said.

She then set off for three years at Fort Riley, Kan., where her husband now serves in the Army.

She returned to South Korea for a one-year unaccompanied tour in October, conflicted over whether to seek her birth family. She didn’t want to slight her adoptive parents.

But with an adopted co-worker’s encouragement, she contacted the Seoul agency that processed her adoption. Within weeks, the agency phoned: “Faith, we’ve found your family.”  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.

A letter from #JiangZemin (not #XiJinping) thanking US for WW2 help was presented to US Ambassador in late August. http://t.co/AhUg1weHGx

— Chris Horton 何貴森 (@heguisen) September 6, 2015

Another mass casualty incident involving a Korean boat has occurred:

The Coast Guard, Navy and civilians combined their efforts Monday to search for eight people still missing from a capsized fishing boat off the country’s south coast but no progress was made, officials said.

The death toll from the accident stood at 10, with eight people still unaccounted for and three others rescued, the Korea Coast Guard said.

The 9.77-ton boat called the Dolgorae, or Dolphin, was found about 6:25 a.m. Sunday near Chuja Island, north of the southern resort island of Jeju, the maritime security agency said. The boat lost contact with another chartered fishing boat around 7:38 p.m. Saturday, about half an hour after it left Chuja for Haenam, South Jeolla Province, it said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Participants warm up ahead of a multicultural walking contest in Hwaseong Haenggung, a palace in Suwon, south of Seoul, on Sept. 6, 2015. The contest was co-hosted by South Korea’s key newswire service, Yonhap News Agency, and the Suwon municipal government, for the first time this year. (Yonhap)

This naval commander sounds like a candidate for his own reality TV show:

A Navy commander who served as the executive officer of a submarine repair facility in Georgia was relieved of duty on Aug. 24, the Navy announced Monday.

Cmdr. Vincent J. Wood, who was second in charge at the Trident Refit Facility at Kings Bay, was removed from his position because of an ongoing investigation into allegations of personal misconduct, the Navy said.

Wood, who had held his job since April, was removed by Capt. Gunter Braun, commanding officer of the facility. Wood has been administratively reassigned to Submarine Group 10 at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay.

According to the Navy Times, Wood is accused of having an affair with a married civilian employee. The Times said he violated a protective order that required he stay away from the woman.

Quoting a police report, the Times said the two were found together on Aug. 23, and the woman’s husband got into a fight with Wood, who was then hospitalized. Wood suffered “a large contusion to his left eye, several knots on his head, an abrasion to the bridge of his nose, a small cut under his nose, and abrasions to both knees,” according to the report that the Times quoted.  [Stars & Stripes]

The Stars & Stripes profiled a book released this month by Megan MacKenzie titled “Beyond the Band of Brothers: The U.S. Military and the Myth that Women Can’t Fight”.  Here is the part of the article that shows this author knows little about what she is advocating for:

MacKenzie acknowledges differences between the sexes but objects to them being cited as evidence of women’s inferiority for combat positions.

“It’s starting to get old,” she said. “We keep going back to women and men are different but ignoring that warfare is also different and physical standards also potentially need to be adapted. Most militaries around the world are adapting the physical standards because war has changed so much. Just basing standards around measuring the fitness of an average 23-year-old male doesn’t tell us much about whether someone can be a combat soldier.”

Debate over physical standards also ignores that in recent years many women have been in de facto combat positions, particularly those who were in cultural support teams attached to Special Forces and Ranger teams in Afghanistan, she said. Many received combat-action badges. Some were wounded. Two died during direct-action raids.  [Stars & Stripes]

Unless exo-skeletons are invented fitness will remain a top requirement for an infantry soldier.  Serving in the infantry is physically hard and women are at a biological disadvantage.  I have no doubt that the few exceptions like 1LT Shaye Haver and CPT Kristen Griest who recently graduated from Ranger School would be welcomed in the infantry if that is what they wanted to do.

MacKenzie like other advocates before her also continue to cite female engagement teams as evidence women can serve in the infantry and special forces.  Female engagement teams did not do the grinding daily work of infantrymen and special forces; they had their purpose and they executed it well and their purpose was not to do infantry work.  Also being in a combat position and earning a CAB is also not evidence that someone can serve in the infantry.  She is basically making an argument that sounds good to people who have never served in the military before, but those of us who have served know better.

.@SteveKroft reports on North Korea's cyberattack on @SonyPictures, tonight on #60Minutes http://t.co/pLOolANFyd pic.twitter.com/cqd5XsPp9O

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) September 6, 2015