If you are a woman living in Suwon you might want to be a little extra careful, this is a lot women missing in just two years:

Over the past two years, 159 women aged 18 or older have been reported missing in Suwon, the Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency said Thursday.

Suwon is the scene of last month’s gruesome “torso murder” in Paldal-gu, in which a Korean-Chinese illegal alien Park Chun-bong killed his Korean-Chinese ex-girlfriend and discarded her body parts in four separate places. Ten women, five each in 2012 and 2013 living in Paldal-gu were reported missing, police said.

In 2012, another Korean-Chinese, Oh Won-choon, kidnapped and killed a 23-year-old woman and cut the body into more than 300 pieces. Oh was jailed for life last year.

Police plan to expand their investigations based on a possible link between the missing women and Park, who was arrested on Dec. 15.

Police said they have designated some districts in Suwon where there are large foreign communities as “vulnerable areas,” and will increase patrols and security measure. [Korea Times]

South Korean actress Kim Ye-won poses after holding an interview with Yonhap News Agency in Seoul on Dec. 29, 2014. (Yonhap)

It appears that Kim Jong-un is having some eyebrow challenges:

Forget Sony Pictures: Now it’s Kim Jong Un’s eyebrows that have been hacked.

In a piece titled “Brow you see them,” the South China Morning Post noted North Korea’s Supreme Leader appeared at a New Year’s Day speech sans what scientists call supercilium.

“In what appeared to be a case of severe over-plucking, Kim’s brows appeared to be significantly shorter than on earlier occasions, sitting above his eyes like little dashes,” the paper wrote. [Washington Post via a reader tip]

You can read the rest at the link.

The Park administration document scandal has gotten even more interesting with the revelation that the document in question was a forgery:

A presidential document claiming a former aide to President Park Geun-hye tried to exert undue influence on state affairs was fabricated by a senior police officer, prosecutors said Monday.

The document centers around allegations that Jeong Yun-hoe, who was President Park’s adviser before she was elected, pulled strings to try and replace the president’s current chief of staff, Kim Ki-choon.

Announcing the interim outcome of their probe, investigators at the Seoul District Prosecutors’ Office said that they have concluded that Supt. Park Kwan-cheon authored and leaked the document.

The document was then handed over to the president’s younger brother, Ji-man, who is also the chairman of EG Group, an electronic materials producer, under the orders of former presidential secretary Cho Eung-cheon.

Cho was indicted on charges of leaking confidential information, and violating the Presidential Records Management Act, prosecutors said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but considering how this document was intended to take out Jeong Yun-hoe it is pretty clear that he must have been still providing advice to the President which others around Park must not have liked.

If you are going to Yongsan Garrison you better leave your drones at home:

The U.S. military stationed in South Korea has introduced stricter security rules banning all civilian drones and remote controlled model aircrafts from flying over the main military base in Yongsan in central Seoul, a South Korean military source said Thursday.

The U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) issued a total ban in late December on all unmanned aerial vehicles or radio-controlled model aircrafts equipped with a camera or other types of information-gathering devices on the entire premise of the Yongsan Garrison. “The flight ban involves all computer- or radio-controlled civilian drones and toy model aircrafts, except for military drones authorized by the U.S. military,” a military source in Seoul said.

According to the source, those who own radio-controlled model aircrafts can fly only in extremely limited zones after registering them with the U.S. military for permits. Under the stricter rules, only those at age 13 or older are allowed to fly model aircrafts in authorized zones to a maximum altitude of 100 feet above ground. The USFK said violators would be “dealt sternly” in accordance with the military and civilian legal procedures. [Donga Ilbo via reader tip]

You can read more at the link.

I'd missed this. Sports played at the Asian Games in Incheon included cricket. Sri Lanka won; Afghanistan came 4th. http://t.co/fO1YGnZ80U

— Aidan Foster-Carter (@fcaidan) January 1, 2015

It just seems to me there has to be more to this story for this North Korean soldier to kill four elderly Chinese citizens simply because he was hungry:

A North Korean believed to be a runaway soldier killed four Chinese citizens during a robbery after he crossed the border into China in search of food, media reports said Monday.

The young North Korean soldier crossed the border in late December and stole money and food at a house before killing four residents in China’s northeastern city of Helong, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency and Dong-A Ilbo newspaper said.

Both cited sources in the border areas between China and the North.

The victims were either shot dead or beaten to death, Dong-A said, adding he was later shot and captured by Chinese authorities.

“Killing several Chinese nationals… is a major crime, so there are good possibilities that China, unlike other runaway North Korean soldiers captured before, will not hand him over to the North,” said an unnamed Seoul official quoted by Yonhap.  [AFP via reader tip]

You can read more at the link, but according to the article residents in the area say that North Korean soldiers crossing the border in search of food is a common occurrence.

From the Joong Ang Ilbo:

Two weeks before New Year’s Day, Eun Deok Cultural Center was covered in snow. Located next to Changdeok Palace in Jongno District, central Seoul, the cultural center is the cradle of Won Buddhism – modern Korean Buddhism.

There, Dathane Turner, the first American believer in Won Buddhism’s 100-year history, sat quietly at a coffee table. He visited Korea to conduct a spiritual ceremony and was scheduled to fly back to the United States shortly after.

There was sadness in his family affairs.

The question “Why is my life is so arduous?” has lingered in his mind since he was a young boy, Turner said.

To find the answer, he tried to study positive psychology at graduate school and looked around asceticism centers.

But all those attempts turned out to be in vain.

One day when he searched for “meditation” on the Internet, he was randomly taken to a webpage that introduced him to Won Buddhism.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

A group of child cheerleaders in the traditional Korean costume “hanbok” performs at a basketball game in Busan on Jan. 1, 2015. (Yonhap)

Cheerleaders dressed in “hanbok,” traditional Korean clothing, perform at a basketball game in Busan on Jan. 1, 2015. (Yonhap)