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The pro-North Korean groups operating in South Korea have consolidated their efforts according to this Donga article:

Gyeore Hana is a non-profit civic group created in February last year by various progressive groups members such as the National Alliance for Democracy and Reunification of Korea and the South Korean Headquarters for the Alliance of Korean People for National Unification.

Gyeore Hana gathered 3,847 members in South Korea and sent them to Pyongyang 16 times in one month starting September 26. They watched the mass gymnastics show “Arirang” in Pyongyang, performed in commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the North Korean Workers’ Party, and visited the birthplace of Chairman Kim Il Sung in Mangyongdae, Pyongyang.

The number of people sent by Gyeore Hana, 3,847 is over half of the 7,203 that visited North Korea and watched Arirang. It is the largest number of visitors sent to North Korea by a single organization. South Korea’s visits to watch the Arirang performance ended in late October.

Gyeore Hana officials started to reside in Yanggakdo Hotel, Pyongyang, since late September, opened direct phone lines to South Korea, and coordinated the visiting schedule of South Korean visitors. It is very rare for North Korean authorities to permit the establishment of phone lines to South Korea for individual groups.

That’s right folks those hate groups from the Inchon MacArthur Statue and the Camp Humphreys land deal protests are taking their marching orders from a direct phone line straight from Pyongyang.

The group even claims support from the Korean government:

There are rumors among groups that engage with North Korea that the South Korean government its friendly to Gyeore Hana. It is reported that Gyeore Hana’s Standing Representative Choi Byung-mo, a lawyer, is a close friend with key members of South Korea’s ruling party.

Why am I not surprised? I wonder if the Unification Ministry are all card carrying members of this group?

The aid that South Korea is giving to North Korea is now reaching the point of ridiculousness which is evident by this latest request:

North Korea at a meeting of the Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation Committee on Friday asked the South to provide it with raw materials for 60 million pairs of shoes, 2 million formal suits (30,000 tons) and 200 million bars of soap (20,000 tons). That is enough to wash and dress the North’s entire population of 23 million. In return, Pyongyang proposes to let us mine its underground resources and take minerals — not much of a deal, since Seoul has to supply all the mining and transport equipment.

So it really is a demand for aid, and a preposterous and potentially bottomless one. The rice and fertilizer the South supplied this year alone are worth over W1.4 trillion (US$1.4 billion), and like the rice, once you start giving the clothes and shoes, you have to keep giving them year after year. Having handed the responsibility of feeding its people to the South, North Korea now also wants us to clothe them, and if anything is to come of the nuclear arms negotiations, we have to supply their electricity. Maybe next time they will ask us to build their houses.

Maybe next time they won’t just ask for houses but a Hyundai for everyone in Pyongyang and the military as well and offer North Korean sand in return which of course the South Koreans would have to provide the equipment to North Korea to dig up.

The Korean government is planning on hiring a US PR firm to help improve the country’s increasingly bad image with Americans:

The Foreign Ministry is hiring an American PR firm to put a positive spin on its U.S. policies in a nation that has been reading them as increasingly hostile.

The Foreign Ministry recently wrote to the parliamentary Unification, Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee asking for an extra budget of W1.2 billion (about US$1.2 million) next year to pay for the plan, which would take PR work off the hands of the Korean Embassy in Washington.

In the notice, the ministry said the plan aimed to improve understanding and correct misconceptions of Korea’s diplomatic and security policies vis-a-vis the U.S among Americans.

This would be the first time Korea has hired a private firm for the urgent task of improving its image in an alliance many Americans perceive as increasingly strained.

I really don’t think it is a bad idea that Korea is hiring a PR firm. However, something I do have problem with; is when the Foreign Ministry releases a statement like this:

“There are limits to what embassy staff can do to deal with U.S. opinion leaders like journalists, academics and lawmakers in a systematic way. Local PR firms know the internal situation in the U.S. best and have the necessary connections,” the ministry said. “We have to turn around U.S. public opinion about Korea’s diplomatic and security policies and relations to the U.S., and we are going to look for ways of countering smears and attacks against Korea.”

I would like the foreign ministry to define what these smears and attacks against Korea are exactly? Is he referring to the US Congressional Letter to President Roh as a smear attack? I would really like to know what all these smear attacks are. Is televising and writing articles about the anti-American protests at Camp Humphreys and the MacArthur statue a smear attack against Korea? Last I checked these were factual events that happened. Reporting the truth is not a smear.

I hope Congressmen Hyde picks up the phone and calls the Korean Embassy in Washington to ask them what all the smear attacks are. That would be an interesting phone call to listen on to.

American golfer Michelle Wie recently got to hang out with Bill Clinton after donating $500 thousand to charity:

Michelle Wie added a round of golf with Bill Clinton to her precocious resume on Monday when she donated US$500,000 to a fund for victims of hurricane Katrina co-administered by the former U.S. president. The sporting summit took place at the Southern Highlands Golf Course in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Wie presented a check to the charitable foundation created by Clinton and fellow ex-president George Bush Sr.;I just saw clips of; the devastation, she said. And I really wanted to help out. I really do hope it helps a lot of people…. Compared to all the disaster, it’s such a small amount of money.”

At least the article didn’t call her “Korean golfer Michelle Wie” for change. However, I do find it comendable that she donated such a huge sum of money. It is amazing when you think about it, that a 16 year old girl donated more to the hurricane relief then most foreign countries.

The Korea Times conducted a phone interview and survey about how Korea should handle their relationship with the United States, and the paper lead with this headline, “Public Wants Greater Independence From US”.

Now look at the survey results and the headline. According to my math 55.2% of Koreans want to keep the current relationship or even strengthen it with the US while only 42% want a more self reliant relationship from the US. How does the Korea Times say the public wants greater independence when the majority of the people in their own survey says they don’t?

And the Foreign Ministry thinks that the US is smearing Korea when their own media continuously conducts smear jobs like this survey against the United States. I wonder if Congressmen Hyde has made that phone call yet to the Foreign Ministry?

Seoul may give in to North Korean demands to conduct nuclear weapons inspection of USFK bases in South Korea:

South Korea’s top diplomat has indicated that Seoul could review Pyongyang’s possible request for a nuclear inspection of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) to verify the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

South Korea is subject to the verification process, according to the joint principle statement of the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear programs, which was adopted in Beijing on Sept. 19.

“If the North raises the issue of inspection and verification in the South, including the facilities of the USFK, we will cope with it rationally by utilizing the 1992 inter-Korean joint declaration, which contains the principle of mutual inspection,’’ Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ban Ki-moon told The Korea Times in a written interview, marking the newspaper’s 55th anniversary.

The Joint Declaration of South and North Korea on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, signed on Jan. 20, 1992, articulates that “the two sides will conduct inspections of locations chosen by the other side and agreed upon by both sides.’’

It means the U.S. military installations in South Korea could technically become the target of inspections, if Seoul gives the nod to Pyongyang’s choice of American bases.

This is sure to cause even more tension with Washington if this is to happen. I hoped the South Koreans hired a real good PR team because they are going to need it if they try to pull this off.

Hopefully the North Koreans don’t pull up in a taxi because someone may accidently jump on top of it.

The South Korean city of Inje has dedicated a new bridge in honor of an American soldier who made the ultimate sacrifice during the Korean War:

U.S. Army 2nd Lt. Thomas W. Livingston Jr. gave his life in the Korean War more than 50 years ago, but the people of Inje have not forgotten him.

Tom was an idealist, always looking on the bright side of any problem. We know he did what he was trained to do. He excelled by dying for what he knew was right. He did not die in vain. He helped save this region from communist aggression, he said.

Read the rest on your own but it was good to see that 2ID and the local Korean government were able to work together to find the soldier’s relatives to attend the ceremony which 2ID also helped to make a success.

Democrat Congressional Representatives are trying to force AFN radio to air liberal talk radio:

Democrats are demanding an investigation into defense officials?E decision to delay a liberal talk show debut on American Forces Radio last week.

On Thursday, Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., and other House Democrats requested the Defense Department inspector general look into the Pentagon delay in providing balanced programming on AFN Radio.?E/p>

(…)

A Defense Department spokeswoman said the decision on Schultz’s show is still under consideration, a process that includes a review of all department guidelines for new programs.

Democrats said they are suspicious of the timing of the delay, but that the Schultz issue is just the latest in a multiyear battle to include liberal talk shows on the overseas radio network.

Currently, the American Forces Radio lineup includes radio personalities such as Rush Limbaugh, Laura Schlessinger and Paul Harvey, as well as news headlines from CNN and National Public Radio.

Has it ever crossed these Congressmen’s minds that maybe the Pentagon doesn’t want the soldiers to listen to people advocating losing the war and cutting and running? I say they take Rush Limbaugh and Doctor Laura off the programming line up before letting the liberal kooks on there advocating losing the war. You would think CNN, NPR, and Paul Harvey would be enough balanced enough programming for them.

Lawmakers in Korea are currently debating whether or not to scale back the ROK Army troops currently serving in Irbil, Iraq:

Korea is likely to pull about one-third of its 3,260 troops out of Iraq early next year. A Defense Ministry official said Minister Yoon Kwang-ung instructed officials to study reducing the country’s Zaytun Division stationed on a peace-building mission in Iraq now that a referendum on the country’s new constitution ended in a yes-vote.

“We will first bring back 1,000 men from Iraq early next year and then decide on additionally reducing a portion of the forces around next June based on our assessment of the political situation in Iraq at that time,” a senior government official said. However, he hinted that a bill now before the National Assembly to extend the Zaytun troops’ mandate will pass, saying the government was not considering a complete withdrawal of troops.

I think this is great because the amount of soldiers Korea has in Iraq is far greater then what is needed when compared to the actual “reconstruction” that is being done. The Japanese SDF in Iraq keep 550 soldiers to do their reconstruction work which should be about the number that Korea should keep in Irbil if the plan to continue the same level of aid.

For an interesting look at the aid the Zaytun unit is providing here is a link with video showing the Zaytun unit in action.

The video shows the soldiers providing medical care to the citizens in Irbil, giving new buses to the Irbil government, and a civil affairs team that goes around the country side spreading good will. The team sets up a tent for children to watch Korean animation, gives kids hair cuts, field hospital services, puts on a Tae Kwon Do show, traditional Korean dancing, and even brings out the Mogey Man for the Kurdish kids to play in the spray on insecticide! It doesn’t get much more Korean than that.

However, the video made no reference to Korea’s greatest reconstruction project the donation of Korean toilets.

The biggest problem I got with Korea’s deployment is that they are trying to win over people that are already won over a long time ago. The Kurds are extremely pro-American and I’m sure they are pro-Korean as well. If the Korean government really wanted to provide meaningful reconstruction head down the road to Kirkuk and help out there. Kirkuk is relatively safe, no where near as safe as Irbil but needs more reconstruction assistance than the Kurdish capitol.

Former US Army deserter Charles Jenkins recently appeared on 60 Minutes and provided evidence and testimony that North Korea has abducted more than just Japanese nationals over the years:

It seems, at first glance, like a typical family snapshot. Jenkins sits beside his wife and oldest child on a beach in North Korea. But the new and potentially explosive information concerns a woman in the left-hand corner of the frame. Jenkins says she is a Thai national who was kidnapped by North Korean agents from Macau, near Hong Kong, in 1978.

If what Jenkins says is true, it would represent the first photographic evidence that North Korea abducted ordinary citizens from Asian countries other than Japan and South Korea.

Interesting interview and video of the program can also be found on the left panel of the CBS site as well.

I’m curious to what the Thai government’s reaction to this information is going to be. Keep in mind though, that this is nothing compared to the 3,790 abductees that North Korea has abducted from South Korea, which the South Koreans could care less about. I guess we are about to see how much the Thai government is concerned about their citizens.

I do have to say it is a bit of a strange picture though. I have a hard time imagining people having fun at a beach in North Korea. It has got to be better than hanging out here:

By the way nice farmer tan Chuck.