I know more than you do!

Apparently Noh Moo-hyun is getting tired of hearing all the nations of the world citisize South Korea's policies towards the North. During a trip to Australia he apparently said "We dare to take pride in that South Korea knows best about North Korea,"

Normally I would say that he is right. South Korea's unique position with the North should by far give it insight into developments in the DPRK. However, any news watcher worth his weight should remember that just prior to the Nuclear test, Noh and his administration said that there was no way the North would conduct a test.

Silly them I suppose (and the Unification Minister resigned because of it), because soon after the North tested a Nuke and the region has been spinning since.

Even more spies caught.

Well, it seems that some of the North's plans have been unraveling of late. A little while ago an espionage group had received instructions from North Korea by e-mail and infiltrated the far-left Democratic Labor Party and had been under Northern orders to stir up trouble here in the South. And in another semi-related case, a 48 man was arrested in July when he entered South Korea posing as a Filipino visitor. Apparently he had been taking pictures of certain facilities in the South and sending them North.

Of special note in the article it mentions:

The court said it had imposed a relatively light punishment because, in the court's words, "taking pictures of national facilities is not itself a significant threat to national security."Sounding almost apologetic, the court said it was regrettable that the suspect had to be punished "even though he is one of our own."

Far too often are the courts and commissions here going easy on anyone in favor of the North.

I look forward to the day that the Unification Ministry and their friends get investigated with the same scrutiny as the men above.

Everyone is on the same page

Over the past weekend a U.N. committee passed a resolution Friday criticizing North Korea's human rights abuses, with South Korea voting in favor for the first time.
Although it was "non-binding", it is a good indicator that the world is coming on board in condeming the Human Rights situation in the North.

As well, a number of leaders that were in Viet Nam this week for the APEC Summit seemed very willing to voice their concerns on the subject.

Heck, you know it's bad when the Canadians are going to "say" something:
Canada said it sent a senior diplomat to North Korea on Thursday with a strong message calling for a resolution of the crisis over the communist country's nuclear weapons program.
"Canada's position from the beginning is that nuclear test programs are dangerous and unstable for the region," senior Canadian government official Dimitri Soudas told The Associated Press.

"The international community is obligated to approach the issues of the Korean peninsula and the Iranian nuclear program firmly but very cautiously," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in Russia's latest warning that overly harsh actions against Tehran or Pyongyang could undermine efforts to resolve the disputes.

"Right now, all parties need to be flexible and stay calm and exercise self-control and prevent a deterioration" in the situation, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao.

Well now, all we need is for the South Koreans to get on board and we've got a party.

Oh wait, maybe they just did. It seems that the ROK has finally realized that there is a Human Rights problem in the North and that the South is partially responsible for it (if not now, then in the future). Or, could it be that they simply didn't want the new general Secretary of the UN looking bad on his first day of office?

Either way, let's hope this direction continues. Whether by hook or by crook, this administration is going to have to face facts.

The DPRK being abused by Japan?

Well it seems that the DPRK believes that Japan's sanctions are a hostile move from "a puppet of U.S. imperialists." The Rodong Sinmun is quoted as saying "It is the view of the DPRK that since the U.S. attends the six-party talks, there is no need for Japan to participate in them as a local delegate because it is no more than a state of the U.S. and it is enough for Tokyo just to be informed of the results of the talks by Washington."

So, a week ago they asked that Japan not be invited to the 6 party talks. Now they take it one step further saying that Japan can simply be "informed" by the Us and that it has no real stake in the process.

How soon they forget about kidnappings, threats, and missiles tests - all aimed in Japan's direction. Personally, I'm waiting for the Abe administration to step it up a notch and say - If the DPRK has Nuclear Weapons, then we need them too.

I say let the dominoes fall where they may.

Is the US planning on leaving?

There has been a lot of talk about the transfer or wartime control. First, the Uri party and this administration were rabid about it; wanting it to happen asap. They espoused it as a "matter of sovereignty", and that it was Korea's right to manage it's own affairs.

Tough to argue with that. Unfortunately a Nuclear Test last month put the shivers into everyone. Now you hear talk in the halls of the National Assembly of a "backing off" of the demand. Unfortunately for them, the US has already seen it's "out" . U.S. Commander General B.B. Bell is quoted as saying:

"Within the next three to six years, we will stand down this time-honored command and make the transition to independent and complementary ROK [Republic of Korea] and U.S. national commands," and that the transfer was "not a cause for concern, but a cause for celebration."

You should know, that anytime a soldier is being that nice about withdrawing troops, it means that they are done. Basically, the fight has gone out of them. Maybe it's the reduced training time and area, maybe the anti-American protests, or maybe it's just the lack of four distinct seasons. Whatever it is, it seems that the US is itching for an exit rout from the current situation.

I can't blame them. The truth is, they are unappreciated here. However, for my own safety, and for the future of Gimchi everywhere, I ask the US to stick around for at least awhile longer. There will be a change of administrations here soon, and I can already smell the cleaner air.

New unification minister

Yonhap wrote up a quick bio on the new Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung:

Born in 1944 in the city of Jincheon, about 100 kilometers south of Seoul, Lee studied German literature at Seoul's Korea University until 1969, but became the chief priest of an Anglican church in Seoul in 1977 after completing his graduate degree in theology at the Seoul National University in 1974.

He received his master's degree from Canada's University of Manitoba and his doctorate from the University of Trinity College in Toronto in 1988.Lee taught at the Sung Kong Hoe University in Seoul and served as the university president from 1994 to 2000 when he joined the then-ruling Millennium Democratic Party to become a member of the 16th National Assembly.

He helped found the governing Uri Party, but was briefly detained early 2004 on suspicions of receiving illegal campaign funds in the lead up to the 2002 presidential election, in which the Millennium Democratic Party candidate Roh Moo-hyun was elected president.

He was convicted and sentenced to a one-year jail term, but was released on three-years of probation.Lee returned to preaching shortly after his release in 2004, serving at the House of Shalom, a shelter run by his church for migrant workers here.

He was named the senior vice president of the presidential National Unification Advisory Council later that year and has served in that post since. He is also working as an advisor for the ruling Uri Party. He is married with one daughter.

Wow, now there is a winner. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse.

Traitors!

For as long as I have been in Korea I've heard about how the country is over-run by North Korean spies. I took this with a grain of salt and figured, that while possible, for the most part it was probably just a result of too many conspiracy movies.

Well, it seems that there are at least a few and they are all working with the Democratic Labor Party. This comes as no major surprise to most people, the DLP is known to be radically pro-labor, but the headlines are catching the tail of the Nuclear tensions and driving public opinion even further right.

As it stands, Democratic Labor Party leader Lee Jung-hoon and two others are being held on accusations of spying. Apparently they (after being protesters in the 80s) were approached by a Korean-American businessman and introduced to the wonderful world of espionage. They had a safe house in Beijing and from they they received their instructions - among them they were to keep track on a parliamentary resolution to sack then-Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung;
Intervene on Pyongyang's behalf in the May 31 regional elections, including having the DLP throw its votes behind Uri Party candidate Kang Kum-sil in an ultimately unsuccessful bid to defeat Grand National Party candidate Oh Se-hoon in the Seoul mayoral race; Use environmental issues to bring civic groups into the anti-American struggle. Keep dossiers on South Koreans in various fields (politicians, civic group figures, etc.) in order to keep track of trends in South Korean society following North Koreas recent nuclear test. These dossiers were supposedly given to Mr. Chang.

I am not convinced oftheir guilt. In this day and age of open-arms (no pun) policy to the North, I suspect that they could almost get away with claiming they did it for unification. However, if the current trend continues (and I hope it does), I think that there is the distinct possibility that this may lead to a wider net being cast and a pruning of the leftist shrub.

It's about time someone chopped down that weed a little.