A ROK Head was kind enough to post this over in the Forum:

A ventilation grille near an outdoor concert venue collapsed on Friday in Gyeonggi Province, and appears to have killed at least 14 people and injured 11, police said.

You can read more and discuss at the Forums.

This is seriously messed up stuff here:

Prosecutors indicted three teenagers on charges of sexually and physically abusing a 15-year-old high school girl, local media reported Sunday.

Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office found that a 16-year-old girl broke into the victim’s house with her two teen friends and brutally assaulted her on Aug. 8 for speaking ill of her.

The victim and one of the perpetrators were classmates.

The three perpetrators allegedly dragged her out of the house and locked her in the basement of a deserted building for five days.

The victim was stripped of her clothes and forced to engage in “pseudo-sex” while being photographed. Moreover, the perpetrators forced the 15-year-old victim to eat her own excrement, swallow cigarette butts and lick their spit off the floor.  [Korea Observer]

You can read more at the link, but hopefully these teenagers receive very harsh punishment for this horrible crime and not get off light like the teenagers involved in the Miryang gang rape case a few years ago.

This doesn’t seem like too much to ask someone to do to be granted Korean citizenship:

Any foreigner seeking Korean citizenship must be able to sing Korea’s national anthem during a naturalization interview.

The Seoul Administrative Court ruled in favor of the Ministry of Justice, which declined to grant a woman born in China citizenship in 2010, citing she couldn’t sing the national anthem. She also failed two other tests during her interview.

The woman, surnamed Choi, filed a suit with the court, demanding a reversal of the decision.

“We found the interview criteria and the interviewers’ evaluation were fair. Not only did Choi fail to sing the national anthem, she also failed two other tests. Therefore, we find there are no grounds to call the ministry’s decision unfair and illegal,” said a judge.  [Korea Times]

It seems that if she wanted Korean citizenship so badly she would take the time to study and learn the anthem.

Farmer uses remote-controlled planes to spray crops in #Hunan Province，saving 70% on labor & chemicals. (Chinanews) pic.twitter.com/kDFKqCZWB4

— CCTVNEWS (@cctvnews) October 16, 2014

For this week’s #TBT, we’re going a little more lighthearted. Marilyn Monroe, one of the world’s more famous actresses, appearing with the #USO Camp Show, “anything Goes,” poses for the shutterbugs after a performance at the 3rd U.S. Inf. Div. area.1954. (U.S. Army photo by Cpl. Welshman.)  [USFK Facebook page]

Same old same old from the North Koreans:

The two Koreas on Wednesday held closed-door high-level military talks in the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjeom only to find the wide gaps in their views over a set of pending defense issues, Seoul’s Defense Ministry said.

During the talks at the South-controlled Peace House, the two sides failed to bridge the gaps over the issues of heightened tensions surrounding the Northern Limit Line, a de facto sea border, anti-Pyongyang leaflets and other sensitive issues.

After the unfruitful meeting, Seoul’s Unification Ministry announced that it had proposed holding the second round of high-level inter-Korean talks at Tongilgak, a building on the North Korean side of Panmunjeom, on Oct. 30.

The proposal was sent to the North two days earlier, but the North had yet to respond to it. During a surprise visit by the high-level North Korean delegation to the Incheon Asian Games on Oct. 4, the two sides agreed to resume high-level talks, which were last held in February.  [Korea Herald]

You can read more at the link, but the North Koreans basically want the ROK to stop Park Sang-hak and his crew from launching their propaganda balloons and to give up the NLL for nothing in return.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out, but I expect eventually gay marriage will become a normal practice in Korea just like it is in the US:

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon has put himself at the center of controversy after he expressed his support for same-sex marriage during his recent trip to the United States.

Talking to the San Francisco Examiner, Park was quoted as saying, “I personally agree with the rights of homosexuals,” adding Korea would become the first Asian nation to legalize same-sex marriage.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) homepage was immediately inundated with comments, most of them complaints.

Park has successfully drawn public attention, but it remains to be seen whether this bold political gamble will help the potential presidential bid of Park, a liberal-minded former NGO leader.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but interesting both the religious groups and the gay activists groups are upset Mayor Park’s stance.  The gay activist groups do not think he is doing enough.

Who the heck tries to rape somebody on an airplane?:

A Japan Airlines flight returned to Honolulu after a male passenger sexually assaulted a female passenger in the airplane’s bathroom, the FBI said.

FBI agents arrested Michael Tanouye on Saturday night at Honolulu International Airport for interfering with flight crew and for aggravated sexual assault aboard an aircraft. The 29-year-old resident of Hilo, Hawaii, was scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday.

An FBI affidavit says the flight was en route to Kansai International Airport when the attack allegedly occurred.

The woman, who was returning home to Japan with her mother after a four-day vacation in Hawaii, went to use the restroom about an hour and 45 minutes after takeoff. Tanouye allegedly forced his way inside, grabbed her by the shoulders and began to forcefully pull down her pants and underwear. [Japan Times]

You can read more at the link, but fortunately this guy was not able to complete the rape of this woman because she was able to push the emergency button in the bathroom to get help to subdue this loon.

North Korea takes foreign military attaches from Cuba, Egypt, to a lube factory (via @KCNAWatch) pic.twitter.com/znOLHZ6PVK

— James Pearson (@pearswick) October 15, 2014

Choi Yoon-hee, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), and military officers look at a multiple rocket launcher displayed in front of the JSC building in central Seoul on Oct. 8, 2014, after attending a conference on the military’s new weapons system. (Yonhap)