The North Koreans have been much quieter then I was expecting them to be this summer. This leads me to believe there must be a lot of back channel communication happening that we don’t know about:

South and North Korea have restored their communication lines, Cheong Wa Dae said Tuesday, with leaders of the two countries agreeing to rebuild mutual trust for better inter-Korean relations. 

This latest development has raised hopes for another reconciliatory mood on the Korean Peninsula and a resumption of the stalled nuclear talks between the United States and North Korea. 

“South and North Korea have agreed to restore their communication lines, which had been severed, as of 10 a.m., Tuesday,” presidential senior secretary for public communication Park Soo-hyun said during a press conference.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This case takes another tragic turn:

A suspect in the suicide death of an Air Force sexual abuse victim has been found dead at a military detention facility, a human rights group said Monday.

The senior master sergeant was indicted on charges of inflicting secondary harm and threatening retaliation against the master sergeant, surnamed Lee, who took her own life in May, three months after she was allegedly groped and suffered other abuse by a colleague of the same rank.

“The senior master sergeant was found unconscious at 2:55 p.m. Sunday and transferred to a civilian hospital but later died,” the Center for Military Human Rights Korea, a nongovernmental organization, said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

For anyone complaining about USFK COVID restrictions just be happy you are not in the ROK Military:

The defense ministry extended the toughest social distancing rules for the military for another two weeks Monday to curb a new wave of the pandemic, restricting service members’ vacations and off-installation activities.

The Level 4 scheme, which was supposed to expire Sunday, will be in place until Aug. 8, in line with the government’s COVID-19 guidance, according to the ministry.

Under the new measures, only 10 percent of members of a unit are allowed to go on vacation at the same time. Off-duty travels, staying out overnight and meetings with visitors are banned in principle.

The ministry also ordered military units to cancel or postpone all private meetings, prohibit nonessential events and travel, and conduct religious services online.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like someone at MBC is going to get in trouble for having a sense of humor:

MBC went too far during its coverage of the Tokyo Olympic opening ceremony on Thursday, so much so that the broadcaster found it extremely challenging to make up for the mistakes.

Its hours-long livestream of the ceremony was filled with factual errors including nonsensical, scathing and discriminatory descriptions of some countries which sparked a furious online backlash. 

When Chilean athletes marched during the opening ceremony, MBC used the image of the Routes of Santiago de Composte, a network of four Christian pilgrimage routes in northern Spain. MBC staff seemed to have confused the Chilean capital Santiago with the Spanish pilgrimage routes of the same name. It also used an image of the Atlantic Ocean, instead of the Pacific, for Micronesia, a tiny country consisting of 2,100 islands in the Western Pacific Ocean. 

MBC left its viewers speechless with its inappropriate images for several countries. It used salmon for Norway and pizza for Italy. When the athletes of Republic of the Marshall Islands marched, the TV caption told viewers, “It was a nuclear test site for the United States.” 

Some of the graphics used were insulting. For instance, the image of Bitcoin was used for El Salvador as if the TV station was trying to remind viewers of the Central American country’s adoption of the virtual currency as its official tender. An image of riots was used to represent Haiti.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Areas outside of Seoul are now going to be hit with increased anti-virus measures this week:

South Korea will apply the second highest level of virus restrictions for non-capital areas starting this week, health officials said Sunday, in the latest step to stem the rapid spread of the virus in provincial regions at the peak of the summer holiday season. 

The announcement was made during a government response meeting, presided over by President Moon Jae-in, the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters said.

The heightened distancing rules will take effect Tuesday, to allow time for preparation, and run through Aug. 8.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Every time I see some one go down in flames for mishandling classified information I can’t help, but think of the whole Hillary Clinton situation:

 A 31-year-old civilian employee of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command pleaded guilty this week in Hawaii to mishandling classified information while she was on temporary duty in Manila.

Asia Janay Lavarello, in a plea agreement on Tuesday, admitted one count of “knowingly removing classified information concerning the national defense or foreign relations of the United States and retaining it at an unauthorized location” in U.S. District Court in Hawaii, the Department of Justice said in a news release Tuesday.

She is free on an unsecured bail bond, with sentencing scheduled for Nov. 4.

The count carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000, the release said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.