The more I read about Seoul Mayor and presidential aspirant Lee Myung-Bak, the less I like, chiefly because I have absolutely no idea of where the man’s principles or moral center lie. And then, he says stuff like this: Is there some project you are thinking of should you become a presidential candidate? Some are talking about the construction of a “Seoul-Busan Canal” linking the Han and Nakdong rivers. “The biggest problem facing out society at the moment is employment;...

OECD Declares Korea ‘Hub of Inhospitability’ South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun denied the report, claiming that the OECD has simply misunderstood Seoul’s efforts toward peaceful reunification, which Roh claimed had required South Korea to permit itself to be penetrated by an axis of evil. “We believe that if we spin our new ‘Hub-and-Axis policy’ furiously enough, the entire world will eventually be balanced on the center of Korean influence and power,” widely believed to be the Osan Base Exchange.

Of All of Petty Irrelevancies. Well, I propose we file a class action on behalf of all descendents of General Sherman crew members. You know, to make sure we leave no historical grievance unaired. With all the time some people have on their hands, you’d never guess that most of Korea’s land and a third of its people were under the occupation of a Stalinist crime syndicate with nuclear weapons.

“N. Korea Shows Robust Trade Suplus in Chutzpah“

Hyundai Asan Update. We’re starting to learn more about the corruption of Kim Yoon-Kyu, Hyundai Asan’s ousted VP and Kim Jong Il’s favorite business partner: A Hyundai Asan source said, “Last July, during Hyundai Groups internal audits, Kim was accused of 10 instances of malfeasance including receiving kickbacks from construction in Mt.Kumgang, subcontracting corruption related to two joint construction projects and putting exorbitant sums of money on company expenses.” Background here. Expect Kim to get a swift presidential pardon before...

South Korea’s answer to Noam Chomsky, Kang Jeong-Koo, has opened his mouth again: “People say that U.S. intervention saved South Korea from becoming communist — and people say that things turned out well — but the people of Korea liked communism much more than they liked capitalism,” he said. Thanks for clearing that up for us.

China Cracks Down: Daily NK is also reporting a new Chinese crackdown on refugees, with a focus on North Korean military deserters. I would not be surprised if the major focus was on the North Korean officer alleged to have taken that beating video. He might be in a position to authenticate it. A Chinese police officer said, “the surveillance intensified in search for a military possessing a gun whose name is Park 00. It seemed as though he is...

The short answer is that I don’t know, and I probably never will know. What’s more, I haven’t seen the tape–Daily NK says it won’t be broadcast until mid-October–so I’m mostly going on what I’ve seen of the stills. I’ve had suspicions about the authenticity of the video (you can see a montage here), allegedly depicting the torture of a repatriated North Korean refugee woman, since it first emerged. I summarized these suspicions in an e-mail to Life Funds for...

North Korea’s recent move to end foreign food aid threatens a Great Famine of 2006, but the move comes too late to evade the attention of the world, which means that this time, nations of the world may actually insist that the hungry are fed. The movement to bring world attention to North Korea’s treatment of its own people may have matured just in time to matter. It coalesced on April 28, 2004 and attained its political bona fides with...

France’s position on the Iraq war wasn’t enough to remove it from the terrorists’ target list.

No More Digital Divide: Someone has invented a durable rubber-coated laptop with an estimated cost of under $100.

More on the growing unrest in rural China. There’s a large enough data pool to see an emerging trend.

Chris Hill, fresh from caving in to the North Koreans and then watching them publicly repudiate the agreement anyway, may be trying to shore up his right flank: The next thing North Korea needs to do is to tell the international community where its nuclear arms facilities are, the U.S. chief negotiator in six-party denuclearization talks Christopher Hill said Wednesday. Hill also told reporters there could be trouble ahead if North Korea in the next round of talks refuses to...

This is another story that I’ve meant to discuss in more detail, but simply could not because of time constraints: U.S. troops stationed in Korea were reportedly involved in 780 criminal acts, three of them homicides, between 2000 and August 2005, yet not a single one of them has been brought to book here, Seoul Metropolitan Police data show. Statistics announced on Monday by Democratic Labor Party lawmaker Lee Young-soon during an audit of the police show U.S. Forces Korea...

It’s the best news yet: the United States, via USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios, will have no part of North Korea’s plan to cut off food and and demand fungible, unmonitorable “development aid.” The Chosun Ilbo is reporting on Natsios and Marcus Noland’s speeches at the Woodrow Wilson Center, which I was forced to miss Monday. There are two stories, the first of which I graf here: Andrew Natsios told a symposium hosted by the private U.S. Committee for Human Rights...

We should have called their bluff. South Korea allegedly threatened the United States that it would have to rethink the two countries’ longstanding alliance if Washington refused to offer concessions to North Korea in the recently concluded nuclear dismantlement negotiations, a U.S. expert said. “South Koreans told (the U.S. delegation) . . . if you don’t follow through, get us to the next level, we consider this an alliance issue,” Derek Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic...

This is one of the projects I’ve been meaning to write up for several days. Don Kirk himself–he’s most famous for exposing the illegal payoffs to Kim Jong Il that became the 2000 Summit Scandal–was kind enough to forward it, and I offer him my thanks for doing so and my apologies, not only for the delay, but also for not giving the piece the level of discussion I think it merits. Because most readers won’t be able to access...

High fuel costs are starting to have a significant impact on the Chinese economy, reports the WaPo: FOSHAN, China — Known widely for its porcelain, this grimy city in southern China is the source of much of the world’s tiles and bathroom fixtures. Yet several factories have shut down in recent weeks, and nearly all are running at a reduced clip: Here in Guangdong province, the heart of China’s industrial boom, many manufacturers cannot find enough gasoline and heavy oil...