The weird scandal involving South Korean Olympic medalist fencer Nam Hyun-hee has apparently come to an end, unless Jeon Cheong-jo can find away to scam her/himself? out of jail:

Jeon Cheong-jo, the 28-year-old former fiance of Olympic fencing medalist Nam Hyun-hee, is moved to the Seoul Eastern District Court for a trial on Feb. 14, 2024. (Yonhap)

A Seoul court sentenced the scandal-ridden former fiance of Olympic fencing medalist Nam Hyun-hee to 12 years in prison on Wednesday on fraud and forgery charges. 

The 28-year-old former fiance, Jeon Cheong-jo, was charged with swindling a total of about 3 billion won (US$2.25 million) from 27 people under the pretext of investment between 2022 and 2023.

Jeon presented herself to the victims as a secret heir to the high-end Paradise Hotel chain, enticing them with false investment opportunities that she portrayed as exclusively reserved for rich conglomerate families, according to investigations.

Jeon gained notoriety after breaking up with Nam, the silver medalist in women’s foil at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, following revelations that Jeon was legally a woman, not an heir to the Paradise Hotel chain and had multiple records of fraud.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see if the opening of relations with Cuba will open increased trade with South Korea from the island nation:

South Korea established diplomatic relations with Cuba on Wednesday, its mission to the United Nations said, in a surprise announcement that could pose a setback to North Korea that has long boasted brotherly ties with the Latin American country.

In New York, the two countries’ representatives to the United Nations exchanged diplomatic notes marking the establishment of the formal ties. Cuba is the 193rd country which South Korea has built diplomatic relations with.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I don’t think the North Koreans would undertake an attributal terrorist attack against South Korea if it wanted to raise tensions. An operation similar to what they did with the Cheonan makes more sense. In that operation they sunk a ROK naval vessel and then blamed the South Koreans for sinking it themselves. The left wing useful idiots in South Korea then accused the former President Lee for sinking the Cheonan to blame North Korea. There are still useful idiots to this day in South Korea that believe this nonsense:

This photo, provided by the Korea Institute for National Unification on Feb. 14, 2024, shows the state-run think tank holding a forum on inter-Korean relations in Seoul.

North Korea may attempt to mobilize its spies or sympathizers in South Korea to stage a terrorist attack on the South in a manner similar to attacks by Islamic Jihad, an expert said Wednesday.

Cho Han-bum, a senior research fellow at the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU) said North Korea is expected to raise military tensions as its leader Kim Jong-un defined inter-Korean ties as relations “between two states hostile to each other” at a year-end party meeting.

“With Kim’s announcement, North Korean spies and sympathizers in South Korea could work as ‘wartime’ agents to engage in activities commensurate with a state of war,” Cho told a forum on the two Koreas’ relations.

He raised the possibility of North Korean espionage agents staging a terrorist attack in South Korea on orders from North Korea, or of South Koreans with pro-North Korean stances staging a “lone-wolf” terrorist attack.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The Joong Ang Ilbo has an article that takes an indepth look at the UNC’s rear bases in Japan and what their functions are:

The recent visit to the United Nations Command (UNC) rear base in Japan represents a continuation of the Korea Peace Foundation’s ongoing quest for peace in Northeast Asia since its establishment in 2015.   
  
Established in 1950 in the aftermath of the 1950-1953 Korean War, the UNC has been instrumental in preventing further conflict and upholding peace on the peninsula by maintaining the armistice and deterring North Korean aggression. 
  
The UNC extended its presence to Japan to uphold these objectives.   
  
The Peace Odyssey’s trip marked the first time the UNC granted foreign civilians access to its rear bases in Japan since the Covid-19 pandemic.   
  
There are seven UNC rear bases in Japan. The Peace Odyssey visited two — the Yokosuka Naval Base and the Yokota Air Base.   
  
While the UNC has made most base facilities accessible, a few remain off-limits. Amid the rapidly evolving international landscape characterized by increased cooperation between North Korea, China, and Russia, the UNC sought to provide accurate information about its role.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read the rest at the link, but as the article mentions the UNC rear bases in Japan serves a lot like what Kuwait has served for operations in the Middle East. Japan’s bases would be a critical logistics hub for bringing in material and troops to support any contingency on the Korean peninsula.

What they don’t know is how many of these phones are smartphones? It seems in a country with only a regime controlled intranet, a smartphone is not as useful as in other countries:

An estimated six million North Koreans have cellular phones as of 2021, a recently published report by a state-run think-tank said, indicating a wave of change among the people living under the oppressive regime.

The Korea Institute for National Unification conducted a study on how distribution of mobile phones is affecting North Koreans’ quality of life, in which they presumed that a little over 23 percent of some 25.7 million North Koreans own smartphones. The consensus was based on estimations by various research institutes and organizations.

The study said that cell phone use in the hermit kingdom rapidly has increased since 2009, which is around the time when network distribution for mobile phones started spreading among the public. According to the researchers, the number of phones using a landline is expected to be around 1.18 million, unchanged since 2008. At the same time, cellphones in North Korea outnumbered landline phones in 2011 and kept growing.

It is yet unclear how much of the mobile phones distributed in North Korea are smartphones, due to lack of related statistics. But researchers speculated that smartphones will eventually outlast any other type of mobile phone in the country, based on anecdotal evidence.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

People must have a lot of money to waste to spend up $1,800 over the current asking price for the Vision Pro just to get it earlier than when it is officially released in South Korea:

A customer uses Apple’s Vision Pro headset at the Apple Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan in New York City, U.S., February 2, 2024. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

Apple’s Vision Pro is being sold at a premium of as much as 2.4 million won ($1,800) in Korea as the new wearable is not officially available in the country. 
  
Some are even paying to experience the device for a couple of hours.

Apple’s MR (mixed reality) headset, the Vision Pro, launched in the United States on Feb. 1 to better-than-expected popularity despite a hefty price tag of $3,500 for the cheapest 256-gigabyte storage option. An estimated 180,000 units or more have been sold, selling out the pre-order quantity.

Major secondhand marketplaces in Korea have dozens of posts reselling the device at an inflated price. Mostly purchased in the U.S., these devices are listed with a price 1 million won to 2 million won over the official price tag.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but has any ROK Heads try this headset out yet? Is it anywhere near being worth the price currently listed for it?