A rocket destined for the International Space Station exploded in a huge fireball Tuesday night. http://t.co/IPUMJiiKJU

— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) October 29, 2014

A model shows off wearable products during Health IT Wearable Fashion Show held at Bexco in Busan on Oct. 27, 2014. (Yonhap)

Here I was thinking that transgender people wanted to have their junk cut off?:

A South Korean transgender woman Wednesday lodged a human rights complaint against the military for forcing her to undergo genital surgery in order to be exempted from military duty.

The 22-year-old trans woman went through a mandatory medical checkup for the draft in 2012. She submitted a medical report that confirms a “crisis in sexual identity” and documents on her cross-sex hormone therapy to apply for a military exemption.

The Military Manpower Administration (MMA), however, rejected it, saying she would need to present convincing evidence that she would never be able to become a man again.

She had no choice but to undergo an orchiectomy and was exempted from the military duty in October 2013.

“The MMA demanded her to come up with an irreversible proof, obviously referring to the surgical removal of testicles,” Yun Da-rim, secretary general of the Korean Sexual-Minority Culture and Rights Center, told the Korea Observer.

“Those who receive military medical checkups are in their early 20s and many of them simply cannot afford to have genital surgery. Can you imagine how much an ordeal a transgender woman has to suffer to live with male conscripts?”

Yun argued that trans women should be exempted from their compulsory military duty without undergoing genital surgery as no measures have been taken to protect the rights of sexual minorities in the barracks.  [Korea Observer]

You can read more at the link, but if you still have your male body parts than you are a male and should do your mandatory military service like every other male.  Letting transgender people dodge mandatory service without the surgery would lead to non-transgender people claiming they are transgender to avoid mandatory service as well.  The ROK military needs a standard and clearing have male body parts is a pretty clear standard.

The South Korean intelligence is probably pretty accurate on this:

South Korea’s spy agency said Tuesday it has solved the mystery of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s 6-week public absence, which set off a frenzy of wild speculation around the world.

The National Intelligence Service told legislators that a foreign doctor operated on Kim in September or October to remove a cyst from his right ankle, according to Park Byeong-seok, an aide for opposition lawmaker Shin Kyung-min. The aide said the spy agency also told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing that the cyst could recur because of Kim’s obesity, smoking and heavy public schedule.  [Associated Press]

So I wonder if we will see a number of retractions from all the people claiming a coup happened or other theories that were floated around with no evidence to support them?

Some in the Korean government are concerned that a secret deal for the release of Jeffrey Fowle was reached with cutting USFK as one of the bargaining chips:

There is speculation about secret talks between Washington and Pyongyang, especially given the abrupt release of Jeffrey Fowle, one of three Americans detained in the North.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Roh Kwang-il here struggled to downplay the issue. Roh said Kerry “made the remarks to urge the North to implement denuclearization in a substantive way. As far as I know there is no discussion at present about whether to cut the size of the USFK or maintain its current size.”

He added that the two countries agreed in 2008 to maintain the size of the USFK at the current level of 28,500 troops. “And this has been reaffirmed continuously through the annual Seoul-Washington Security Consultative Meeting.”

Roh ventured that Kerry “may have meant that this is an issue that can be discussed when the North is denuclearized.”

On a visit to Washington, Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se tried a similar line. “The reduction of the USFK will be discussed in the distant future when the denuclearization is realized,” he said.

“Despite Pyongyang’s release of Fowle, it’s too soon to conclude that there’s been a sea change in the attitude of the North. And U.S. officials also maintain that there’s no change in the U.S. policy,” he claimed.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but everyone knows North Korea is not going to denuclearize and any promises of reducing USFK to get Fowle released was probably a demand from North Korea to try and create a rift between the two allies. It seems like having to answer questions about a rift between the two allies was a small price to pay to get Fowle released if that is what happened.

Now can we please take efforts to keep these idiot tourists out of North Korea to prevent having to deal with these detainee negotiations in the first place?

Last British soldiers airlifted out of Camp Bastion as war in Afghanistan ends http://t.co/g4VHWI9hj3 (Pic: MoD) pic.twitter.com/ommcPPVryH

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) October 27, 2014

Now, after several painful weeks with no Kim Jong Un photos at all (the young despot was incommunicado, thought to be recovering from either gout or an ankle injury), the hard-working men and women of the Korean Central News Agency have gifted us with one of the finest specimens in months. Behold, via the Washington Post’s Adam Taylor, Kim Jong Un and stern North Korean officials visit the Pyongyang Baby Home and Orphanage:  [VOX.com]

This picture is just begging for a caption contest. What is Kim Jong-un looking at?

Considering all the attention given to sexual assault and sexual harassment in the military it was only a matter of time before USFK did this because if they didn’t one of the activist groups would have exploited this issue to bash USFK with:

U.S. Forces Korea has banned servicemembers from buying drinks for workers in “juicy bars,” which have long been suspected of involvement in prostitution and human trafficking.

While the military has maintained a zero tolerance policy toward both practices and some commands have taken their own steps to shutter juicy bars, the prohibition on buying “juice” in exchange for female company is USFK’s latest country-wide effort to close the establishments, which used to cluster by the dozen outside some bases.

“Paying for companionship directly supports human trafficking and is a precursor to prostitution,” USFK commander Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti wrote in an Oct. 15 policy letter announcing the change. “This practice encourages the objectification of women, reinforces sexist attitudes, and is demeaning to all human beings.”   [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link, but like I have always said the easiest thing to have done was to put all juicy bars with third country nationals in them off limits.  It is much harder to human traffic Korean women when they understand the culture, language, and do not have to worry about having passports held from them.  This latest ban pretty much has the same effect.  It will be interesting to see what new business model the juicy bar owners come up with to get money from troops.  Anyone have any ideas?

Some farmers are upset with the activists sending the balloons into North Korea:

Lee Jae Wook raised the scoop of his mud-spattered tractor as he braced for a scuffle with activists trying to fly balloons carrying leaflets calling for a revolt against Kim Jong Un across the border to North Korea.

“I won’t let them provoke Kim Jong Un into firing shells at my town,” the 68-year-old South Korean farmer said Oct. 25 at the Imjingak tourist park, near the demilitarized zone that separates the nations. “I can’t afford to lose the peace I need in this busy harvest season.”

The tussles over the weekend pitched a handful of leafleting activists against border residents like Lee and hundreds of others who support a policy of engagement with North Korea. Dozens of police officers were deployed to keep them apart. One leaflet shows Saddam Hussein with a noose around his neck and the corpse of Muammar Qaddafi and urges North Koreans to “topple evil Kim Jong Un and shoot him to death!”

A series of shooting exchanges this month has escalated concerns among residents that North Korea may fire at civilian areas in South Korea should the flying of leaflets continue to be permitted.  [Bloomberg]

I guess we are supposed to feel bad for these farmers.  However, it isn’t until the end of the article that we find out who these people really are:

“These balloons will only come back to us in the form of bombs,” An So Hee, a United Progressive Party member of Paju City Council, said at Imjingak. “It’s the border residents who’ll have to bear the consequences of these leaflets.”

Long time ROK Heads may remember that the UPP is the South Korean political party filled with North Korean sympathizers and spies.  These North Korean sympathizers have done these protests before on behalf of their North Korean handlers by assaulting the balloon activists. This time they are trying to conduct an information operation by making their protesters appear to be concerned farmers to try to create public pressure to stop the balloon launches. The efforts by the North Korean stooges to stop the balloon launches only convinces me even further how effective these balloon launches are that the Kim regime would put this much effort into stopping them.

I doubt the travel ban is actually for ebola, but that is what the North Koreans are claiming:

When word spreads in Max Brooks’s 2006 dystopian novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War that zombies are infesting the world, North Korea acts decisively, sealing its borders and hustling its people into mysterious bunkers. “No country was better prepared to repel the infestation than North Korea,” says Hyungchol Choi, the fictional deputy director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. “Rivers to the north, oceans to the east and west, and to the south … the most heavily fortified border on Earth.”

Now, as a far less apocalyptic virus completely unrelated to zombies spreads, North Korea is closing its borders. On Thursday, Oct. 23, North Korea notified foreign tour operators that visitors are now banned. “The reason given was Ebola, and I can’t think of any other reason, as they don’t arbitrarily close the border,” Simon Cockerell, managing director of the tour operator Koryo Tours, told USA Today.  [Foreign Policy]

You can read the rest at the link.