This seems a weird way for North Korea to ship something to Russia via ship from China when both North Korea and China share a land border with Russia:

South Korea has seized a stateless vessel that allegedly engaged in activities in violation of U.N. sanctions in waters off the country’s south coast, security sources said Wednesday.

The 3,000-ton cargo ship DEYI, reportedly en route to Russia from North Korea via China, was captured in waters off Yeosu around Saturday, they added.

Thirteen were aboard the ship, including a Chinese captain and other Chinese and Indonesian crewmembers.

South Korea’s Coast Guard is said to have moved the ship and docked it in waters off the southeastern port of Busan after the crewmembers refused orders to stop the vessel. 

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is more on the GI crime front from this weekend. U.S. Army WTF Moments is reporting not only about the vehicle theft last weekend, but also an officer soliciting a prostitute. Times have definitely changed because 20 years ago this was a normal weekend in the ville:

It has been quiet on the GI crime front until this past weekend:

A United States Forces Korea (USFK) service member was arrested after causing an accident while driving under the influence with a stolen vehicle, police said Monday. 
  
According to the Goyang Police Precinct, a USFK soldier in their 20s deployed at a base in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi, stole a car in Mapo District, western Seoul, between Saturday night and early Sunday. 
  
The soldier drove the stolen car and hit two vehicles, including a truck, while they were waiting for the traffic light to change at 6:17 a.m. Sunday.

Police apprehended the soldier after the crash. 
  
Two people were injured in the accident, according to the police. 
  
The soldier was found to have stolen a parked car, in which the owner left their keys, after drinking alcohol in the Hongdae area.

Joong Ang Ilbo via a reader tip

You can read more at the link.

Yoon at christening ceremony for next-generation bullet train

President Yoon Suk Yeol (2nd from R) applauds during a ceremony naming the country’s next-generation super-speed bullet train, as “KTX Cheong-Ryong (blue dragon),” at Daejeon Station in the namesake city, 164 kilometers south of Seoul, on April 1, 2024. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)

It appears that North Korea is trying to advance their ballistic missile technology to include hypersonic capabilities:

North Korea fired what appeared to be an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) into the East Sea on Tuesday, the South Korean military said, in its third ballistic missile launch of the year.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a message to reporters that it detected a missile presumed to be intermediate-range class fired from the Pyongyang region at 6:53 a.m. and the missile flew about 600 kilometers before landing in the East Sea.

Military officials suspect the North may have test-fired an intermediate-range missile equipped with a hypersonic warhead to test the performance of its delivery system following an engine test last month.

On March 20, Pyongyang said it successfully conducted a ground jet test of a solid-fuel engine for a new type of intermediate hypersonic missile.

“North Korea appears to have put a hypersonic warhead on top of the delivery system used in the engine test last month,” a senior military official said on the background.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It would be great if the Korean government told him no on acquiring citizenship since he waited until he was old enough to avoid mandatory military service:

Shin Yoo-yeol, front row second from left, head of Lotte Corp.’s future growth office, listens to Lotte Innovate officials during CES 2024 in Las Vegas in this Jan. 10 file photo. Courtesy of Lotte Innovate

Speculation is growing that Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin’s oldest son, Shin Yoo-yeol, also known by his Japanese name, Satoshi Shigemitsu, may give up his Japanese citizenship this year to be naturalized as a Korean citizen, as he turned 38 years old on Saturday, according to industry officials, Sunday. At this age, one can acquire Korean citizenship regardless of the completion of military service.

The heir apparent, who currently assumes executive positions at Lotte’s holding company and its health care subsidiary, was born in London in 1986 and grew up in Tokyo. After joining Lotte in 2020, he has worked for his father’s company in Korea and Japan.

Due to his frequent attendance at the conglomerate’s important events recently, he has been expected to follow in the footsteps of his father, who gave up his Japanese citizenship at the age of 41 in 1996 to acquire Korean citizenship that year without completing military service. At that time, men younger than 40 were not allowed to be exempt from military service.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I learned something new today that Hawaii and Guam are not covered by the NATO alliance simply because none of their landmasses touch the Atlantic Ocean:

Sweden became the newest member of NATO earlier this month, joining 31 nations in the security alliance, including the United States. Well, make that 49 of the 50 United States.

Because in a quirk of geography and history, Hawaii is not technically covered by the NATO pact.

If a foreign power attacked Hawaii – say the US Navy’s base at Pearl Harbor or the headquarters of the Indo-Pacific Command northwest of Honolulu – the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would not be obligated to rise to the Aloha State’s defense.

CNN

Here is why Hawaii and Guam being left out is significant:

John Hemmings, senior director of the Indo-Pacific Foreign and Security Policy Program at the Pacific Forum, says Hawaii’s exclusion from NATO removes “an element of deterrence” when it comes to the possibility of a Chinese strike on Hawaii in support of any potential Taiwan campaign.

Leaving Hawaii out lets Beijing know that NATO’s European members potentially have a bit of an “escape clause” when it comes to defending US territory in such a hypothetical situation, he says. (……)

Hemmings also makes an argument for Guam, the US Pacific island territory some 3,000 miles farther west than Hawaii, to be included in NATO’s umbrella.

The island, which has long been a focal point of North Korean saber rattling, is home to Andersen Air Force Base, from which the US can launch its B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers across the Indo-Pacific.

Hemmings likens Guam’s exclusion from NATO to how the US left the Korean Peninsula outside of a line it drew across the Pacific to deter the Soviet Union and China from spreading communism in January 1950. Five months after the so-called Acheson Line was drawn, the Korean War began.

“The adversary feels emboldened to carry out military conflict and you end up having a war anyway,” Hemmings says.

You can read more at the link, but is anyone confident that NATO would respond for example to a Chinese attack on Guam in response to a Taiwan contingency? Other than the UK and likely Canada who else in NATO could be trusted to deploy troops to the Pacific to support such a conflict?