North Korea is threatening to test long-range missiles again. Maybe this time, they’ll lob one over South Korea and send Roh’s poll numbers into the mid-teens. This BBC report has a great run-down on the various North Korean missiles and what they can hit.

In the absence of a nationhood based on principle, it is jingoistic nationalism that becomes the most politically and economically expedient binding agent. Two reports from South Korea today tell us of the woeful depths to which some would stoop to exploit it. How does the contagion spread, you ask? One carrier is television: Reigncom, an MP3 player maker, raised the specter of an American invader in its ads: “Will cheering for independence make you independent? Korean researchers have spent...

The gentle, tolerant climate that gave us the English-spectrum lynch mob is at it again. You may have thought that Korea’s “netizens” and Map Police were just a nonspecific group of twitchy nationalist asshats with DSL and too much time on their hands, but they prefer to be called “cyber diplomats.” They also have a great name–VANK. Most recently, these particular VANKers punked the British Museum for failing to completely reflect their own parochial, stilted, and (one suspects) deeply insecure...

Kudos to the Joongang Ilbo’s Washington correspondent, Brian Lee, whose report on the State Department’s human rights report goes beyond summaries and bullet points and actually tells us a few things we didn’t already know. Freedom House, which had done much to keep human rights on the table in our Cold War-era talks with the Soviets, is going to receive $1.7 million to put together a conference on North Korea next year. They’re already hunting for a Director and a...

In the absence of a nationhood based on principle, it is jingoistic nationalism that becomes the most politically and economically expedient binding agent. Two reports from South Korea today tell us of the woeful depths to which some would stoop to exploit it. How does the contagion spread, you ask? One carrier is television: Reigncom, an MP3 player maker, raised the specter of an American invader in its ads: “Will cheering for independence make you independent? Korean researchers have spent...

Prepare to hear more about this one. The other coup for the Joongang‘s Washington reporting is this bit, about which I blogged here several weeks back. The basic thrust was that California Democrat Tom Lantos and Virginia Republican Frank Wolf were working on a new anti-dictatorship bill that from the very limited information initially reported, sounded a little like a revival of the Jackson-Vanik concept (much praised in Natan Sharansky’s The Case for Democracy) that first tied trade and economic...

The gentle, tolerant climate that gave us the English-spectrum lynch mob is at it again. You may have thought that Korea’s “netizens” and Map Police were just a nonspecific group of twitchy nationalist asshats with DSL and too much time on their hands, but they prefer to be called “cyber diplomats.” They also have a great name–VANK. Most recently, these particular VANKers punked the British Museum for failing to completely reflect their own parochial, stilted, and (one suspects) deeply insecure...

A very good crowd. Norbert sent me a notice (unf, by which time it was already the day of), so I suspect he deserves partial credit. I’d like to know more about the Korean group that helped organize this.

Kudos to the Joongang Ilbo’s Washington correspondent, Brian Lee, whose report on the State Department’s human rights report goes beyond summaries and bullet points and actually tells us a few things we didn’t already know. Freedom House, which had done much to keep human rights on the table in our Cold War-era talks with the Soviets, is going to receive $1.7 million to put together a conference on North Korea next year. They’re already hunting for a Director and a...

Prepare to hear more about this one. The other coup for the Joongang‘s Washington reporting is this bit, about which I blogged here several weeks back. The basic thrust was that California Democrat Tom Lantos and Virginia Republican Frank Wolf were working on a new anti-dictatorship bill that from the very limited information initially reported, sounded a little like a revival of the Jackson-Vanik concept (much praised in Natan Sharansky’s The Case for Democracy) that first tied trade and economic...

A very good crowd. Norbert sent me a notice (unf, by which time it was already the day of), so I suspect he deserves partial credit. I’d like to know more about the Korean group that helped organize this.

A very good crowd. Norbert sent me a notice (unf, by which time it was already the day of), so I suspect he deserves partial credit. I’d like to know more about the Korean group that helped organize this.

Michael Ledeen sees Bush’s foreign policy as an extension of the Reagan Doctrine, too. Of course, he’s not the first one to expand on that theory.

Human Rights Update: The Chosun Ilbo has printed a summary of the State Department’s human rights report on North Korea here. Sure, the summary is interesting if you don’t have time to read the full report. What’s more interesting is that the South Korean government has nothing to contribute to this discussion, other than to do its best to quench it by sequestering defectors or excluding them altogether. Koreans have to read a summary written by a government on another...

RSOI Downsizing. The United States has cancelled a key part of this year’s exercise, one of two major exercises staged yearly in Korea (Ulchi Focus Lens being the other). There will be no joint ROK-U.S. Marine practice landing this year. There are several possible ways to see this, but all would be purely speculative on my part. I’m not persuaded that the official story is a full explanation, however. Still, given the likelihood of a Marine landing in Korea, I...

Michael Ledeen sees Bush’s foreign policy as an extension of the Reagan Doctrine, too. Of course, he’s not the first one to expand on that theory.

Human Rights Update: The Chosun Ilbo has printed a summary of the State Department’s human rights report on North Korea here. Sure, the summary is interesting if you don’t have time to read the full report. What’s more interesting is that the South Korean government has nothing to contribute to this discussion, other than to do its best to quench it by sequestering defectors or excluding them altogether. Koreans have to read a summary written by a government on another...

RSOI Downsizing. The United States has cancelled a key part of this year’s exercise, one of two major exercises staged yearly in Korea (Ulchi Focus Lens being the other). There will be no joint ROK-U.S. Marine practice landing this year. There are several possible ways to see this, but all would be purely speculative on my part. I’m not persuaded that the official story is a full explanation, however. Still, given the likelihood of a Marine landing in Korea, I...