After a South Korean court allowed conscientious objectors to not serve in the military and instead work at prison facilities to fulfill their mandatory service obligation. This has caused concern that people would lie about being a conscientious objector which has caused investigations of people’s video game habits:

Previously, people evading military services were sentenced to 18 months in jail. Those people are referred to by the public as conscientious objectors. 
The top court’s decision, which sparked an outrage among South Korean men, especially those who are fit for conscription, was followed by another question: How can a person’s conscience be judged?
As one of the measures to find out if objectors truly believe in peace, a South Korean district prosecutors’ office announced that it would look into objectors’ gaming history as one measure, including whether they have actively played online games that involve violence.
The Ulsan prosecutors’ office, which is looking into cases of 11 conscientious objectors, won approval from the court to investigate their gaming experiences. Under the court’s approval, the prosecutors requested data of the objectors at five major gaming firms.
The information requested by investigators was whether the objectors had IDs for such games and how long have they played them. As gaming firms only saves players’ data for around six months, prosecutors said they understand it will be hard to find out the history of people who have not recently played games.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Pocheon City just announced it'll spend ₩5.4B ($4.8 million) to restore Kim Il-sung's villa. Where is Pocheon? Not in North Korea, but South Korea, between Seoul & Cholwon (on the invasion corridor to Seoul). While glorifying KIS, they vilify many SK presidents. Mind boggling. pic.twitter.com/cmFofCi459

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) March 12, 2019

This is pretty bold of the CIA if true:

Spanish intelligence officials believe at least two of the 10 attackers who broke into the North Korean embassy in Madrid last month, holding staff hostage and making off with computers, are linked to the CIA, according to a report in El País.

Police and Spain’s national intelligence centre (CNI) are investigating the unusual robbery, which took place on 22 February in the west of the capital.
The online newspaper El Confidencial, which broke news of the raid, reported that the group of men tied up and threatened staff, fleeing only after a woman managed to free herself and raise the alarm. (…..)

El País pointed out that the robbery took place five days before Donald Trump’s second summit with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.
It suggested the intruders could have been looking for information relating to Kim’s top negotiator, Kim Hyok Chol, who served as ambassador to Spain before being expelled in September 2017.

MSN via a reader tip

You can read more at the link.

The US military really needs to look at this because the fine dust in Korea is horrible for servicemembers to breathing in considering the amount of time many of them spend outside:

With much of South Korea smothered in record levels of fine dust, the streets are full of people wearing masks as protection from the punishing air pollution.
Most American soldiers don’t have that option — at least when they’re in uniform. The Air Force permits masks when pollution hits a certain level.
Army regulations bar soldiers from wearing the masks, which cover noses and mouths, unless they have a certified medical condition that merits an exception.
That has caused concern among many soldiers and their loved ones as much of South Korea has endured several days of dense pollution that irritates eyes and makes breathing difficult.
“I feel like my husband should be able to wear a mask. I really don’t like that,” Army wife Alexandra Jackson said as she waited for dinner at the Yongsan Garrison food court.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Pyongyang has socialized too many pundits to be so empathetic to what terms might be acceptable to it, they've lost sight of what terms should be acceptable to us. That is how an industry secedes from the mainstream, self-marginalizes, & abdicates its influence. https://t.co/cvoObNrlOS

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) March 11, 2019

Via a reader tip comes this interesting CBS News report about an English teacher murdered in Seoul back in 1988 and how her alleged killer is free back in the US:

Imagine a loved one brutally murdered in a foreign country — allegedly by another American.
Correspondent Peter Van Sant and his team have investigated the disturbing 1988 murder of Carolyn Abel, an American teacher in South Korea, and the loophole in U.S. laws at the time that mean the suspected killer may never face trial.

For writer and author Nancy Bercaw, flying to South Korea last winter reopened a painful chapter in her life: one of murder, loss and fear.

CBS News

You can read the whole thing at the link, but the suspected killer of Carolyn Abel was her boss at the English school she worked at named Kathy Patrick. Patrick was gay and supposedly was angered when Abel rejected her advances and decided to kill her. After killing her Patrick then flew home to Washington State. Since there was no extradition treaty between the US and Korea at the time, US authorities could not arrest her for murder.

Since the murder Patrick has lived as a free woman in Washington state and she actually currently works at Western Washington University advising students.

If I am reading this right, after April 12th any transgender person that wants to serve in the US military will need to serve in their biological gender and stop taking hormones:

The Defense Department has approved a new policy that will largely bar transgender troops and military recruits from transitioning to another sex, and require most individuals to serve in their birth gender.
The memo outlining the new policy was obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, and it comes after a lengthy and complicated legal battle. It falls short of the all-out transgender ban that was initially ordered by President Donald Trump. But it will likely force the military to eventually discharge transgender individuals who need hormone treatments or surgery and can’t or won’t serve in their birth gender.
The order says the military services must implement the new policy in 30 days, giving some individuals a short window of time to qualify for gender transition if needed. And it allows service secretaries to waive the policy on a case-by-case basis.

Under the new rules, currently serving transgender troops and anyone who has signed an enlistment contract by April 12 may continue with plans for hormone treatments and gender transition if they have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

But after April 12, no one with gender dysphoria who is taking hormones or has transitioned to another gender will be allowed to enlist. And any currently serving troops diagnosed with gender dysphoria after April 12 will have to serve in their birth gender and will be barred from taking hormones or getting transition surgery.

Associated Press

You can read more at the link, but of course the usual people are complaining this is discriminatory. Of course this is discriminatory because the Army discriminates all the time such as not allowing handicapped or obese people to join. This is less a discrimination issue, but more of one where DOD leadership has decided that the medical issues involved with transgender personnel is not worth the trouble of accommodating.

It is amazing how long many Japanese are able to live:

A 116-year-old Japanese woman who loves playing the board game Othello was honored Saturday as the world’s oldest living person by Guinness World Records.

The global authority on records officially recognized Kane Tanaka in a ceremony at the nursing home where she lives in Fukuoka, in Japan’s southwest. Her family and the mayor were present to celebrate. 

Tanaka was born Jan. 2, 1903, the seventh among eight children. She married Hideo Tanaka in 1922, and they had four children and adopted another child. 

She is usually up by 6 a.m. and enjoys studying mathematics

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.