South Korea the world’s 4th largest oil importer has now layed claim to a large oil reserve in Canada: South Korea intends on buying an oil sands mine in Cold Lake with a capacity of 250 million barrels. The commerce ministry announced on July 2 that the purchase would be made official later this month, as part of its effort to secure South Korea¿s oil needs. The purchase price is being kept confidential. State-run Korea National Oil Corporation (KNOC) is expected to begin construction of a production facility in Cold Lake, with initial production in 2008, and full-scale operations to commence two years later. The size of the deposits of the mine will allow for between 30,000 and 35,000 barrels of oil to be extracted per day for the next 20 years. Oil sands, also referred to as tar or bituminous sands, are deposits of bitmen trapped in a mixture of clay, sand and water. In essence, they are sand or sandstone containing at least 10 per cent petroleum. South Korea, the world’s fourth-largest crude oil importer, has to import all its crude oil needs to feed its economy, Asia’s fourth largest. The country currently produces 115,000 barrels of oil daily from local and overseas oilfields. The commerce ministry said in an official statement that once production begins, it could noticeably raise the country’s oil output self-sufficiency level by around 1.2 percent. Seoul wants to raise the self-sufficiency level from around 4 per cent at present to 18 per cent in 2013.
I don’t like seeing protests turn violent but these people had it coming:
A van containing several protesters drove toward the entrance of Daechu-ri, a village near Camp Humphreys, to check reports that a large group of pro-U.S. South Korean demonstrators was formed to block any anti-U.S. rally in the village, the Korean news agency reported.
Task force members, according to Yonhap, say that around 9 p.m. the van was met by 200 members of the Anjung-ri Merchants Association who allegedly blocked its path, pulled the occupants from the van and began beating them.
The task force was quoted as saying three members of its group were attacked, and that one man remained hospitalized for treatment of cuts and fractures, including a head injury.
Kim Ki-ho, president of the Anjung-ri Merchants Association, said Monday that at least two association members were injured in Saturday¿s clash with the protesters and were hospitalized.
This type of thing has actually happened before in the past in Dongducheon where the locals there have no love for the anti-US protesters. Protests outside of a US camp mean soldiers get locked down on post which hurts the merchants’ bottom line that day. Hitting Koreans in the pocketbook is definitely one way to get them motivated to come out against the anti-US protesters.
Check out Nomad for more on the Rumble at the Hump.
The Roh Administration fresh off of bashing Japan for condemning the North Korean missile launches, has now come out and denounced any sanctions against North Korea:
Seoul will not support a UN resolution co-sponsored by seven Security Council members including Japan, the U.S. and France to impose sanctions on North Korea for test-firing seven missiles last week. A government official on Monday hinted as much, saying it was ¿not desirable¿ for South Korea as a non-member of the Security Council to express its position on a particular UN resolution.
Vice Foreign Minister Lee Kyu-hyung on the same day called in Japanese Ambassador to Korea Shotaro Oshima to inform him the government does not support the resolution. ¿We can¿t be in the same boat with Japan all the way,¿ Foreign Ministry spokesman Choo Kyu-ho told international news agencies.
Seoul¿s lack of support makes it unlikely that South Korea, the U.S. and Japan will cooperate to resolve the missile issue.
Sanctions on North Korea would be the final blow to the failed “Sunshine Policy” because it would forbid the economic activities (bribes) going on between South and North Korea, most notably the Kaeseong industrial project and the Kumgang Mountain Tours. Advancing the Sunshine Policy has been the Roh administration centerpiece governmental policy program. I failure of this program would be seen as a failure of the Presidency. The Roh administration is in full scale damage control to protect what ever little bit of legacy they which to leave South Korea. I can only hope for the sake of the people in North Korea that the sanctions pass and the Sunshiners are voted out of office next year in South Korea. The beginning of change in South Korea will also mean the beginning of change in North Korea.
Well it seemed like a good idea at the time?:
It is premature for South Korea to take back operational control of its armed forces during wartime from the United States in six years, given its lack of intelligence capabilities shown in North Korea’s recent test firing of missiles, a lawmaker said yesterday.
“It is total nonsense to exercise independent wartime command in five or six years without the U.S. military’s intelligence and surveillance backup,” Rep. Song Young-sun of the main opposition Grand National Party said in a telephone interview with The Korea Times.
“Building up capabilities for gathering intelligence, monitoring enemies and intercepting incoming missiles accurately is a prerequisite to South Korea’s independent exercise of wartime command,” said Song, a member of the National Assembly National Defense Committee.
Seoul and Washington are engaging in talks over the transfer of wartime command. Many military sources expect the timing of wartime command transfer could take place by 2012 after the South’s military upgrades its surveillance and weapons systems. South Korea took back the authority to control its military during peacetime in 1994, but wartime control has remained in the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC), led by a four-star U.S. general, since the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
If you want it, you are going to have to pay for it, is basically what it is coming down to for South Korea. It was easy for the Korean politicians to demagogue the wartime command issue, but now that Washington has called their bluff and let the South Koreans have it, it is becoming increasingly expensive for South Korea to buy the needed systems to ensure South Korean security that the US military has been providing for them for years.
The World Cup is finally over and Italy beat France in a penalty kick shootout to win the championship. Is there a worse way to end a game than by penalty kicks? Watching these penalty kick shootouts it all appears to be mostly luck who scores because the goal keeper has to guess which side of the net to dive to. Then what happened to Zidane? The Italian player definitely put on his best flopping performance after the head to chest butt, however he should have known the Italians were baiting him to do something with all the grabbing and holding they were doing to him. That is a boneheaded way for a soccer legend to go out. Watching this game I really can’t say the best team won because it appeared France was the better team and Italy held on to penalty kicks. There has to be a better way of ending these games.
Overall, though this World Cup is a perfect example of why I think soccer will remain a second tier sport in America. The team with some of the best floppers won. The honors for the best floppers goes to Portugal, which got them all the way to the semi-finals, but Italy isn’t far behind in the quality of their flopping. For Italy to just tie the US team they had to rely on the US playing half the game a player short due to crappy officiating and a goal taken away from the US not to mention the stupendous flopping of the Italians the entire game. The Italians used the same formula to beat the Australian team as well when with 5 seconds left a flop near the net resulted in a penalty kick for them. After games like these, countries like the US and Australia that are soccer outsiders are left feeling that since they are not well known soccer countries they have no chance of beating the big names due to flopping and poor officiating. Flopping and poor officiating are enough to turn off new viewers to soccer and that is why I think the game will remain a second tier sport in America.
From the Joong Ang Ilbo:
A bus plunged off a bridge in Chilgok, North Gyeongsang province, yesterday afternoon, falling 10 meters into the stream below. The bus driver was killed and eight passengers were injured.
Oh My News has an interesting article about Korean-American CNN news reporter Kyung Lah. She had a lot of interesting things to say about growing up in America and the Korean-American community in general in America:
Americans see Koreans in a myopic manner because Koreans tend to sequester themselves within American society. I have felt frustration to some degree myself with how much Koreans see church as the center of their lives, but do not have a tradition of reaching out to the larger community. My family, and the Koreans they knew, did not do any outreach to the community. The most basic problem is that they did not know how to reach out. That gap created a problem with the community that they so wanted to serve.
Some Korean immigrants felt unease as people new to the country. Korean-Americans in the future have to make an effort to reach out.
At the same time, there is a problem in the U.S. of the next generation of Koreans not identifying with Korea themselves, not feeling any connection with that country. Sometimes we even see resentment on the part of younger Koreans that they had to play the role of translator and mediator with America for their parents.
I tend to think that the Asian community in general doesn’t flex their collective muscles enough in politics and main stream American society in general compared to other minority groups in America. Just like Ms. Lah’s parents the Asian community may be more focused on working hard and trying to educate their children then worrying about politics and other areas of American society:
I am ethnically Korean. I was born in Korea, in Seoul, and immigrated here at the age of seven with my family. My parents were the typical Korean immigrants who opened up a liquor store in Chicago. They embraced the American dream, raised their kids, and made sure to send them off to good universities. My experience followed the standard pattern for Korean-Americans. Much of my family life revolved around the church, and that is where I had my first experiences with the community. On Saturdays I was at church for Korean study school and at service on Sundays. My experience was pretty representative.
Some may remember the Daniel Hong controversy from last summer where he speculated that Asian reporters were not hired due to racist reasons along with a host of other complaints against whites in America which I proved false by providing example of both female and male Asian reporters in America. So I find it interesting that more and more Asian reporters are appearing on televisions every day, not to mention the success of Korean actors such as Daniel Dae Kim and Yu-jin Kim.
Maybe this is all a sign of not only the “Korean Wave” hitting America, but an “Asian Wave” in general.
The youths at Hongdae may have “holy water“, but it looks like the more adventurous partyers might want to try out the “cadaver water” up in Ilsan:
A 55-year-old married woman identified by her last name Lee, who was concerned by her deteriorating health, traveled to a temple in the city of Goyang, Gyeonggi province after hearing that there was a “miraculous” Buddhist priestess there. Upon meeting the priestess told Lee, “This is a medicine that I have made, if you drink it your ailments will all be made better,” and passed her a paper cup. The woman forked over W500,000 (US$1=W961) and drank the elixir. Afterwards Lee contracted food poisoning as well as a skin disease which sent her to the hospital. Later she learned that the “special potion” was in fact the water that had stagnated under a dead body.
