A former CIA operative known for his exploits everywhere from Miami to Nicaragua to Afghanistan has a book deal. Enrique “Ric” Prado’s “Black Ops: The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior” will come out next March.  “A lot has been said about the CIA over the years,” Prado said in a statement Wednesday. “And a lot of it has been (expletive). I wrote ‘Black Ops’ to clear the name of my agency. I know the untold sacrifices that have been made for this country by devoted men and women who have served anonymously, as quiet heroes. I’m eager to share those stories now.” His book, subject to government review, was announced by St. Martin’s Press, a division of Macmillan.  Prado spent 24 years in the CIA before retiring in 2004. His assignments ranged from fighting with the Contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s — even after Congress had cut off U.S. support for the Contras — as they tried to overthrow the Sandinista government, to helping lead the hunt for Osama bin Laden, to overseeing SEAL Team Six missions into Afghanistan. Investigative reports in The Nation and a book by reporter Evan Wright have alleged that Prado has ties to organized crime and drug traffickers in Miami and to shell companies for the private contractor Blackwater. According to St. Martin’s, he is writing the book “to set the record straight about himself, his career and the men and women of his agency.” “In ‘Black Ops,’ Prado shares a harrowing true story of life in the deadly world of assassins, terrorists, spies and revolutionaries and reveals how he and his fellow CIA officers devoted their lives to operating in the shadows to fight a little-seen and virtually unknown war to keep the United States safe from those who would do it harm,” the publisher announced. 
 
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The freshest faces among South Korean influencers are no longer the usual, 20-something celebrities. Instead, entertainment and social media are focusing on a new generation: the elder generation.  
Older women were once invisible in South Korean entertainment as the industry stuck to rigidly conservative traditional female roles and cast them only as devoted mothers.  
But older women are front and center in recent advertising and entertainment series.  
A pioneer in the trend is Oscar winner Youn Yuh-jung, the 74-year-old “Minari” actor who promotes Oriental Brewery beer and the Zig Zag shopping app in two recent ad campaigns.  
The beer video highlights the novelty of its spokesperson, who says: “For someone like me to be on a beer ad, the world has gotten so much better.” With a Cass beer in her hand, Youn says she makes friends by being her authentic self and alludes to the beer helping people to dissipate their social awkwardness.
South Korean producer Kim Sehee said Youn’s Oscar win earlier this year inspired his entertainment series, “Wassup K-Grandma.” He said South Korean young people have a new interest in their elders, birthing a new word “harmaenial” — a portmanteau of the South Korean word “harmoni,” or grandmother, and the English word “millennial.”
The series broadcast in May was one of the first Korean shows to feature grandmothers as main characters, according to Kim. It brought international guests to live as temporary sons-in-law with Korean grandmothers. The color of the series came from the grandmothers’ attempts to communicate with their foreign in-laws and share homemade meals and decades-old ginseng alcohol.
Park Makrye, a popular South Korean YouTuber, said the country’s attitude towards gender and age has been rapidly changing.
“Back in the days, people thought women were supposed to be only housewives cooking at home but that’s once upon a time. People must adapt to the current era,” she said.
Park, 74, is one of the leading lights in the South Korean frenzy. Her YouTube channel “Korea Grandma” has over 1.32 million subscribers. In her videos, Park throws expletives while reviewing a Korean drama and screams her lungs out while paragliding for the first time.
Park’s success has paved the way for others. Jang Myung-sook gives out fashion and lifestyles tips on her channel ” Milanonna,” a nonagenarian known as Grandma “Gganzi” raps and shares personal stories about living through the Japanese colonization, and a 76-year-old YouTuber flaunts her “single life” on ” G-gourmet. ”  
“I would like to tell grandmothers to try everything they want to do and not be concerned with their age,” Park told The Associated Press.
“For young people…You’ll be OK as long as you are healthy,” she said. “Please fight on and best of luck.”
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