The left-wing government of President Roh has waged war on “the rich” in South Korea; the result is rather predictable:
South Korea slipped in the global gross domestic product (GDP) rankings last year. It is now the 13th largest economy after Russia and India as of 2006, falling one notch from a year earlier.
According to World [...]

Daily Chosun says:
Taliban killed another Korean hostage in Afghanistan after the latest deadline for negotiations expired on Monday. Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a purported spokesman for the Taliban, told the Chosun Ilbo, AFP and AP by phone, “’Finally tonight at 8:30, we killed one of the Koreans named Sung Sim with AK-47 gunshots.” He claimed the [...]

A particularly irreverent former colleague (he’s a Ron Paul supporter, for whatever that’s worth) writes: “I guess South Korean Christians are the only kind left that care for the whole courage and martyrdom thing… My church, on the other hand, is content to watch Al Gore movies and sing the opening song from Pocahontas. Perhaps [...]

First, a little disclosure: long time readers of this blog, Joshua’s blog (One Free Korea), and the now defunct joint blog Joshua, Richardson and I created in the past (The Korea Liberator) probably remember that the joint project unraveled under a less than amicable circumstance. We had different ideas about how to run the blog [...]

[Update: July 26, 2007] This is what I mean by “metro-elite propaganda” (h/t my former boss). The article begins well enough, but then sneaks in the following:
Some devout Christians are calling the abductees martyrs, evoking the self-glorification of extreme Islamist jihadists.
This is the kind of anti-Christian moral equivalence that bugs me. On the one hand, [...]

The North Korean general who cracked a Bush joke while meeting with his South Korean counterparts in May this year has struck again:
Lieutenant General Kim Yong Chol opened negotiations Tuesday at the truce village of Panmunjom, which sits in the middle of the heavily fortified border dividing the countries, with a joke he said he [...]

Update: Thanks to everyone who left us a message here or via email, it is greatly appreciated. The little guy is doing as well as could be expected and is getting used to life on the outside. As he transitioned from colostrum to milk today, which seems to be helping him sleep much better. That [...]

Update: Not that it will change the outcome any, but the order of how North Korea will break its word should be kept clear; the WaPo states that, “The next steps, as outlined in the accord, would be for North Korea to permanently disable the reactor…” Not really, as the first step was, “1. [...]

USinKorea alerted me to this Time story on North Korea, “The Sopranos State,” an expose on the “the North’s Mafia-style businesses.” Also an interesting side note about the former U.S. Naval station at Subic Bay in the Philippines.

On Friday (13 July) North Korea proposed direct military talks with the U.S., referring to, “for the purpose of discussing the issues related to ensuring the peace and security on the Korean peninsula.” This is alluding to a formal peace treaty to replace the armistice that has been in place since 1953. By asking for [...]