The FTA is doomed.

The man, the myth, the Marmot’s Hole favorite, Kang Ki-kab is on the case (Yonhap):

“The first, second and the third goals should all be enhancing the public livelihood by solving economic polarization and protecting the lives of the underprivileged,” Kang said. “It is critical to block the FTA for that very purpose, and I plan to take my best shot at it.”

He specifically has a beef (sorry about the pun) with the recent agreement to lift the import ban on US beef.

Kang is not a man to be messed with. He is the current holder of the General Assembly record for hunger striking; a mind-bending 29 days (see the Yonhap link above). This is the same guy who travels Seattle, Hong Kong and Cancun to do his bit of ‘direct action.’

It’s over folks.

ShareThis

I am now convinced that Joshua at One Free Korea has a file of pithy quotes saved on his computer ready to whip out for any occasion.

Today’s evidence, along with some background:

President Lee, it should be remembered, has made an issue of restoring the public order that Roh had allowed to erode. If he lets these goon squads escape real punishment, the Korean street will be furious, and rightfully so. If the South Korean authorities prosecute, the Chinese street will be furious, and it will probably be lost on many of them that doing the same thing in China would likely earn them a stretch in the laogai or a fatal beating in a local police station. For a day, Seoul became for politically repressed Chinese youth what Tijuana is for sexually repressed American youth.

(Emphasis is mine.)

ShareThis

Today’s Washington Posts asks if the new LMB administration will really put its food aid where its mouth is and choose principle over hunger in the North.

Does President Lee withhold food aid that may prop up the government of the North or will he help avert a possible humanitarian crisis? Choices.. choices…

Whereas some may have reservations of LMB’s policy to neighbors in the north, others are quite upset at his proposed “more mature” relationship with its neighbor to the east (you know, the country who’s name starts with a “J“).

ShareThis

The Defense Security Command says that it is going to get tough on Nork spies who have been getting a free pass over the past ten years.

However, other intelligence officials say the thing lacking over the last ten years was not arrests of spies but announcements of the arrest of spies (Yonhap link above):

The officials at the intelligence command said the number of arrests of North Korean spies has remained steady over the years, but said reports of such incidents have become rare because the command had been gagged under the former liberal administrations of Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, both of whom sought to improve ties with communist North Korea.

I wonder if the get-tough policy will include cracking down on the Democratic Labor party.

ShareThis

It seems that the Olympic Torch will be coming to South Korea on or around April 26 but the odd thing is that the only mention of this is by the JoongAng Ilbo article on “Athletes selected to carry the torch in North Korea“. Naturally the North Koreans will cheer for the torch (which would otherwise never have found its way through such a place) but it really seems the government in South Korea is concerned frightened enough of any protest, so much so that there is not even a *peep* on the official website of Korea (korea.net) and no one so far seems to know who will carry it through Seoul. It is very strange to see Olympic spirit in North Korea yet silence in the South but then good is bad and what was bad is now good.

I wonder if it will pass by, at night, while we are in our beds and least aware . . .

ShareThis

So not only was Kim DJ in the US during LMB’s visit but now it seems that “A former South Korean intelligence agent granted asylum in the United States said Monday he will disclose what he knows about the suspicions surrounding former President Kim Dae-jung’s Nobel Peace Prize at a news conference this weekend.” — in America. (article here)

Maybe we will hear of illegally bugged telephones and bribes, all for winning a prize . . .

ShareThis

If your eyes can take the pain, my latest KT piece is a quick review of the major (and some not so major) parties in Wednesday’s National Assembly elections.  While I barely mentioned a couple of parties, I felt the need to write a few paragraphs on the “Pro-Park Geun-hye Alliance” (친박연대):

One problem the GNP has to deal with is the presence of a splinter group calling itself the “Pro-Park Geun-hye Alliance.” As the name suggests, the origins of the group can be traced to the latent friction between Lee and former GNP Chairwoman Park Geun-hye left over from their bitter presidential nomination fight last year…

Park has not joined the splinter group, but that has not stopped them from prominently displaying a picture of her weeping in their campaign materials. While Park has chosen to remain in the GNP, she has refused to publicly campaign for GNP candidates. Not surprisingly, the alliance is strongest in Park’s power base in the southeast.

If you think I am joking about the ‘weeping Park Geun-hye’ bit, check this out. 

Geez.  What’s next, stigmata?

ShareThis

The Donga has an interesting piece on a survey of local government officials.  Among the findings, they noted that most local officials were not happy with the results of the previous administration’s ‘balanced regional developement’ policies:

More than half of local government heads flunked former President Roh Moo-hyun’s drive for so-called “balanced national development” policy. 53.7 percent of those surveyed said their locality received no contribution from his policy, while 26.6 percent said they did.

That is a pretty high number.  I would like to have seen the regional breakdown on that.  I suspect that the results fromYeongnam and the capital region pushed that number up.

This might have also contributed to the low popularity of Roh’s policies among elected officials:

[In the 2006 local elections] the conservative Grand National Party (GNP) swept six of seven mayoral races in major cities representing 23 million of South Korea’s 48 million people. They also won six of nine provincial races and took approximately 160 of 230 seats up for grabs county governors, major city borough chiefs and smaller city mayors. To cap their victory, the GNP also took the bulk of 3,621 local council seats, ensuring a strong ‘farm club’ for future elections.

So that was not exactly an unbiased group assessing  the results of Roh’s development plans.

ShareThis

I know.  I know.  All of the readers at the Marmot’s Hole have the same question on their minds:  How does a party qualify for the 56 proportional representation (PR) seats in the upcoming National Assembly Election?

Well, stop wondering.  Our friends at the National Election Commission have the answer:

Seats of the proportional representative National Assembly members are allocated to each political party that has obtained 3/100 or more of the total valid votes or five or more seats in the local constituency election.

Three percent?  Who is the genius that set the threshold that low?  The Stark Raving Loony Party could run a PR list and get three percent.  As much as I hate to admit it, the KKK could run a list and get three percent in some Southern states (Good thing the US doesn’t use PR.).

Going by the current numbers at Realmeter, we will have six parties in the next National Assembly and one more is very close to the magic three percent.  Of course, the numbers get highly volatile when you get below 10%, so it is difficult to say how many of the little parties will make the cut.

BTW, the Joongang has the horse race data on the district races.

BTW2, the GNP splinter group has fromed a provisional party.  I am not sure if they have qualified for the PR list but they do have someone running in the district where I live and they have a party number (six), which suggests that they did qualify.

ShareThis

The Korea Federation for Environmental Movements (KFEM) is organizing another large demonstration against President Lee’s grand Canal project, and international residents in Korea are particularly invited to participate in this one.   A group of us are going to march in it under the banner of the excellent Korean Mountaineering League, and any of you who wish to be involved would be highly welcome to join us.

All the reasons why this canal is a really bad idea, madness even, have already been run out at length in several topics on this estimable Blog, so I need not repeat them.  If you share our opposition to the project, whether from the environmental or the economic or even other perspectives, why not show up and add your voice?  Festivities will begin at Seoul Station Plaza at 3 pm on Sunday (March 30th), probably ending with a candlelight vigil somewhere.  There will be a parallel demonstration in Busan.  This is intended to be an entirely non-violent expression of the public will, and without any fingertips getting cut off, but just in case the cops get out of hand i’m keeping Brendon Carr on speed-dial 

For further information/perspective see the front page of the K. M. L. website above.

ShareThis