The North Korean sent off some fireworks after President Biden left the region:

 North Korea fired three ballistic missiles Wednesday morning off its eastern coast, prompting the United States and South Korea to respond with a show of force of their own launches.

North Korea’s missiles, fired hours after President Joe Biden wrapped up his first presidential trip to Seoul and Tokyo, came from the Sunan area, where the regime’s airport is located, according to the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

The three missiles were fired at 6 a.m., 6:37 a.m. and 6:42 a.m. The first, believed to be an intercontinental ballistic missile, flew roughly 224 miles at a peak altitude of 336 miles; the second “disappeared” at an altitude of 12 miles; and the third, believed to be a short-range ballistic missile, flew about 472 miles at an altitude of 37 miles, according to South Korea’s military.

Stars & Stripes

Here is what the US and the ROK did in response:

Following the launches, U.S. Forces Korea announced in an unsigned press release that it had fired surface-to-surface missiles toward its eastern coast “to demonstrate the ability of the combined [U.S.-South Korea] force to respond quickly to crisis events.”

USFK, which is responsible for roughly 28,500 troops on the Korean Peninsula, said in the release it used the Army’s Tactical Missile System and South Korea’s Hyunmu-2 missile system for the live-fire exercise.

South Korea’s military also conducted an armed exercise consisting of 30 South Korean F-15K jets, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement Wednesday.

You can read more at the link, but the missile tests are what I thought was the most likely provocation the Kim regime would do. What to watch for next is a nuclear test. I think this will be tied to any increased rhetoric from the US and ROK condemning the North in the coming days. I guess we will see what happens.

However, if you ask someone on the Korean left they will say that the ROK has not appeased the Kim regime enough. If you just appease them a bit more than peace in our time will break out:

President Yoon Suk-yeol said the time for appeasing North Korea is over in an interview with CNN, and that he expects any new inter-Korean talks to be initiated by leader Kim Jong-un.    
   
“I think the ball is in Chairman Kim’s court,” Yoon told CNN’s Paula Hancocks in an exclusive interview aired Monday. “It is his choice to start a dialogue with us.”  
   
The remarks followed Yoon’s first summit with U.S. President Joe Biden in Seoul Saturday, an opportunity for the allies to coordinate the policies on Pyongyang amid increased missile threats from the North. Some military analysts believe North Korea could be preparing for a possible seventh nuclear test or an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch.    
   
Yoon said that he is against bending over backwards to please North Korea. “Just to escape North Korean provocation or conflict temporarily is not something that we should do,” said Yoon. “Many call it servile diplomacy, but the policy of being over-concerned about the other side’s feelings does not work and has proven to be a failure in the past five years.”  
   
He was referring to the policy of his predecessor Moon Jae-in, whose emphasis on dialogue and peaceful reconciliation led to the first North-U.S. summit in 2018. Talks collapsed in February 2019 after a second North-U.S. summit in Hanoi. Yoon has taken a more hard-line stance, more in line with the Biden administration’s “calibrated and practical” approach to the North.    
   
But Yoon stressed, “I do not want North Korea to collapse. My hope is for North Korea to prosper alongside South Korea.”  
   
Yoon said he wants a “shared and common prosperity on the Korean Peninsula” but underscored that enhancing North Korea’s nuclear capability is neither helpful nor conducive to “maintaining international peace.”  

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but all the decades of North Korean appeasement has accomplished is provide funding for the Kim regime’s nuclear and missile programs. Besides providing regime security, the Kim regime is now using these same programs to try and extort money from the ROK and the international community.

This is another example of how workers got used to something and don’t want to go back to the way things were before the pandemic:

Unionized workers of Seoul Metro are strongly protesting against the city government’s plan to resume late-night subway operations, a measure proposed to tackle the worsening nighttime taxi shortage in the capital.

The union that represents workers of a part of Seoul’s subway system which runs lines 1 to 8, held a rally in front of the Seoul Metropolitan Government office, Tuesday, demanding the local government withdraw its plan to extend operating hours.

“Late-night operations were suspended not only because of the coronavirus pandemic but also due to worsening operating losses, which nearly pushed the operator into bankruptcy. It is difficult to understand why the government has abruptly announced resumption of late-night operations, without any measures to resolve these issues,” the union said in a statement.

Earlier this month, the metropolitan government said it will extend subway operating hours on weekdays until 1 a.m., thereby increasing operations by one hour from the current midnight closing time, starting at some point in June.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The Chinese and Russians are apparently trying to show the ROK how united they are after President Biden’s trip to Korea and Japan:

“Prior to their entry into the KADIZ, our military deployed Air Force fighters to conduct tactical steps in preparation against potential accidental situations,” the JCS said in a text message sent to reporters.

At 7:56 a.m., two Chinese H-6 bombers entered the KADIZ from an area 126 kilometers northwest of Ieodo, a submerged rock south of the southern island of Jeju, according to the JCS. They moved toward the East Sea and exited the zone at around 9:33 a.m.

Later, the two Chinese warplanes joined four Russian warplanes, including two TU-95 bombers, and entered the KADIZ together at 9:58 a.m. They then left the zone at 10:15 a.m.

At around 3:40 p.m., four Chinese and two Russian military aircraft were spotted flying in an area some 267 km southeast of Ieodo — outside the KADIZ — the JCS said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it is likely a good thing to let the Chinese know exactly where the U.S. stands if they try and attack Taiwan:

President Joe Biden, speaking Monday during his first visit presidential visit to Japan, signaled an apparent end to the U.S. policy of strategic ambiguity by saying the United States would defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion.

“Yes,” Biden replied when asked by a reporter in Tokyo if he was willing to get involved militarily to defend the island.

“That’s the commitment we made,” he said at a press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

The U.S. has maintained a “One China policy” that acknowledges Beijing’s claim of sovereignty over Taiwan. However, the policy doesn’t give China the right to use force to take over the island, Biden said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

I don’t think this guy will ever be stepping foot back into the village he once lived at after this:

A Japanese man reportedly gambled away millions of Japanese yen’s worth of COVID relief funds that he received by mistake.

Last month, the Japanese government inadvertently sent a COVID relief fund meant for 463 people worth 46.3 million yen ($360,890) to a 24-year-old man.

After receiving the amount, the man initially said he would cooperate with local authorities but eventually went into hiding. His sudden disappearance prompted the southern town of Abu in Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture to file a civil lawsuit while also considering criminal action. (….)

According to his lawyer, the man lost the entire amount via online casino sites on his mobile phone.

“I don’t currently have the money and I don’t have anything with property value at hand. It’s actually difficult to return it,” the lawyer quoted his client as saying.

Yahoo News

You can read more at the link.