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President Roh recently had some work done on his eyes according to the Korea Times.

President Roh Moo-hyun underwent surgery in which small parts of both of his upper eyelids were removed to give him better vision, Chong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Jong-min said Sunday.
Roh had been suffering from sagging eyelids, which often obstructed his sight, the spokesman said.

After the surgery, Roh acquired double-edged eyelids, the spokesman added.

According to CNN Kim Jong Il is currently trying to rally his people to support him as he ups his rhetoric in the latest nuclear crisis.

North Korea urged its impoverished people Satuday to rally around Stalinist leader Kim Jong Il, after Washington rejected Pyongyang’s demand that the sides hold direct one-on-one talks to curb nuclear tension.

“At a time like today, when the situation gets tense, no task is more important than to strengthen our single-minded unity,” the editorial said. Minju Joson, another state-run daily, said that “devotedly protecting the leader is our life and soul.”

If Pyongyang doesn’t get the bilateral negotiations that it wants from the US they will probably try to up the confrontration some more. The most obvious place to start a confrontation is by shooting at soldiers on the DMZ or getting in a naval confrontation in the Yellow Sea. It appears a naval confrontation may be the route they are going to try with this rhetoric:

At the same time, North Korea repeated warnings of military clashes on its loosely defined and tense western sea border with South Korea. It accused the South of infiltrating a warship into communist waters on Saturday following “a grave situation created due to the U.S. imperialist warhawks’ invariable hostile policy toward the (North).”

In a news released carried by KCNA, North Korea’s navy command said “such dangerous military provocations may entail a very serious disaster.” The accusations, repeated several times in recent weeks and denied by the South, coincided with the worsening nuclear standoff. The two Koreas fought bloody naval skirmishes in western waters in 1999 and 2002.

I just hope the Norks don’t get so desperate where they try something really provacative like a nuclear test or a missile test fire in the future. Hopefully the diplomats from not only the US but the region can work out a compromise before something like this happens. In the end I expect some agreement to be worked out.

The Norks are pushing the current crisis to put themselves in front of the line of international issues that have been led the last two years by the Iraq War. The North Korean issue has been ignored by just about everyone because of Iraq. The Norks now appear impatient waiting for the international aid they so desire in exchange for suspending their nuclear program. So they are doing whatever it takes to get the world to notice them again.

The way the international news has been reporting the current nuclear crisis over and over again I would say they have succeeded in the short term, but the story probably won’t have much legs in the long term unless Pyongyang tries something else to keep them in the international spotlight. So expect more rhetoric and possibly incidents until an agreement gets worked out.

It seems like everyone has got something to say about the current nuclear crisis here in Korea. The latest is the New York Times Op-ed from Nicholas Kristof.

North Korea is particularly awkward for Mr. Bush to discuss publicly because, as best we know, it didn’t make a single nuclear weapon during Bill Clinton’s eight years in office (although it did begin a separate, and secret, track to produce uranium weapons; it hasn’t produced any yet but may eventually). In contrast, the administration now acknowledges that North Korea extracted enough plutonium in the last two years for about half a dozen nuclear weapons.

In fairness, Mr. Bush is paralyzed only because the alternatives are dreadful. A military strike on North Korea’s nuclear sites might have been an option in the early 1990’s, but today we don’t know where the plutonium and the uranium are kept, so a military strike might accomplish little – but trigger a new Korean war. To fill the time, Mr. Bush has pursued six-party talks involving North Korea, but they have gotten nowhere.

Basically what I am getting from this is that Clinton appeasement is good and Bush hard line is bad. So what is Kristof’s idea to solve the nuclear crisis? Well here it is:

So what would work?

At least China and South Korea have a strategy to transform North Korea: encourage capitalism, markets and foreign investment. Chinese traders, cellphones and radios are already widespread in the border areas, and they are doing more to weaken the Dear Leader than anything Mr. Bush is doing.

Is he suggesting Bush fly to Pyongyang ala Richard Nixon’s 1973 visit to China? Some how I don’t see that happening. As far as engagement this is exactly what the North Korean Human Rights Act is promoting.

As far as South Korea and China wanting to weaken Kim Jong Il, that is ridiculous. China does not want North Korea to collapse due to the masses of refugees that would follow. So they need to keep Kim in power, they just don’t want Kim to develop nukes because they fear Japan doing the same in response. As far as North Korean human rights abusive and aggressive rhetoric, the Chinese could care less.

South Korea does not want Kim’s regime to collapse either because Seoul does not want to pick up the bill of rebuilding the entire country after reunification. Plus the current prospects of cheap labor from the North is appealing to South Korean companies. So obviously both countries just want to keep the status quo with North Korea but would prefer one without nukes.

I also love all the pundits and politicians such as Bill Richardson on TV saying President Bush should negotiate with Kim Jong Il bi-laterally. I just keep thinking that arent’ these the same people that were criticizing President Bush for has uni-lateral (though it wasn’t unilateral) approach in dealing with Iraq? With all the US media coverage you would think the people of Seoul are heading for the fallout bunkers. I am happy to report that I still see people in the streets shopping, driving cars, and going to parks.

Becareful what you blog about because employers are increasingly taking action and firing employees who complain about their jobs on their weblogs.

There are 8 million personal Web logs — or blogs — in the United States, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. People write blogs to talk about their day, family outings, dates gone awry and, of course, work. But what might feel like a very personal entry about a dismal workday can mean something quite different to a boss who needs only a search engine to read it.

And that is happening enough that there is even a word for it — getting “dooced.” Blogger Heather B. Armstrong coined the phrase in 2002, after she was fired from her Web design job for writing about work and colleagues on her blog, Dooce.com.

This story from the Stars and Stripes reminds me of the American KATUSA post I blogged a couple of weeks ago. The difference is that this US soldier actually served in the ROK Army before joining the US army.

I was wondering about the U.S. Army and the military system. When I was 34 years old, it was my last chance to join the Army,” he said.

“The ROK army is a duty. Most people in the ROK army are doing compulsory military service. For the U.S. Army, it is a job and there is a long history. In the ROK army there was no freedom and we worked until we slept. Here we have a lot of freedom after work,” he said.

Interesting reading the differences about the ROK Army compared to the US Army.

If you are surprised that this guy joined the Army at 34 you really shouldn’t be. I have seen many people join the Army in their 30’s especially since 9/11. I actually knew an NCO who was in the Air Force for 8 years got out and after 9/11 he enlisted again but this time in the Army with his 18 year old son to fight the war on terror. However, they would have to wait to fight terrorism because the dad got sent to Korea the son to Europe. However, as fate would have it, they both ended up getting deployed and are both currently serving in Iraq.

The North Koreans are demanding that the US conduct bi-lateral negotiations to end the nuclear crisis.

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea has demanded bilateral talks with the United States to defuse the tension created by its announcement that it is a nuclear power, the communist state’s U.N. envoy said in a South Korean newspaper interview published Friday.

“We will return to the six-nation talks when we see a reason to do so and the conditions are ripe,” Han told Seoul’s Hankyoreh newspaper in a Thursday interview in New York. “If the United States moves to have direct dialogue with us, we can take that as a signal that the United States is changing its hostile policy toward us.”

I really think the only time President Bush will conduct bi-lateral negotiations with Kim Jong Il is when he is bombing them. Where is the UN in all of this? They were quick to run to Iraq and stick their nose into everything. Where are they now?

Japan is using a clever sanctions plan to pressure North Korea to end their nuclear weapons campaign.

Faced with North Korea’s declaration that it has nuclear weapons, Japan’s Prime Minister performed a deft political kabuki today, urging his bellicose neighbor to join disarmament talks, while letting the clock run on a new law that will bar most North Korean ships from Japanese ports starting March 1.

“I understand calls for imposing sanctions are growing

The New York Times wrote a nice article on the current Japanese – North Korean relationship. It is good to see someone getting serious with North Korea, finally.

An amended Liability for Oil Pollution Damage law requires that all ships over 100 tons calling at Japanese ports carry property and indemnity insurance. A seemingly bland piece of legislation, this law was drafted with North Korea in mind. In 2003, only 2.5 percent of North Korean ships visiting Japan had insurance.

“It will hurt, it will pinch, it will be felt by North Koreans who are significant,” said Chuck Downs, an American expert on Korea who wrote “Over the Line: North Korea’s Negotiating Strategy.”

Yes, hit them in the pocket book. This should eventually have the effect of restarting the negotiations. It may cause in the short term some more saber rattling and threats of war but the Norks know they cannot win a war. They want to stay in power and need international aid to do it. They will eventually have to negotiate.

President Roh Moo-hyun’s approval rating is on the rebound according to the Korea Times.

President Roh Moo-hyun’s approval rating has improved over recent months rise, reaching 39.2 percent early this month.

Thanks to the apparent turnaround in policy, Roh’s approval rating rose to 35.6 percent, according to another R&R poll released last month.

If 39.2% approval rating a normal approval rating for a sitting President here in Korea? It seems really low especially when he was sitting at 27.6% in November.

As much as people villianize President Bush with anti-Bush movies, books, songs, forgerized memo’s, etc, etc, he has always maintained at least around a 50% approval rating. I wonder if President Roh’s opposition made anti-Roh books, songs, movies, etc about him, how low his popularity would go?

North Korea has finally admitted to possessing nuclear weapons.

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea on Thursday announced for the first time that it has nuclear weapons and rejected moves to restart disarmament talks any time soon, saying it needs the armaments as protection against an increasingly hostile United States.

“We … have manufactured nukes for self-defense to cope with the Bush administration’s ever more undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the (North),” the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

It appears the Norks are just positioning themselves for better bargaining position to get more free stuff from the international community before beginning the 6 party talks again. Sounds like they are getting more and more desperate. If they do a nuclear test then we know they are really getting desperate for aid. We should know more in the coming days. Stay tuned.

Korea played a great game last night in beating Kuwait 2-0 at Seoul World Cup Stadium. Currently Korea is in really good shape to qualify for the 2006 World Cup with the win.