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Fighters For Free North Korea Launches Latest Balloon Campaign

| August 6, 2014

A ROK Drop favorite, Park Sang-hak and his group Fighters for Free North Korea have just launched their latest balloon campaign:

A group of activists launched big balloons carrying leaflets across the border with the North, condemning the communist regime’s recent series of missile and artillery firings.

The 10 propaganda balloons, launched by seven North Korean defector-turned-activists at the border city of Paju toward the North, carried anti-Pyongyang leaflets as well as one thousand U.S. dollar bills, meant to entice North Koreans.

Banners saying “What Kim Jong-un really fears is 20 million North Korean people getting to know the facts and the truth” also dangled from the balloons in protest against the North’s repeated military provocations.

The North fired about 100 artillery shells near the inter-Korean East Sea border a day earlier after test-launching two short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea the previous day in its recent series of military provocations near the border.

“Since the start of this year, the North fired missiles and artillery shells on dozens of occasions, firing away (money) worth three months of food for North Korean people,” Park Sang-hak, the head of the activist group Fighters for Free North Korea, said. “We decided to launch the anti-Pyongyang leaflets since the government did not take any action.”  [Yonhap via One Free Korea]

ROK Heads may remember that Park Sang-hak is the North Korean defector turned activist who the Kim regime has repeatedly threatened, sent their South Korean leftist lackeys to assault him, and even tried to assassinate him a few years ago due to his balloon launch efforts.  Despite all this Park continues to send his balloons into North Korea which must be having an effect considering the reactions of the Kim regime to the launches.

Tweet of the Day: Breaking Through the Great Firewall

| August 1, 2014

Picture of the Day: Comfort Women Protest In California

| August 1, 2014
A performance is under way in front of a statue at a park of a public library in Glendale, California, on July 28, 2014, in memory of the victims of Japan’s sex slavery during World War II. The statue of a girl was built last year to mourn the victims. It is a replica of the one set up in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. Despite Japan’s strong protest, the city government provided the land for the statue, which is designed to urge Japan to apologize and compensate the victims of the wartime sex slavery. Japan has so far refused to do so, while denying historic facts. Historians estimate that more than 200,000 Asian women, mostly Koreans, were forced to serve as sex slaves for front-line Japanese soldiers in the war. (Yonhap)

US Soldiers Accused of Raping and Beating Prostitute

| August 1, 2014

Two US soldiers in Italy are accused of raping and beating a pregnant prostitute:

VICENZA, Italy — Two Vicenza-based soldiers accused of beating, robbing and raping a pregnant woman earlier this month are being detained in the barracks under house arrest pending proceedings in an Italian court.
One of the men already stands accused of raping a 17-year-old girl last year in a case still winding its way through Italian courts. That soldier was not held in detention after the first reported rape in November because the judge said he was not likely to commit a similar offense, according to the Vicenza Giornale newspaper.

Both soldiers, with the 173rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, were placed under “house arrest” this month in their barracks at Caserma Del Din by order of an Italian magistrate, said Maj. Mike Weisman, a unit spokesman.
“The two soldiers are under continuous military supervision and are subject to inspections at any time from Italian law enforcement or judicial authorities,” Weisman said.
According to accounts in the Italian press, the two men raped, beat and robbed a 24-year-old Romanian woman, who allegedly sometimes worked as a prostitute, after first agreeing to pay her for sex. According to the accounts, she was six months pregnant. [Stars and Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

Report Says US Troops Have Increased Risk of Erectile Dysfunction

| August 1, 2014

Make of this what you will:

Young troops suffer from erectile dysfunction at nearly three times the rate of civilians their own age, according to a new study out of the University of Southern California.

In a study published recently in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, 33 percent of 367 active-duty men surveyed reported symptoms of erectile dysfunction, or ED, while 8.4 percent reported probable sexual dysfunction, or SD — issues unrelated to erections that include low sex drive and ejaculation problems.

All the troops surveyed were age 40 and below. [Army Times]

You can read more at the link.

Tweet of the Day: How Foreign Media Changed My Life

| July 31, 2014

Picture of the Day: Dokdo Flash Mob

| July 31, 2014
A group of foreign students of Korean origin performs a flash mob at Gwanghwamun Plaza in downtown Seoul on July 30, 2014, to promote South Korea’s sovereignty over its easternmost islets of Dokdo against Japan’s repeated claims to the rocky outcroppings in the East Sea. (Yonhap)

North Korea’s Promotes It’s Kids Summer Camp To International Tourists

| July 31, 2014

I wonder how many Americans have sent their kids to summer camp in North Korea?

nk flag

WONSAN, North Korea — Summer camp in North Korea? It’s got one — and it’s got everything from giant water slides and a private beach to video games and volleyball courts. Oh, and, of course, a big bronze statue of the late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il surrounded by adoring children.

After some on-the-spot guidance from North Korea’s new leader, Kim Jong Un, and a major face-lift, the Songdowon International Children’s Camp reopened Tuesday for this year’s flock of foreign campers — more than 300 young children and teenagers from Russia, China, Vietnam, Ireland and Tanzania.
The campers spend the eight days cooking, swimming, boating and mingling with their North Korean peers. Though heavily subsidized by the government, the camp — plus a tour of Pyongyang — costs about $270 per foreign child. [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link.

Hanwha Eagles Baseball Team Introduces Fanbots

| July 31, 2014

Via a reader tip comes the below YouTube video that shows how the Korean professional baseball team, the Hanwha Eagles have developed “Fanbots” to allow people who cannot physically be at the stadium to attend the game and cheer on the team.  It is kind of cool and creepy at the same time:

Is US Military Sending Mixed Messages To Troops About Alcohol?

| July 31, 2014

Here is another example of the mixed messages that the US military continues to send to servicemembers:

A handful of Jack Daniel’s-branded gathering places draw whiskey drinkers and other patrons in sports arenas, stadiums like Wrigley Field, even in Dubai International Airport.

You might not expect to see such an establishment inside the gates of an Army base. As of Friday, you’d be wrong.

The Jack Daniels’ Lounge opens that afternoon at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, taking the place of the Lanyard, a bar last renovated during the Reagan administration. [Army Times]

You can read more at the link, but this promotion of Jack Daniel’s goes against the message the Army has been sending to the troops to stop the promotion of alcohol that is a key factor in DUIs and sexual assaults that has caused so much criticism of the military. The 7th Air Force in Korea has launched an anti-alcohol jihad where personnel are banned from drinking their first 30-days in country while other military units have banned alcohol in the barracks. On deployment personnel cannot drink at all. While all these anti-alcohol efforts are going on the DoD is busy
promoting a beer company during the Super Bowl and now a whiskey company in the middle of Ft. Sill.