TIME has a big piece telling you what you already know — North Korea operates like The Sopranos.
Read the entire thing on your own — here is just a sample:
According to Asher, the big worry among U.S. and Asian intelligence officials is that “the [North]’s growing ties to organized-crime groups and illicit shipping networks could [...]
It’s a strange, strange world we live in [BBC]:
British forces have denied rumours that they released a plague of ferocious badgers into the Iraqi city of Basra.
Word spread among the populace that UK troops had introduced strange man-eating, bear-like beasts into the area to sow panic.
[..]
The rumours spread because the animals had appeared near [...]
Wordpress Cache back on. If you have problems logging in — and it’s happened to me sometimes — please shoot me an email. I need to know how serious a problem this is.
An Uijeongbu court has sentenced four middle school boys to prison sentences for gang-raping a middle school girl and leaving her on a hillside in late February.
The victim eventually died of hypothermia.
The boys received maximum sentences of 2 years—3 years, 6 months and minimum sentences of 1 year, 6 months — 3 years.
Two boys who [...]
North Korea is calling for military talks with the United States under the auspices of the United Nations. [The Australian]
The Korean version of the North Korean military statement — partially run by Yonhap — is actually a bit interesting, including North Korea’s expressions of respect for the Armistice Agreement and the UN Security Council.
Of course, [...]
North Korea’s building an all-English university funded by Christian evangelicals.
Yes, you read that right.
Construction of the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology is nearing completion on a 100ha plot leased by the People’s Army in the North’s capital. The Army has loaned 800 solders to build the campus, which is largely funded by a network [...]
750,000 premature deaths a year due to pollution? Perhaps there is a lesson for even Korea in there.
And in Chinese-occupied Mongolia, the world’s tallest man has finally gotten married.
Never thought it would happen in THIS case, but it did:
Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison early this month for kidnapping and beating up bar workers in revenge for his son, was released from custody and is being treated at a private hospital, a group official said Thursday.
Suffering [...]
The Hanky has a piece on media bias related to the recent Lee Myung-bak real estate scandal. Specifically, it says that the conservative dailies have been trying to cover Lee’s butt by avoiding the main (and apparently only) issue:
Categorized by the directions of the reports [as reported by Citizens’ Coalition for Democratic Media], as many as [...]
You’ll be pleased to know (perhaps) that Shin Jeong-ah has been stripped of her post as art director of the Gwangju Biennale after media reports that she forged her university degrees. (HT to reader)
In the Asia Sentinel, Jet Damazo writes that Koreans are flooding into the Philippines:
By now, Koreans are in almost all of the Philippines major urban areas. From up north in the cool city of Baguio to Davao City down south in Mindanao, Korean restaurants and groceries, bearing Korean-language signs, can be seen. They have established [...]
In the Chosun Ilbo, US food expert John Nihoff warms Korean hearts by going that extra ri — not only did he praise Korean food, he also dissed Japanese and Chinese food.
Incheon investigators raided three massage parlors in Yeongjong-do Airport New City, arresting one owner and booking the other two on charges of pimping.
But more importantly, by using credit card information acquired in the raids, investigators have assembled a list of 2,000 suspects they believe purchased the services of young women at the establishments. A regular [...]
Through Wikipedia, I think I’ve been able to identify a major grievance of the Cornish nationalist movement — they’ve had it with their culinary culture being appropriated by those good-for-nothing, culture-stealing Finns:
The pasty survived the collapse of mining because it became extremely popular with the major ethnic group to remain after the mines closed, the [...]
While there has been much complaining about President Roh’s attempts to control media sources and suits have been filed to fight for the perceived freedom of the press, several organizations were so infuriated that the decided to go even further than merely protesting the merging of pressrooms and are now pressing for the removal of [...]
This English article in Kommersant might shed some light on why PyeongChang dropped its second Olympic bid. (HT to the always excellent Korea Economic Reader)
What kind of fucked-up world do we live in when we have Cornish nationalists threatening Jamie Oliver?
Korea News via Google