Hysteria over mad cow disease is reaching boiling point in South Korea (photos of candle vigil), triggered by recent pre-FTA concession by South Korean President Lee to remove ban against US beef and boosted by a timely sensational episode on PD Notebook, a Korean version of 60-minutes.
Regardless of all the arguments for or against US beef export to Korea, I find it interesting that people are desensitized to countless deaths-by-car yet hysterical over the possibility of death-by-food. And it's ironic that Korean automakers stand to gain significantly from the US-Korea FTA if it goes through.
Tae-hwan Park won 2 more golds at FINA World Cup swimming meet today, bringing the total to 3. The kid is strong but what he pulled off today was really impressive. He swam 1500m freestyle then, just 10 minutes later, swam 200m, coming in first in both. He probably didn't even have time for ceremony in between. Wow.
An interesting tidbit for me: I read that there were three Parks in the pool for 1500m. Maybe I should start swimming again. ;-p
Update: Video of Tae-hwan swimming 400m. Mad sprinter strikes! Still looking for footage from the FINA meet.
So North Korea is preparing to shutdown their nuclear reactors. What I am wondering is how many nukes can Kim Jong-Il make with nuclear material they already processed? 20? 40? Even with just 10, they would have enough to destroy key cities in East Asia: Seoul, Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and maybe Singapore. With today's world economy tightly interweaved, no one can afford to ignore North Korea's demands now. I frankly don't see why we wasted time and lives in Iraq for imaginary WMD while North Korea built the real thing. Nuts.
It doesn't matter that US and China has tens of thousands of nukes or that South Korea and Japan can match North Korea's nukes in no time. We have something to lose while they don't and that's enough to force us to dance whenever they howl like hungry wolves.
If you missed it, checkout Colbert making fun of Rain, Korean pop star, and his version of one of Rain's video in which he is singin' in Korean. Very funny. I was getting tired of his political jokes so I am happy to see him spread his 'love' around.
What's even more funny is that Koreans not familiar with Colbert's brand of humor think Colbert is insulting Korea. We need Fair Trade agreement on humor! ;-p
This morning, I am deeply ashamed to learn that it was a Korean that committed the mindless act of violence against 32 helpless students at Virginia Tech yesterday. Deeply ashamed. I feel as if I am somehow partly responsible for all the deaths. According to news coming out of South Korea, many are shocked, ashamed, and angry as well, angry because the gunman ashamed them.
According to a Korean news report, a former personnel of the notorious Unit 731 testified at a medical ethics related symposium held in Osaka that he dissected two to three living human bodies daily. In one case, he testified that he dissected a mother in front of her child, letting the child watch her die while they cut her up into pieces. The child was later sent to be used in a frostbite experiment. Apparently this went on for years.
What punishment did Unit 731 receive for their research? Amnesty.
I wish I could link to the testimony directly but Korean newspaper sites rarely provide links to the material they used to write their articles.
South Korean consumers have come to expect high quality customer service as the norm, particularly with electronic goods. If a washer or TV breaks, repairmen is expected to show up in hours after making the call, not days like in the US. And if a product has a design defect, the manufacturers can expect unstoppable torrent of complaints until the defect is fixed. Thankfully, consumers don't just complaint but actively suggest ways to improve product design, packaging, and marketing, a phenomenon foreign companies can appreciate.
So it's not surprising that a man drove a $200,000 Mecedes into SKT HQ when he didn't get the service expected. A lonely island of intelligence amidst a sea of mindless rage: the car was rented.
Despite the news of the agreement, it's only an agreement to stop and list in return for oil. I remain highly doubtful that North Korea will, in the end, give up its nuclear weapons program and dismantle the bombs they've already built. This deal bought them time and resource as well as keeping China happy by laying low until 2008 Beijing Olympic is over. In other words, this deal is payola for temporary peace.
Above photo from Korean Yonhap News shows a North Korean soldier, one of two found drifting in the sea and rescued, being handed over to North Korea at the DMZ. What saddens me is how short he is compared to the South Korean soldier to the right. Even sadder, the differences has widened due to recent famines. The fact that northern Koreans used to be taller than southern Koreans makes this photo a very stark example of what two generations of dictators, father and son, can do to their own people.
Zhang Liangui, professor of international strategic research at Central Party School in Beijing, said:
Despite signing treaties on non-proliferation, "North Korea never stopped its nuclear program" from the 1960s, and instead kept buying time. "The balance of comprehensive national strength began to tip in the early 1970s, and widened dramatically with the South's economic power growing 30 times greater than the North," he says.
"North Korean leaders see mastering nuclear weapons as the only possible measure to dispel the fear of failure in this competition, and even possibly to take the initiative in unifying the Korean peninsula though force."
I think his reading of the situation is right on the money. Unfortunately, a complete embargo will force North Korea to explode southward like an over-squeezed tube of toothpaste. Ally or not, expect South Korea to stay neutral in the coming embargo. But then it might be years from now if Kim Jong-Il continues to be successful in buying time.
