It seems like USFK is actually getting serious about cracking down on the black marketers for once. There have been numerous arrest over the course of this past year. Here are some more arrests that led to one AAFES employee committing suicide:

Seoul Customs Office officials are recommending that 17 South Koreans, including two AAFES employees, be charged with conspiring to evade South Korean tax law in connection with the sale of 56,000 cases of beer from Area I bases to local businesses, according to U.S. and South Korean authorities.

Kwon Ju-sung, of the customs office, said the case was to be filed to the Seoul Central Prosecutors Office on Wednesday, where officials will decide whether to press charges.

Kwon said an 18th suspect, whom he identified as an AAFES store manager, died Aug. 1 after jumping from the roof of his apartment building.

These arrests are just a drop in the bucket to a much larger problem with black marketing. I really understood how bad the black marketing problem was here, when I traveled to Ullong-do Island out in the East Sea and a restaurant I ate at had black marketed condiments.

The Korean government is reporting that foreigner crime has risen sharply over the past three years:

The number of criminal offenses committed by foreigners has surged amid an influx of more migrant workers into the country.

The Ministry of Justice said in a report Wednesday that the number of crimes by foreign residents rose from 8,046 in 2002 and 9,338 in 2003 to 12,821 last year.

Of course most of the offenses are traffic related. Here is a new twist though in this article:

Meanwhile, a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) said about 2,500 Korean-born offenders were jailed in five major immigrant-crowded areas in the U.S. _ New York City, Los Angeles, Orange County in California, Harris County in Texas and Maricopa County in Arizona _ in the 2003 fiscal year.

The figure ranked fifth in the list of inmates by country of origin for foreign-born offenders.

Mexicans led the list with 108,000, followed by 10,500 offenders from El Salvador, 5,500 from Guatemala and 3,000 from Honduras.

I did not know that Korea was that high on the list of incarcerated foreign nationals. This is what one human rights activist had to say about this:

“We should not forget Koreans are foreigners in other parts of the world, and need as much legal protection as they can get,’’ said Kim Jung-ah, an activist of human rights group Sarangbang.

Korea needs to remember that foreigners that live in their country deserve as much legal protection as they can get as well.

Not that this is a surprise or anything but the Norks are already back pedaling on the deal they struck 24 hours ago:

The North Korean Foreign Ministry on Tuesday offered an idiosyncratic reading of Monday’s agreement, saying the country would rejoin the Non-Proliferation Treaty and come back into full IAEA compliance “when the U.S. provides us with a light-water reactor that can be the basis of bilateral confidence.”

It said Pyongyang was “fair and square, consistent and deep-rooted like a rock. The U.S. should not even dream of asking us to give up the nuclear deterrent we already have before providing a light-water nuclear reactor. That is the security of building bilateral confidence, physical security.” The statement of principles was understood to be merely envisaging “discussion” on the thorny issue that had threatened to scupper the talks.

The only thing surprising about this is that it occurred only one day after the original deal. The Norks want that reactor not for power but for when in the future they need to build nuclear weapons again to extort more international aid. The Norks want agreement that gives them the aid they want plus allows them to still have the capacity to make nuclear weapons in the future if needed. That is why they not only want a reactor but will never allow inspectors full access to their country, even though they are saying so now.

So in the mean time they will continue to bicker over this reactor until everyone else involved in the talks pressures the US to give them the reactor just to shut them up because the international community wants to see this issue go away. Hopefully the US doesn’t give in and work out a useless deal like the 1994 agreement just to make everyone in the region happy.

In the mean time the North Koreans will full fill their energy needs by getting free power from the South Koreans. The South however, is saying they will review the energy request now after yesterday’s developments. Just like we all knew the Norks would renege on the deal, we also all know the South Koreans will give into the North Koreans and give them the power anyway, along with fertilizer, food, etc. that they need.

How come I don’t see Unification Minister Chung Dong-young taking credit for this?

Then:

Namdaemun Gate shown in 1900. Namdaemun was the southern entrance into the old walled city of Seoul. Markets tended to form near the gates outside the cities, which you can see in this picture.

Now:

Today Namdaemun still stands in central Seoul after reconstruction from the aftermath of the Korean War. The old Namdaemun Market remains adjacent to the gate and recent renovations around Namdaemun have transformed the surrounding land into a really nice park area for the citizens of downtown Seoul.

Is there any doubt now that Ted Turner is a Useful Idiot? Check out this interview with Wolf Blitzer on the Radio Blogger:

And I was really over there to try and persuade North and South Korea to make the DMZ into an international peace park when they sign a peace treaty, which I anticipate will be fairly soon, now that we have these six-party talks. We have agreement there. But I had a great time. I am absolutely convinced that the North Koreans are absolutely sincere. There’s really no reason for them to cheat or do anything to violate this very forward agreement. I think we can put the North Korea and East Asia problems behind us, and concentrate on Iran and Iraq, where we still have some ongoing difficulties.

No reason for them cheat?! They have cheated already on a similar agreement!

WB: But this is one of the most despotic regimes, and Kim Jung Il is one of the worst men on Earth. Isn’t that a fair assessment?

TT: Well, I didn’t get to meet him, but he didn’t look…in the pictures I’ve seen of him on CNN, he didn’t look too much different than most of the other people I’ve met.

What kind of people is this guy hanging out with? This interview only gets better:

TT: Well, hey. Listen, I saw a lot of people over there. They were thin, and they were riding bicycles instead of driving in cars. But I didn’t see any brutality in the capitol, or out in the DMZ. We drove through the countryside quite a bit to down to P’annumjom and Kaesong. We traveled around. I’m sure we were on a special route, but I don’t see…there’s really no reason…North Korea’s got enough problems with their economy and their agriculture. I think they want to join the Western world, and improve the quality of life for their people, just like everybody else.

Let me guess, they are thin because they ride bicycles unlike us fat slob Americans who drive cars. I guess their thinness has nothing to do with the bad agricultural problems that Turner even mentioned. Plus North Korea can join the Western World tomorrow if they get rid of their nukes and open their country to investment and the outside world.

Wait there is still more:

WB: What about those ground-to-ground missiles, and the…

TT: They can’t reach us.

WB: They can reach Japan. They can reach South Korea. They can reach a lot of our allies.

TT: They can’t reach the U.S.A., and we can pound them into oblivion in 24 hours.

WB: But you don’t want to get to that. There’s some estimates, by the way, they could reach Alaska.

TT: Well, what? The Aleutian Islands? There’s nothing up there but a few sea lions.

I guess the American government shouldn’t care about the security of our allies or the welfare of Americans in Alaska as well according to Turner. Last I checked I thought Alaskans were Americans? Did somebody change citizenship requirements in Alaska and only tell Ted Turner?

Read the rest of your own but this guy is nuts. How in the world can someone be such a pro-commie and be a billionaire? Then again Kim Jong Il is pro-commie and he is a billionaire as well, so they both got something in common there. Just keep in mind what Nomad thinks on this subject; he did marry Jane Fonda.

Former 2ID Commanding General, General Honore continues to make a name for himself in New Orleans:

Honore: You are stuck on stupid. I’m not going to answer that question. We are going to deal with Rita. This is public information that people are depending on the government to put out. This is the way we’ve got to do it. So please. I apologize to you, but let’s talk about the future. Rita is happening. And right now, we need to get good, clean information out to the people that they can use. And we can have a conversation on the side about the past, in a couple of months.

Having listened to General Honore before in the past it is funny to listen to him use catch phrases he uses in military settings with the reporters in New Orleans. You need to listen to the audio sound bite because it is even funnier than reading the transcript. I wish more people would be willing tell the press they are stuck on stupid like that. General Honore continues to be the perfect man for this job.

Google Earth is one cool program if you haven’t downloaded it yet. Using this program I plan to post images from Korea every week and see if anyone can guess where in Korea it is from. Consider it a weekly Korea geography lesson. Anyway, this week I am starting with an easy location:

I’m assuming this one should be guessed rather quickly, but in the future for harder locations to identify I will post clues if no one can figure it out right way.

UPDATE #2: One of my commenters Michael has pictures of Ike’s statue in France up on his site.
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UPDATE #1: Somebody has called the Korea Times on there misinformation attempt and the Korea Times actually published it! Will miracles never cease! Interestingly the Korea Times didn’t publish the author’s name who informed them that France does in fact have many statues not only honoring Eisenhauer but also other famous American generals. So whoever it was great job.

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This editorial in the Korea Times began by giving the same government talking points about the MacArthur Statue, that it should stay in Korea, that MacArthur with his faults still is the one that lead the Inchon Landing, blah, blah, blah, etc. Until this last paragraph where this was slipped in:

As President Roh made it clear that it is the government’s position to keep the statue, U.S. lawmakers had better wait and see. Nor is this an issue for partisan wrangling domestically. Related officials can consider relocating it to a war memorial from the present public park someday. We have never heard of a statue of Dwight Eisenhower in Normandy to commemorate D-Day.

Does this mean that the Korea Times wants the statue removed and sent to the Korean War Memorial instead? This statue has stood in that park for almost 50 years and now because of few communist hate groups don’t like seeing it, the Korea Times advocates removing the statue?

The people of Inchon are the ones who bought the statue and emplaced it in their park. They are the ones who should decide if MacArthur should go or not. Not the hate groups, the media, or national government, but the people of Inchon. Put it to a referendum to let the people of Inchon decide. That would end this controversy right then and there.

Of course the hate groups, that want to see the statue go, don’t want that because the people of Inchon will overwhelmingly vote to keep it. That would be democracy in action and that is not what these communists want to see. Apparently neither does the Korea Times.

The Korean government has now responded to the Congressional letter sent to President Roh expressing the US government’s concern over the MacArthur statue controversy. From the Marmot:

Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon has sent a written response to Rep. Hyde stating the Korean government’s position not to permit the statue of Gen. MacArthur to be removed or damaged. He also mentioned that high-ranking Cheong Wa Dae officials planned to meet with those calling for the statue to be removed to explain to them the importance of the Korea-U.S. alliance and the sacrifices made by Gen. MacArthur. On a more feel-good note, he also said neither the Korean government nor the Korean people have forgotten the sacrifices made by Americans in protecting democracy in Korea, and that they remember Gen. MacArthur as a “great and brave hero of the Korean War.” He also noted that when, thanks to the North Korean nuclear issue, the importance of a strong Korean-U.S. alliance was been highlighted, he was sure that the regrettable actions of some would not influence the bilateral relationship.

I agree with the Marmot that President Roh should of been the one to have sent the response himself clearly stating the policy of the Republic of Korea. Instead President Roh has decided to have Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon to respond instead. Minister Ban is one of the good guys in the administration that actually makes an effort to get along with Americans. I can remember a few months back when he visited Camp Red Cloud to thank the soldiers there for their service in Korea. President Roh can’t even write a letter himself stating his own government’s policy much less thank 32,000 American soldiers serving in his country.

The Boston Globe has now picked up on the MacArthur controversy now as well. Really nothing new in the article but at least this issue is continuing to pick up more steam in the American press. Here is part of the article I did find interesting:

Regardless of their feelings about MacArthur, many South Koreans seem to be deeply embarrassed by the clash on Sept. 11.

The wave of anti-American demonstrations in 2002, sparked by the accidental death of two schoolgirls hit by a US military vehicle, damaged South Korea’s relations with the United States and its image abroad. Anti-Americanism is believed to be bad for business here, and many fear that a brouhaha over MacArthur will play badly with American conservatives.

I would agree that average Koreans are embarrassed by the hate groups that are causing these clashes. However, if average Koreans do not push their government to do anything about it than prepare to be really embarrassed when the Pyoengtaek land deal issue heats up. Also, why should the MacArthur controversy play badly with only American conservatives? This is not a conservative or liberal issue. This is an American issue. I would hope that liberals would agree that General MacArthur though flawed was overall a positive force for good by helping to liberate many nations from the Japanese during World War II and later defeating communist aggression in South Korea during the Korean War.

Anyway, hopefully this issue will continue to be reported, but I have a feeling that the Korean government will probably keep these hate groups quiet for a while until the American media attention passes. Not because they don’t agree with the groups, but because it’s bad for business.

A Japanese woman who was unhappy about the hitman she hired decided to call the police about it:

A Japanese woman called in the police after a hit man she paid to kill her lover’s wife failed to carry out the job. The 32-year-old Tokyo woman was arrested on Wednesday for incitement to murder, the Daily Yomiuri newspaper said on Friday.

Police also arrested the private detective and found the alleged target safe and well, the paper said.

I guess maybe she should of called the Better Business Bureau instead.