Bad news for whale meat fans — the price of the stuff is going up as the Korea Coast Guard cracks down on whale poaching and trading of whale meat:
The price of whale meat has doubled since last year. That’s because whale meat is in short supply since the Korea Coast Guard intensified a crackdown [...]
According to a Defense News article (the article is not up on their site yet), the ROK JCS(Joint Chiefs of Staff) has given LMB options for joining the U.S. BMD. The options are:
1. Providing a location for an interceptor launch site.
2. Joining the BMD development program.
3. Paying part of the cost for deploying BMD in [...]
As a follow up of events in Tibet, here is an interesting article from the NY Times and a report of blocking news sources from reporting on Tibet.
Update: Chinese police fired on protesters in Machu today. The Dalai Lama also said “he was opposed to using violence against Tibet’s Chinese rulers and said he [...]
Actress Choi Jiwoo and the Chinese press has gotten into a bit of a spat regarding whether she was drunk or not at the opening of a Louis Vuitton store in Hong Kong, last Friday.
The Chinese press released photos showing Choi with a reddened face and being supported by two staff members in addition to not [...]
Canuckistanis pay less in income tax and employee social-security contributions than Americans? Does that mean we’ll see hockey players defecting to Canada as tax refugees?
OK, to take a break from the sex-crimes for just a sec, now i’m seeing a “Basic Rate” (middle rate) of w1,029 = $1 on my computer, and that’s just outrageous, worrisome, damaging (and kind of sickening in the pit of the gut for anyone who lived through the financial crisis that started just 10 [...]
Some 28,000 Koreans are on “working holiday” in Australia, making them the second largest holders of working holiday visas in Australia after the British.
Police have arrested a suspect in the murder of two Anyang schoolgirls — ages 8 and 10 — whose bodies were found dismembered and buried at two separate locations.
A third schoolgirl is still missing.
The suspect is denying involvement, but:
Police focused their search on neighbors and nearby facilities, based on criminologists’ opinion that the suspect could [...]
Currently G.W. Bush’s use of executive privilege to prevent information from being revealed, is one way to hide things but here in Seoul, Roh seems to have used a recently passed law (2007, April) to place many records from the his administration in a Presidential Repository of Hidden Things, where only a high court warrant, [...]
Korea Beat has translated a Naver story about the inclusion of Rhie Won-bok’s comic book “Countries Near and Far” in a US State Department report on global anti-semitism. Rhie was outed to the English-speaking world by blogger Joe Mondello, who posted translations of the edition on the US at his website.
The symphony of spring color has begun on the peninsula with magnolias opening in Busan. Post your spring-themed sijo and photo links here on this thread.
I noticed today that Bradford pears, a favorite ornamental tree in my town, are budding along with other flowering trees and bushes. I expect to be posting photos of dogwoods, redbuds, and all their [...]
Thanks to reader Gillian, who posted a link to a Flick collection of beautiful photos of Korea from the mid-1960s. Most pictures were taken in Seoul or Gyeonggi-do.
The ROKN’s submarine plans has hit a bit of a snag when it was discovered that its latest submarine, the ROKS Son Wonil, is noisier (about 40 decibels higher) than expected, making it easier to detect by enemy vessels. The problem has been traced to the screw shaft, and as a result the Son Wonil [...]
The WSJ’s Gabriel Schoenfeld writes a review of “The Reluctant Communist,” the memoirs of Charles Robert Jenkins, the US Army deserter who spent 40 years as a guest of the DPRK. Here’s the money shot:
However we judge Mr. Jenkins’s actions so many years ago, “The Reluctant Communist” is itself an act of redemption. This extraordinary [...]
And you can apparently do it again:
A South Korean biotechnology professor agreed to retract two papers on anti-aging technology published in international science journals after the institute discovered he fabricated data, officials said Friday.
Kim Tae-kook, a professor at the state-run Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, acknowledged that he forged data on a paper [...]
And in case any of you were concerned, Ashley Dupre will be just fine.
Former Liberian president Charles Taylor is on trial for war crimes at the Hague. Wednesday’s testimony from former soldiers included gruesome details of cannibalism ordered by Taylor.
Marzah, who led the Death Squad group of killers, said many of the victims of cannibalism were members of the Krahn people of the then Liberian president, Samuel Doe, [...]
The Tibetan people have had enough and are protesting Chinese occupation and, in response, the Chinese Army and security people are surrounding monasteries and chaos reigns. Here are some pictures and a first-hand account of the on-going protests against Chinese repression..
Update:
03.15.08 — The Chinese Government has begun expanding its efforts to suppress protest over Tibet [...]
The great nomination purge that is taking place in the Grand National Party is also affecting folks in the United (for the moment) Democratic Party.
The biggest name to lose his spot was the man, the myth, Rhee In-jae.
Unlike many of the other legislators who lost their spots, he didn’t fall because of corruption. So [...]
Korea News via Google