It’s time to add another entry to Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-Bak’s dossier. His government appears to have had an extraordinary financial relationship with Korea’s second-largest trade union organization, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions: According to the petition, [FKTU Seoul branch chairman Lee Hui-Sang] used 470 million won ($450,000) of subsidies from the Seoul Metropolitan Government for his own purposes. The city government has subsidized the Seoul branch of the federation to the tune of 1.1 billion won “• an...

Other News of the Sordid: Everything you ever wanted to know about Kim Jong-Il’s harem (yes, except for video . . . perv!) is in the Daily NK. Authentication of these stories certainly presents some problems, but the accounts here are consistent with those in Jasper Becker’s Rogue Regime.

Thanks to the reader who forwarded this. I’ll simply print this letter from the British Ambassador to Korea to the Chosun Ilbo in its entirety. Dear Sir, I have been saddened to read that a group of protestors attacked and called for the removal of the statue of the U.S. general MacArthur in Incheon. The statue was erected to commemorate the Incheon Landing, which he led, and which was one of the most decisive interventions of the Korean War. British...

He walked from North Korea to Thailand on the stumps where his feet once were. Explain to me again why the people of North Korea are programmed robots who lack the will to resist tyranny.

One theory of the unravelling of the six-party statement is that it’s a translation problem. Behind that theory roars the powerful propulsive force of wishful thinking. Although the North Koreans themselves were responsible for any translations that announced the repudiation of the agreed terms, this piece suggests, and plausibly, that there was plenty of ambiguity–much of it deliberate–when it came to finer points such as “dismantle” versus “abandon.” Is the ambiguity studied? Perhaps. On the one hand, this was never...

South Korea’s Ambassador to the United States, Hong Seok-Hyun, has finally left office.

Their coverage of Middle Eastern affairs may be distorted and venemous, but the BBC’s coverage of the next Great Famine is a public service to the world: North Korea has formally told the UN it no longer needs food aid, despite reports of malnutrition in the country. . . . Top UN relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland said an “abrupt” end to food aid would harm North Korea’s most vulnerable. . . . Analysts say North Korea might be worried that...

I simply don’t have the time to give this New York Times op-ed by Jason Lim a careful reading and thorough comment, but it suggests that the World Food Program has either backed down from or reversed its accomodation of North Korea’s no-strings “development aid” demands (or that original reports were not accurate). If so, kudos for the WFP. More later, when I have more time. Update: OK, read it. No, it doesn’t appear that the WFP has changed its...

The Chosun Ilbo discusses some of the obstacles–insurmountable, in my view–to an agreement on denuclearizing North Korea. And of course, reaching an agreement is one thing; making it stick is another. There’s a category four moral equivalency alert near the end of the piece, where it suggests that U.S. and North Korean “hard-liners” are to peace what Scylla and Charibdis are to ancient Greek shipping: [N]egotiations could equally run into problems if U.S. neoconservatives raise the North’s human rights record...

Congress’s Korea reading for the day. What does this tell me? That congressional Republicans and some of their key staffers are livid at Roh and his party, and the fact that he treats the red-vests like they’re his base. Triangulation won’t work this time. Roh will have to denounce the red-vests and their violent methods or face more of the open congressional hostility we saw here. Chung Dong-Young in particular would be well advised to remember who appropriates the funds...

Updated; scroll down. We are now four months from the next Great North Korean Famine, and rather than making the urgent and public appeals that could stop it, the United Nations is issuing a permit. Just one month after the World Food Program issued an urgent appeal stating that 6.5 million North Koreans depend on its food aid for their survival, it has capitulated to North Korea’s demand to cease delivering food aid in favor of “development aid” that will...

Reporteurs Sans Frontieres has published a new handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents, published at its Web site.

Iraq Update: Here’s a link to a superb flash presentation outlining the recent operations in western Iraq. Why don’t the New York Times or the Washington Post cover matters like these in the degree of detail they devote to the political and emotional antics of Americans who have never been to Iraq? Again, I challenge my liberal friends (said in complete sincerity): How long can liberal values survive if we won’t defend them from “Al-Qaeda in Iraq?”

The Rewards of Bad Faith. Oblivious as ever to reality, North Korea’s Minister for Southern Affairs, Chung Dong-Young, has invited Kim Jong Il to the next APEC meeting in Pusan. No need to waste fuel on bringing a cheering section. Plenty of local talent should be available. Update 9/24: The U.S. and Japan appear to have blocked the move.

More Fun With the KFA: Thanks to a reader who mailed in these precious video links. Really, I think “netizens” have beaten the Korean Friendship Association to a humiliating death that ranks right up there with auto-erotic asphyxiation. After someone actually outed him on Wikipedia, I almost felt a little sorry for him. But then I watched the second clip and remembered that he’s still a petty fascist despot who runs around in a Mao suit, and he was outed...

Update: A source in Congress forwards this, perhaps not having had time to see this post. He’s actually talking–like he absolutely means it–about Congress holding hearings about the whole alliance. I worry that because the media in this country do not care, the only people who would know what happen in those hearings will be people who read the Korean papers. ____________ Defenders of the frayed pro-American credentials of South Korea tend to fall back on anecdotal and statistical evidence...

The jockeying for the South Korean presidential race has started. Like mercurial gobs, parties split into factions and clump together again. The Joongang Ilbo has an interesting article that suggests potential splits in both the Grand National and Uri parties. If North Korea will just stop talking for a while, I’ll get through several unfinished posts about South Korean political figures. I’m not going to graf it; it’s not long and well worth reading. I’m actually hoping for splits and...

We have two more additions to the postmature enthusiasm over the North Korea deal. Some seem slow to realize this thing is already dead on arrival (my latest on NKZone distills the latest news into some of the same analysis you’ve already read here). Incidentally, examine all of this truthless triumphalism and new-found skepticism–the latter being at least grounded in fact–through the lens of conservatives proclaiming their faith in diplomacy and liberals emphasizing “verify” over “trust.” It’s depressing entertainment for...