Here’s one to file under “Why It’s Difficult to Be a Conservative Sometimes” — The Kyunghyang Shinmun reports that GNP floor leader Ahn Sang-soo, delivering an address to mark the formation of a new conservative education-related group,  said education had grown biased over the last decade of leftist rule, and because of this, there were many groups springing up who deny even the very identity of the Republic of Korea and brutal crimes, including sexual assaults on children, were taking place.

What we need to do now, he said, was to normalize education and teach children the value of democracy and market economics.

Could a filibuster provision help Korea avoid, uh, parliamentary drama?

Park Chan-wook editorial in the JoongAng Daily asks the question:

Could the filibuster system improve the National Assembly’s procedures? Representatives Kwon Young-jin, Park Sang-cheon and Yoo Jeong-bok each submitted bills to introduce filibusters to end the extreme confrontation between the ruling and opposition parties and resolve the subsequent legislative gridlock. The three bills are currently pending in the steering committee.

Personally, I’d rather have long winded grind sessions than fights with fire extinguishers.

John Glionna sat down with Democratic Labor Party lawmaker Kang Ki-kab (admittedly not my favorite politician), who I can only hope layed off the furniture during the interview.

Looks like some right-wing wackos tried to set late President Kim Dae-jung’s grave alight.

This is what happens when you have a string of decisions go against you:

“The chief justice should clarify his stance and take responsibility for causing this judicial incident of left-slanted, unfair rulings,” GNP floor leader Ahn Sang-soo said during the inaugural meeting of the party’s judicial reform committee.

“The court has long been free from any reform or criticism. It is time to put in check the abuse of judicial power.”

More attacks, courtesy the GNP:

The GNP is also demanding general reform of the personnel system for justices, including strengthening conditions for appointments and adopting an evaluation system. Lawmaker Son Beom-gyu, who sits on the committee, said, “We should not appoint justices every ten years who, from the perspective of national unity, are unacceptable by healthy social standards.” Lawmaker Yeo Sang-kyoo is calling for the exclusion of ideologically biased judges from criminal trials, the adoption of evaluations for reappointment and the rejection of justices who fall in the lowest percentile of the evaluations. Inside and outside the courts, there has been criticism that the strengthening of personnel ratings for justices would simultaneously weaken the autonomous decision making capabilities by justices and bureaucratize judges.

The last thing one should expect from the GNP — or the prosecutors, for that matter — is a bit of reflection:

In response, Seo Bo-hak, law professor of Kyunghee University, said the prosecutors’ unreasonable investigations and indictments were being revealed through the decisions, and that he believes that the judiciary is recently showing a rejection of the selective indictment of individuals in accordance with government requests. According to Seo, ideologically biased justices are not, as the prosecutors suggest, handing down decisions.

Lee Sang-don, law professor of Chung-Ang University and a conservative figure, also said on his blog today that the acquittals of Jung, Kang and the teachers’ union members were largely caused by prosecutors’ rash indictments.

This is an excellent article by Nicole Erwin at Jeju Weekly ( this issue is really good) in which she interviewed Oh Seung-kook, a survivor of the Jeju Uprising Massacre in 1948.  The article describes some of the events leading up to one particular massacre that killed 450 people – mainly men - in  a village of 1,200. 

I like Oh’s closing statement: “Jeju is very famous for tourism but all the tourism is in the name of beauty.  However, the tragedies are also a part of Jeju tourism.  To fully understand the meaning of Jeju, tourists need to see all aspects, dark and light.”

For those who have been to Jeju – there is definitely  a feeling that the island is different from the rest of Korea and apparently even the Korean government acknowledges that.  Did you know that Korea has an ambassador to Jeju?

 

For the last couple of months there has been friction on the southern island of Jeju over the proposed construction of a naval base able to accommodate 20 ROK naval vessels and two 150,000-ton cruise vessels.  In addition it would provide housing for the 7,500 service members and their families.   Prof.  Lee Chun-keun argues that the naval base is needed to protect Korea’s vital interests:

“[I]t wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say Korea’s fate depends on the sea. More than 99 percent of materials and resources that fuel large factories in Korea come through the sea, and more than 10 percent of cargo around the world comes from Korea. Simply put, sea routes are our lifeline.”  But it is much more than that.

According to the Korea Times, an anonymous  naval official on Jeju said, “We’re sure that the Jeju base will have many positive effects on the island in terms of job creation, tourism, commercial interests and others. In short, the base will not only serve as a military dock but also an eco-friendly tourism hub.”

But many argue that the construction of the base would damage the delicate environment that the United Nations had declared “pristine.”  The anger over the proposed base has become so severe that Jeju Governor Kim Tae-hwan faced a recall vote but survived when the vote was ruled invalid due to low voter turn out.

In an interview with Jeju Weekly, Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, visited the island in November and declared that the proposed naval base was a “provocative, dangerous base that makes Jeju Island a target.  It makes the island of peace, not an island of peace, but an island of power projection for the US empire.”

Gagnon also insisted that “If the United States is able to militarily choke off the straight [sic] then the U.S. would be able to hold the keys to China’s economic engine.  As the U.S. economy is collapsing the U.S. military strategy has been determined that the way we will control the world is to control the distribution of oil and natural gas….”

 
He is not the only one protesting this naval base.  According to the Joongan-ilbo, on January 4th about 40 villagers refused to leave the site and prevented the construction workers from their tasks.  400 police were mobilized and the protestors were removed.  The protestors, however, vow to “report this incident to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which will hold its World Conservation Congress on Jeju Island in 2012.”  Mr. Gagnon also has his own blog and has several pictures and a posting about these protests as well as here at Global Researcher in which he talks about the protestors preparing to meet the dozers.  There has been concern about this naval base since at least 2007 including from North Korea.

Kushibo also blogged about this last year in April.  Picture of protest is from Joongan which took it from NEWSIS.

For those with an interest about Jeju – I strongly recommend you read Jeju Weekly.

There are fines for leaving garbage out at the wrong time and other such things but now, the city wants to fine homeowners and shopowners a million Won (940.00 USD thereof) for not clearing snow from “around their properties”.  I guess neighbors can now fight each other over who cleans what.  I also captured one picture of a local potential scofflaw.

Education is often touted as a powerful weapon against poverty, but apparently in South Korea it is a tool for espionage.

Mr. Lee, a former professor who taught political science at an unnamed South Korean university, has been charged with spying for North Korea. While attending a university in India in 1992, Lee was allegedly approached by a North Korean agent and agreed to spy for the Norks. In addition to having been a professor, Lee was also a former military officer, an adviser to the presidential National Unification Advisory Council and at the government-run Education Center for Unification. Lee gave confidential information, including the locations of key South Korean military facilities and an army operations manual – all of this stored on discs, computers and portable drives that he delivered to his North Korea handler while traveling in China, Cambodia, Singapore, and Thailand. He was even able to secretly travel to North Korea in 1994 and join the North Korean Workers’ Party. You can read the article here.

But he is not the only educated officer in trouble.

Earlier this month, a former South Korean General, identified only as Kim, was arrested on suspected espionage for the Swedish defence and aviation company Saab. According to Yonhap, Kim used his enrolment in a university graduate course to access classified information in the library at the Korea National Defense University. Kim is alleged to have photographed documents and used them to write detailed reports in English and delivered them to Saab officials between August 2008-May 2009. These documents pertained to Korea’s multimillion-dollar KF-X stealth fighter development program. Naturally Saab denies any wrongdoing. 

It seems almost ironic considering that an article in Flightglobal in 2007 claimed that Saabs presentations to Korea’s Agency for Defence Development “focused on possibly technology transfer.” I bet the South Koreans were thinking the transfer of technology was going to come from Sweden and not the other way around. Defense News has an excellent article on the incident here.

Of course these are not the only incidents of university positions being used as cover. 

In 1996 Chung Soo-il – a.k.a. Muhammad Kansu of the Philippines was arrested for spying for North Korea. He was a professor at Dankook University where he taught Arabic Studies. His history is indeed interesting and unfortunately all of the links about this spy are no longer operative except the excellent blogging of Kalaniosullivan at Kunsan. – make sure you read his material. In 2000, as part of Korea’s celebration of Liberation from Japan, Chung and 3,585 other inmates were granted amnesty.

Koh Young-bok, a prominent professor at Seoul National University and known as the “founder of sociology” in Korea, was arrested as a spy in 1995. Five others were arrested with him, including a married couple from North Korea. Not that this has anything to do with the professor but the woman killed herself with a capsule of cyanide gas – according to the article: ”She was taken to a bathroom escorted by a female investigator. While trying to wash herself she suddenly took out the capsule from deep inside her…” Read the article if you want to find out what “deep inside” really means.

The National Election Commission reports that voter turnout in today’s by-elections is off the pace set by the last round.

I had better tell my wife to get out and vote.

Three of the five races are not competitive, which will lower turnout in those areas.  Also, it is a bit apples and oranges comparison since the districts having by-election may generally have lower turnout