I have to wonder if the increase of sexual assault reporting has more to do with increased emphasis on reporting sexual assaults than from any actual increase?:

The number of sexual assaults reported in the U.S. military rose 11 percent last year, the Defense Department said Tuesday, but Pentagon officials conceded that they still don’t know how common sexual assaults are because many troops fear retribution if the attacks come to the attention of their commanders.Despite the suspected underreporting, sexual assault is more common in the military than it is among the civilian population, the report suggests: two for every 1,000 service members, versus 1.8 per 1,000 civilian women and one per 1,000 civilian men, according to statistics compiled by the Family Violence Prevention Fund.

During the past year, the Defense Department has campaigned to encourage victims of sexual assault to come forward, and officials said they think that effort led to the increase.

“Our goal was to get more people to report” assaults, said Kaye Whitley, the director of the Defense Department’s sexual assault prevention and response office, which compiled the report.

Whitley said having a more accurate picture of sexual assaults is needed so that her office can offer programs both to discourage assaults and respond to them. “We use the numbers to design programs,” she said.

Women in the military, in particular, are reluctant to come forward for fear of appearing weak or being ostracized for reporting a fellow soldier, Pentagon officials say. Many women also complain that they’ve been accused of being gay under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy after rebuffing unwanted advances from their male colleagues.  [Stars & Stripes]

Something else to keep in mind is that this article doesn’t state how many of these sexual assault reports were found to be legitimate.  Something else I found of interest was that male on male sexual assault was up by 40%.  Additionally I don’t think the civilian comparison is particularly relevant when civilians do not receive the amount of briefings soldiers do on reporting sexual assault and civilians are not piled on top of each other in the barracks either, which is where most sexual assaults happen.

If this is true, the North Korean regime has a lot more hard cash in reserve than I thought:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has US$4 billion hidden in secret accounts in European banks to continue his lavish way of life if he is forced to flee the country, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

“The money is the profits from impoverished North Korea selling its nuclear and missile technology, dealing in narcotics, insurance fraud, the use of forced labour in its vast gulag system, and the counterfeiting of foreign currency,” the British daily said. “Much of the money was held in Swiss banks until authorities there began to tighten regulations on money laundering.”

“Kim’s operatives then withdrew the money — in cash, in order not to leave a paper trail — and transferred it to banks in Luxembourg,” it added.

Swiss banks kept customers’ account information in closely guarded secret even in the case of criminals until Switzerland signed information exchange agreements with the U.S., France and other countries after the G20 summit in London last April warned that sanctions could be imposed on nations that refuse to cooperate.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but it is ridiculous that these banks are not sharing information in regards to the ill gotten money of the North Korean regime.

Here is another question for those of you who teach in the Korean schools, is teenage pregnancy something you see much of?:

The National Human Rights Commission said yesterday that any school that forces a student to drop out because she is pregnant is being discriminatory and infringing on her right to an education.

The announcement follows the case of Kim Su-hyeon, 19, a teenager who was forced to drop out during her senior year of high school last year because of a pregnancy.

Though many Western countries allow pregnant high school students to complete their educations, Kim’s case is the first of its kind in Korea to be decided by the commission.

Kim agreed to reveal her real name to the JoongAng Ilbo, commenting that she hoped her case would help other teenage mothers who have been forced to end their studies.

Last April, Kim, who attended Ganghwa Girls High School in Incheon, took a pregnancy test.

The result was devastating.

“I held on to the test kit and just wept,” she recalled. “Everything went black.”

The father: Kim’s boyfriend, Choi Seong-ho, 25 years old at the time.

After some discussion with Choi, Kim decided to have the child but also continue with her high school education. But when teachers learned of the situation, they told Kim to bring her parents to school because she needed to drop out or go to another school. They told Kim that school regulations state that any student who disrupts the moral code of the school with an “unwholesome relationship” is subject to expulsion.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

Read the rest at the link, but something I found also of interest was that the school threatened to turn in her boyfriend for having sex with a minor.  However, I thought the age of consent in South Korea was 13?

Here is a group assisting North Korean refugees in South Korea that needs some help in regards to English language tutor volunteers:

Lee is a North Korean refugee who defected in 2005. Lee is also a student at People for Successful Corean Reunification, or Pscore.

Established in 2006, Pscore is a non-governmental organization consisting entirely of volunteers, with bases in Washington, D.C. and Seoul.

While it provides news coverage of North Korea and helping defectors become South Korean citizens, a unique aspect of this organization is that it offers educational programs for refugees. Tutors, a mix of foreigners and English-speaking Koreans, meet one-on-one on a weekly basis with individuals to teach subjects ranging from English to mathematics.  (…………..)

As a young organization, there are still problems that the organization must fix.

“Frequently, there are tutors who are not very sincere about their work or do not put in all their effort in teaching refugees.” says Lee, a 35-year-old North Korean college student, citing several English tutors who frequently canceled meetings or didn’t show up. She said that perhaps Pscore should be more selective in choosing its volunteer tutors.

Score hopes that South Koreans would be more willing to welcome North Korean refugees with open arms, rather than a cold shoulder.

“On a societal level, the atmosphere in South Korea is not very supportive or encouraging of the refugees. The average citizen doesn’t care much about their issues,” said An Seung-woo, secretary general of Pscore.

Mary Anderson, an American teacher in Seoul who tutors for Pscore, commented likewise.

“Tutoring the students is simply delightful, and without a doubt, they’re some of the hardest working students I’ve ever seen. But, there is shockingly a lot of prejudice. I knew a North Korean woman dating a Canadian man in South Korea who desperately wanted to move to Canada because of how unwelcome she felt in South Korea.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

Pscore’s Facebook page can be found here for those interested in contacting this group to help out.

I just have to wonder how much these think tanks get paid to publish information that anyone reading the ROK Drop would already know?:

A host of mini crises from international sanctions and domestic challenges could trigger instability in North Korea, an influential think tank said.

In its report “North Korea under Tightening Sanctions,” the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said on Monday the international community must be prepared for a variety of contingencies in Pyongyang, including a regime collapse, though it appears stable on the outside.

“Instability, a coup d’etat or even regime collapse would not be observable from the outside until well underway, and any of these scenarios could create a humanitarian emergency that might require international intervention,” Robert Templer, its Asia program director, said.  (…….)

The North Korean leadership is not likely to start a war it knows it would lose, but its motivation to survive could result in more dangerous proliferation activities as sources of foreign exchange – both legitimate and illegitimate – disappear, the group said.

“Kim Jong-il’s political machine requires hard currency to operate, and there are several signs that the regime is increasingly desperate to earn it.”  [Korea Herald]

I have long posted on how North Korea is a Soprano State that uses illicit activities to include even WMD proliferation to keep their cash flow flowing.  I have also long warned about preparing for regime collapse because North Korea is much like the analogy of the straw that broke the camels back; straw keeps getting added and eventually one last straw will break the regime’s back.    The only question now is when this will happen?  It could be next year it could be in 20 years, but it will happen.

Here is what Kang Chol-hwan had to say about the reported sexual abuse that Robert Park endured during his detainment in North Korea:

North Korean security agents specialize in torture techniques using needles, water and electric shocks, but recently, sexual abuse is said to have become the preferred interrogation tool.

Robert Park, a missionary released by Pyongyang last month after crossing the border on Christmas Eve, was severely beaten and sexually abused during his detention, according to his close associates. Park, 28, who was released after 43 days in detention has received psychiatric treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

He was severely beaten by North Korean border guards just after crossing over the border. After being transferred to Pyongyang, Park was then tortured by security agents. The sexual abuse was probably intended to break his will and exact a fabricated apology.   [Chosun Ilbo]

Read the rest at the link, but I am thinking that the North Koreans sexually tortured him just to discourage other missionaries like Robert Park from infiltrating into North Korea.

Every Army guy’s favorite airplane is getting an upgrade in South Korea

The Air Force’s ground-attack airplane in South Korea is being replaced with an upgraded version that can strike targets with state-of-the-art satellite-guided smart bombs, officials said Monday.The 25th Fighter Squadron at Osan Air Base currently flies the A-10A Thunderbolt II, known as the Warthog.

It received its first three C-models with smarter weapons capability earlier this month, with more to come at an undisclosed future date.

The squadron is known as the Assam Draggins and has 30 aircraft.

The A-model Warthog can launch high-tech laser-guided bombs and other munitions, but not the more advanced satellite-guided JDAM — or joint direct attack munition — that C-models can. The newer version started entering the Air Force inventory in 2007.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

That is what the Army Times is wondering at least:

For a guy who professes to have no interest in running for president, Gen. David Petraeus can come off as surprisingly eager to talk about it — sometimes without even being asked.

In a recent appearance at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia he turned a question about his retirement plans into an opportunity to deny he has political ambitions. An audience member asked if he planned to write a book when he left the Army. He responded by saying he’d feared the politics question.

“The answer is ‘no,’” he said — and he didn’t mean no book; he meant no race for the White House.

Part of his stock reply to the politics question — even when it’s not asked — is to cite lyrics from a Lorrie Morgan country-western song about rejecting an unwanted suitor: “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”

Then he chuckles as if to suggest he’s a bit embarrassed by the fuss — fuss sometimes of his own making.

Is he keeping his options open?  [Army Times]

Read the rest, but I think a real telling indication of his political ambitions will be whether the President appoints him to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or not in the future.  If the President foresees him as a political threat would he want him working that close to the White House?

Anyway I think even if he wanted to run for the Presidency, 2012 is not an option because he is more concerned about stabilizing Afghanistan than making a run at the White House.  Plus no one even knows what his views are outside of military affairs.  It just seems like if he is going to ever make a White House run he would have to spend some time defining himself outside of military affairs to really have any chance of winning.

Kia Motors on Sunday released photos of the K5 mid-size sedan. The successor to the Lotze, it is scheduled to go on sale in May.

Via the Chosun Ilbo.