If traveling in South Korea for the Lunar New Year holiday please be careful because the conditions look pretty challenging out there right now:

Heavy snow blanketed South Korea for the second consecutive day Tuesday, disrupting transportation services and causing traffic congestion for people heading to their hometowns for the Lunar New Year holiday.

As of 4 p.m., 130 centimeters had piled up on Mount Halla on the southern resort island of Jeju since Monday, while some counties in the eastern province of Gangwon had 40 cm of snow over the same period. Cities of Anseong and Pyeongtaek in Gyeonggi Province, about 60 kilometers south of Seoul, had received about 25 cm of snow. In Seoul, the southwestern ward of Gwanak had 13.7 cm of snow.

For Wednesday, the Korea Meteorological Administration forecast an additional 5 to 15 cm of snow in the mountainous areas of Jeju and about 5 to 10 cm of snow in the Chungcheong and Jeolla provinces.

Yonhap

You can read much more about the transportation delays and road conditions at the link.

Trump has already identified something that many people do not realize about Kim Jong-un, he is not crazy, he is very smart:

As US President Donald Trump has hinted at attempting a fresh summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, South Korea is likely to confront more complicated diplomatic developments concerning US relations with North Korea.

When asked during a Fox News interview that aired Thursday, Trump said he would reach out to Kim again in his second term. “He liked me and I got along with him,” Trump said. “He is not a religious zealot. He happens to be a smart guy.”

Trump’s comment marked the first time he explicitly expressed his willingness to resume talks with Kim since he took office Monday.

Trump’s new overture for bromance diplomacy came at a time when the US is expected to try to resolve the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. The situation in Ukraine is already complicated because North Korea has sent its troops to Russia to help fight Ukraine, according to Seoul’s National Intelligence Service.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

It looks like South Korea has found another potential defense export market:

Acting Defense Minister Kim Seon-ho and Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur discussed ways to strengthen bilateral cooperation in the defense sector and the arms industry Monday, according to the defense ministry.

In the talks held in Seoul, Kim noted that the two countries’ cooperation in the cybersecurity sector has been advancing and suggested expanding such ties to other areas, according to the defense ministry.

Kim also briefed Pevkur on South Korean weapons systems, including the K9 self-propelled howitzer that Estonia has acquired.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but at this point the Korean defense industry should send Putin a gift basket because all of this aggression towards his neighbors has been a boon for weapons sales.

It looks like one less block of mandatory training Soldiers need to worry about sitting through as the military’s EO program is going to have to be revamped to take out anything DEI:

President Donald Trump is expected to sign executive orders that remove diversity, equity and inclusion programs from the military and reinstate troops booted out of the service for refusing coronavirus vaccines during the pandemic, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday. “This is happening quickly, and as the secretary of defense, it’s an honor to salute smartly, as I did as a junior officer and now as the secretary of defense, to ensure these orders are complied with rapidly and quickly,” he said. (…….)

“No exceptions, name changes or delays. Those who do not comply will no longer work here,” he wrote.

Stars & Stripes

I think the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff knows that his days are numbered as well:

Hegseth was greeted Monday by Air Force Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who Hegseth has criticized in the past. “First of all, you got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Any general that was involved, general, admiral, whatever, that was involved in any of the DEI woke [stuff] has got to go,” he said during a November podcast interview on the “Shawn Ryan Show.”

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the Kim regime may be preparing more Soldiers for the meat grinder in Russia’s war agaisnt Ukraine:

North Korea may be accelerating plans to send more troops to replace frontline casualties incurred fighting Ukraine on behalf of Russia. Pyongyang plans to send Moscow an unspecified number of troops to replace those killed, wounded or imprisoned, according to a Friday report from South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. The North Korean reinforcements are expected to arrive within two months, according to a New York Times report published Wednesday that cited an unnamed U.S. defense official.

Roughly 12,000 North Koreans may have deployed to Russia as early as October to fight in the nearly 2-year conflict, U.S. and Ukrainian authorities have said. Of those, around 3,000 were killed or wounded in fighting in Russia’s western front, South Korean lawmakers Lee Seong-kweun and Park Sun-won, citing a closed-door National Intelligence Service briefing, told reporters earlier this month.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Its official the former Fox News host, Pete Hegseth is now the Secretary of Defense. He has absolutely no experience with the Korean peninsula or the Far East in general. Hopefully he is a quick learner:

The Senate voted Friday to confirm former Fox News Channel host Pete Hegseth as the United States’ next defense secretary, after allegations of sexual misconduct and other issues had dogged President Donald Trump’s pick for the top Pentagon post.

The upper chamber approved Hegseth in a vote where Vice President J.D. Vance broke a 50-50 tie, clearing a hurdle to Trump’s efforts to fill his Cabinet to forge ahead with his America First policy agenda.

In November, Trump tapped Hegseth, an Army veteran with tours in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan, to serve as his defense secretary, describing him as a “warrior for the troops and for the country.”

During a confirmation hearing earlier this month, Hegseth described North Korea as a “nuclear power” that poses a threat to global stability, while highlighting the need for U.S. allies to increase “burden sharing” in pursuit of what he termed “healthy” partnerships.

Hegseth is the author of the recent book titled “The War on Warriors,” which Trump said reveals “how we must return our Military to meritocracy, lethality, accountability, and excellence.”

He had been a host at Fox News for eight years. He is a graduate of Princeton University and has a graduate degree from Harvard University.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.