August 28, 2006 – 11:08 pm
Yonhap is reporting that a Korean female university student working as a volunteer at a music festival in Tsushima Island was beaten and sexually assaulted by a male Japanese student/part-time employee at the festival venue.
Now, aside from the fact that this was one of the most-looked at pieces over at Naver.com, it’s also the first [...]
August 28, 2006 – 1:40 pm
Now I see why Breaknews.com was so upset about an English teacher posting photos of nude Korean women on his website.
Apparently, they don’t want the competition (see here, too, and needless to say, NOT work safe).
Hey, at least the English teacher (and the major Korean dailies that also run their own adult websites) requires age [...]
August 28, 2006 – 4:25 am
Well, we have a CRS report (pdf file) on the North Korean ballistic missile threat to the United States.
And we also have report by Marcus Noland on the economic implications of a North Korean nuclear breakout (pdf file).
(HT to reader)
Sphere: Related Content
August 28, 2006 – 4:02 am
According to media reports today, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sent a letter to his South Korean counterpart earlier this month expressing the U.S. desire to transfer wartime operational command by 2009:
“Rumsfeld said in his letter to Yoon in mid-August that it is reasonable to hand over the operational control to South Korea in 2009 [...]
August 28, 2006 – 2:56 am
Posting nude photos of your wife or girlfriend on the Internet is apparently not on. Not in Korea, anyway.
Yonhap reports that the National Police Agency’s cybercrimes division has arrested two website administrators and charged (without detention) 41 website members and a would-be hacker in relation to a porn site that was posting nude photographs [...]
August 28, 2006 – 2:15 am
Just got back from lovely Damyang, Jeollanam-do. Damyang was already one of my favorite places to visit, but with the rain and mist, the bamboo forests and the pavilions they contain were all the more romantic.
Sphere: Related Content
August 27, 2006 – 11:06 pm
I like excellence in music no matter where it comes from — even if it is the internet. It seems that eight months ago, a mysterious guitarist called “Funtwo” left a mind-blowing video performance of Pachabel’s Canon on the internet that, other than being fiendishly brilliant, created an uproar over who could possibly be [...]
August 27, 2006 – 7:52 pm
With further hopes that the weather will turn decent, the ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY - Korea Branch will offer a one-day tour to the southern section of Sogni-san [Remote-from-the-Mundane-World Mountains] National Park, featuring Beobju-sa – Sunday Sept 3rd.
If you haven’t been there, this is a great opportunity — i can attest that it’s one of the most [...]
August 25, 2006 – 7:40 pm
It’s the weekend again, with the heat and humidity lessened, and even though it might rain again, some of us tired of sitting and commenting on unqualified scandalous English teachers and hopeless politics may be turning our attention to some hiking. I recently revisited Chilgap-san, a very nice mountain down in South Chungcheong with an [...]
August 25, 2006 – 5:51 pm
Let it not be said I don’t help my adopted home when called upon. Got an email from the Korean Overseas Information Service asking me to promote a special event they are running to mark their newly redesigned website:
==Korea.net Promotional Event ==
Korea.net quiz offering foreign visitors a chance to win and learn
To show off [...]
August 25, 2006 – 4:51 pm
The Korean government plans to shut down Sea Story and other such gambling dens.
Perhaps that will prevent things like this from happening in Korea:
A couple who left their 9-month-old baby son in the stifling heat in their car while they played pachinko, causing him to die of heat exhaustion, have been reported to public prosecutors, [...]
August 25, 2006 – 3:50 pm
The article mentioned in Mr. Carr’s Bravo Foxtrot has been posted at BreakNews.com. Yes, it’s a gem. And yes, of course I’ll translate it. Just not right now.
UPDATE 2: Just a couple of thoughts on this issue:
I think both Koreans and foreigners can agree that the English language education system in Korea [...]
August 25, 2006 – 3:21 pm
Added a couple of new blogs.
One that you’ll DEFINITELY want to add to your blog list is Where the Hell Am I, written by Expat Jane. Jane’s getting her master’s degree here in international studies, diplomacy and security, and her blog is full of thoughtful and knowledgeable commentary on a lot of things, including [...]
August 25, 2006 – 2:40 pm
Yet another member of the National Assemly has lost his seat (KTimes):
The Supreme Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s jail sentence to an opposition party lawmaker and stripped him of the post.
Earlier, the appellate court handed down a one-year jail sentence suspended for two years to Rep. Lee Jung-il of the minor opposition Democratic Party [...]
August 25, 2006 – 12:08 pm
This is interesting, if not unexpected (Yonhap):
ASEAN countries agreed to accept South Korea’s request to recognize some products from a North Korean industrial park as South Korean as part of their plan for a free trade pact, officials here said Thursday.
Under the agreement, nine out of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations will give [...]
August 24, 2006 – 10:01 am
You can’t make up stuff like this. From the Chosun Ilbo:
According to a statement from the Seoul Metropolitan Police on Wednesday, a 36-year-old Korean man being identified by his last name Kim is being held by Chinese authorities under suspicion of hiring male hosts to work at his sex bar. Nine men who worked [...]
August 24, 2006 – 9:46 am
The Chosun has an interesting piece on how five leading candidates for president feel about Roh’s wartime control policy:
The Chosun Ilbo asked five presidential hopefuls, “If the bilateral Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) in October agrees that Seoul will exercise sole wartime operational control, what would you do about it if you become president?” They were [...]
August 23, 2006 – 4:24 pm
UPDATE: I could be wrong about Cowie, if what some say about his bank (see comments section) is true and he only does business with foreign-owned firms. The fact that he seems to deal in relative chump change is also a point in his favor. He may in fact be only a very small and unimportant [...]
August 23, 2006 – 9:30 am
From Yonhap:
Thai police raided a church home and rounded up 175 North Korean defectors being sheltered there while seeking asylum in another country, sources here said Wednesday.
Officials indicated that they would charged but allowed to leave Thailand.
The defectors, mostly women, have been turned over to immigration authorities. They also include pregnant women, handicapped persons and [...]
August 22, 2006 – 10:10 pm
Proving the amazing power of Robert Koehler’s Marmot’s Hole, today’s Sakkeon-eui Nae-Mak (사건의 내막 — “Inside Story”?) one of the sleazy tabloid newspapers I like to read on the subway coming home after work (my chauffeur is on holiday), has as its front-page feature (including photos lifted from his site) the scandal of ruggedly-handsome serial-killer [...]
