South Korea – Page 19

April 16, 2007

Il Shim Hue Members Convicted, Sentenced, and Probably Confused

Somewhere, Kafka’s spirit is smiling. A South Korean court and has handed down guilty verdicts to five members of the Il Shim Hue spy ring individuals who had coincidentally all possessed similar loyalty oaths to the Lodestar of the Great Korean Race and received their pay and instructions at a safe house at 3089 Dongxuhuayuan, 18 Shuangqiaodong-lu, Zahoyang-qu, on the outskirts of Beijing. Bailiff! Read the verdict! A Seoul court convicted five people, including a Korean-American businessman, of spying...

Korean Law/The Fifth Column

April 16, 2007

Anju Links for 16 April 2007

* My latest K-blog discovery is “Six Happy Feet,” a superb photoblog with a great name. You’ll want to put this one on your blogrolls. It’s hard to read it without concluding that this is just a genuinely nice family. * A Nation’s Conscience. Some South Koreans are demanding freedom for those North Korean refugees in Laos — the ones the South Korean government refused to help. * Heal Thyself, Part 1. I can understand why...

Activism/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/WMD

April 13, 2007

‘Kim Jong Bill’ Richardson and Camp 22

[Update: The dissenting comments have been erased again. Gov. Richardson’s fans want to create a cult of adulation in which all dissent is stifled and concentration camps are never mentioned. All of this is somehow familiar to a North Korea-watcher.] [Update 2: Help us keep “Kim Jong Bill” on Wikipedia until he asks Kim Jong Il to close down Camp 22. I’ve put the text and code at the bottom of the post, below the line. Everyone is...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea/WMD

April 4, 2007

Richard Lawless Resigns

Lawless was responsible for pushing the South Koreans into USFK restructuring and cost-sharing agreements, and unlike years of predecessors, had been tough enough to sit down and negotiate as firmly as his counterparts. No one pushed Richard Lawless around. As a result, the Korean government and press were not fans. See, e.g., this picture the Joongang Ilbo printed. “Hulk angry!” Lawless cited personal reasons for his resignation, according to one official. He will leave his post in a few weeks,...

An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/U.S. Politics

April 3, 2007

FTA Hits Opposition in U.S. Congress

The Economist’s blog reports, After a long drawn out, and highly fraught, negotiation that pushed right up against the deadline, America and South Korea have inked a new trade deal. It is the largest America has signed since NAFTA. However, tensions between the Bush administration and resurgent protectionists in America’s new Democratic Congress make it highly uncertain that the pact will be ratified. I don’t yet know if the opposition will be enough to defeat the deal, but some key...

Human Trafficking/Korean Politics/NK Economics/U.S. Politics

April 1, 2007

FTA Agreement Reached FTA Talks Near Failure: The Death of an Alliance, Part 66

[Update 2: Well, as it turns out, the two sides did reach an agreement, although it’s not clear how comprehensive. Both sides — mainly us — made major last-minute concessions. Talks were ongoing until minutes before the legal deadline. Beef tariffs will be phased out over 15 years, which is a long time. (We’ll see if the Koreans actually accept the next shipment.) Korea also gets to protect its rice market. There’s really only one bright spot I...

Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/NK Economics/The Fifth Column/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics

April 1, 2007

A Souvenir from Kim Jong Il

My comparison yesterday between North Korean ideology, Nazism, and Stalinism led me to conclude that in terms of intrusive state control and deification of its political leaders, North Korea was the outlier. Speaking of deification, I nearly forgot this: (Click for full size) The protector of our race’s destiny, unification [gu-song, possibly N. Korean vernacular] North and South shall bask together in the glow of General Kim Jong Il’s embrace We should follow our great general Kim Jong Il eternally!...

North Korea/The Fifth Column/U.S. Military

March 31, 2007

An FTA Pre-Post Mortem

At this hour, it looks like free trade talks with South Korea are about to fail, despite their extension for another 48 hours. It may be a bit early for the Chosun Ilbo to have published this post-mortem, but any free-trade agreement we reach now will be unworthy of the name and hardly worth doing from an American perspective. Yes, I still believe an US-Korean FTA is a good idea, but it’s pretty hard to write a good one when...

An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics

March 25, 2007

Anju Links for 3/25: N. Korea Threatens to Do Us a Favor, Money We Can’t Follow, the FTA Circus, and S. Korea’s Slavery-Loving Unions

* No.Please.Stop. North Korea is threatening to pull out of the dreadful (for us) February 13th Agreed Framework 2.0 over the RSOI / Foal Eagle exercises. “This may entail such serious consequences as escalating the tension between the DPRK (North Korea) and the US and scuttling the six-party talks for the settlement of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, arranged with so much effort.” [Channel News Asia] A KCNA statement wouldn’t be complete without a reference to...

An Alliance?/Human Trafficking/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA

March 21, 2007

Anju Links for 3/21

* It’s a pity both sides can’t lose: It’s Taliban v. Al-Qaeda in Pakistan, with high casualties on both sides (I’ll be praying for more). it’s nice to see that the bad guys are just as capable of self-destructive division as we are. * Larry “Bud” Melman has passed away. He was 85. * Fifth Column Update: South Korea’s far-left “civic groups” have seen a significant decline in membership. This fits with other recent evidence that...

Abductions/Appeasement/Korean Politics/Six-Party Talks/Terrorism/Iraq/The Fifth Column

March 20, 2007

Anju Links for 3/20

* Renaissance man Kevin Kim, a/k/a The Big Hominid, has launched his new book, “Water from a Skull.” * Missed the train, but not the train wreck. “Notice me!,” cries Ban Ki Moon, just as the February 13th deal starts to strike immovable objects, one of which has an atomic mass of 238. * I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the Japanese are an odd people. * Don’t Forget to Ask for Receipts:...

"United" Nations/Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/Diplomacy/Japan/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. & Korea/WMD

March 19, 2007

Chipyong-ni It Aint

[See also: A very good, thorough ROK Drop post, and a dissent from Andy Jackson.] Reporting from Kurdish Iraq, Michael Totten says the only booms are economic, and that the Kurds are leveraging peace and prosperity into de facto independence. It’s a long, interesting, occasionally fretful post, and well worth reading. Along the way, Totten notes how Kurds view the South Koreans’ “sacrifice” for a democracy in Iraq: Iraqi Kurdistan is technically occupied by a foreign power, but this...

An Alliance?/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea

March 18, 2007

Ill-Gotten Gains: Who Still Remembers Resolution 1718?

[Scroll down for updates.] (d) all Member States shall, in accordance with their respective legal processes, freeze immediately the funds, other financial assets and economic resources which are on their territories at the date of the adoption of this resolution or at any time thereafter, that are owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by the persons or entities designated by the Committee or by the Security Council as being engaged in or providing support for, including through other illicit means,...

"United" Nations/An Alliance?/Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks/WMD

March 15, 2007

Al-Qaeda Planned USFK Attacks

From the confession of the Ron Jeremy look-alike known as Khalid Sheikh Mohammad: 23. I was responsible for planning and surveying to hit American targets in South Korea, such as American military bases and a few night clubs frequented by American soldiers. The thought occurred to me almost every post-9/11 day I was assigned to Korea. The “Hooker Hill” district of Itaewon mixes very uneasily with the nearby Korea Islam Mosque, a congregation that includes a high percentage of conversative...

Anti-Americanism/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Military

March 14, 2007

Wiesenthal Center’s Associate Dean to Speak on Anti-Semitic Korean Comic at Seoul Grand Hyatt Tomorrow

[Update: The AP has more. The end result may be to show just how much anti-Semitism there really is in Korea (see this and this, with its updated “traditional European” inspiration). I will concede that before this epsode, I perceived it to be relatively rare. I don’t think so anymore. I also think that for now, it’s pretty shallow, and mostly a biproduct of anti-Americanism, which is not shallow. Racism in its broader sense is pretty much on open...

Korean Society/U.S. & Korea

March 6, 2007

Take the OFK Statesmanship Quiz

You are a major political leader of one of the world’s major industrialized democracies. An actor-turned-author publishes a book in which he photoshops the name of the country’s top newspaper into a picture of the World Trade Center on 9-11. Just to make sure there’s no room for ambiguity, he says, “I want to become a terrorist …. The newspaper is the sole monolithic monster remaining in [this] society.” As a statesman, your response is to: a. Jail the man...

An Alliance?/Democracy/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. & Korea/WTF?

February 27, 2007

‘Monnara Iunnara’ Hits al-Yahoo, Page One

[Update: Lee explains himself, badly. The Marmot then proceeds to tear off his head and crap down his neck. Ouch.] [Update 2: The Wall of Canadians, exposed! See how Canada controls the entertainment industry, the media, global finance …. even the Bush family!] The South Korean image machine rolls on. This could be a serious setback to the hard-won gains of the Tokdo Riders: Another strip shows a newspaper, magazine, TV and radio with the description:...

Korean Society

Category: South Korea