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As much as Koreans like to see polls and rankings this however is one ranking they probably won’t publicize to much. Transparency International has released their annual world corruption index. South Korea was ranked 40th in the world for corruption out of 158, tied with Hungary and Italy. The top 20 least corrupt nations in world is listed below. Notice many of the top countries are smaller countries where it is easier to monitor state corruption:

1 Iceland
2 Finland & New Zealand
4 Denmark
5 Singapore
6 Sweden
7 Switzerland
8 Norway
9 Australia
10 Austria
11 Netherlands & United Kingdom
13 Luxembourg
14 Canada
15 Hong Kong
16 Germany
17 USA
18 France
19 Belgium & Ireland
21 Chile & Japan

I don’t feel so bad that the US is 17th when it’s probably got more land area and population than the countries ranked ahead of it combined. So good job USA. Looking at the list you can really draw a correlation between countries with good government and little corruption unlike further down the list you can obviously see countries with poor governments that are hindered by corruption.

What I find a little surprising is that countries that don’t have the economic affluence of Korea are ranked ahead of it such as Botswana and Jordan. Looking at the rest of the list; countries with economic affluence seem to be the least corrupt.

Korea can take some solace in the fact that they did beat out China. China was ranked all the way down at number 78. However, Korea’s main rival Japan soundly beat them by being ranked number 21. Hopefully as democracy improves here, Korea will continue to improve their ranking. I guess we will see next year.

Hat Tip: Asiapundit

If you are looking for a great place to view the beautiful autumn colors and not have to wade through the thick crowds that flood the parks this time of year; look no further than Woraksan National Park. Woraksan is located to the East of the city of Chunju in the Chungcheongbuk-do province in central Korea. The park is one of the least visited in Korea due to it’s geographic location that is far from any major Korean cities.

The parks rural location has actually made it one of two areas in Korea where goral antelopes were released into the wild. The second area was Soraksan National Park. ten of these antelope still are alive and well inside the park and are monitored with radio transmitters. So keep your eyes open if you intend to hit the trails here for these shy animals.

The best place to begin a hike on Woraksan is to drive or take a bus up the Songgye Valley and stop at the small city of Deokju. At Deokju you can enter the park. Head up the path following a stream running off the mountain. Along the path you can see the remains of an ancient stone fortress and the recreated fortress gate. This fortress dates all the way back to the 13th century and was used as a defensive perimeter against the invading Mongols. The fortress was later used again in 1592 during the first Japanese invasion of the peninsula. Though the fortress is mostly destroyed today the parts that remain are still interesting to look at and appreciate how old the construction is and the amount of history these walls have seen.

After you pass the fortress walls you will see Deokjusa Temple off to your left. Check it out if you like, but really nothing new to be seen at this recently constructed temple. Across from the temple on the right side of the path you will see the trail head that is the official start point to climb Woraksan mountain. Along the trail follow the Yeongbong peak signs that will take you to the 1097 meter summit of Woraksan mountain. The trail initially is very well maintained and includes many well built bridges and stairs to assist the novice hikers who want to only hike up to see the stone Buddha carving which is located about 30 minutes up the trail. The Buddha is also very old just like the fortress walls. However no one knows for sure how old. Some suspect the carving is from the Goryeo dynasty which ruled Korea from 935-1392AD while other believe the carving was constructed by the Shilla dynasty that ruled before 935AD. Either way the carving is extremely old and an impressive sight to see since it stands as high as a four story building and is elaborately carved. Definitely worth taking a rest stop at to view while climbing the mountain.

Past the Buddha carving the trail becomes much steeper and rockier. There are plenty of stairs and rock climbing to be done once you are past the Buddha carving which causes me to recommend a moderate level of personal fitness before attempting the hike.

After the first steep ascent after the carving and about 1.0 – 1.5 hours into your climb, you will reach a 960 meter peak that you may initially think is the summit of the mountain after the steep climb up more stairs. It is not. As you look to the south you will see the long trail and the mammoth rock formation that awaits you at the real 1097 meter summit of Woraksan.

The trail along the ridge line is actually pretty nice as you walk among a thick forest that eventually opens up at a ROK Army helipad where you get a great view of the Yeongbong peak where the summit of Woraksan is located. As you continue up the trail it becomes a little disheartening as you begin losing altitude and going down the mountain, plus you have to take a circular route to reach the trail that takes you to the summit of the mountain. When you finally reach the trail, it is basically just an endless stair climb to the top of the mountain. Expect your calf muscles to get quite a work out on this mountain.

However, when you reach the summit, the stair climbing pays off, as you are rewarded with a great view of the surrounding Chungcheongbuk-do country side. There is not one highrise building in site; just tress, hills, farm land, and the beautiful Chungju-ho lake. Better yet is the fact there is no huge crowd on the summit unlike other popular Korean mountains where you feel more like you are at a rock concert than on a mountain with the amount of people swarmed around you. Not on Woraksan, it was just me and a handful of other climbers just enjoying the spectacular view.

If you want to enjoy the view too, all you have to do is take a bus to the city of Chunju and from the Chunju bus station take one of the buses that regularly run to Woraksan National Park and get off at the Deokjusa stop. If you are driving from Chunju, take Highway 36 that skirts the south side of the Chunjuho Lake and take a right once you hit the insection with local road 597 that runs through the Songgye Valley to the Deokjusa trailhead. Bring plenty of water and warm jacket because it can get cold on the summit of the mountain. Expect to complete the hike up and back down the mountain in about 5-7 hours depending on your level of fitness. So get out of the city this weekend, get some fresh air, exercise, and maybe even see an antelope. You see a lot of strange things in the ville but an antelope is not one of them. You will need to go to Woraksan for that.

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Over at Joel’s site, he has provided an interesting link to an Australian who went to North Korea to attend the Arirang Mass Games. He has got some interesting pictures of both Pyongyang and the games themselves worth checking out. The show featured the usual anti-American imperialists crap that maybe the DNC could use at their next convention, plus more propanganda about uniting Korea under North Korean rule and the glory of Kim Il Sung. However, the below picture, I don’t know how it relates to imperialists, unification, or Kim Il Sung. Anybody got any ideas?

Do they even have chickens and eggs to eat in North Korea?

US Army MAJ Jeffrey Brown was found guilty of rape:

A U.S. Army major found guilty of raping one young enlisted service member and maintaining a sexual relationship with another was sentenced late Tuesday to four years in prison.

Brown also was found guilty of violating a lawful general order for breaking the military curfew in June. He is to forfeit all pay and allowances and be dismissed from the Army as part of the sentence.

This guy is found guilty of rape and other offenses and receives only 4 years in prison? Now compare this with the 1-43 ADA private who raped a fellow soldier in the Suwon barracks that received a six year sentence. Can a lawyer please tell me how this works out? It seems to me that an officer would receive greater punishment for the same offense than a private. This case comes on the heels of the lenient punishment given to 1LT Davis last month. USFK says their against sexual assault and rape yet lightly sentence those who commit it. This major just like the Suwon private are both dirt bags that should be doing at least the same amount of hard time for their crimes. I’m sick of these scum bags smearing the rest of us that are over here doing the right things and staying out of trouble.

Update: Greyhawk at the Mudville Gazette has a great post describing exactly what happened that day as explained by an embedded reporter who was there when the tank commander fired on the Palestinian Hotel. The charges brought against the NCO, his commander, and battalion commander are even more ridiculous after reading the account from the reporter who was there. Truly a witch hunt going on here, but I’m sure the people conducting the witch hunt figure the embedded reporter is probably just part of the secret CIA conspiracy theory.

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Here is a perfect example of why the US will not ratify the UN’s International Criminal Court:

A Spanish judge issued an international arrest warrant Wednesday for three U.S. soldiers, charging them with murder for the death of Spanish TV cameraman Jose Couso in Baghdad, Iraq.

Couso, who worked for Spain’s Telecinco network, died at the Palestine Hotel on April 8, 2003, as U.S. forces advanced to take control of the city in April 2003.

Investigating magistrate Santiago Pedraz of the National Court will seek the extradition of the soldiers to Spain, a court spokeswoman told CNN.

They are wanted for “murder” and “a crime against the international community,” according to the warrant, a copy of which was viewed by CNN partner network CNN+.

The US won’t sign on to the International Criminal Court because of the fear that US soldiers will be arrested for political reasons which is exactly what this case is about. The cameraman was killed by a tank shell that struck the Palestine Hotel where journalists were staying at. The tank commander said he was shooting at what he though was an Iraqi spotter that had been calling in artillery grids. The Spanish media believes that he was deliberately targeting journalists.

They got another kook CIA conspiracy theory that the US forces in Baghdad were intentionally targeting specific journalists to silence them and Mr. Couso was one of them. I’m just trying to picture this scenario. You have an E-6 tank commander who has been in three weeks of sustained combat, he and his crew are going through the fight of their lives in Baghdad, and then this E6 receives a call from his CIA handlers to target the 15th floor of the Palestine Hotel to take out Mr. Couso who has been reporting negative war coverage and who is conveniently pointing his camera right out the window at them.

The military’s position seems much more plausible that the NCO thought he was firing at an Iraqi soldier calling in artillery grids. Should he have known that the building had journalists staying in it? It is easier said then done. When I moved through Baghdad with my unit during the war, we were given no grids to where all the journalists were staying at. We were more worried about detailed grids of where the enemy was at. Imagine that in a war. Plus detailed maps were in high demand at this time and the NCO may not have had a very detailed map to begin with.

Should he have fired at the building? It wasn’t a wise choice from the perspective of someone sitting on their couch, but you got to figure this guy had been getting fired at from roof tops for the past three weeks not to mention the fact mortar rounds are now landing all around him. If this E6 had to stop and ask permission to fire at someone on a rooftop every time he sees a possible threat, this guy probably wouldn’t have survived the war long enough to get indicted for war crimes.

However, the Spanish public in their anti-American, CIA conspiracy theory fury are demanding action from their politicians and how better to respond then to issue an arrest warrant, which the authorities know will have no success, and then tell your citizens we tried to arrest these criminals but the big, bad US imperialists won’t give them up to us.

What I find interesting is that these same people so enraged at these US soldiers are not as outraged or don’t demand indictments of terrorists that deliberately target, murder, behead, and video tape civilians and journalists in Iraq. That is why their claims ring hollow and the International Criminal Court rings even hollower.

This whole incident reminds me a lot about SOFA cases here in Korea, most notably the 2002 armored vehicle accident. The public is outraged and in an anti-American fury, fueled by kook conspiracy theories, and the politicians in their best effort to appease their constituents, issue arrest warrants knowing full well the US military will not hand over the soldiers to begin with. The politicians just want to pass the buck and blame everything on the big, bad, bully Americans instead of looking at other causes for the accident which I have long chronicled here such as sidewalks so pedestrians don’t have to walk in the road.

In the Spanish journalist’s case, why was he sticking a large video camera that could be mistaken for an RPG, out the window directly at a tank pointed right at him? Especially when he knew other cameramen pointing cameras had been mistaken for Iraqi soldiers before? Tough questions that nobody wants to answer.

It is also ironic that a country like Spain is demanding the arrest of US “war criminals” when they won’t even face up to their own past war crimes.

This is another one of those only in USFK stories:

Did U.S. Army Maj. Jeffrey L. Brown rape a private first class and then have consensual sex with her friend ?another 19-year-old soldier ?on the same night in September 2003? And did he maintain a six-month sexual relationship with the friend?

Brown pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

This is what MAJ Brown said his intentions were:

He said his client did nothing more than help the women: from offering them a place to sleep when they were too drunk to return to their camp one night to baby sitting one’s dog and ?later ?helping her seek to abort a baby fathered by another man.

Even if his side of the story is true, he is still guilty of stupidity, unprofessional conduct, and fraternizing. Officers especially field grade officers do not have young female soldiers sleep over at their home even if he only has good intentions. It creates a perception of fraternization with enlisted troops that is contrary to good order and discipline. Also if these soldiers were so drunk they couldn’t get back to camp he should of contacted the soldiers’ commander or first sergeant to come pick them up, instead of letting them sleep over at his place. Then to volunteer for dogsitting duty and helping with an abortion later on is even more ridiculous and unprofessional.

Sexual assault cases similar to this usually involving NCO’s and soldiers seem to happen here regularly. This one is a little bit different since it involves a field grade officer, never the less it is still a black eye that USFK has not been able to shed here in Korea. Hopefully justice will be served in this case, but rest assured there are going to be plenty more of them.

Aid sent from South Korea to Iraq was recently seized according to the JoongAng Ilbo:

A total of 14 South Korean vehicles carrying aid shipments for the Iraqi people have been seized by armed Iraqi militants since last month, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday.

However, no South Korean nationals were captured or detained during the seizures, the ministry said, adding that all 14 vehicles belonged to the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA).
“The South Korean vehicles were seized by armed Iraqi militants on two occasions, Sept. 19 and 21, while transporting aid materials from the Jordanian port of Aqaba to Baghdad,” the ministry said.
The KOICA is a foreign ministry-affiliated organization that provides humanitarian assistance and other support to underdeveloped and developing countries.

According to Reuters the stolen aid was mainly computer equipment:

Armed Iraqis stole millions of dollars worth of personal computers and Internet equipment donated by South Korea while it was being transported near Baghdad late last month, a South Korean official said on Tuesday.

The Korea International Cooperation Agency, a government-linked aid agency, supplied the equipment for use in Iraqi universities, the official from the South Korean foreign ministry said.

Here is what bothers me about these news articles. First of all, don’t call these thugs militants or militia they are criminal gangs. At least the articles didn’t call them Iraqi resistance fighters like many other news media articles do. Many of the so called Iraqi resistance are in fact mafia style gangs using the flag of jihad as cover for their criminal activities to make themselves rich.

These gangs need to keep Iraq unstable in order to continue their business enterprise. So these gangs that do heists like this one and kidnapping for profit will also pay “insurgents” on the side to put out road side bombs and take pot shots at soldiers in order to keep the perception of instability. Criminals thrive in an unstable environment that keeps foreign aid coming in to hijack, foreigners to kidnap, and citizens terrified.

Here is the second thing that bothers me. Everyone knows that the highway running between Jordan and Baghdad is a haven for kidnappers and hijackers; why wasn’t the aid convoys protected? Especially after the first convoy was hijacked on 19SEP, why in the world wasn’t the second aid convoy on 21SEP protected? The Korean government and media always make a big deal about how Korea is the third largest troop contributor in Iraq yet they can’t send one platoon of soldiers to defend these aid convoys? This is one of the things soldiers do, they defend convoys. If Korea is not willing to defend their own international aid it may be time to get out of Iraq.

However international aid is not the primary concern of the Korean government; the government is more concerned about preventing soldier casualties than ensuring Iraqi aid is protected and distributed. The Korean government keeps the ROK Army soldiers quarantined on their compound outside of the friendly Kurdish city of Irbil doing nothing more than distributing toilet seats and playing Starcraft in their on post PC Bang.

To be fair the ROK Army is more than capable of conducting convoy security missions. They are also capable of doing much more in Iraq than the current mission they are tasked with. So I by no means blame the ROK Army for the predicament they are in, in Iraq. The lack of political will and leadership by their own government has made the proud ROK military look like a window dressing coalition army, while criminal gangs are stealing Korean aid meant for the Iraqi people. The ROK Army deserves better then this. Iraq deserves better then this.

Spam is a food that has taken on a life of it’s own here in South Korea as is described in this LA Times article:

“Spam really is a luxury item,’’ said Han Geun Rae, 43, an impeccably dressed fashion buyer who was loading gift boxes of Spam into a cart at Shinseyge department store in advance of the recent Chusok holiday.

The mystery of the success of Spam in Korea as described in the article is attributed to the post war years here in Korea:

Not coincidentally, Spam also is popular in Hawaii, the Philippines, Owinaka, Guam and Saipan, all places with a history of U.S. military presence. The “Miracle Meat in a Can,” as it was touted after its launch in 1937, was a staple of the military diet during World War II and later the 1950-1953 Korean War.

It is harder to explain Spam’s popularity today in the world’s 11th-largest economy, where there is no shortage of fresh meat and things associated with the U.S. military are considered low-class.

Low class? How does the LA Times explain all the black marketing of US military commissaries and PX’s? They aren’t black marketing only Spam but lots of other “low class” American products.

Then:

Dongnipmun Gate (Independence Gate) was constructed in 1898 by Dr. So Jae-pil who prior in 1896 founded Korea’s first private newspaper the “The Independence”. Dr. So built the gate on the site of the Yongunmun Gate, which was the gate that emissaries of the Korean government would meet Chinese delegates and offer Korea’s yearly tribute to the Chinese. Dongnimmun Gate was constructed to resemble Paris’ Arch of Triumph. Years later in the vicinity of the “Independence Gate” the Imperial Japanese colonizers of Korea built the Soedaemun Prison to incarcerate Korean independence fighters.

You can see that 80 years ago the Dongnimmun Gate was in the vicinity of huts and open land. The large home in the background is where the Korean dignitaries would meet and entertain the Chinese delegation that came for their yearly tribute..

Now:

Today you can see that the old Dongnimmun Gate is surrounded by freeways and heavy traffic. It also located adjacent to a popular local park that is also home ot the Soedaemun Prison Museum.

Our buddies the French are at it again:

A French-led cultural diversity pact transparently designed to stem U.S. cultural hegemony is likely to be ratified by an overwhelming majority at UNESCO’s 33rd plenary meeting opening this Friday. But in an echo of the Kyoto treaty on climate change, the U.S., which rejoined the UN cultural agency only two years ago, is miffed because it believes the pact would allow countries to erect trade barriers against lucrative American exports like Hollywood blockbusters.

The draft pact draws attention to the “distinctive nature” of cultural goods and services, and gives countries a right “to maintain, adopt, and implement policies and measures that they deem appropriate for the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions on their territory” when they feel that diversity is under threat. It aims to acknowledge each country’s uniqueness in the face of globalization.

Basically what this is saying that a country now has the right to ban American products in their country for “cultural diversity” reasons. In reality this is just a way around fair trade laws to prevent US companies from entering foreign markets. However, if a country tries to block US imports under this law I would expect the US to go to the WTO to fight it.

I look at this way, if you don’t want your people watching Hollywood movies than make better domestic movies. Korea has done this very well. That got a booming domestic film market that is competing strongly with Hollywood films. With the crappy movies coming out of Hollywood now a days, it is not that hard to make a better movie. If your country cannot make a better movie than the Fantastic Four, your country has got bigger problems than a UN “cultural diversity” law will be able to solve.

It is the same thing with Coke. Make your own domestically produced soda. How hard can it be to make soda? Develop your own domestic capabilities instead of blaming the US for destroying “cultural diversity”. If the domestically produced products were better and cheaper people would buy them.