For a change, I’m glad I’m not in the Air Force:
The Air Force unveiled the much-anticipated details of the fiscal 2007 portion of its multiyear ¿force-shaping¿ plan Wednesday, announcing that 8,000 officers, mostly those in midgrades, must be eliminated from the roster by Sept. 29, 2007.
Enlisted personnel are safe from the chopping block, but 1,227 noncommissioned officers will be given a choice: switch career fields or get out of the service.
I’m willing to bet that this is going to work:
Worldcup Arirang Taxi Co. drivers have until Monday to return to work or face being banned as an employee for any current or future contractor with the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, said union and AAFES officials.
Cliff Choy, AAFES Pacific services manager, Saturday told more than 100 protesting drivers the exchange can end working privileges for individuals via a ¿17-I letter¿ citing a worker for unacceptable performance.
I think this article does clear up what the main reason for the strike was and it is not the demand for a $105 pay raise:
The union is at odds with Arirang over a requested $105 monthly raise. On Saturday, some drivers said Arirang also wants to raise the daily quota each driver must make in receipts.
Each driver now must make $87 in fares during a 13-hour shift before splitting fare earnings evenly with the company. Drivers on Saturday said the company wants to raise that to $125.
The company raising the split earnings fare makes sense when the overall taxi fares have risen due to supposedly the increased fuel prices. If the taxi union can at least get the cab company to keep the split earnings fee at $87 they will get a significant pay increase because the company will be bringing in more money from raising the fares.
Anyway it appears this strike is going to end one way or another real soon and good by AAFES for putting their foot down finally on this issue. Since many soldiers in Korea cannot own a car taxis are of extra importance when serving in Korea and it will be to everyones benefit to get the taxi service operating again.
This really isn’t surprising:
Japanese teenagers are more familiar with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il than his South Korean counterpart President Roh Moo-hyun, a survey says. Kengo Ozu, a member of Japan’s History Institute of Teachers, announced the results of his survey on the image of South Korea among middle and high school and college students in Japan at an annual seminar on history textbooks about South Korea and Japan. He asked a total of 236 — 91 third-year middle school students in Chiba Prefecture, 76 first year high school students in Kanagawa Prefecture and 69 students at universities in Tokyo what they know about South Korea.
When asked who the president of South Korea is, four middle school students (4 percent), 12 high school students (16 percent) and 42 college students (61 percent) gave the correct answer. But among middle school students, five answered Kim Jong-il, one more than had the right answer. Asked, ¿Who is the current leader of North Korea?¿ however, 95 percent hit the jackpot. Ozu said this was because the issue of Japanese abduction victims and other negative reports about the North deeply imprinted the image of ¿Kim Jong-il, the tyrant¿ in the minds of Japanese people.
Considering the threat Kim Jong-il poses to Japan and the attention he is given because of it, this really isn’t surprising. I’m willing to bet more American students would know who Kim Jong-il is compared to the President of Mexico. Actually who is the President of Mexico this week? Is there still three of them?
Anyway this is something I found interesting from the survey:
he survey also revealed that respondents believed Korea to be ¿stubborn and graceless¿ in dealing with Japanese territorial claims to the Dokdo islets and felt Japan ¿made a mistake by invading the nation, but I can¿t understand why it educates its children to hate Japan. They also felt nationalist movements in Korea are pretty similar to those of Japan¿s past.
Korea is never going to budge on the Dokdo issue and I really can’t blame Koreans for being “stubborn and graceless” on this issue though there is a difference between “subborn and graceless” and just plain silly like many Koreans and the government appears to be at times with some of their antics over the Dokdo issue. However, it is good to see that many students realize Japan made a mistake invading Korean though I wonder what exactly they think the mistake of invading Korea was?
It looks like the Korean government is backtracking again on the base clean up issue:
Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung said Monday South Korea would not take over three U.S. bases waiting to be transferred unless the bases are cleaned of environmental damage.
Earlier this month, South Korea took over 15 U.S. bases that went through proper environmental restoration. However, the United States also handed over three other bases reportedly with polluted underground water.
“We will thoroughly scrutinize the environmental clean-up progress at the three bases in accordance with the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA),¿¿ Yoon said at a press briefing.
“It¿s true that we¿re now in charge of the security of the three bases, but there have been no official documents exchanged between the two countries over the transfer process,¿¿ he added.
I’m curious if USFK can just sell the land to a Korean business instead of giving the land for free to the government? That would end this controversy real quick.
Well, not really, but we do plan on bombing it!:
UNITED States bombers will pound a test range in the Northern Territory this week, practising the pinpoint strikes they would use on targets such as nuclear weapons sites, missiles or terrorist bases.
The bombers will fly non-stop from their base on Guam and back, and be refuelled in the air by American planes operating out of the RAAF base in Darwin.
Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said it was important for Australia to work more effectively with its major ally to meet new threats, including those from terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
This has triggered speculation that the planes, which can carry nuclear weapons, could be practising for targets in so-called rogue states, such as North Korea or Iran.
Is this a prelude to where Osan AFB planes will one day be conducting bombing practice at, instead of Korea?
The ruling Uri Party in Korea never misses a chance to blame the Japanese and Americans for whatever the topic of the day is in order to distract attention away from their own incompetence as a ruling government. Well now that attention is focusing once again on the Americans after USFK handed over 15 vacated camps back to the Korean government:
The governing Uri Party plans to conduct an Assembly investigation into negotiations between Seoul and Washington over the sharing of environmental cleanup costs for U.S. bases to be returned to South Korea, party officials said Friday.
The decision came as South Korea last week accepted 15 U.S. military facilities where the U.S. military had pulled out underground fuel storage tanks and removed groundwater fuel contamination after 18 months of disagreements about the base return process.
Under the land swap pact struck in 2004, the United States Forces Korea is required to hand over 59 bases to the South Korean government.
But some lawmakers and civic groups denounced the agreement by which South Korea has to cover most of the costs for decontaminating soil estimated at $420 billion.
Let me get this right. These guys are going to investigate the decision they made as the ruling government to take back the land from USFK just last week? Is there any doubt what these guys will “uncover” in their investigation? They are sure to “find” that the US has bullied Korea once again in order to drum up anti-Americanism and Korean nationalism in order to bolster their own abhorent polling numbers. It makes me wonder if they already had the “investigation” completed before the even decided to agree to the hand over last week.
The big question in all of this is if the Korean public is listening to the bozos in the ruling party anymore. If the polling numbers are any indication they are not.
