Members of civic groups stage a rally in front of the defense ministry in Seoul on April 10, 2015, to voice their objection to the possible deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea and the establishment of an integrated air and missile-defense system among the United States, South Korea and Japan to deter North Korea’s evolving security threats. (Yonhap)

Should someone who willing goes into North Korea and does something stupid be considered a hostage?

A U.S. House lawmaker has introduced a bill that appoints a federal officer charged with overseeing efforts to win the release of American citizens held by hostile groups and rogue states like North Korea.

The Hostage Recovery Improvement Act (H.R.1498), introduced by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) late last month with support from 11 co-sponsors, calls for the president to designate “an existing federal officer to coordinate efforts to secure the release of U.S. citizens who are hostages of hostile groups or state sponsors of terrorism.”

The “Interagency Hostage Recovery Coordinator” should be named within 60 days after the bill’s enactment.

While defining the term “state sponsors of terrorism,” the bill singled out North Korea as a country that should be considered a terrorism sponsor nation under the act, even though the communist nation is no longer on the State Department’s list of states sponsoring terrorism.

U.S. citizens have often been detained in North Korea.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link.

This wasn’t the typical way to premiere a film in a new country, but for North Korea this will have to do:

“The Interview” is headed to North Korea, but don’t expect it in Pyongyang theaters anytime soon.

CNN has reported that North Korean defector Lee Min-bok has been launching balloons filled with DVDs of the Hollywood comedy toward the Demilitarized Zone.

Lee described the movie as vulgar and not particularly funny. However, its cinematic quality isn’t the point, Lee told CNN.

“The regime hates this film because it shows Kim Jong-un as a man, not a god,” Lee said to CNN. “He cries and is afraid like us and then he’s assassinated.”

Lee launched the most recent batch of 80,000 DVDs, dollar bills and political leaflets – his fourth such launch – in the middle of the night Saturday near the Korean border, after checking wind speed and direction.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link, but previously North Korea has made a number of threats against refugee activists to try and stop them from launching these balloons.

This is actually a pretty small investment for Inje in order to draw a few extra visitors to the area:

A small county in South Korea is betting on a legendary blonde’s visit with American troops 61 years ago to bolster its profile.

Inje County, located in the picturesque but sparsely populated northeast, is building a 10 million won ($9,150) dedication to Marilyn Monroe’s 1954 USO show.

The stone dedication at Inje Catholic Church’s square will recall an era when some of America’s biggest stars came to Korea to visit servicemembers during and soon after the end of Korean War combat.

In February 1954, Marilyn Monroe and her new husband, Yankee great Joe DiMaggio, arrived in Japan to massive fanfare. DiMaggio was well-known for his baseball clinics in the country, but it was Monroe who captured more of the country’s attention.

After a few visits with servicemembers at the Tokyo Army Hospital and elsewhere in Japan, Monroe was asked to visit troops in South Korea, a country still very much recovering from the scars of war.

Monroe performed 10 shows in four days for about 100,000 servicemembers, according to the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, which houses several color pictures of the visit taken by Navy corpsman David Geary. http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/marilyn/page1.htm

“[The trip] was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Monroe said, according to the Smithsonian. “I never felt like a star before in my heart. It was so wonderful to look down and see a fellow smiling at me.”  [Stars & Stripe]

You can read more at the link.

2 Killed In Attack On South Korean Embassy In Libya.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter (2nd from R) and South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo (2nd from L) visit the Navy’s 2nd Fleet Command in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, on April 10, 2015, to pay tribute to 46 South Korean sailors killed in the sinking of the country’s warship Cheonan in 2010 by North Korea. (Yonhap)

It will be interesting to see what becomes of the latest scandal to plague the Park administration:

The disclosure of a so-called “bribery list” left behind by an embattled businessman at the center of a snowballing corruption scandal before he committed suicide continued to put the government of President Park Geun-hye on edge Saturday.

Sung Wan-jong, head of Kyeangnam Enterprise Ltd., killed himself by hanging on Thursday, hours before he was to appear before a Seoul court set to decide whether to issue an arrest warrant for him on various corruption charges.

A brief memo found in his trouser pocket dropped a bombshell in South Korean politics. Listed in the memo are the names of eight heavyweight politicians, all close confidants of Park, and won figures next to them, indicating that the money was delivered.

The eight politicians include Park’s two former chiefs of staff — Huh Tae-yeol and Kim Ki-choon — her current chief of staff, Lee Byung-kee, and Prime Minister Lee Wan-koo as well as Hong Moon-jong, a ruling party lawmaker who had served as the President’s campaign manager in 2012.

According to the local daily Kyunghyang, Sung said in an interview with it on Thursday right before committing suicide that he gave some 200 million won (US$182,000) in cash in to Hong and that he believes the money was used for Park’s election campaign.

“I don’t think he would have spent the money for himself. That was for the election,” he told Kyunghyang. The daily belatedly made public part of the phone interview.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Is banning prostitution denying someone their human rights?  That is what sex workers are saying:

The debate on legalizing prostitution has heated up in South Korea as the Constitutional Court began reviewing the law that criminalizes the sex trade. The court held its first public hearing Thursday.

The antiprostitution law was enacted in 2004 to protect human rights, partly prompted by fire that killed 14 sex workers who were locked in a brothel in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province, in 2002.

The law stipulates that both purchasing and selling of sex carry a penalty of up to one year in prison or a fine of up to 3 million won ($2,747). It gives exemption to people forced into prostitution, leaving only voluntary sex workers ― many of whom oppose the law ― subject to the punishment.

A 41-year-old woman accused of selling sex for 130,000 won filed for a constitutional review of the law in 2012. The woman argued that punishing voluntary prostitution, especially when the sex worker has no other means of income, was a violation of fundamental human rights.

“Are we (sex workers) doing something that is worse than stealing? Is what we do worse than murder?” the woman said back in 2012.

Her request for a review was granted by the Seoul Northern District Court and eventually by the Constitutional Court.

Police crackdowns on brothels have also had damaging outcomes in recent years. Last year, a prostitute in Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province, jumped from a motel during a raid and died. A police officer had reportedly approached her while pretending to be a client.

Those who are against the antiprostitution law claim there is little evidence that punishing sex workers is effective in curbing the sex trade. According to government data, the number of female sex workers increased by 3.8 percent from 2010 to 2013, in spite of the law.  [Korea Herald]

You can read the rest at the link, but I have to wonder if the foreigner in the picture knows that depending on his visa status he cannot participate in political activity in Korea?

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is in Seoul discussing the US defense commitment to the peninsula:

Defence Secretary Ashton Carter promised Friday that the US would deploy state of the art weaponry in Asia, including the latest stealth bombers and cyber warfare units, to counter threats posed by the likes of North Korea.

“Our newest and best things are being deployed to this part of the world,” Carter said in Seoul — the second leg of a visit to the two key US military allies in the region, Japan and South Korea. (…………)

Stressing that military deterrence and readiness were “at a premium” on the divided peninsula, Carter said the US was investing in “advanced capabilities …. tailored to this dynamic security environment.”

Asked to expand, he cited new stealth bombers, F-35 stealth fighters and highly developed cyber warfare systems that could be rotationally deployed in the Asian theatre.  [AFP]

You can read the rest at the link, but what wasn’t supposedly discussed was the deployment of a THAAD missile defense system to South Korea which continues to be a touchy subject due to Beijing’s objections to the deployment.

This provided photo, taken on April 1, 2015, shows a wild boar prowling on a street in the city of Dongducheon in Gyeonggi Province, north of Seoul. Incidents of wild boars being seen in the city, Uijeongbu and other adjacent cities have recently reported, causing residents to worry about their safety. (Yonhap)