May 21, 2006

The Battle of the Hump, Part 4: The Fiaola Ricefield War

The lastest example of the Washington Post’s awful Korea coverage is certain to leave you less informed than before you read it. Anthony Faiola manages to distort the Battle of Camp Humphreys into a conflict between peaceful, bucolic peasants and Uncle Sam’s evil puppet. Faiola apparently found one of the few local residents in attendance — there are just 70 of them among thousands — a sympathetic-sounding 90 year-old woman. It makes a better story to tell it this way...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society/Media Criticism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
May 21, 2006

The UN-topia

My last TKL post before the site went down was a fairly caustic criticism of the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose members solemnly swear to uphold the highest standards of human rights, and whose members include Saudi Arabia, China, Pakistan, Tunisia, Cameroon, Vietnam, and Cuba, the only country that actually has gulags on the island of Cuba. All of these nations are classified as “not free” by Freedom House, and China, Vietnam, and Cuba are all infamous for the terror...

Categories Uncategorized
May 20, 2006

Park Geun-Hye Stabbed

An assailant slashed the neck of South Korean presidential candidate Park Geun-Hye with a pencil knife at a campaign event in Seoul today, where she was at a political event with opposition mayoral candidate Oh Se-Hoon. The cut was 11 centimenters long and 2-3 centimeters deep. Word is, Ms. Park will be OK. The assailant appears to be a Korean man in his 40’s or 50’s. Park very recently resigned as head of the opposition Grand National Party to start...

Categories Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society
May 20, 2006

A Council of Tyrants

This morning, my suburban comfort was again disturbed by the intrusion of shocking images of prisoner abuse, but this time, not the newsworthy kind. The BBC, Reuters, the Washington Post, and Al-Jazeera have deemed this story unfit for your consumption. You may disagree if you wonder whether we dare leave even a part of a country in the hands of these people. If so, you’re on your own. Moments after this picture was taken, this Iraqi soldier was murdered by...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights/Media Criticism/Terrorism/Iraq/Uncategorized
May 19, 2006

Four N. Korean Refugees Enter U.S. Embassy in China

[Updated 5/21; scroll down.] The Chosun Ilbo reports that a new group of North Korean refugees is under U.S. protection, this time in China. Four North Korean refugees have reportedly moved from the Korean Consulate in Shenyang, China to the U.S. mission to seek asylum there. If they succeed, they would become the second group of defectors from the Stalinist country to be accepted in the U.S., after six who were given official refugee status there via a Southeast Asian...

Categories "United" Nations/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Human Rights/Human Trafficking/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized
May 19, 2006

Daily NK President Talks to TKL about the New Right and North Korea

Recently, Newsweek’s BJ Lee reported on the emergence of South Korea’s New Right. One of the persons prominently featured in the article was Han Ki-Hong, President of the Daily NK, an online newspaper focusing on conditions in North Korea (DO NOT MISS their latest report on North Korea’s growing border control problems). The Daily NK differs from the South Korean papers in that it primarily focuses on events in the North. More remarkably, its reporters are often North Koreans reporting...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Geopolitics/Human Rights/Korean Politics/North Korea/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
May 19, 2006

Coming to a Congress Near Me…

… the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. Ban Ki Moon doesn’t sound very enthusiastic: “A protest expedition by certain organizations could inconvenience all of our people as it may have a negative effect on our efforts to negotiate the visa-waiver program with the United States,” said the statement, also signed by Deputy Prime Minister for Finance Han Duck-soo. The minute one of them pulls out a stick or a pipe, I say ship the lot of them to Gitmo. In...

Categories Activism/Anti-Americanism/Korean Society/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea
May 19, 2006

Bush’s Old “New” Approach

[Update 2, 5/18: On the other hand, the “Kim Jong Hill” plan looks great next to the Richard Lugar plan, which is nothing more than a shiny new formula for buying lies with bribes. Lugar is a very nice person to meet and has his heart in the right place, but diplomatically, this is not the thing to be proposing when our financial crackdown and our political offensive are both showing some promising signs of success. When dealing with gangsters,...

Categories Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Human Rights/NK Economics/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views/WMD
May 18, 2006

Senior N. Korean Scientist Defects

[Updated 5/18; scroll down.] The bad news is that he’s headed for South Korea, which will try to keep a tight lid on him: According to the official at the South Korean human rights group, the North Korean defector headed a provincial committee of the General Federation of Science and Technology of Korea while in the communist state. If he comes to the South, the defector would be the highest ranking scientist from the reclusive North ever to defect to...

Categories Defectors/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/WMD
May 18, 2006

Is North Korea About to Test a Missile?

It could be nothing, then again …. TOKYO (Reuters) – North Korea may be preparing to launch a long-range Taepodong ballistic missile that could have the capacity to reach all of the United States, Japanese national broadcaster NHK reported on Friday. Quoting unidentified South Korean government officials, NHK said satellite pictures showed there have been signs since early this month around a launch site in northeastern North Korea that pointed to a possible firing in the near future. South Korea’s...

Categories Diplomacy/NK Military/Six-Party Talks/WMD
May 17, 2006

The UniFiction Church Choir

Progress at Last! The last seven years of the Sunshine policy have finally secured a legacy Roh can campaign on. Goodbye “sea of fire,” hello, “deluge of fire!” I’d like to see those neocon skeptics deny that “deluge” beats “sea” any day of the week! This from the lovable North Korean site “Within Our Race” (a rough translation). ================ Who Stopped My Peace Train? My money is on this not being the last obstacle that bars the path of Kim...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/China/China & Korea/Diplomacy/Europe/Human Rights/Humor/Satire/Japan/Japan & Korea/Korean Education/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Unintended Humor/WTF?
May 17, 2006

Nationalism, Meet Socialism, Part 2

Behind chilling practice lies chilling theory, as expounded by a North Korean general: “Our nation has always considered its pure lineage to be of great importance — I am concerned that our singularity will disappear. Instead of contradicting him, the South Korean delegation said such dilution of the bloodline was “but a drop of ink in the Han River,” adding this would cause no problems “if we all live together.” Let’s not bicker and argue over who diluted who…. But...

Categories Diplomacy/Human Rights/Korean Society/NK Military/Racism