I would be very surprised if the appeals court ruling acquitting Cho is overturned because really is what she did worthy of going to jail for a whole year?:

South Korean prosecutors on Thursday appealed a court decision that acquitted the eldest daughter of Korean Air’s chairman of disrupting a flight in a rage over macadamia nuts.

Cho Hyun-Ah, who had been in jail since her arrest in December, walked free last week after an appeals court overturned her conviction for violating aviation safety laws.

The prosecutor’s office in Seoul announced that it had submitted an appeal with the Supreme Court to reverse the verdict.  [AFP]

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the North Koreans will probably start another provocation cycle whenever this rocket launch site upgrade is complete:

Satellite imagery shows significant new construction at North Korea’s main rocket launch site in a sign of leader Kim Jong Un’s determination to pursue a space program despite international censure, a U.S. research institute said Thursday.

North Korea is barred under U.N. Security Council resolutions from launching rockets as that technology can also be used to launch ballistic missiles. Kim, however, declared this month that its space program “can never be abandoned.”

North Korea has been upgrading the Sohae launch site on its west coast since mid-2013 after it blasted its first rocket into space in December 2012. It says the space program is peaceful.

The U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies says the North completed an expansion of its launch tower late last year to take larger rockets. Commercial satellite imagery shows that since then, the North has been working on a support building and what appears to be a moveable platform to allow an assembled rocket to be shifted on rails to the launch pad. The institute likens it to facilities in China but says there’s no publicly available evidence to suggest Beijing is providing help.

The most recent image is from May 16.

“The Sohae facility upgrade program represents a significant investment of financial, material and personnel resources and is another indicator, along with its public statements, that North Korea is determined to pursue its space program,” read the analysis provided to The Associated Press ahead of publication on the institute’s website, 38 North.

Satellite imagery analyst Tim Brown writes that the expansion of the launch tower suggests the North wants to field a larger space launch vehicle, which may also contribute to its development of long-range ballistic missiles.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link, but considering all the construction going on the North Koreans are clearly having a lot of money coming in despite financial sanctions.

It has been well known that China has paid online commenters that many in China call the “50-Cent Army” or “50-Cent Party”.  One of the 50-Cent Army used to regularly post here on ROK Drop.  Now due to leaked emails the size of China’s 50-Cent Army is now known; they have an incredible 89 million members:

On May 17, a hacker nicknamed XiaoLan leaked a package of emails revealing details of the recruitment of college students by the Shanghai League of Communist Youth, one of the most significant Chinese Communist Party organizations under the single party regime. The students serve as voluntary online commentators that spread positive energy and “purify” the internet.

The existence of the commentators is not a state secret: the latest round of massive recruitment was revealed in a document issued by the China Communist Youth League in February 2015. The League set out to recruit no less than 20 percent of its members to serve as “civilization volunteers” by spreading positive energy and acting as models for “good netizens”.

The League had more than 89 million members at the end of 2013, which means it must recruit around 18 million “civilization volunteers” to meet its target. The characters depicted in the sketch at the top of this post are two figurative examples of “civilization volunteers” posted by the Youth League in April on China’s Twitter-like Weibo.

Pro-government Internet commentators are a constant target for criticism by China’s netizens, who give them the sarcastic nickname of “wumaodang” or “50 Cent Party” in English, since it is said that they receive a typical payment of half a Chinese Yuan per post, equivalent to 8 cents in U.S. dollar terms.

Though the nature of their work is similar, the “civilization volunteers” are political loyalists who do not receive payment at all. The hacker’s revelation shows that the League mobilized its members for Internet-civilizing via its college sub-branches.  [Global Voices]

You can read the rest at the link, but remember that these college students they recruit are also mobilized to do the government’s bidding in countries overseas.  Many ROK Heads may remember the Olympic Torch violence in Seoul perpetrated by Chinese college students mobilized by the Chinese embassy in 2008.

"Sponsors…focus more on the ‘defector’ part rather than the value of being a ‘WBA World Champion’." @NewFocusINTL http://t.co/iLG0HMbBOs

— Liberty in North Korea (@LibertyinNK) May 28, 2015

South Korean actor Song Joong-ki salutes reporters and fans near a military unit in Goseong on South Korea’s east coast on May 26, 2015, as he is discharged from the Army after spending 21 months in military service. (Yonhap)

The Chief of Staff of the Army is blaming a machine failure for the mailing of live anthrax spores to Osan AB:

The Army followed all appropriate procedures, but irradiation might have failed to kill live anthrax spores mailed to labs across the United States and a base in South Korea, Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno said Thursday.

Odierno said an investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is focused on why the gamma radiation used by the Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah did not neutralize the spores before they were mailed. He said the Army is not aware of any other cases where irradiation did not work.

The Pentagon said Wednesday that Dugway mailed the spores to be used in training at labs in nine U.S. states as well as Osan Air Base, but there was no threat to the public. Anthrax is a potent biological weapon that is often deadly when inhaled; it was used in mail attacks after 9/11 that killed five people, wounded others and ratcheted up public anxiety over terrorism.  [Stars & Stripes]

If you are wondering why anthrax is being mailed to Korea here is the reason:

U.S. Forces Korea said the sample it received was meant to be used in a training lab as part of its Joint Portal and Integrated Threat Recognition program, which is designed to increase biological weapons readiness on the peninsula.

You can read more at the link.

The new PACOM commander is not mincing words about what he thinks of the Chinese land and maritime grabs in the South China Sea:

The newly promoted head of U.S. Pacific Command on Wednesday described China’s claims to a vast swathe of islands in the South China Sea as “preposterous.”

China’s disputed island claims was one of several challenges Adm. Harry B. Harris, Jr., said he would face as the new head of PACOM during his change-of-command ceremony, whose backdrop was the submerged USS Arizona Memorial.

At the same ceremony, Adm. Scott H. Swift assumed command of U.S. Pacific Fleet, which Harris had commanded since October 2013.

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter told the audience that the U.S. opposes any further work by China to militarize disputed islands in the South China Sea.

Harris projected a scrappy stance toward China in his remarks.

“So ladies and gentlemen, our president is crystal clear,” Harris said. “The U.S. will rebalance to the Pacific. Our joint forces will work closely with our allies and friends in the Indo-Asia Pacific region.”

And the greatest challenges those forces face, he said, are from North Korea, “with its quest for nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them intercontinentally,” China’s “preposterous claims to and land reclamation activities in the South China Sea,” and a “resurgent Russia” in the Pacific.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

It may be noteworthy that the Chinese actually bring up the instability on the peninsula being caused by North Korea, but are they willing to take any measures to do something about it?:

China has expressed concerns over instability on the Korean Peninsula, in a rare public departure from its staunch loyalty to North Korea.

In a white paper released Tuesday, the Chinese Defense Ministry said, “The Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia are shrouded in instability and uncertainty.”

These have “a negative impact on the security and stability along China’s periphery,” it added.

This suggests that China is determined to remain active in trying to curb North Korea’s nuclear arms development.

The paper also cites security threats like the U.S.’ “pivot to Asia” or reorientation of defense efforts to deter China, Japanese rearmament, and maritime disputes in the South China Sea.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

https://twitter.com/USFKPAO/status/603744101578735616

I would love to see the risk assessment form done on this training exercise that some how involved real anthrax:

Twenty-two personnel at a U.S. Air Force Base in South Korea have been given emergency medical treatment after being exposed to a possible live sample of anthrax, the U.S. military said in a statement on Thursday.

The anthrax was destroyed on Wednesday when a sample initially expected to be inactive and destined for a training exercise was suspected of being live, according to a statement by the U.S. Air Force 51st Fighter Wing in the South Korean city of Osan, 35 kms (21 miles) south of Seoul.

None of the personnel in contact with the sample showed signs of exposure, the statement said, but were given “appropriate medical precautionary measures to include examinations, antibiotics and in some instances, vaccinations”.   [Reuters]