According to Dongguk University professor Jang Shi-ki, African countries remember North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung as a great leader and example for Africa:

“Ranked among the likes of India’s Gandhi, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and Mao Zedong of China, Kim Il-sung stands out as a great leader, revered by the people of the Third World,” Jang writes. “Therefore, the people of Africa feel more affinity with North Korea than with South Korea.”

Dongguk University says Prof. Jang has been on sabbatical since last July and is in South Africa. From there, he writes, “Most of the fighting against dictatorships in Africa was actually directed against the outside power of the U.S., so for them Kim Il-sung, the leader of a Far Eastern country who was brave enough to stand up to the U.S. even before they did, makes him as worthy of honor as their own leaders. Whenever I am given preferential treatment just because I come from the same country as Kim Il-sung, I feel a little embarrassed.”

How Gandhi gets ranked with Mao, Nasser, and Castro shows what an idiot this Professor Jang is. The only people in Africa that think that Kim Il Sung is a great hero are the Robert Mugabe types.

Remember this useful idiot comes from the same university that gave us another useful idiot Kang Jeong-koo who the conservatives have suddenly given martyr status to by investigating him for breaking the National Security Law. They should have just let Kang stagnate in his own irrelevance instead of giving him a greater platform for his views by investigating him.

Is Dongguk University the Berkley of Korea or is it representative of all universities in Korea? They definitely got some kooks hanging out in this school probably getting payed real well to teach young Koreans their love for Kim Il Sung.

Apolo Anton Ohno who recently won two golds during the speed skating competition here in Korea last week had this to say about his reception here in Korea and the media:

“There was nothing hostile about the fans, they were just happy watching the races,” said Ohno, who regained the world No. 1 ranking from local skater Ahn Hyun-soo on Sunday with golds in the 1,000 and 3,000 finals.

Ohno regretted being denied any opportunity to hold a news conference in Seoul last week to show people another side to his character, which he figures has been largely demonized in the local media.

“A lot of media was shut away. I’m not sure why,” he said. Maybe “certain people wanted to keep that false image.”

There are a lot of certain people here that want to keep false images of Americans, not just Ohno.

We learned before that using Korean chopsticks is great for improving your golf swing, making pottery, playing handball, and even doing a little embryonic stem cell cloning on the side. Well now we have also learned that another staple of Korean culture kimchi is also the cure for the current bird flu crisis:

Among the many miraculous properties attributed to the Korean staple side dish kimchi may be the ability to cure bird flu, Seoul National University scientists say. A research team lead by Prof. Kang Sa-ouk said Tuesday they created a food mixture containing a lactic ferment from kimchi that is effective against the avian flu and sent it to Indonesia, where the virus is rampant.

I willing to bet that only Korean made kimchi can cure the bird flu as well because Chinese kimchi has to much lead. Just like only Korean chopsticks can be used to improve your golf swing.

This from the New York Times is interesting. Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico is going to travel to North Korea:

Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a United Nations ambassador in the Clinton administration who has long maintained contacts with North Korea, will travel next week to Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, for talks aimed at persuading the North to give up its nuclear arms program, Mr. Richardson’s office and the Bush administration said Thursday.

Mr. Richardson, a prominent Democrat, said that he would not represent the United States as an official negotiator but that his trip was intended “to move the diplomatic process forward,” following an agreement in principle reached last month in the six-nation talks involving North Korea and the United States and its partners, South Korea, Japan, Russia and China.

Why do the North Koreans like Gov. Richardson so much? If he can keep the diplomatic process moving forward then so be it, but I won’t get my hopes up. By the way I like how the NY Times article’s headline is US Democrat Goes to North Korea instead of New Mexico Governor Goes to North Korea.

Ever wonder why the US $20 bill keeps changing? It is because of the quality of counterfeit bills coming out of North Korea commonly referred to as “Super Notes”. North Korea relies on counterfeiting, drug trafficking, and illegal bootlegging to bring in hard currency for the North Korean elites. A lot of this activity is done through North Korean diplomatic missions. Yes that is right North Korean diplomats are regularly involved in criminal activity. Now the US government is trying to crack down on this illegal activity and they are starting in Ireland of all places:

North Korea’s continued involvement in counterfeiting is not helping its relations with the U.S., the State Department said Wednesday (local time). Spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters his government was seeking the extradition of Northern Ireland’s Worker’s Party chief Sean Garland, who has been indicted on suspicion of circulating counterfeit U.S. banknotes of North Korean origin. The way US-North Korea relations will progress is highly contingent on North Korea’s implication in illegal activities, the human rights situation and its nuclear weapons programs, Ereli said.

The daily quoted U.S. officials as saying the inclusion of North Korea in Garland’s indictment was the first time Washington has officially charged North Korea with an illicit activity in court, which suggested a stepping-up of U.S. attempts to crack down on activities like counterfeiting, bootlegging cigarettes and drug trafficking across the globe it accuses Pyongyang of.

This indictment is just a drop in the bucket but at least it is a start.

I’m not sure how real the Great Korean ESL Purge of 2005 is, but it continues to pick up attention in the international press. First the Canadian Globe and Mail ran an article on this “crisis” and now the English Guardian has run an article as well:

Immigration officers are believed to have raided schools, arresting teachers and recruiters.

She added: “The whole situation is totally inhumane. I’ve heard of 70 [foreign teachers] being put in a room with capacity for only 30 or 40. It’s not like they were dealing drugs or running guns.”

I really don’t see any problem with the Korean authorities cracking down on illegal English teachers. If some of these teachers entered the country to teach English without the proper paperwork the Korean authorities have the right to detain and deport you. They should also focus on the business owners that hired them in the first place as well knowing full well that they did not possess the proper documents. As far as jail space that is how the Koreans are treated in jail as well. Maybe the ESL teachers need to get themselves a SOFA agreement that defines the amount of space they get in jail.

Here is something I didn’t know:

These latest arrests follow the high-profile case in March of two Canadian teachers who were involved in an alleged assault outside a Seoul bar. One of the teachers was found to be working in Korea on a tourist visa. The pair were eventually deported, but not without having to pay thousands of dollars in “blood money”- a form of compensation – to their alleged victim.

For being supposedly high profile, I sure don’t remember ever hearing about this incident. If they assaulted somebody it seems like this would of been handled in the Korean courts and not just ended with a compensation payment.

Here are some interesting statistics from the article:

Officials put the number of English teachers working legally in South Korea at 7,800. The number of those working without the necessary documentation is believed to be around 20,000.

That is a lot of people working in Korea illegally if true, but I wonder how many of the 3D workers are working here in Korea illegally as well that are not making many headlines. Then again this whole issue seems pretty over blown to me.

The new Korean soccer coach Dick Advocaat, has gotten off to a good start with his team by having a solid 2-0 win against a quality Iranian soccer team last night. Hopefully the Korean squad will continue to build on this win as they prepare for the up coming World Cup this summer.

The Marmot’s Hole is providing some great information about the future of the US-ROK alliance:

To set up a forward operational headquarters, the Army plans to move the I Corps headquarters from Fort Lewis to Camp Zama, a U.S. post southwest of Tokyo. Military officers said negotiations with Japan are progressing and an agreement may be reached in time for President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to announce it in November when the president visits Japan.

(…)

In addition, the headquarters of the Army in the Pacific is preparing to assume command of Army forces in South Korea, which are gradually being reduced and may eventually be largely withdrawn. Plans call for dismantling or shrinking the United Nations Command in Seoul that dates back to the Korean War that ended in 1953.

The Army also plans to transfer the Eighth Army headquarters from Seoul to Hawaii and to turn back to the South Koreans control of their forces commanded today by a joint U.S.-South Korea headquarters. The four-star American general’s post in Seoul would move to Hawaii.

I would not take all of this as gospel as to what is going to happen here in Korea and the Pacific. This maybe what some Army staffers want to happen, but often reality and politics are what influences what will actually happen. Any shake up in USFK will be subject to some huge politics.

On the political front the Marmot also links to One Free Korea’s posting of a Congressional Report from US House of Representative aid Dennis P. Halpin. Here is a part of the report that I continue to find to be a troubling aspect of inter-Korean cooperation:

Many in Washington, myself included, wonder at the lengths that South Korean society appears willing to go in pursuit of reconciliation, no matter what the apparent cost. For example, people here are somewhat amazed at the willingness of South Korea, both following the 2000 Summit and in a more recent proposal, to turn over convicted North Korean agents without receiving one single South Korean abductee or Prisoner-of-War in return. While humanitarian gestures are always appreciated, the American people would not tolerate for five minutes news of the forced detention of a Prisoner-of-War from a past conflict. Yet the detention of hundreds of South Korean POWs as slave laborers in North Korean coal mines for half a century raises barely a whimper in Seoul. Is the price of reconciliation to be paid by the continued enslavement of old soldiers who were just doing their duty for the Republic of Korea?

Could you imagine if the US gave the old Soviet Union back captured spies without reciprocation all in the name of “cooperation”. I still find it amazing that kidnapped citizens and POW’s from the Korean War continue to rot in North Korea while the South Korean government does nothing about it. The Japanese on the other hand pushed on the North Koreans to give back their kidnapped citizens and Pyongyang eventually returned the abductees. The Koreans can say what they want about Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan but at least he cares about his citizens enough to go to Pyongyang and bring them back from that gulag.

The report goes on to highlight other key issues between the US and Korea including the rewriting of history to make General MacArthur and all US soldiers who served in Korea out to be war criminals while the North Koreans are thought of as liberators. You may think this is silly, but like the report says, this is what is being taught to South Korean children today. Definitely read the entire report, it is a definite must read.

It appears that finally some attention is being shown on what is going on here in Korea. The media reports a lot on the nuclear crisis, but IMHO the real crisis is the propaganda war we are losing here. The amount of disinformation that is taught to Korean youths here in the schools and the media is truly astounding.

Just interacting with KATUSA soldiers that work with me I have had plenty of interesting conversations with them on history they didn’t know about and perceptions of Americans they found to be untrue once they worked together with us. These perceptions and thoughts about history were formed by their schools and the media. I try to highlight the disinformation I see here in Korea on my blog, but I’m preaching to the choir. Someone within Korea needs to show some leadership and identify what the current policies are costing South Korea. The current policies will cost the Koreans morally and financially in the long run as they continue to turn a deaf ear to North Korean atrocities while at the same time bashing the US in order to appease the North Koreans. Keep in mind that the next South Korean presidential elections are about two years away and a new America friendly government or at least one that is not openly anti-American would have a huge impact on any changes in policy here in regards to the US-ROK alliance. However, two years from now could be too late as proposed changes may already be implemented by then. As always we will see what happens.

Keep this in mind; how many wars has South Korea had against their country the last 50 years since the founding of the US-ROK alliance? Zero. How many wars was Korea involved in the 50 years before the founding of the US-ROK alliance? To many. Korea needs a big time wake up call and maybe the realignment of the USFK is the wake up call that is needed over here.

I can still remember the good old days when GI’s would try to disguise their appearance as an English teacher in Itaewon to avoid curfew, well now the English teachers may need to start disguising their appearance as GIs:

Nearly 50 English teachers from Canada have been detained, deported or investigated on allegations of visa fraud in South Korea, a country seeking to purge itself of young Westerners increasingly regarded as unqualified, unruly and unwelcome. Long a magnet for foreigners drawn to working overseas, Korea has arrested hundreds of them in the past couple of weeks. Immigration officials have been rounding up dozens of teachers at their homes, work, or at the airports. While as many as 10,000 foreigners legally teach the language at private English schools in Korea, the nation’s media have been full of exposes about teachers with dubious credentials. Many of the foreign teachers, if not most, are Canadian.

Is this crack down bad enough to describe it like this?

Like many Canadians interviewed, he said that Koreans have an innate xenophobia that has hardened of late. “There has been a definite change in the way we’re being perceived in the last nine or 10 months,” he said. “Before, it was, ‘Please speak me English.’ Now, it’s ‘Get out of my country, white devils.’ ” (…) “People basically think all foreign teachers are drunks and molesters who can’t get a job back home,” said the teacher who helps run the Internet board for expats.

This article makes it sound like there is a Korean gestapo on the loose trying to put English teachers into reeducation camps. In the spirit of international cooperation I offer my advice to the fugitive English teachers on how to blend in as an American soldiers to avoid the Korean gestapo that this article leads one to believe is rampaging through this country.

First of all, the long hair has got to go. Shave your hair high and tight. Then you need to start wearing some Fubu clothing preferably very baggy. If you don’t like Fubu than you can always a Nascar jacket. Both are dead give aways for GIs. Then buy a big black backpack to carry around with you. Since the vast majority of GIs cannot drive cars here we rely on these big black bags to carry things in when we go out. The black backpacks are probably the most notable feature of US GIs.

Also travel in groups since GIs tend to travel in groups due to the battle buddy policy. Plus whatever you do don’t stay out pass midnight when the USFK curfew takes effect. You won’t stand a chance of avoiding the gestapo then. You also need to sun tan with a beret on to get that tan line on your head that only a beret can give you. Finally to top off the image and really fool the gestapo wear one of those knock off Yankees ball caps they sell in all the villes. The Gestapo would never think that a Canadian would be caught dead wearing a Yankees ball cap. That would really fool them.

With these few simple tips, you should be able to avoid the Korean gestapo and buy enough time to make your escape from the country. That is if it is really that bad to begin with.

Hat Tip: Japundit

This is what the ruling Uri Party Chairman had to say in today’s Chosun Ilbo about the MacArthur statue controversy in Inchon:

Ruling Uri Party chairman Moon Hee-sang said Sunday the dispute over a statue of U.S. general Douglas MacArthur in Incheon was “a clash between civic organizations,” but some media outlets and conservative forces blew it out of proportion for reasons of their own. They “sow distrust and friction between Korea and the United States on the pretext of being concerned about the Korea-U.S. alliance,” he said.

Let me get this right, the people that are trying to tear down the statue and rewrite history are not the ones driving a wedge in the ROK-US alliance? It is in fact the people who are defending the statue that are driving a wedge in the US-ROK alliance. So according to the leader of the ruling Uri Party the conservatives should just let the anti-American hate groups tear down the statue and the US-ROK alliance will be better for it. Is this how I’m supposed to take this comment?