November 17, 2005 – 8:50 am
Those folk in Busan really know how to put on fireworks display, don’t they?
More APEC summit fireworks pics here, via Naver.
November 16, 2005 – 8:44 pm
I don’t make it a point to read the Korea Times opinion section, but for some reason, I read ESL instructor J.B. Todsttoe’s slamming of Korea Times contributor Choe Yong-shik’s improper use of English idioms in a Nov. 7 piece on the occassionally goofy slogans being used by some of Korea’s provinces and cities.
Sheesh. Guy [...]
November 16, 2005 – 8:28 pm
You’ll be delighted to know that the Korean Society for Chomsky Studies will hold its launching ceremony Saturday at the Hanguk University of Foreign Studies.
November 16, 2005 – 11:21 am
According to the Institute of International Education’s Open Doors 2005 report (and reported in the Segye Ilbo), a total of 219 North Korean students (or at least North Korean nationals) were studying in the United States in 2004~2005, a 25.6 percent increase from the 174 who were studying in the U.S. in 2003~2004.
Meanwhile, two U.S. [...]
November 16, 2005 – 9:24 am
(By guest blogger, Andy Jackson)
What is up with the boys down at MBC? It seems that I can’t turn the TV on without seeing a swinging dick dancing across my screen.
A few months after getting in trouble for musicians exposing their naughty bits on a live music show, MBC is in hot water again for [...]
November 16, 2005 – 8:59 am
In the first installment of a five-part series in the National Post aimed at correcting Canadian "misapprehensions" of their friendly and well-armed neighbors to the south, historian J.L. Granatstein tries to break the myth of "Canada as a nation of peacekeepers and the U.S. as a nation of warmongers." It’ll bring tears to the eyes [...]
November 16, 2005 – 8:49 am
Jefferson Morley writes on the WaPo’s blog about the animosities between Japan and its neighbors and how the "smallest issues," like Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi getting down with a Japanese actor in Memoirs of a Geisha, can get nationalist sentiment broiling:
The opening of the new movie, "Memoirs of a Geisha," for example, has stirred controversy [...]
November 15, 2005 – 5:31 pm
(By guest blogger, Andy Jackson)
Yet another reason to love Oz:
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says Australia will not give more aid to North Korea until it dismantles its nuclear programs…
North Korea says it no longer needs humanitarian help and has instead asked aid donors to provide development projects.
The United Nations World Food Program will leave [...]
November 15, 2005 – 5:20 pm
(By guest blogger, Andy Jackson)
If you want to learn how countries can share the love, just check this out :
The annual conference on how to build better understanding about neighboring and other countries will be held in Seoul on Saturday for a two-day run.
Around 200 related officials and teachers are expected to attend the [...]
November 14, 2005 – 11:22 pm
On Jan. 21, 1968, 31 highly trained and motivated North Korean commandos belonging to the DPRK’s "Unit 124" came within 300 meters of Cheong Wa Dae on a mission to decapitate the South Korean leadership and spark a revolution that Pyongyang hoped would lead to a unified Korean Peninsula under communist rule. In the firefight [...]
November 14, 2005 – 8:29 pm
(By guest blogger, Andy Jackson)
As announced in the Chosun Ilbo, CNN has shown video evidence of public executions in North Korea:
Images from video smuggled from North Korea show a public execution and what appears to be a concentration camp housing political prisoners, according to a CNN documentary set to air Sunday night.
In one clip, the [...]
November 14, 2005 – 12:54 pm
The Oranckay discusses Korean netizen observations about mixed-raced people. In the process, he was kind enough to link to a blog post full of pics of really hot mixed-race models in Japan.
Coincidentally, since the Oranckay was discussing "full-bodied house blends," Camp Henry in Daegu apparently has many, according to one netizen:
?????? ??…???? "??? ??" ???????? [...]
November 14, 2005 – 8:22 am
Josh over at One Free Korea criticizes Rep. Curt Weldon for a letter he wrote to the Washington Times’ Inside the Beltway slamming Defense Forum Foundation (DFF) president Suzanne Scholte for claims that North Korean diplomat Han Song-ryol threatened the life of a North Korean defector/activist in Washington.
Just to add my own two cents: While [...]
November 11, 2005 – 1:04 pm
In case you haven’t read it yet, read Oranckay’s post about his meeting with one of the two survivors of the North Korean submarine that got caught infiltrating South Korea in 1995.
November 11, 2005 – 12:47 pm
Virginia Republican Jim Moran submitted a bill Thursday to extend the U.S. visa waiver to Koreans for 90-day visits to the United States. Moran cited the Korea-U.S. alliance, Korea’s commitment of troops to Iraq and bilateral trade, as well as the difficulties Koreans experience when they apply for visas. He said that if Korea were [...]
November 11, 2005 – 12:39 pm
As provincial colleges in Korea compete to draw foreign students (mostly from China), more and more of these "students" are disappearing to join the illegal labor force. One university in Gwangju lost 12 of its 19 Chinese students when they simply vanished — all at once. With competition between local schools so intense for foreign [...]
November 10, 2005 – 9:07 pm
"Upon my return to Korea, I will stand at the head of an anti-American movement, demanding that the Patriot missiles be withdrawn."
Gwangju mayor Park Kwang-tae is pissed. The 18 men of the mayor’s delegation, which is on an investment promotion tour of the United States, were subjected to hour-long security searches at San Francisco International [...]
November 10, 2005 – 8:10 pm
The Bush administration may have ditched the ideo of toppling KJI, says Robert Einhorn of the Center for Strategic International Studies:
The reason for no longer seeking regime change in
North Korea is that the U.S. does not see Kim Jong-il and his
government as very dangerous, and that Pyongyang is doomed to collapse
anyway, according to Einhorn.
"Kim is [...]
November 10, 2005 – 7:57 pm
Mongolian banks? Operating in Korea without approval from financial authorities? Tell me it ain’t so!
November 10, 2005 – 9:06 am
Autumn is, IMHO, the most spectacular of Korea’s four seasons. The entire nation is awash with vibrant colors, be it the cloudless blue sky, the yellow of the ginkgo trees, or the fiery red of the maple leaves. Anyway, I shot a couple of photos today as I was walking around Samcheong-dong, which — with [...]
