Can anyone indentify where this area in Korea is located?
The NY Times has a good article about everyone’s favorite Korean rioters. I like the Hong Kong government’s response to the demands from the Korean government, movie stars, and others for the immediate release of the criminal rioters:
The South Korean government has appealed to the Hong Kong government repeatedly to release the protesters, all of them men. But the Hong Kong authorities have refused, pointing out that the protest here on the night of Dec. 17 left 137 people injured, including 67 police officers.
“Hong Kong is a place where the rule of law is strongly upheld,” said Wong Yan-lung, Hong Kong’s secretary for justice, after meeting here on Monday with three opposition lawmakers from South Korea who complained about the prosecution. “This case is being processed in accordance with the laws of Hong Kong and our established and announced prosecution policy.”
Note the first key phrase: “Hong Kong is a place where the rule of law is strongly upheld”. Just because Korea won’t enforce their own laws to jail these people doesn’t mean Hong Kong should not have to as well. The other key phrase is: “This case is being processed in accordance with the laws of Hong Kong”. I find it ironic that a country that constantly complains about the US-Korea SOFA Agreement to punish American soldiers arrested for crimes in Korea would in turn demand that another sovereign country should not uphold their laws for Koreans committing crimes in that country.
Here is something else the Koreans can learn from Hong Kong:
Police officers have long maintained high social standing here, with excellent benefits – especially education benefits for their children – allowing thousands of working-class men and women and their children to move up the social ladder. Donald Tsang, Hong Kong’s chief executive, is the son of a police sergeant.
Korean government take note this is how policemen should be looked upon by the country, not punching bags for idiot rioters.
Don’t give in Hong Kong. Jail these people and they won’t ever come back.
Marmot as well has a great posting on the Hong Kong 11 that is also required reading.
What’s the point of an alliance if you are not allowed to train together?:
“Since the end of last year, some in the government have been adamant that the RSOI and Foal Eagle drills must be postponed and have talked to the USFK about the issue,†a government source said Monday. “They judged that North Korea was likely to be sensitive to the joint drills to the point where that would impede progress in dialogue between the two Koreas.â€
But the sources say USFK leaders would not accept political considerations as a valid motive for delaying the long-scheduled drills, and since many in the Korean military also felt the suggestion was unreasonable, the government last Friday decided to abandon the plan and go ahead as if it never existed. It could not be confirmed on Monday whether the initiative came from the National Security Council or the Unification Ministry, both of which tend to be considerate of North Korean sensitivities.
At least the USFK leaders are willing to blow off any ideas from the Unification Ministry. Can you imagine the uproar if UFL was cancelled? At least USFK is looking out for all those Field Grade Officers that come to Korea from the states banking all that TDY money and going on Itaewon shopping sprees.
It looks like North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il has made a rare international trip to China:
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has traveled to China on a rare trip outside his country, a South Korean military intelligence official said Tuesday.
The official told The Associated Press he received the information from intelligence inside China. The official spoke on condition his name not be used because of the sensitivity of the information.
“We confirmed he went to China,” the official said. “We don’t know why.”
China’s foreign ministry said it could not confirm the report and had no immediate comment.
He probably went to China to complain about be called names by Condoleeza Rice and President Bush putting sanctions on Chinese Banks that were found passing US money counterfeited in North Korea.
Some of you may remember the last time he went to China what happened. He almost got assassinated by a huge explosion that leveled a large portion of the city Ryongchon. If only we could be so lucky that it succeeds next time.
The plug has finally been pulled on the KEDO Project in North Korea:
The United States and South Korea have withdrawn their last personnel from the site of two partly-built North Korean light-water reactors after a US-North Korean nuclear deal was officially scrapped.
A 57-strong final contingent, including a US citizen and 56 South Korean engineers and workers, returned by ship to South Korea’s east coast from North Korea on Sunday afternoon, the unification ministry said on Sunday.
The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation (KEDO) officially terminated the project two months ago amid a fresh nuclear standoff.
The two light-water reactors were promised, along with replacement fuel supplies, under a 1994 US-brokered deal to end a crisis over North Korea’s nuclear weapons efforts.
What have these 57 engineers been doing there the last few years?
A Korean lobbyist was recently arrested in Houston on charges related to the UN Oil for Food Program Scandal:
Michael J. Garcia, the United States attorney in Manhattan, announced that Mr. Park was arrested in Houston by F.B.I. agents, but provided no information about how he was found. Mr. Park’s whereabouts had been unknown since he was first indicted on April 14, 2005, for his role in the program.
According to new charges unsealed yesterday, Mr. Park began working with an Iraqi-American businessman, Samir Vincent, as early as 1992 to represent the interests of Saddam Hussein’s government in negotiations at the United Nations to set up the program. Mr. Park and Mr. Vincent met twice in 1993 with a high-ranking United Nations official, the criminal complaint says.
Federal prosecutors charged that Mr. Park had a direct role in influencing the course of the negotiations that created the oil-for-food program in April 1995. The program was set up to alleviate the effects of international sanctions against Iraq by using proceeds from sales of Iraqi oil to buy food, medicine and other supplies for the Iraqi people.
The complaint says that Mr. Park never registered in Washington as a foreign agent. He is charged with acting as an unregistered agent, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. He will appear Monday before a federal magistrate in Houston, Mr. Garcia’s office said.
The complaint says that Mr. Park was paid at least $2 million, most of it in cash, by the Iraqi government. Much of the cash was delivered to Mr. Park in New York in Iraqi diplomatic pouches, the complaint says.
All of these people that secretly took money from Saddam at the expense of food and medicine for the Iraqi people are truly scumbags. It is a shame that this is not a bigger story and more heads are not rolling. What I find most interesting about this, is how did a Korean receive a direct role in creating the Oil for Food Program?
CNN has an interesting article about the culture within Korean universities in regards to their teachers and laboratory professors. What I found most interesting about this article was the amount of corruption within the universities in regards to tenure:
Cutthroat competition for a professorship sometimes involves large sums of money changing hands.
In the first eight months of last year, prosecutors penalized 61 professors and administrators, mostly for receiving bribes in exchange for granting tenure. In 2004, prosecutors punished 23 professors and officials on similar charges as well as misappropriation of funds.
In one case last year, a university chancellor received $4 million from 42 candidates in exchange for appointing them as professors, prosecutors said.
Pretty amazing, $4 million dollars. Makes you wonder how many other people have also been taking bribes and getting away with it.
Just goes to show the good old Kim Jong Il will do anything to make a buck:
Stalinist North Korea is demanding billions of dollars in compensation for alleged atrocities against its prisoners of war and spies formerly held in South Korea, a demand which has sparked outrage among politicians in Seoul.
There was no official response from the government to the unprecedented demand. But the main opposition party Sunday highlighted the North’s own rights record, which often comes in for strong international criticism.
The formal damages complaint was filed to the South’s human rights commission through a border office Friday, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said.
This demand was so outrageous the (anti)-Unification Ministry actually condemned the comments:
A senior unification ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity that “the North Korean complaint is not worth being given any serious consideration.”
This still goes to show what cowards the Unification Ministry is when someone has to condemn this outrageous demand anonymously, but at least they did condemn it.
Undoubtedly the former prisoners were tortured at some point in South Korean prisons, but if North Korea wants compensation than how about first releasing the thousands of South Korean prisoners currently in wallowing in North Korean gulags. Outrageous, but I am curious to see how President Roh responds to this.
Congressman Jack Murtha as many of you know has been a vocal anti-war critic of the Bush Administration. I didn’t mind Murtha speaking his mind which he has a right to do about the war, but now he has gone the way of Cindy Sheehan and lost any legitimacy he had with me by attacking the military itself. For those who haven’t already heard about Congressman Murtha’s comments against army recruiting here they are via Greyhawk:
“Would you join (the military) today?,” he was asked in an interview taped on Friday.
“No,” replied Murtha of Pennsylvania, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees defense spending and one of his party’s leading spokesmen on military issues.
“And I think you’re saying the average guy out there who’s considering recruitment is justified in saying ‘I don’t want to serve’,” the interviewer continued.
“Exactly right,” said Murtha.
Maybe Congressman Murtha is discouraged by the fact that the military has made all it’s recruiting goals for the last 6 months and needs to speak out against military recruiting. This however has drawn the ire of Marine and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace:
A large segment of the clip had to do with opinion about the war, and that’s not my lane. This country’s strength is based on the ability of its citizens and its leadership to have divergent views.
There were two parts in what I saw that went directly to my lane in the road, which is the health of the U.S. military. One was a statement that the U.S. Army is not well trained. The United States Army is well-trained. It is the best trained army in the world. It has never been better-trained, and we will continue to make sure that it stays well- trained.
The second was a quote that you just mentioned. That’s damaging to recruiting, it’s damaging to morale of the troops who are deployed, and it’s damaging to the morale of their families who believe in what they’re doing to serve this country. We have almost 300 million Americans who are being protected by 2.4 (million) volunteer active, Guard and Reserve members. We must recruit to that force. When a respected leader like Mr. Murtha, who has spent 37 extremely honorable years as a Marine, fought in two wars, has served the country extremely well in the Congress of the United States, when a respected individual like that says what he said, and 18- and 19-year-olds look to their leadership to determine how they are expected to act, they can get the wrong message.
I could care less when Congressman Murtha criticizes President Bush or the reasons for going to war. That is in his lane to do so as a Congressman. However, I do get offended when he attacks the US military itself. Trying to discourage people from enlisting in the military only makes things more difficult for the soldiers who are already in. Less recruits does not effect operations in Iraq. It effects other parts of the world where the US military has obligations. The Army will always fully man units in Iraq which means they will take soldiers from lets say Korea to do this, leaving the soldiers who are in Korea to do more with less.
Plus Murtha’s attacks on the military about poor training, lack of armor, Abu Graib, etc. is old news. His complaints are no longer relevant today. General Tommy Franks always liked to say that the enemy has a vote in war and the insurgents and terrorists got their vote in Iraq and the US Army reacted and now troops are armored and better trained in guerrilla warfare to deal with the threat.
Murtha’s comments drew the ire of one Army sergeant that confronted him and fellow war critic Congressman Moran at a recent town hall meeting in Washington broadcasted on this CSPAN video:
“Yes sir my name is Mark Seavey and I just want to thank you for coming up here. Until about a month ago I was Sgt Mark Seavey infantry squad leader, I returned from Afghanistan. My question to you, (applause) “Like yourself I dropped out of college two years ago to volunteer to go to Afghanistan, and I went and I came back. If I didn’t have a herniated disk now I would volunteer to go to Iraq in a second with my troops, three of which have already volunteered to go to Iraq. I keep hearing you say how you talk to the troops and the troops are demoralized, and I really resent that characterization. (applause) The morale of the troops that I talk to is phenomenal, which is why my troops are volunteering to go back, despite the hardships they had to endure in Afghanistan.
“And Congressman Moran, 200 of your constituents just returned from Afghanistan. We never got a letter from you; we never got a visit from you. You didn’t come to our homecoming. The only thing we got from any of our elected officials was one letter from the governor of this state thanking us for our service in Iraq, when we were in Afghanistan. That’s reprehensible. I don’t know who you two are talking to but the morale of the troops is very high.”
Moran – who is one of the few congressmen supporting Charlie Rangel’s call to restore the draft – responded quickly: “That wasn’t in the form of a question, it was in the form of a statement. But, uhh… let’s go over here.” And he took the next question.
These congressmen completely avoided this war veteran’s claims which even further destroys any legitimacy these critics have.
When is the anti-war left going to learn that attacking the military will not get you anywhere. The vast majority of the American public respects the military. The far left kooks thought they had the spokesman to push their agendas with due to Murtha’s former Marine Corps background. If he would have stuck to strategy and policy in Iraq I think people including myself would take his views more seriously. However, when he attacks the military it shows that his strategy is driven more by his hatred of President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld than any concern for the soldiers.
Mudville has got more on this, Skippy-san shares his viewpoints, along with Commander Salamander.
For those of you that get stressed out trying to find gifts for your significant other for Valentines Day, take a look at what Korean couples have to go through:
Thanks to shrewd marketing in a society focused on commerce as well as love and matrimony, there is a special day on the 14th of each month for lovers to celebrate as well as a few other goodies along the way.
For example, January 14 is Diary Day in South Korea when sweethearts are encouraged to buy gifts such as planners and mark all their red-letter days of love.
Next on the calendar is February 14 and Valentine’s Day, where South Korean women buy chocolates for their boyfriends.
Army trucks are regularly deployed to deliver chocolates from women whose boyfriends are in uniform as part of South Korea’s mandatory military service.
March 14 is White Day. This celebration was born in Japan, imported to South Korea and is marked by South Korean men returning the favor of their Valentine’s chocolates with candies for their girlfriends.
April 14 is Black Day and is purely Korean. This is a day where those who have not found love mark their status as lonely hearts by eating black food.
The dish for the day is Chinese noodles topped with a thick black sauce. Single students at universities order scores of bowls and eat them together in the hope of finding a soul mate over noodles.
May 15 is Yellow Day-Rose Day. Lonely hearts gather for curry and companionship. Those who find love by this day exchange roses. Dressing in yellow is also recommended.
Check out the link for more because every month features a love holiday not to mention important anniversaries for Korean couples. It is a good thing they made January 14th Diary Day because you will need a journal to remember all these dates for the rest of the year.
