This isn’t the first or will be the last of the assassination threats that North Korea has made against balloon activist Park Sang-hak:

North Korea issued a death threat against a defector-turned-activist after he announced a plan to send copies of a satirical Hollywood film about a plot to kill Kim Jong-un into North Korea.

The South Korean government said Thursday it will take necessary measures to protect its citizens.

Last week, Park Sang-hak, who heads the Fighters for a Free North Korea, said he planned to send 100,000 DVDs and USB memory sticks containing the movie “The Interview” via balloons across the border into North Korea to destroy the personality cult build around Kim Jong-un.

He said the Sony Pictures’ movie will have Korean subtitles and he will start sending the balloons as early as late January.

According to the Ministry of Unification, the North aired an ultimatum against Park on Wednesday. Using extremely cruel language, the North’s Pyongyang Broadcasting Station said Park must “go to hell.”

It promised to “bleed him out and gut his intestines.”

“In order to end this tragic reality of national division forced upon our people and homeland by outside forces, we must ruthlessly eliminate those maniacs who encourage inter-Korean confrontations,” the broadcast said. “And the Korean people select Park as the first target.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but hopefully Park Sang-hak has taken the appropriate security measures to protect himself from North Korean assassins.  Back in 2011 a North Korean assassin was arrested before he could carry out his plot to kill Park with poison needles.

If Beijing decided to pull a Putin on its neighbors, would the United States have any real options besides war? http://t.co/VHr2DTMbKY

— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) January 10, 2015

Retired figure skater Kim Yu-na attends a ceremony at an ice rink in Seoul on Jan. 9, 2015, to give a wreath to Park So-yeon, who won a figure skating championship. (Yonhap)

Via the Joong Ang Ilbo comes this graphic that shows the cheapest places to fill up your car in Seoul and the rest of South Korea:

I read reports like this and it just makes me wonder if this a North Korean operation to convince our intelligence operatives that they have more advanced capability then they really have.  Firing missiles from a submarine is highly complex technology that I would be surprised to see the North Koreans being able to do unless someone helps them do it:

North Korea appears to be trying to equip a submarine to make it capable of firing missiles, a U.S think tank said Thursday, warning such hard-to-detect, missile-capable submarines would pose significant threats to South Korea.

The website 38 North, run by the U.S.-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said it reached the assessment based on commercial satellite imagery taken of the Sinpo South Shipyard on the east coast between July and December.

Imagery from Dec. 18 shows a rectangular opening, about 4.25 meters long and 2.25 meters wide, on top of the conning tower of a submarine, and the opening is believed to be designed to house one to two small vertical missile launch tubes, the website said, citing analysis by Joseph Bermudez, an expert on satellite imagery.

The imagery also showed workers moving around the area, equipment stored on the deck and a heavy-lift construction crane, the website said, adding that the only reasonable explanation for the crane’s presence is “continuing to work on fitting out the submarine.”  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

This is a horrible apartment fire that happened in Uijongbu:

UIJEONGBU, South Korea, Jan. 10 (Yonhap) — A big fire that broke out Saturday morning at a 10-story apartment building in Uijeongbu, north of Seoul, leaving three dead and 101 people injured, has been brought under control, the police said.

Among the injured who were taken to the hospital, five were in critical condition, they said.

The fire is reported to have erupted at 9:25 a.m. from a car parked on the ground floor of the building, preventing residents from evacuating through the front entrance.

The fire was put under control at about 11:40 a.m. after spreading to two other buildings.

The police and firefighters are now focusing on finding the cause of the fire, saying they are investigating the possibility of arson but are open to all possibilities.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

An increasing number of second-generation Korean Americans living in New York are finding jobs in South Korea. http://t.co/jfm0RuWqNN

— The Korea Times (@koreatimes) January 9, 2015

Models showcase underwear on sale at an outlet in Seoul on Jan. 8, 2015. (Yonhap)

Congratulations to Major Lee for the command assignment and I hope she does well:

A female battery commander has been appointed for the first time in Korean air defense history. Maj. Lee Yeong-mi, selected on Jan. 6, will lead the Patriot artillery unit.

Although the Air Defense Artillery School has had a female battery commander in the past, her appointment is unprecedented because as a commander, Major Lee will be in charge of military operations.

Lee grew up in a military family and long dreamed of becoming an officer. As a child, she often listened to the war stories of her grandfather, who fought for the South during the 1950-53 Korean War.

“I wanted to devote myself to my country, following in the footsteps of my grandfather, and protect it,” Lee said.

She ultimately chose to join the Air Force under her family’s influence. Her father, Lee Seong-kyo, was an Air Force aviation maintenance sergeant when he was discharged from the Army, and her younger brother, Lee Jong-jin, is an Air Force master sergeant.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but it wasn’t that long ago that females in the ROK military were the ones fetching the coffee, so this is another example of how quickly things in Korea can change.

Hopefully USAID continues to not give the Kim regime free money to feed their people with why they buy luxury goods and advance their nuclear and ballistic missile programs:

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced that it has no plans to provide assistance to the North, Radio Free America (RFA) reported Friday.

USAID is a public agency that orchestrated government aid to the reclusive nation in cooperation with the World Food Program (WFP) and civic groups.

USAID provided $1.5 million to Pyongyang in 2010 and 2011 to assist its recovery from floods.

But it stopped giving funds to the isolated nation in 2011.

“This is because there has been no large-scale natural disaster there that has needed external help since then,” the RFA quoted USAID spokesperson Raphael Cook as saying.

The U.S., the largest donor to the WFP’s North Korea aid program, has not contributed to it since 2009. Also, the WFP’s fundraising efforts have been hampered since the United Nations raised awareness of the North’s human rights violations last year.

A North Korea expert said the halting of aid may be a result of negative views of the North Korean leader’s spending on luxury goods each year instead of importing food for people there.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.