According to the Chosun Ilbo, a lot of the prepositioned war stocks here in South Korea have fallen into a state of disrepair:

The majority of U.S. military hardware in South Korea fell into such a state of disrepair that it would have caused serious delays had any hostilities erupted, the Washington Post said Tuesday quoting classified internal audit reports.
The Post said the Pentagon and U.S. Congress continued to be misled by reports that readiness levels were high, even after an internal investigation in October last year found that 50-80 percent of heavy artillery and other weaponry were not “fully mission capable.”

The problem was aggravated during Washington’s large-scale shifting of arms and supplies from caches scattered around the world toward battle zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The important thing to remember is that this report covers the war stocks here in Korea. If the actual Army equipment being used here fell into this kind of disrepair then it would be time to really worry. The equipment in the war stocks just sit there down south and do not have people conducting regular maintenance on them, so it shouldn’t be to much of a surprise that they are not in great operational condition. Military equipment needs regular maintenance, the prepositioned stocks don’t get that thus leading to some of the problems cited.

In the 2005 Miss Asia Pageant, Korean entrant Hong In Young on the left of this picture finished second to Kitty Wang of China who is pictured in the center. Third place went to Anna Zhai of China who is on the right. Here is another picture of Hong:

I admit she is pretty hot, but I have seen better looking women in Korea, but then again she may have a lot of talent she displayed at the pageant. Isn’t talent supposed to be important at pageants? Anyway I know who is really hot, Ms. China, Kitty Wang:

Hat Tip: Japundit

Michelle Wie has announced that she has in fact turned pro:

Michelle Wie has turned pro, the Korean golf phenomenon announced on at the Kahala Mandarin Hotel in Honolulu, Hawaii on Thursday.

“Korean golf phenomenon”? Shouldn’t that read American or Korean-American golf phenomenon? Michelle Wie is of Korean ancestry but is from Hawaii. Notice the name Michelle is American. The Korean media easily labels Kim Chorong as being too American and don’t want her to attend a golf tournament in Japan, while they clamor to claim Michelle Wie as one of their own. Notice how the CBC labels Wie:

American Michelle Wie, the most celebrated teenage player since Tiger Woods, will turn pro on Wednesday, according to Golf World magazine.

That’s right, she is an American. Later on in the article the address her as a Korean-American which is fine, but IMHO it is inaccurate to label her solely as Korean when she isn’t.

If Michelle Wie keeps making money like this from sponsorships she probably isn’t going to be to eager to be labeled only a Korean:

Wie will be turning 16 on Oct. 11 and two days later take part in the Samsung World Championship in Palm Desert, California, which will mark her pro debut. Flanked by Mike Fasulo, chief marketing officer of Sony, and Bob Wood, president of Nike Golf, Wie confirmed she signed endorsement deals with the two companies worth $10 million a year and will use Nike golf clubs.

I think it is clear Michelle Wie is becoming a “global phenomenon” not a Korean phenomenon.

A bar catering to westerners in Pyongyang is expected to close with the North Korean decision to end the World Food Program’s activities in North Korea:

It looks as if Pyongyang’s only bar for foreigners will have to close if, as North Korea demands, all foreign NGO staff leave by January next year. The U.K. Guardian reported Tuesday that the bar, which is run by aid workers, will probably not survive the exodus. Some 300 foreigners live in North Korea, 90 percent of them working for international organizations. The remaining 10 percent are people who come and go on business, a handful of Western journalists, and five English teachers.

Every Friday Pyongyang’s expat crowd gathers at the bar inside the UN World Food Program compound. Foreigners have taken to calling it the RAC ? an acronym for “Random Access Club,” itself a take on the WFP’s famous “no access, no food” slogan. It is also “the single place in North Korea where one can come and go as one pleases,” the paper said, “an oasis of modern globalized normality inside a land where time has not only stood still but gone backwards.”

Judging by the looks of the place I don’t think anyone is missing out on much.

Many of you may remember the drunken beer bottle altercation in Uijongbu that occurred this past July. Well the soldier involved was tried in a Korean court and plead guilty to injuring the Korean national with the beer bottle:

A South Korean prosecutor is seeking a five-year jail term for a U.S. soldier accused of breaking a beer bottle across a Uijeongbu chef’s face.

The South Korean government is granted primary jurisdiction in crimes committed by U.S. military community members while off-duty as outlined by the Status of Forces Agreement that governs the legal status of the U.S. military here.

A five year jail sentence seems pretty steep when I have seen the ROK’s give lighter sentences for more serious offenses. However, this soldier’s case is highly publicized so the Korean court may slam him just to make an example of him that the Korean courts are tough on GI crime. My best guess is that he does 1-2 years in jail.

However the Korean public perception about the SOFA Agreement will not change though because the Korean public will still read articles like this and think that all GI’s can commit all the crimes they want, get away with it, and fly home. Not in PFC Walker’s case, it looks like the only place he will be going is the Choenan correctional facility.

You can read more on this from Nomad

So who knows where this is at? I told you it would be a little bit harder this week.

Apolo Ohno has arrived in South Korea for the first time since winning Olympic Gold in Salt Lake City which caused a nation wide hatred of Ohno in Korea:

But Ohno’s appearance at the second World Cup meet of the year clearly struck a nerve with South Koreans, who were livid when one of their skaters, Kim Dong-sung, finished first in the 1,500 meters at Salt Lake City but was disqualified for blocking Ohno — giving gold to the U.S. skater.

An estimated 100 riot police stood guard as Ohno arrived at Incheon International Airport outside Seoul on Monday, ensuring no one carried out threats that were made against him after his Olympic victory.

Ohno wanted to hold a news conference for local reporters to explain his side of what happened in Salt Lake City, but organizers restricted his access to the media, according to the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Makes me wonder why the Korean organizers are restricting his access to the media? Here is what Ohno thinks about it:

“I really wanted to set something up,” Ohno said in a telephone interview on his way to practice early Tuesday. “People have questions about what I’ve been doing the past couple of years. I want them to know I’m excited to be here. I want to put a lot of things on the table. A lot of Koreans are not familiar with me. They only know what they see on the news or what somebody else says. I want to let them know a little bit about me and take it from there.”

Maybe the organizers are afraid that average Koreans might read something like this from Ohno:

“One guy wins and one guy loses, but it’s not entirely up to him,” Ohno said. “Our sport is so crazy that on any given Sunday, anybody can win. You can run the same race over and over five times, and you’ll probably get five different winners. It’s wild.”

Ohno described South Korea as “the best nation in the world for short-track speedskating” and made it clear that he doesn’t want any hard feelings to linger from his Olympic victory.

“The Korean public has so many fans of short track,” he said. “This is the place to skate. If you’re part of the national team here, you’re definitely one of the best in the world.”

Printing something like this may cause some people not to hate him any more. We can’t have that.

Eleven people were killed and 30 injured when a stampede of people charged the front gate of the Sangju Citizen’s Sports Arena for a MBC pop music concert:

Witnesses said thousands rushed to enter the venue when the gates opened, with people at the front of the queue being trampled underfoot by the impatient press of bodies behind them. “They were pinned down and trampled on; it was terrible,” a witness said.

Reports from the scene said more than 10,000 people gathered to attend the show, with some 5,000 people thronging the gate where the stampede happened. The show was scheduled to start at 7 p.m. as part of the third Sangju Bicycle Festival, which opened last Saturday.

It is a little surprising that this happened in Sangju of all places. I have traveled to Sangju before and found the place to be a quiet city with some really nice nearby mountain scenery. Not the first place that comes to mind for a tragedy like this to occur.

Speculation is mounting that Nicolas Cage may have dumped Alice Kim and moved on to the next woman half his age:

On Wednesday, someone posted pictures of Cage on a date on a yacht with another young lady on an Internet site with the Korean portal site Daum. The picture was entitled, “Nicolas Cage’s New Girlfirend.”

 

The picture, which is drawing an explosive amount of Internet attention, has no further explanation other than its title, so there is debate as to the authenticity of the photo.

The woman in the photo however may belong to someone else on the boat though since there was other people present:

Besides the woman indicated as Cage’s new love, there are two boys also on board the boat; all are brightly smiling as they enjoy sun tanning and swimming.

Even if the photo does confirm that Cage has split from Kim, why is anybody surprised by this? Why is this making headlines in major South Korean newspapers? Who cares, we all knew this was coming sooner or later. Save it for the tabloids.

We have heard this before but the US military is once again entertaining the idea of more troop cuts in Korea:

The U.S. Forces Korea are reportedly mulling additional troop cuts after Seoul announced it will trim its own forces down from 680,000 to 500,000 by the year 2020. “When the government announced its plans to cut 180,000 men from the armed forces, the USFK internally started to acknowledge the need for cuts as well,” a high-ranking government source said Monday.

The source said there were some among USFK brass who wonder whether there is any point maintaining the substantial American contingent here to deter the North Korean threat even as South Korea is slimming down its forces.

This could be the build up for political cover if the Korean government does not complete the base relocation land deal in Pyoengtaek. Instead of saying the US is reducing troops in Korea because of the failed land deal, the politicians can say that the reductions are part of the overall reduction of troops on the peninsula in coordination with the ROK Army’s own downsizing.