Not a bad first day for Hines Ward in Korea:

Ward and his mother, Kim Young-hee, were greeted by a scrum of more than 100 reporters and photographers on arrival at Inchon airport, near Seoul. National broadcaster YTN carried the arrival live and called the event “the return of the hero.”

Hundreds of riot police stood shoulder to shoulder to clear a path for the two.

Ward and his mother are starting a 10-day tour that will include a lunch with President Roh Moo-hyun, visits with relatives and a pep talk to mixed-race children, who often find it difficult to succeed in Korean society.

Well I guess Apollo Anton Ohno isn’t the only one that needs riot police to protect him at a Korean airport. Gees I wonder why President Roh didn’t decide to visit with the mixed race children as well?

Look at the free stuff that Ward is getting for coming to Korea:

Ward and Kim left Seoul with little, but they will be showered with gifts and accolades during their visit.

One automaker is loaning his entourage three limousines. A Seoul hotel is providing one of its most expensive suites and a fashion house has given new clothes.

Does a NFL athlete really need to be given this stuff for free? How about donating the money all of this stuff costs, to a mixed race children charity instead?

Looks like South Korea is willing to pull out all the stops including giving nuclear power to Indonesia in order to gain support for Minister Ban’s UN Secretary General bid:

South Korea, one of the world’s biggest oil and liquefied natural gas importers, wants to help Indonesia develop nuclear power, South Korea’s Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said on Monday.

“We hope that both Indonesia and Korea will be able to conclude a nuclear energy cooperation agreement as soon as possible,” Ban told a joint news conference with Indonesia’s’s Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda.

“We are one of the countries with high tech technology and know-how in this area,” he added.

Nuclear power plays an important role in providing an alternative source of energy in South Korea, which imports all of its oil and liquefied gas.

I’m curious to see what Washington reactions to this news will be because if these nuclear reactors are constructed that would mean that Indonesia is only one coup away from giving nuclear technology maybe to people the US government would rather not have access too. Hopefully the US has learned something from Pakistan and their scientists giving nuclear secrets to scores of governments including North Korea who would not have had that information otherwise.

Well known K-blogger USinKorea now has a new video montage out of the recent anti-USFK hate groups xenophobic protests. The video footage from the Camp Humphrey protests are the most dramatic. I don’t see how South Korean society can put up with these hate groups attacking and injuring the riot police who are mostly 20 year old draftees conducting their mandatory service for the nation. I can’t see how any Korean wouldn’t be embarrassed watching this montage. Go check it out.

I doubt the anti-US hate groups are shaking in their boots right now after the Korean government has vowed to crack down on them:

South Korea warned Sunday that it will strictly deal with illegal protests against joint military exercises it holds annually with the United States.

“Illegal protests at military training grounds cannot be allowed under any circumstances,” the Defense Ministry said in a press statement. “The military will sternly deal with these illegal activities.”

The statement came after about 20 South Korean civic activists staged a surprise rally in Taean on the nation’s west coast where South Korean and U.S. troops staged an amphibious landing drill on Thursday.

If they want to get tough on them, how about the members of the hate groups face assault charges for pushing and tackling the US Marines last week and be forced to apologize and pay compensation to them, just like if the situation was reversed. Now that would be

Super Bowl MVP Hines Ward has now arrived in Korea and even brought his mother with him. Guess who the first person to see him is?:

Korea has adopted the American football star as its own, inspired by his prowess even if most people are baffled by the game.
His rags-to-riches story and his mother’s sacrifices to raise him have touched a chord in the national psyche.

The visitors will lunch with President Roh Moo-hyun and his wife, Kwon Yang-sook, tomorrow and throw the first ball at the opening game of the 2006 Korea Baseball Organization season on Saturday at Jamsil Stadium in southern Seoul.

Yes the I’m not really anti-American president himself Roh Moo-hyun made sure he got his photo op with Hines Ward first. How about he instead go with Hines Ward to a mixed race orphanage and get a photo op there to draw attention to this problem in Korea?

Here is a shock; con men in Korea have been illegally using Hines Ward’s image:

Korean companies have jostled for position in an effort to associate themselves with Mr. Ward and his mother.
Some less ethical businessmen reportedly have registered copyrights related to Mr. Ward or have passed themselves off as his representative here.
Lim Sang-hyuk, a lawyer representing the gridiron hero in Korea, said, “If necessary, Mr. Ward will take legal action against the illegal use of his name, portrait and other things.”

For those that haven’t seen it yet, Newsweek ran an article last week about Hines Ward. I was actually contacted by the reporter to provide some insight into the Hines Ward phenomenon. It is kind of interesting to see how the blogosphere can influence the reporting a mainstream media outlet. Anyway, the article was well balanced between explaining Hines Ward life, his admiration for his mother, and the bias towards mixed race children in Korea, but nothing really ground breaking that we haven’t heard before.

I did find this passage interesting though:

Some Korean-American activists have also complained about the fact that Ward hasn’t contributed to the community yet. “If he’s going to be a role model, he should do something for the community,” gripes a representative of one Korean-American youth group.

I find it ironic that the same Korean-American groups that shunned him when he was younger are now making demands of him now. How about these groups do more for mixed race children themselves instead of making demands from Hines Ward.

Anyway the hysteria over the Hines Ward visit to Korea ought to provide some interesting blogging over the next few days at least.

Alls well on Cheju Island after a power outage:

Two undersea power transmission cables malfunctioned for unknown reasons at 10:36 a.m., sparking the blackout, the exchange said.

“One of the two lines was fixed to enable the supply of power to Jeju,” state power monopoly Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) said. “But the other remained out of service.”
An investigation was under way to determine the cause of the malfunction, KEPCO said, adding that the cables might have been damaged by fishermen.

The two cables transmit electricity from a substation in Hanam, about 420 kilometers southwest of Seoul, to the island, accounting for about 30 percent of its power consumption.

Regional emergency rescue offices were flooded with calls from people trapped in elevators, officials said.

The power outage disrupted flights and resulted in severe traffic congestion in the region’s densely populated areas as traffic signals failed to operate.

Could you imagine the chaos if Seoul had a similar power outage?

The New York Times is running an article about how the South Korean government plans to expand the use of robots within South Korean society over the next 5-10 years:

By 2007, networked robots that, say, relay messages to parents, teach children English and sing and dance for them when they are bored, are scheduled to enter mass production. Outside the home, they are expected to guide customers at post offices or patrol public areas, searching for intruders and transmitting images to monitoring centers.

If all goes according to plan, robots will be in every South Korean household between 2015 and 2020. That is the prediction, at least, of the Ministry of Information and Communication, which has grouped more than 30 companies, as well as 1,000 scientists from universities and research institutes, under its wing. Some want to move even faster.

“My personal goal is to put a robot in every home by 2010,” said Oh Sang Rok, manager of the ministry’s intelligent service robot project.

I can see the Korean labor union protests already over robots taking their jobs.

Korean speed skaters are continuing their winning ways even after the Olympics:

Ahn Hyun-soo led a South Korean sweep of the medals in the men’s 1500 metres final at the World Short Track Championships in Minneapolis on Friday.
Hyun-soo, who won three golds and a bronze at last month’s Turin Olympics, edged team mate Lee Ho-suk by just .009 seconds to take the title in a time of two minutes, 20.572 seconds.

Completing the South Korean sweep of the podium was Oh Se-jong, who was close behind in 2:20.842.
South Korea also dominated the women’s 1500 finals as Jin Sun-yu took the gold with a time of 2:21.948. Sun-yu also won three gold medals at the Winter Olympics.

Notice the Korean speed skaters received no death threats or needed a riot police escort at the Minneapolis airport to get them to the race unlike what American skater Apolo Anton Ohno had to endure in Korea.

Sound the alarm bells, Korea is no longer the world’s “Most Wired” nation:

Because of its high prevalence of broadband access, South Korea is often considered the world’s “most-wired” nation. But a new study of international Internet usage offered evidence that people in other countries are even more connected.

When pollsters for Ipsos Insight recently asked 6,500 people in 12 countries whether they had used the Internet in the past month, 68 percent of South Koreans said yes. That ranked No. 4, behind Japan (89 percent), Canada (72 percent) and the United States (71 percent)……….

South Korea also didn’t own the top slot in time spent online. The survey found that Korean Internet users, on average, were online for 12.7 hours each week, behind those in China (17.9 hours a week) and Japan (13.9). Canadian Web surfers clocked 12.3 hours each week and Americans were fifth at 11.4, followed by Mexicans at 9.2.

The Ipsos report came a day after the World Economic Forum ranked the United States tops in its “networked readiness index,” which measures everything from math and science education to the diffusion of various technologies. Singapore was second, followed by Denmark and Iceland.

Korea? No. 14.

Do they play more Starcraft in China than in Korea or something?

UPDATE: The Korea Liberator has a great posting about this family’s history. The father was actually 2ID KATUSA when he was captured during the Korean War. Amazing story. Go read the Liberators take on it.
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The daughter of a former ROK Army POW in North Korea from the Korean War has now also defected from North Korea to join her dad who also defected:

Lee Bok-lee, 33, arrived at Incheon International Airport west of Seoul with her two-year-old son and a three-year-old nephew on a flight from China, the Unification Ministry said.

“I am so happy to be reunited with my family,” said Lee, a daughter of Lee Ki-Choon, who escaped to South Korea in November 2004 after being held there since 1952.

The former POW, 75, lives in the southern port of Busan with his second daughter and her husband, who fled North Korea in September last year.

I wonder how she avoided the gulag when her father first defected? Maybe she was already hiding in China.