#China’s FM reminds its citizens not to visit the Philippines due to possible gang attacks targeting Chinese.

— CCTVNEWS (@cctvnews) September 12, 2014

I figured this guy had some kind of mental problem to want to defect to North Korea, but if what the North Koreans say is true Miller still has mental issues but for a different reason:

North Korea’s Supreme Court on Sunday sentenced a 24-year-old American man to six years of hard labor for entering the country illegally and trying to commit espionage.

At a trial that lasted about 90 minutes, the court said Matthew Miller, of Bakersfield, California, tore up his tourist visa at Pyongyang’s airport upon arrival on April 10 and admitted to having the “wild ambition” of experiencing prison life so that he could secretly investigate North Korea’s human rights situation.

Miller, who waived the right to a lawyer, was handcuffed and led from the courtroom after his sentencing. The court ruled that it would not hear any appeals to its decision.

Earlier, it had been believed that Miller had sought asylum when he entered North Korea. During the trial, however, the prosecution argued that it was a ruse and that Miller also falsely claimed to have secret information about the U.S. military in South Korea on his iPad and iPod.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link, but the North Koreans have trotted out Miller like the other two Americans they have detained to plead for the US to release them by sending a senior representative.  If the Obama administration does decide to send someone I wonder if Bill Clinton be interested in going back over there again?

Anyway Yonhap is reporting that he was sentenced to six years of hard labor.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section or consider posting it in the ROK Drop Forums.

Sanctioned North Korean shipping company still operating, but China doesn't seem bothered: http://t.co/rhWLWUjjB0

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) September 12, 2014

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You can read more at the Army Times.

I do not have a problem with this as long as the women trainees are treated exactly like how the male trainees have been treated over the years:

The Army is looking for female soldiers who want to volunteer to attend Ranger school.

The call-out is part of the Army’s ongoing effort to determine whether and how to open combat arms military occupational specialties to women.

Senior Army leaders are expected to decide in January if they want to move forward with this one-time, integrated Ranger school assessment. If the assessment moves forward, it likely will take place in the spring, and the Army will need volunteers already in place and ready to go, officials said Friday.  [Army Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but the Army claims the women trainees will have to meet the same fitness requirements as the males.  However, will the fitness requirements remain the same as they have been?  You can see the current fitness requirements here.  Before someone says that those fitness requirements are not so bad make sure to also look at the recommended fitness requirements as well on that site.  This is because on the physical fitness test the graders mess with you and do not count a lot of pushups, situps, and pullups.  So if they did that to a female trainee would they be called sexist by the special interests even though they do the same thing to male trainees?

Next week the OPCON transfer talks are scheduled to continue:

Korea and the United States will hold a high-level defense meeting in Seoul next week to discuss the timing of the planned wartime operational control (OPCON) transfer, the defense ministry announced, Friday.

The Korea-U.S. Integrated Defense Dialogue (KIDD) is scheduled for Tuesday ahead of next month’s Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) in Washington, where the two nations’ defense ministers are expected to agree on the delayed handover.

The talks will be led by Ryu Je-seung, chief of the Office of Planning and Coordination at the defense ministry, and David Helvey, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia.

“They will discuss proper conditions and the timeframe for the transfer,” the defense ministry said in a statement.

With the OPCON transfer slated for December 2015, Seoul asked the U.S. in May of last year to reconsider the process, citing continuing threats from North Korea. Then Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin and U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel agreed in October that the handover should be conducted depending on conditions on the Korean Peninsula, indicating the U.S. has all but agreed to Korea’s request.

The Korean side is reportedly attempting to push back the transfer five to seven years, until somewhere between 2020 and 2022.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

It looks like a trade barrier has been put in place to protect the Korean gaming industry from competition from Facebook games:

The Game Rating Board (게임물등급위원회 Geimmul Deung-Geub-Wiwonhoe) (GRB) has blocked Facebook games in Korea. While I’m not much of a game player, this seems a heavy handed tactic. A game developer must hop through some pretty demanding, Byzantine hoops in order to get a game evaluated by the reviewers so I wouldn’t anticipate much relief if you live in Korea and enjoy games on Facebook. It is especially vexing as I am not aware of any game apps on Facebook which would be blocked if they were evaluated. What would the rating be for games like Candy Crush? Perhaps Facebook will negotiate to get their games cleared en masse on behalf of the individual developers, or perhaps they will just write Korea off. It will be interesting to see how this develops.

To Facebook’s credit they have been refunding people who live in Korea who spent money in a game, retroactive to 15 July:  [Korea Noodles]

You can read more at the link.

Breaking: Two USS Vinson jets crash in Pacific near Guam. One pilot recovered, one still missing. #USNavy http://t.co/ALDzksPmov

— Erik Slavin (@eslavin_stripes) September 12, 2014