Search Results for: KCTU

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, whose goons most recently gained infamy with an anti-anti-North Korean protest that blocked the U.S. Ambassador from attending a media interview, will now represent South Korean government workers. The KCTU has a long history of violent and thuggish protests, reflexive anti-Americanism,* and sympathetic dealings with the North Korean regime. The KCTU is the more radical of South Korea’s two largest labor organizations, the other being the Federation of Korean Trade Unions. The Korean Government...

[Updated 15 Jan 06] I had meant to say something earlier about how South Korea’s culture of politics-by-thuggery has now touched even the U.S. Ambassador to Korea, Alexander Vershbow. The Flying Yangban’s observations have inspired me to add more, beyond the expression of my strong agreement with those observations. Finally, after years of watching U.S. ambassadors work the cocktail circuit while the propaganda war was lost in the streets below, a U.S. ambassador has the vision and guts to do...

In final the days leading up to Freedom House’s Seoul conference, the movement to put human rights back into the center of South Korea’s policy toward the North appears to be gaining momentum. It is still a fragile moment. The momentum could still be lost to petty factional and interpersonal disputes. If the movement’s leading lights unite, however, it could also shift South Korea’s national debate, across the political spectrum, as Korea’s political parties prepare and adjust their platforms in...

Our Message at Their Doors. Adrian Hong addresses a crowd of supporters in front of the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade here–in Korean. The things I’ve heard from many sources tell me that the Freedom House Conference in Seoul could be a galvanizing event. As with FH’s conference in DC last summer (see sidebar links), I have no doubt that LiNK will play a major role. The political stars are also starting to line up our way. Early...

UPDATED; scroll down. You haven’t heard the last of this. Call it a prediction. The U.S. media was watching, but (thus far) doesn’t much seem to care. The U.S. government is watching and does. Update on that later. For now, here’s what happened, beginning with pictures from OhMyNews: Much, much more here. Here’s part of : The demonstration started off peacefully with singing, dancing and a speech by Democratic Labor Party central committee member Lee Jeong-mi, but turned violent after...

August 15, 2005, a date on which more bullshit flowed than one snarky blogger could possibly step around, so I’ll let the stories pretty much speak for themselves. In case you’re new here, this is the anniversary of the date on which American soldiers–supported by Russian invaders further north–entered Seoul before passing the reigns of government to the Koreans themselves. Yes, things could have been faster and smoother, and Korea’s first rulers were certainly not Jeffersonian democrats, but what’s most...

“Pots for Peace”: not another cannabinoid conflict resolution initiative from Marin County, but another Kim Tae Kyung OhMyNews pipe dream, to be sure. TK, who loves everything from North Korea except defectors, has gone all erotic and stickied himself up over the North Korean-made cookware the ajummas are buying up at the high-end department stores in Seoul (there are reportedly still some export control complications with Kaesong’s plans for a penicillin factory, a pesticide plant, and a large aluminum tube...

“Pots for Peace”: not another cannabinoid conflict resolution initiative from Marin County, but another Kim Tae Kyung OhMyNews pipe dream, to be sure. TK, who loves everything from North Korea except defectors, has gone all erotic and stickied himself up over the North Korean-made cookware the ajummas are buying up at the high-end department stores in Seoul (there are reportedly still some export control complications with Kaesong’s plans for a penicillin factory, a pesticide plant, and a large aluminum tube...

It’s Norbert Vollertsen and his chief U.S. ally, Michael Horowitz of the Hudson Institute (in Seoul until the 11th) against Roh Moo-Hyun this week. That may have been what inspired Roh to lash out at “hard-liners” yesterday. Fresh from staring down the Pusan Migra, he has his eye-poking finger unsheathed, calling his next activities “tourist information.” He even says he’ll bring “tourist” photos of North Korea plus more newsworthy antics that seem to beg the South Koreans to deport him...

It’s Norbert Vollertsen and his chief U.S. ally, Michael Horowitz of the Hudson Institute (in Seoul until the 11th) against Roh Moo-Hyun this week. That may have been what inspired Roh to lash out at “hard-liners” yesterday. Fresh from staring down the Pusan Migra, he has his eye-poking finger unsheathed, calling his next activities “tourist information.” He even says he’ll bring “tourist” photos of North Korea plus more newsworthy antics that seem to beg the South Koreans to deport him...