It will be interesting to see how this case continues to play out since it was sent back to the ROK military court. They could try and find some different article to punish them with:
South Korea’s Supreme Court on Thursday threw out a military court ruling that convicted two gay soldiers for having sex outside their military facilities, saying it stretched the reading of the country’s widely criticized military sodomy law.
The court’s decision to send the case back to the High Court for Armed Forces was welcomed by human rights advocates, who had long protested the country’s 1962 Military Criminal Act’s Article 92-6, which prohibits same-sex conduct among soldiers in the country’s predominantly male military.
The article prescribes a maximum prison term of two years for “anal intercourse” and “any other indecent acts” between military personnel. Following the Supreme Court’s full panel deliberation of its 13 justices, Chief Justice Kim Myeong-su said they concluded the provisions should not be applied to consensual sex between male service members that takes place outside military facilities during off-duty hours.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
No that the Kim regime cares, but it is hypocritical of them to complain about US & ROK personnel basically playing a glorified computer game when they are the ones shooting missiles near their neighbors and threatening another nuclear test:
North Korean propaganda organs on Thursday slammed the annual combined military training between South Korea and the United States, labeling it as preparation for war, while the Kim Jong-un regime has made no formal response yet.
Earlier this week, South Korea and the United States kicked off their combined springtime military training that does not include any field troop maneuvers. It is to run through next Thursday.
“This is a reckless, dangerous play with fires of war and a clear exercise for the invasion of the North, driving the Korean Peninsula’s political situation that is already unstable to an extreme,” Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean propaganda outlet, said in a commentary posted on its website.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
What a massive screw up this is:
A television news channel in Taiwan apologized after erroneously reporting on Wednesday that China had launched an invasion just outside the capital Taipei, triggering alarm online.
Taipei-based Chinese Television Systems, a TV network partially owned by the Taiwanese government, ran a ticker along the bottom of the screen at 7 a.m. local time on Wednesday saying that China had attacked several areas of New Taipei City.
“New Taipei City has been hit by a Chinese Communist guided missile. Ships in Taipei Port have exploded, damaging facilities,” the graphic read. “Banqiao Station is reported to have been set on fire by explosives placed by special forces.”
The station issued an on-air apology a few hours later, explaining that the chyron had been produced for a New Taipei City Fire Department disaster-prevention video and broadcast due to a production error. CTS later announced an investigation into what it called “gross negligence,” pledging in a text message to severely punish any staff found to be responsible.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
Nobody does military parades better than the North Koreans:
North Korea appears to be making final-stage preparations for a military parade involving a large number of troops ahead of another key anniversary next week, according to satellite imagery reported by U.S. news outlets Wednesday.
More than 12,000 troops were seen gathering at a plaza of Mirim Airfield in Pyongyang earlier this week, Radio Free Asia (RFA) said. It cited commercial satellite imagery provided by Planet Labs.
The area is known as the secretive North’s traditional parade training venue with the replica of Kim Il Sung Square, where such an event highlighted by goose-stepping soldiers and a show of major weapon systems is actually staged. The satellite imagery was taken on Sunday, a week before the North celebrates the 90th founding anniversary of the North Korean People’s Revolutionary Army (KPRA), the anti-Japanese guerrilla force.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
Starting today USFK personnel who are vaccinated will be able to party in the villes again:
The U.S. military command in South Korea will lower its health protection condition in time for its population to sample a wider variety of off-base activities this weekend.
U.S. Forces Korea will move from Bravo-plus to Bravo at 6 a.m. Thursday, the command announced Wednesday in a news release. The change will allow those who are fully vaccinated to visit bars, clubs, adults-only establishments, saunas and karaoke bars.
A person is considered fully vaccinated 14 days after completing a vaccination series approved by the Food and Drug Administration, according to USFK.
Masks are still required of everyone in South Korea, indoors and outdoors; USFK requires masks indoors but not outdoors on U.S. military installations.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
It took nine years to complete the construction of the command center. Just think South Korea has built entire neighborhoods faster than this command center:
The construction of a new command center for the combined forces of South Korea and the United States has been completed in a major American military base south of Seoul, a U.S. Army website showed Tuesday.
South Korean and U.S. officials commemorated the completion of Command Center Humphreys in Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul, on Thursday last week, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).
The new center is designed to support the operations of the allies’ Combined Forces Command (CFC) and the U.S. Forces Korea. Its construction was a key part of the allies’ plan to relocate the U.S. garrison in Seoul’s central district of Yongsan to Camp Humphreys, according to the USACE.
“This project was a nine-year construction effort, and we finally get to see the successful completion of it,” Robert Zhang, a U.S. official involved in the project, was quoted by the USACE as saying.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
