The answers to the teasers posed just before the New Year. 1 Stressful times What does the current credit crunch and the most recent DPRK nuclear test have in common? a) the media blame them on an incompetent government who should have seen it coming and somehow prevented it b) they would both cause a … [Read More]
Category: Politics (page 4)
The King Baeksu counterblast to Amnesty International
J Scott Burgeson, aka Scott Bug, aka King Baeksu, has been monitoring the anti-FTA mad cow protests in Seoul pretty much nightly since they started. He’s been filing some detailed and extended eyewitness accounts over on his bulletin board. A week or so ago Amnesty International called for the “excessive force” used by South Korean … [Read More]
Mad Cows: President Lee’s apology
The following is the full text of President Lee Myung-bak’s statement in a live TV broadcast at Cheong Wa Dae on 22 May to address the resumption of U.S. beef imports and ratification of the Korea-U.S. FTA. Courtesy of the Korean Culture and Information Service (KOIS). For those who haven’t been following the Mad Cow … [Read More]
Together we shall open a road to advancement
Here is a translation of Lee Myung-bak’s inaugural address on 25 February, typeset as I received it. Some of the line breaks may be accidental, but most of them seem to be intended. Fellow Koreans, seven million Korean compatriots living abroad, former Presidents Roh Moo-hyun, Kim Dae Jung, Kim Young-sam, and Chun Doo-hwan, President Islam … [Read More]
Discussion: The South Korean class struggle
As a conservative prepares to take over in Seoul, in London a Marxist provides some commentary on the class struggle in South Korea. At the slightly anti-social time of 6pm on Saturday evening at Housman’s bookshop near Kings Cross, Loren Goldner will speak as follows: From Mass Strike to Casualization and Retreat: The Korean Working … [Read More]
LKL 2007 Quiz of the Year – the answers
Question 1: Corporate crooks and corruption Match the alleged quote with the appropriate chaebol The conglomorate had run a vast network that bribed government officials, prosecutors, tax collectors, journalists and scholars I don’t want to take a gamble on causing a crisis in the country’s economy The sentence of one year and six months is … [Read More]
Now comes the hard part: the task facing the Lee Myung-bak presidency
The easy bit was to capitalise on disaffection with the Roh regime. Now President-elect Lee has to figure out how to deliver on his election slogan: the 747 economy. So now Lee has to set South Korea on a course where annual GDP growth is 7%, GDP per head is $40,000 per annum, and South … [Read More]
Conspiracy theories
Tom Coyner has a mischievous speculation in one of his recent email news updates. I sometimes wonder if Pres Roh and PM Koizumi have these gentleman agreements, off the record of course, that allow each of them to act ridiculous so as to pander to local politics while knowing that the other politician is giving … [Read More]
Koreans and sport #1
They’re doing very well in some baseball tournament or other, of which the highlight was beating Japan. The Korean team’s leading player is the star Park Chan-ho. Must feel good to beat the old rivals across the East Sea. Meanwhile, not only the prime minister but now the vice-minister for education have been forced to … [Read More]