This is either a motivated defector or an attempted infiltration:

South Korea’s military is scrutinizing how a presumed North Korean defector managed to get through a seaside drain and into the country early Tuesday, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The man, intercepted at 7:20 a.m. by South Korean troops inside the civilian control line just south of the Demilitarized Zone, apparently swam some part of the way from North Korea in a dive suit before passing through a drain south of the border, according to a translated, text-message update from the joint chiefs Wednesday.

“The person is assumed to have gone up a beach in the vicinity of the Unification Observatory,” south of an observation post, wearing the dive suit and fins, “and then passed through a drain under iron fences along the coast,” the message said.

The incident occurred in the northeastern Gangwon province, a joint chiefs spokesman said. The site description matches the Goseong Unification Observatory near the DMZ on South Korea’s eastern coast. Another defector crossed there in early November.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but reportedly the South Korean military unit did not take appropriate action when security cameras spotted the defector.

The case of the missing Yokota Airbase substitute teacher just took a dark twist:

The body of a U.S. civilian reported missing more than two weeks ago was discovered Tuesday in the housing tower where he and his wife lived at Yokota, according to the Air Force.

Trevor Balint, 34, of Hubbard, Ohio, the spouse of a Defense Department computer programmer and analyst, disappeared suddenly Feb. 1, prompting a search of the base from the ground and the air. His face appears on fliers, fading now, posted everywhere at Yokota, the headquarters in western Tokyo of U.S. Forces Japan.

His body was found in the east side housing area around 11 a.m. Tuesday, according to a statement on the base website Wednesday. Balint, a former substitute teacher at Defense Department schools, was pronounced dead at the scene by medical personnel, according to the base.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but the authorities claim they searched the building and for some reason did not spot his body. The family is obviously pretty upset about this. Condolences to his family and friends.

How come this governor isn’t advocating for the Russian vaccine to be given to South Koreans and instead wants to ship it to North Korea first?:

Gangwon Province Governor Choi Moon-soon’s proposal of manufacturing Russian COVID-19 vaccines in South Korea and providing them to North Korea is a feasible way to help normalize inter-Korean ties, according to Pyongyang watchers, Tuesday. 

However, they added that Seoul needs to come up with a creative and bold strategy to make such “vaccine diplomacy” happen, as the North is seeking to reduce dependence on its southern neighbor for humanitarian support and economic cooperation, as evidenced by its snubbing of the government’s repeated calls for inter-Korean economic and public health cooperation amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Did anyone expect anything other than a sham investigation by this WHO team?:

The White House on Saturday called on China to make available data from the earliest days of the COVID-19 outbreak, saying it has “deep concerns” about the way the findings of the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 report were communicated.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement that it is imperative that the report be independent and free from “alteration by the Chinese government”, echoing concerns raised by the administration of former President Donald Trump, who also moved to quit the WHO over the issue.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy fired back with a strongly-worded statement, saying the United States had damaged multilateral cooperation and the WHO in recent years, and should not be “pointing fingers” at China and other countries that supported the WHO during the COVID-19 pandemic. (……)

The team had requested raw patient data on 174 cases that China had identified from the early phase of the outbreak in the city of Wuhan in December 2019, as well as other cases, but were only provided with a summary, Dominic Dwyer, an Australian infectious diseases expert and member of the WHO team, told Reuters.

“It is imperative that this report be independent, with expert findings free from intervention or alteration by the Chinese government,” Sullivan said.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but if this team was never going to get all the information it needed from the Chinese government it should have never went. Now the Chinese government can repeat the talking point that an independent WHO team found no evidence that the virus was released from the Wuhan lab even though that is not true considering they never received all the data they needed. At least one of the WHO scientists on the trip is not ruling out the lab theory.

Considering how hard it is for Koreans with advanced degrees to land good paying jobs in the current Korean market, it should be no surprise that foreigners are having a hard time as well:

Foreigners who obtained an advanced degree in Korea are having difficulties finding work due to insufficient employment information and a lack of Korean language skills, according to the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training.

The institute released a report, Sunday, on the career preferences of international graduates with a master’s degree and above, and their perceptions on the domestic labor market. 

The study found that around 25 percent of the 8,427 foreign nationals who had completed a master’s course in the country between 2016 and 2018 were currently working here, and 53 percent of the 2,647 of those who completed their doctoral degrees here between 2017 and 2019 were employed in the country. 

The vast majority of working foreign nationals with a master’s degree were employed by private companies, while 70 percent of doctorate holders in employment were working in universities and research centers. 

The study also included a survey conducted among 650 foreign residents who had finished a postgraduate course between 2015 and 2019 on the difficulties they had faced when looking for jobs after graduation.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link,

It has been speculated that North Korea would likely test the Biden administration at some point with a provocation and this March may be when they do it:

While North Korea is expected to respond strongly to an envisaged combined military drill between South Korea and the United States, including a show of force, Seoul has few options to properly tame Pyongyang’s anger which will likely lead to heightening tensions on the Korean Peninsula, according to diplomatic observers, Monday.

However, they say it is a silver lining that the North’s possible provocation would not be enough to spoil the South Korean government’s peace initiative as the totalitarian state also remains cautious about its acts negatively affecting the new U.S. administration’s review of policy toward it.

The allies are now discussing holding the annual springtime drill, which will be proceeded under the form of computer-simulated command post training, in the second week of March, with them fine-tuning the details such as how to program it, according to military officials. 

However, given that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned against the “war game,” it is highly likely that the North Korean regime will stage a military provocation. The Kim regime denounced the joint exercise as a rehearsal for an invasion.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.