Representative Royce is pretty much just stating reality and hopefully one day the Japanese will accept this reality:

The chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee said “Dokdo” is the right name to refer to South Korea’s easternmost islets, rejecting Japan’s long-running claims that the East Sea islets are its own.

“It’s another one of those issues where we have to understand history and what abuses occurred because it is relevant to our understanding today,” Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency earlier this week. “The proper name is Dokdo island.”

Japan’s claims to Dokdo have long been a key thorn in relations between Seoul and Tokyo, along with other issues stemming from Tokyo’s 1910-45 colonial rule, such as Japan’s enslavement of Korean women as sex slaves for its troops.

South Korea has rejected Japan’s claims over Dokdo as nonsense because the country regained independence from colonial rule and reclaimed sovereignty over its territory, including Dokdo and many other islands around the Korean Peninsula.

Seoul has been keeping a small police detachment on Dokdo since 1954.

It is considered unusual for the U.S. House Foreign Affairs committee chief to openly reject Japan’s claims to the islets. The U.S. government has not taken any side on the issue, leaving the matter to Seoul and Tokyo to sort out.

Royce, who has been reelected the committee’s chairman for the incoming Congress, is considered one of the “pro-Korean” U.S. lawmakers. He has led a series of legislation and resolutions on issues related to South and North Korea.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but Representative Royce has also been pushing the Japanese to accept the human rights abuses that happened in regards to the comfort women as well.

North Korea calls Sony Pictures hack 'a righteous deed' but denies involvement http://t.co/N8FS2UcR2V #KoreaNews

— Korea News Summary (@ROKreport) December 7, 2014

South Korean girl group Girl’s Day poses during the 2014 Mnet Asian Music Awards in Hong Kong on Dec. 3, 2014. (Photo Courtesy of CJ E&M) (Yonhap)

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

Maybe this is just a translation error, but does anyone know how does the ROK Army have 18-year old Staff Sergeants?

A South Korean Army sergeant was arrested Thursday on charges of repeated sexual assaults of an 18-year-old solider, local media reported.

The 26-year-old sergeant first class, identified only as Kim, is accused of having raped his junior colleague, a staff sergeant who is also male, several times since March this year.  [Korea Observer]

You can read more at the link.

Japan launches the #Hayabusa2 asteroid explorer to retrieve materials from remote asteroid. pic.twitter.com/qGewdgNyzP

— CCTVNEWS (@cctvnews) December 3, 2014

I wonder if the local government will send in thugs to chase people out of this shantytown like they have done in the past in other neighborhoods in Seoul to get them redeveloped?:

The Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) and Gangnam District Office have agreed to resume a long-stalled project to develop a shanty town in the most affluent district in Seoul, officials said Friday.

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon and Shin Yeon-hee, head of the district office, will hold a joint press conference next week to announce details of the agreement, an SMG official said.

The SMG and the district office have long been at odds over how to develop Guryong Village, considered the last remaining urban slum in Seoul, and how to compensate the residents.

“The SMG has decided to accept the district office’s demands regarding how to develop the area,” the SMG official said.

The SMG’s change of stance was prompted by a fire in the village on Nov. 10 that left one person dead and destroyed the homes of 136 people. It was the eleventh fire in the village since 2009.

“We understood the urgency for the government to take swift action, since political gridlock means nothing when people die and lose their homes,” the official said.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

This photo released by Rodong Sinmun on Dec. 5, 2014, shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visiting the North Korean military’s Unit 1313 to inspect its winter training. (Yonhap)

Has anyone read this guy’s books and if so is it worth reading?  The Koreans apparently think so:

Political philosopher Michael Sandel is something of a rock star in South Korea, where he has spoken before 15,000 people in a packed amphitheater and thrown out the first pitch at a professional baseball game.

Now, the Harvard University professor can add honorary citizen of Seoul to his list of credentials.

On Friday, Mayor Park Won-soon made it official at a ceremony in which Mr. Sandel spoke before 500 municipal workers on the topic of “Justice, Markets and the Good Society.”

That’s the latest spinoff of an intellectual thread that Mr. Sandel has turned into a popular following, built around his well-known “Justice” undergraduate class at Harvard. The “Justice” class has been broadcast online and on public television and spun out in recent years into a widely-translated best-selling book, as well as a television and radio series.

The Korean translations of his books have been big hits in South Korea, and helped catapult him to celebrity status when he came through town in 2012 for a book tour. [The Wall Street Journal – Korea Real Time]

You can read more at the link.

Here is another article that shows how discrimination against foreign English teachers in Korea is quite common:

Sean Jones was on his way for a job interview last week in Seoul and received a disturbing text message that reads “Hey Sean. Sorry they just told me they actually want a white teacher.”

“I was on my way to the interview when I received a text message from my recruiter stating that they only want a white teacher,” Sean told The Korea Observer.

“Regardless of my two plus years of experience, TEFL certification, great references and the ability to speak intermediate Korean, I was turned down before even given an opportunity to speak with them.”

To add insult to injury, the 30-year-old American from Oklahoma experienced racial discrimination again two days after the incident.

This time he received a facebook message that reads, “I am sorry. I just found out today that my school is one of ones that won’t hire black people.”  [Korea Observer]

You can read more at the link, but to show that discrimination in Korea isn’t always about skin color either in the past people have been denied English teaching jobs due to accents and even perceptions of heavy drinking.