Then:

Changgyeong Palace in 1950 located in Seoul during the Korean War.

Now:

Changgyeong Palace today.

After voting for a UN resolution condemning the human rights situation in the former Soviet republic of Belarus, South Korea is now receiving criticism from the country over it’s double standards for human rights in regards to it’s blind eye the government turns towards North Korea’s human rights situation:

A journalist of Belarus working in Moscow complained on October 31 about the South Korean government’s attitude by saying, “North Korea does not even have opposition parties or critical press to be suppressed.” His point was that the South Korean government should apply the same standards to all human rights resolutions.

It is true that those countries of former Soviet Union, on which human rights resolutions are passed in the U.N., have much better human rights conditions compared to North Korea, which is notorious for chronic food shortages and concentration camps for political prisoners.

The journalist from Belarus brings up a good point that South Korea has little creditability in regards to these human rights resolutions if they continue to not condemn the horrid human rights situation located just 30 miles north of Seoul. Korea if it continues to hold it’s position about human rights in Korea will only bring less creditability to the countries in North America and Europe who do care about human rights if they continue to vote for these resolutions.

South Korea maintains that the relationship with North Korea is a special circumstance. Using this logic any country that violates human rights can say they have to take these actions due to special circumstances within the country. This is why it would be better if South Korea just abstains from these human rights resolutions instead of voting for them. It makes the South Korean position more consistent and brings more creditability to the nations pushing these resolutions.

Check out this picture of Kim Jong Il meeting with Chinese leader Hu Jintao:

Is it just me or does the Dear Leader look like one of the homeless people you see hanging out near the old Seoul Station building in downtown Seoul? I’m sure President Hu was quite impressed.

The pro-North Korean groups operating in South Korea have consolidated their efforts according to this Donga article:

Gyeore Hana is a non-profit civic group created in February last year by various progressive groups members such as the National Alliance for Democracy and Reunification of Korea and the South Korean Headquarters for the Alliance of Korean People for National Unification.

Gyeore Hana gathered 3,847 members in South Korea and sent them to Pyongyang 16 times in one month starting September 26. They watched the mass gymnastics show “Arirang” in Pyongyang, performed in commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the North Korean Workers’ Party, and visited the birthplace of Chairman Kim Il Sung in Mangyongdae, Pyongyang.

The number of people sent by Gyeore Hana, 3,847 is over half of the 7,203 that visited North Korea and watched Arirang. It is the largest number of visitors sent to North Korea by a single organization. South Korea’s visits to watch the Arirang performance ended in late October.

Gyeore Hana officials started to reside in Yanggakdo Hotel, Pyongyang, since late September, opened direct phone lines to South Korea, and coordinated the visiting schedule of South Korean visitors. It is very rare for North Korean authorities to permit the establishment of phone lines to South Korea for individual groups.

That’s right folks those hate groups from the Inchon MacArthur Statue and the Camp Humphreys land deal protests are taking their marching orders from a direct phone line straight from Pyongyang.

The group even claims support from the Korean government:

There are rumors among groups that engage with North Korea that the South Korean government its friendly to Gyeore Hana. It is reported that Gyeore Hana’s Standing Representative Choi Byung-mo, a lawyer, is a close friend with key members of South Korea’s ruling party.

Why am I not surprised? I wonder if the Unification Ministry are all card carrying members of this group?

The aid that South Korea is giving to North Korea is now reaching the point of ridiculousness which is evident by this latest request:

North Korea at a meeting of the Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation Committee on Friday asked the South to provide it with raw materials for 60 million pairs of shoes, 2 million formal suits (30,000 tons) and 200 million bars of soap (20,000 tons). That is enough to wash and dress the North’s entire population of 23 million. In return, Pyongyang proposes to let us mine its underground resources and take minerals — not much of a deal, since Seoul has to supply all the mining and transport equipment.

So it really is a demand for aid, and a preposterous and potentially bottomless one. The rice and fertilizer the South supplied this year alone are worth over W1.4 trillion (US$1.4 billion), and like the rice, once you start giving the clothes and shoes, you have to keep giving them year after year. Having handed the responsibility of feeding its people to the South, North Korea now also wants us to clothe them, and if anything is to come of the nuclear arms negotiations, we have to supply their electricity. Maybe next time they will ask us to build their houses.

Maybe next time they won’t just ask for houses but a Hyundai for everyone in Pyongyang and the military as well and offer North Korean sand in return which of course the South Koreans would have to provide the equipment to North Korea to dig up.

The Korean government is planning on hiring a US PR firm to help improve the country’s increasingly bad image with Americans:

The Foreign Ministry is hiring an American PR firm to put a positive spin on its U.S. policies in a nation that has been reading them as increasingly hostile.

The Foreign Ministry recently wrote to the parliamentary Unification, Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee asking for an extra budget of W1.2 billion (about US$1.2 million) next year to pay for the plan, which would take PR work off the hands of the Korean Embassy in Washington.

In the notice, the ministry said the plan aimed to improve understanding and correct misconceptions of Korea’s diplomatic and security policies vis-a-vis the U.S among Americans.

This would be the first time Korea has hired a private firm for the urgent task of improving its image in an alliance many Americans perceive as increasingly strained.

I really don’t think it is a bad idea that Korea is hiring a PR firm. However, something I do have problem with; is when the Foreign Ministry releases a statement like this:

“There are limits to what embassy staff can do to deal with U.S. opinion leaders like journalists, academics and lawmakers in a systematic way. Local PR firms know the internal situation in the U.S. best and have the necessary connections,” the ministry said. “We have to turn around U.S. public opinion about Korea’s diplomatic and security policies and relations to the U.S., and we are going to look for ways of countering smears and attacks against Korea.”

I would like the foreign ministry to define what these smears and attacks against Korea are exactly? Is he referring to the US Congressional Letter to President Roh as a smear attack? I would really like to know what all these smear attacks are. Is televising and writing articles about the anti-American protests at Camp Humphreys and the MacArthur statue a smear attack against Korea? Last I checked these were factual events that happened. Reporting the truth is not a smear.

I hope Congressmen Hyde picks up the phone and calls the Korean Embassy in Washington to ask them what all the smear attacks are. That would be an interesting phone call to listen on to.

American golfer Michelle Wie recently got to hang out with Bill Clinton after donating $500 thousand to charity:

Michelle Wie added a round of golf with Bill Clinton to her precocious resume on Monday when she donated US$500,000 to a fund for victims of hurricane Katrina co-administered by the former U.S. president. The sporting summit took place at the Southern Highlands Golf Course in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Wie presented a check to the charitable foundation created by Clinton and fellow ex-president George Bush Sr.;I just saw clips of; the devastation, she said. And I really wanted to help out. I really do hope it helps a lot of people…. Compared to all the disaster, it’s such a small amount of money.”

At least the article didn’t call her “Korean golfer Michelle Wie” for change. However, I do find it comendable that she donated such a huge sum of money. It is amazing when you think about it, that a 16 year old girl donated more to the hurricane relief then most foreign countries.

The Korea Times conducted a phone interview and survey about how Korea should handle their relationship with the United States, and the paper lead with this headline, “Public Wants Greater Independence From US”.

Now look at the survey results and the headline. According to my math 55.2% of Koreans want to keep the current relationship or even strengthen it with the US while only 42% want a more self reliant relationship from the US. How does the Korea Times say the public wants greater independence when the majority of the people in their own survey says they don’t?

And the Foreign Ministry thinks that the US is smearing Korea when their own media continuously conducts smear jobs like this survey against the United States. I wonder if Congressmen Hyde has made that phone call yet to the Foreign Ministry?

Seoul may give in to North Korean demands to conduct nuclear weapons inspection of USFK bases in South Korea:

South Korea’s top diplomat has indicated that Seoul could review Pyongyang’s possible request for a nuclear inspection of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) to verify the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

South Korea is subject to the verification process, according to the joint principle statement of the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear programs, which was adopted in Beijing on Sept. 19.

“If the North raises the issue of inspection and verification in the South, including the facilities of the USFK, we will cope with it rationally by utilizing the 1992 inter-Korean joint declaration, which contains the principle of mutual inspection,’’ Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ban Ki-moon told The Korea Times in a written interview, marking the newspaper’s 55th anniversary.

The Joint Declaration of South and North Korea on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, signed on Jan. 20, 1992, articulates that “the two sides will conduct inspections of locations chosen by the other side and agreed upon by both sides.’’

It means the U.S. military installations in South Korea could technically become the target of inspections, if Seoul gives the nod to Pyongyang’s choice of American bases.

This is sure to cause even more tension with Washington if this is to happen. I hoped the South Koreans hired a real good PR team because they are going to need it if they try to pull this off.

Hopefully the North Koreans don’t pull up in a taxi because someone may accidently jump on top of it.

That’s right she is back, Nomad’s favorite, Christina Cho. Only this time she decided to take her show to Tokyo instead of Seoul:

Bikini-clad animal rights activists stand in front of a Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) restaurant in Tokyo on Thursday to protest against the treatment of chickens.

Activists protested against KFC suppliers’ “abusive treatment of chickens in factory farms and slaughterhouses”.

For those of you that just can’t get enough of Christina Cho she even has her own website, where you can buy her latest CD. That is right folks are PETA fanatic is also a wannabe diva. Nothing like a little publicity to sell some CD’s. I wonder if Nomad is getting his reserved right now?