I’m sure you’ve read this already (I indirectly linked to it earlier), but in case you wanted to know what Cheong Wa Dae really thinks about the United States:
The chief presidential secretary for security Song Min-soon on Wednesday said South Korea would be the greatest victim in a war on the peninsula due to the [...]
I really like this photograph. Took it a couple of months ago.
South Korea is putting its foot down:
South Korea’s leaders told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday that they will continue cross-border economic cooperation that provides millions of dollars to North Korea, despite its underground nuclear test 10 days ago.
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said he told Rice that there are “positive aspects” to [...]
Personally, I’m in favor of a radical reshaping of the Korea-U.S. alliance up to and including an amicable divorce (more ammunition for the “divorce” argument here). The Heritage Foundation’s Balbina Hwang, however, offers some good arguments for why it might be worth Washington’s effort to keep the alliance alive.
I see that the Grand National Party’s new chairman has decided to start his tenure with a quixotic attempt to win a by-election in Jeolla-do (KTimes):
Ranking officials of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) have been traveling to South Cholla Province, a political stronghold of the minor opposition Democratic Party (DP), to garner support [...]
Wilks over at Eye4Insanity posts on Korean prostitution. In particular, I found the picture of the church/massage parlor complex rather amusing.
On a related note, Wilks links to one Canadian’s ABSOLUTELY MUST-READ account of what a drunken night with pleasant company might entail:
Picking up an Asian woman at a bar is neither rare nor exciting, especially [...]
First, we have the WaPo’s Anne Applebaum on why North Korea is China’s problem:
I found this simply fascinating. Sounds like this guy would make for a great movie. A horror movie, of course. Given how all these Americans in the DPRK are Southern boys, maybe I shouldn’t go visit the DMZ afterall. Next thing you know, I’ll be freezing, thinking of Dixie somewhere in the Worker’s Paradise.
According to the Hankyoreh Shinmun, the South Korean government is very concerned that North Korea’s nuclear test may prompt Japan to go nuclear herself. Seoul is now weighing its options should Tokyo choose to arm itself with nuclear weapons.
A Korean official told the newspaper on Thursday that Seoul didn’t believe Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso’s [...]
From the Chosun Ilbo:
The daily reported negative sentiment against France, which was seen as “arrogant” in treating the case. A Korean mother named Kim You-mi (36) with a nine-year-old son told the paper, “It was proven pretty quickly that Courjault was the father of the babies. Korean investigators carried out a scientifically accurate probe of [...]
The WaPo reprinted a piece they ran on “prosperous” North Korea back in 1986. Very interesting in both how things have changed… and how they haven’t.
Well, the Americans aren’t fucking around, I see.
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has reportedly deployed—under the cover of secrecy—an investigation team to Seoul to investigate the Kaesong Industrial Park and Kumgangsan tourism projects. Investigations began yesterday at the Government Complex on Sejong-no, and among the people the CRS team talked to were the head [...]
Secretary of State Condi Rice wants North Korea’s neighbors to use more radiation detectors to ensure North Korea ain’t smuggling nuclear goodies in or out of the country. Unfortunately, many radiation detectors in use just aren’t up to the task.
This must be turning into a global epidemic.
(HT to reader)
Update: Joshua already posted on this on the 17th at One Free Korea. He takes a healthy attitude of skepticism regarding whether any of this news has any meaningful relevance to future developments. I’ve also minorly tweaked some sentences below.
In recent years, declassified Soviet and Eastern Bloc archives have greatly increased our knowledge of North [...]
Having left roughing up taxi drivers to the English teachers, USFK is apparently concentrating its effort on wreaking havoc on Korea’s city bus system.
A 22-year-old USFK private took a Seoul City bus for a bit of a spin early Saturday morning, stealing the vehicle from the War Memorial parking lot and driving it to Seoul [...]
You know, at first, I thought this KT op-ed by Rick Ruffin was some sort of parody like BlameBush!…
Nice to see the nation putting its cutting-edge robotics technology to good use. And boosting export earnings at the same time!
(HT to Judge Judy)
Well, according to this report by the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, about 4 billion U.S. dollars (via the JoongAng Ilbo).
He’s also apparently the world’s largest purchaser of Hennessey cognac, on which he spends about 720,000 U.S. dollars a year.
It seems that not only did South Korea, at the behest of the ironically named National Security Council, apparently ask the United States to omit reference to its “nuclear umbrella” in a joint statement following last year’s Security Consultative Meeting (SCM), but it also may have asked the United States to designate Japan as a [...]
