Being Japanese, ‘life’ could be 30-40 more years for this guy: “Prosecutors demanded. . . a life imprisonment for a gangster who allegedly played a leading role in smuggling. . . drugs into Japan from North Korea in 2002. . . [The defendant is] Atsunori Fukushima, 68, a senior member of a gang group affiliated with the Matsuba-kai crime syndicate.”
15 August is the 63rd anniversary of Victory over Japan (V-J) Day, or Liberation Day in North and South Korea. It’s hard to imagine how the North Koreans could explain the significance of the day without mentioning the U.S. doing the heavy lifting, but they still manage to do so.
- #North Korean Economy Watch has released version 11 of his layer/bookmarks for North Korea in Google Earth - easily the most authoritative map of North Korea on the web.
- #Andrei Lankov’s latest at the Korea Times deals with the introduction of beer to Korea, which, “only began at earnest in the 1890s, when Japanese merchants introduced the Sapporo brand to Korea.” (h/t Zen Kimchi)
- #From Reuters: “Washington [will] not remove North Korea from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism on the initial deadline of Monday. . . The [U.S.] had made clear it did not expect a deal with Pyongyang by Monday for presenting a verification plan for its nuclear programs. . .” The admin gets one right.
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