Free Republic

Pyongyang, November 23 (KCNA) -- In order to put an end to confrontation and conflict in the Korean Peninsula and ensure its lasting peace and stability it is indispensable to terminate the state of ceasefire between the DPRK and the U.S. and establish a peacekeeping mechanism. Rodong Sinmun Monday says this in a signed commentary. Recalling that recently a group of warships of the south Korean forces perpetrated such unpardonable criminal act as opening fire on a patrol boat of the Navy of the Korean People's Army on routine guard duty in the waters of the north side in the...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20, 2009 – Retired Army Col. Lewis L. Millett, who earned the Medal of Honor during the Korean War for leading what reportedly was the last major American bayonet charge, died Nov 14. Retired Army Col. Lewis L. Millet wears his Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star and other medals earned in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. He served as honorary colonel of the 27th Infantry Regiment Association, and was active in veterans events almost to his death Nov. 14, 2009. U.S. Army photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Millett, 88, died in Loma...

South Korea is emerging as an unexpected contender in the global race to build nuclear-power plants, turning up as a finalist for one of the industry's most-coveted projects. The Korean bid has surprised more-established competitors—including industry leader Areva SA of France—as well as officials in the United Arab Emirates, who are examining bids for a contract that could be worth as much as $40 billion to build and run the Arab world's first nuclear-power plants. U.A.E. officials could award the contract as early as the next few weeks. Early in the bidding process, many observers expected a two-horse race between...

You stand atop an elevated tee box on the first and only hole of the world's most dangerous golf course. And you consider your chances. This deadly little par 3 measures 192 yards but plays more like 250 in the face of the vicious winds that often blow out of North Korea across an exclusive piece of real estate called the DMZ just a few yards away. Underneath your feet and off to the right are bunkers. The military kind. To the left, over an 18-foot-high security fence topped by concertina wire, are hazards that make high rough, deep water...

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said the South will pay "an expensive price" for firing at Pyongyang's retreating patrol boat on Tuesday, keeping up its saber rattling two days after a naval gunfight raised tension between the rivals. The threat, published in the North's official Rodong Sinmun daily, comes amid reports officials from the two Koreas met recently to discuss a possible summit between their leaders but failed to reach agreement. The navies from the two sides exchanged gunfire on Tuesday for the first time in seven years, reminding financial market players of the security threat the North poses to...

DEMILITARIZED ZONE, Korea — The water deer nibbled away on the vegetation on the gently sloping bend along the Imjin River, seemingly unaware of the dozen people pointing and staring at it through a field scope from the opposite shoreline. Nearby, the group observed a family of white-naped cranes feeding, something the endangered species does when wintering in the relative solitude of the Demilitarized Zone that divides North and South Korea. While mention of the DMZ conjures images of stone-faced soldiers, barbed-wire fences, guns and guard towers, the area between North and South Korea has remained virtually untouched by humans...

SEOUL, South Korea – The two Koreas briefly exchanged naval fire Tuesday along their disputed western sea border, with a North Korean ship suffering heavy damage before retreating, South Korean military officials said. There were no South Korean casualties, the country's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement, and it was not immediately clear if there were any casualties on the North Korean side. Each side blamed the other for violating the sea border. The clash — the first of its in kind in seven years — occurred as U.S. officials said President Barack Obama has decided to send...

Firefight Between North and South Korean Navy This Morning: Causualty Unknown Happened on the morning of Nov. 10 at NLL. N. Korean patrol boats went over NLL to the south. Warning shots fired, but ignored. S. Korean navy fired at N. Korean ship. N. Koreans returned fire.

No other information yet.

We hail those that wore the uniform of the US Armed Forces every November 11. We honor the Greatest Generation, we finally honor those that fought the Cong, we honor those that have fought in the Middle East. But more times than not, we as a people, tend to forget those of another conflict. Korean War Vets, it seems, get lost in the shuffling of history.

SEOUL, South Korea – A woman in South Korea who tried to pass the written exam for a driver's license with near-daily attempts since April 2005 has finally succeeded on her 950th time. The aspiring driver spent more than 5 million won ($4,200) in application fees, but until now had failed to score the minimum 60 out of a possible 100 points needed to get behind the wheel for a driving test. Cha Sa-soon, 68, finally passed the written exam with a score of 60 on Wednesday, said Choi Young-chul, a police official at the drivers' license agency in Jeonju,...

The point of this posting is to continue to systematically attack the notion that it is natural for two Koreas to exist and to continually eat away at all the justifications that South Koreans make in order to some how to ease their collective guilt as they lead their moderately wealthty lives as the other half of the nation continues to suffer (For more on how North Koreans continue to suffer see last week's issue of the New Yorker or what Professor Brad DeLong at UC Berkeley has noted to be last weeks "must read.") I do this under the...

North Korea launched the cyber attack against South Korea and the United States The South Korean government is now blaming North Korea of launching organized cyber attacks against websites belonging to South Korea and the U.S. earlier in the year.Due to malicious software, numerous U.S. and S.K. Web sites were slowed or ground to a complete stop during the attack, as cyber experts scrambled to pinpoint the source of the problem. According to experts, the IP address traced to the attacks was leased from China, the South Korean National Intelligence Service noted in its report. “The attacks on Korean and...

Today we will have a presentation on how North Korean institutions have changed since the death of Kim Il Sung. One particular item, the presenting group this week has looked at is the new North Korean constitution, adopted in late September of this year stands out to highlight how much North Korea has fallen. Below is a rough draft of a translation of the North Korean constitution. There is a section missing on the draft copy of the translation, but I hope to have that updated shortly. But, what is fascinating about looking at the constitution is how far North...

Japan and the United States have tentatively agreed to expand co-operation in the missile defence field.. a [Japanese] spokesman said its scope is not expected to include Japan allowing the export of the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIA, which is currently being jointly developed....both sides said they wanted to further co-operation in jointly developing missile defence systems..[the US asked Japan to consider permitting export of jointly-developed missiles, most likely to Europe].

Harry Stein What Mad Men Gets Wrong The fifties, a decade of forgotten loyalty, honor, and patriotism The ongoing frenzy over Mad Men, which recently landed the Emmy for best drama series for the second straight year, has me thinking about my father-in-law and his group of cronies in Monterey, California. I wrote a book about these guys some years back, called The Girl Watchers Club. For over 30 years, they got together every week to shoot the breeze about their jobs, their families, and the world at large and, invariably, to reminisce about the war in which they’d all...

  Japan Achieves Second Ballistic Missile Intercept Using Raytheon Standard Missile-3 KAUAI, Hawaii, Oct. 28, 2009 /PRNewswire/ -- PACIFIC MISSILE RANGE FACILITY -- The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force achieved another ballistic missile intercept in space using a Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN)-built Standard Missile-3. During the Oct. 27 test, the SM-3 Block IA missile engaged and destroyed a medium-range ballistic missile target more than 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean. Personnel at the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai launched the ballistic missile target. The crew of the Japanese destroyer JS Myoko (DDG-175) detected and tracked the target before...

DEMILITARIZED ZONE, Korea — You might call it a case of keeping up with the Joneses, or in this case the Kims. Work is under way on the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone to renovate three guard posts and two checkpoint buildings into bigger, more modern structures. The construction comes a year after North Korea finished work on the replacement of four guard posts on its side of the DMZ, and a decade after the two sides engaged in a tit-for-tat battle to see who could build the more impressive reception centers in the Joint Security Area —...

Free Trade: Europe just walked off with the second-biggest trade deal in history with South Korea, bringing a fresh $26 billion to both economies and extending their clout globally. It's a prize that could have been ours. Welcome to the new America, the land of the left behind. As the Obama administration dithers for the eighth straight month about three pending free-trade treaties, those dust clouds you see are Europe taking off and running with the big one — South Korea. Late Thursday, Europe completed a free-trade pact with Korea in which 99% of all tariffs will be scrapped within...

The United States said on Friday it would allow a senior North Korean official to visit this month, a move analysts said could be a first step toward talks between the two on ending Pyongyang's nuclear programs. The State Department said it had decided to grant a visa to Ri Gun, North Korea's No. 2 official at multilateral talks on its nuclear programs, to attend meetings in New York and San Diego with private scholars and experts who study North Korea. The department said nothing about the possibility of talks between U.S. and North Korean officials, but a source familiar...

orth Korea may be preparing to launch more short-range missiles a day after the communist state fired a barrage of missiles, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said on Tuesday, quoting a government source. Indications of additional launches are coming from the western part of the Korean peninsula, the source was quoted as saying. North Korea has issued a warning for vessels to stay out of waters off its coasts

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea has fired five short-range missiles off its east coast and declared a "no sail" zone in the area from October 10-20, South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted a government source as saying on Monday. South Korean government officials were not immediately available for comment. (snip) It was not clear whether these were routine military exercises. But they coincided with local media reports that the United States is planning to send its aircraft carrier USS George Washington to the South Korean port of Busan on Tuesday.

My claim is that Koreans are still unable to acknowledge that it was natural for some people to have benefitted under Japanese rule and that these people still loved Korea and the like (I'm thinking more along the lines of a Park Chung Hee than the founders of either Dong-a-Ilbo or Samsung), but the opportunities they had in life only existed if they accepted that Korea was for the time being a Japanese colony and that they realistically couldn't do a single thing about it. And, more so, and this is a claim purely along the lines of the early...

North Korea drops communism, boosts "Dear Leader" Mon Sep 28, 2009 4:21am EDT (For full coverage of North Korea, click [ID:nNORKOR]) By Jon Herskovitz and Christine Kim SEOUL, Sept 28 (Reuters) - North Korea has revised its constitution to give even more power to leader Kim Jong-il, ditch communism and elevate his "military first" ideology, South Korea's Unification Ministry said on Monday. Though there is little doubt over the 67-year-old Kim's power, secured by his role as chairman of the National Defence Commission, the new constitution removes any risk of ambiguity. "The chairman is the highest general of the entire...

You could also look at what South Korean historians are doing. Historians in South Korea put weight, as I've pointed out earlier (in Part I), on theories now that would otherwise be of little relevance were it to not the case that Korea still remains divided today. Specifically, the North-South States Period (남�국시대) serves mainly to justify the division of the peninsula in the mind of Koreans and to make it seem as if the division is entirely natural (since it happened before and the country eventually unified) and that it's perfectly alright to think of other things for the...

The Ministry of National Defense plans to sell more than 100,000 aging U.S. combat rifles to American gun enthusiasts, ministry officials said Thursday. The plan is part of the ministry's programs to boost its defense budget, they said. About 86,000 M1 Garand rifles and 22,000 M1 carbine rifles will be sold to gun collectors in the United States, as the U.S. government has approved the sale. The rifles were originally given to South Korea as part of a U.S. aid program in the 1950s, according to officials. The total value of the firearms for sale exceeds $120 million. The rifles...

SEOUL -- A united South and North Korea could boast an economy larger than France, Germany and possibly Japan by the middle of the century, according to a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. study that challenges conventional wisdom about unification. Since the reunification of West and East Germany 20 years ago, South Korean leaders and economists have convinced many people here that reuniting with North Korea would be costly and disruptive. In the latest gloomy forecast, a government think tank last month said the tax-burden ratio, or proportion of tax revenue to gross domestic product, would need to rise by two...

United States President Barack Obama and members of his administration are going to great lengths to explain the reasons why the US abruptly changed course with respect to its anti-missile strategy for Europe. In the process, little or nothing has been said about the impact of this new plan on Asia. Silence or not, both China and Japan must assess the consequences of this activity because what the US is now proposing for Europe in terms of missile defense is right in line with what has been unfolding all along in East Asia, where the US Navy forms the front...

But, what's interesting is to see the parallels between what this paper finds and how it stacks up to how ethnic Koreans are perceived or how Koreans are expected to be in the United States. Considering that China too is a very diverse, multiethnic country and that, at least on paper, the Chinese have a similar definition of identity as that of the United States, I'd like to argue that it can be shown that the expectations or beliefs that Americans may hold towards Korean-Americans can indeed be validated. We can show by seeing if these same expectations can be...

South Korea has given the production go-ahead for the first 70 Hongsangeo anti-submarine torpedoes for deployment between 2010 and 2012, the government has said. Up to 70 of the long-range ship-to-submarine light torpedoes, called Red Shark in English, will be operational aboard some of South Korea's newest country's destroyers, the KDX-I/II, according to the procurement agency Defense Acquisition Program Administration. After nine years of development, the final tests were completed earlier this year, the DAPA's sister organization the state-funded Agency for Defense Development announced in June. Deployment is in response to a growing threat from North Korean submarines, the ADD...

North Korea is insisting on direct talks with the United States in an attempt to obtain recognition as a nuclear state, Seoul's top diplomat said Friday, warning that the North's atomic bombs are intended to target South Korea. The remark—implying that the communist nation has no intention of giving up atomic weapons—is the latest in a series of warnings that a wary South Korea has issued ahead of possible one-on-one negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea. After escalating tensions for months with nuclear and missile tests, Pyongyang recently offered to hold direct talks with the U.S.—a longstanding demand from...

SEOUL — Col. Robert Givens assumed command Tuesday of Kunsan Air Base’s 8th Fighter Wing, which includes 15 squadrons and 2,600 airmen. Givens is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and served as commander of Kunsan’s 35th Fighter Squadron from 2003 to 2004. An F-16 command pilot, he has flown more than 100 combat sorties in operations Desert Storm, Southern Watch and Iraqi Freedom. He has been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with one oak leaf cluster and valor device for his service in Iraq. He takes over for Col. Jerry Harris, who became commander in November 2008....

St. Andrew Kim Taegon, Korea's first priest and martyr Seoul, South Korea, Sep 15, 2009 / 12:10 am (CNA).- After two years of remodeling which included the addition of multimedia exhibits, the Korean Martyrs Museum-Shrine has reopened in Seoul.The Museum-Shrine, which contains rooms for liturgical celebration and prayer, was built in 1967 on the site in Jeoldusan where many of the Korean martyrs died from 1866 to 1873. Thousands of Catholics were killed in the fierce persecutions.The Shrine-Museum presents numerous historical documents, visual reconstructions, photographs and documentaries, Fides news agency reports.Archbishop of Seoul Cardinal Nicholas Choeng inaugurated the reopening...

But, what makes East Asia different is that the Communist leaders were first and foremost, popular national heroes, who, by the above logic and the U.S. decision to support colonial colloborators or participants of past institutions, that happened to choose to be communist. You see, while I'm not exactly writing part IV in this installment, I'm setting the argument up for how economic development, or these so called "miracles" in East Asia seem to keep happening over and over again. Also, it has been pointed out that Mongolia is a state that does not enjoy economic development, which is geographically...

You see, I'm of the belief that President George W. Bush, the first president I voted for during the 2000 election cycle, though I really was pulling for Senator John McCain at that time, became president since he was a likeable figure thought to be not different than the average American (Though, former President Gore's likeability issue and disgraced activist Ralph Nader probably also had something to do with it), but yet, then Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. and a tutor of George W. Bush's answers precisely why the U.S. should care and in a very concise manner too. If...

Anyways, take these xenophobic tendencies that have been created for over the past 1300 years (or more than 5,000 years, depending on your source) and then brutally colonize the country for thirty six years. Then, add in a devastating civil war (the Korean War) that wasn't allowed to see its natural conclusion - a war ending with there being two rival Korean states is definitely unnatural (or just look at the fact that the armistic isn't even a peace treaty, but a cease fire signed by China, North Korea, and the U.S.). That's at the heart of my argument. And,...

South Korea suspects North Korea intentionally flooded a river at their shared border last weekend, a top government official said Wednesday, as rescuers recovered the bodies of a boy and two others engulfed by the surge of water. North Korea unleashed an estimated 40 million tons of water from a new dam without providing prior notice. Six South Koreans camping and fishing at the river were swept to their deaths. The North said Monday that it "urgently" ordered the discharge because the reservoir's water level was too high. Stopping short of an apology, Pyongyang said it would warn Seoul of...

How Will We Judge the Korean War in a Century? [...] What I am arguing is will this be the consensus twenty years from today (or forty years after this article was written). I mean, yes, most ordinary South Koreans enjoys such material prosperity that probably only a select few and I mean a very select few in North Korea could only begin to dream about. I am saying that had the Korean War run its course without intervention from the United States (or equivalently had Harry S. Truman not settled on a policy, the Truman Doctrine, where not winning...

U.S. naivete not only wrongly interfered with the natural development of East Asia, but in particular with respect to Korea, the greatest tragedy was that by the U.S. interfering in what was basically a civil war, the peninsula saw all the carnage and destructionthat would've played out anyways had the U.S. not interfered, but the wardid nothing to unify the nation ("Containment"). Moreover, the perverse state that North Korea finds herself to be in is a direct result of the natural order of things being prevented from occurring. Other Sinic nations experienced similar bouts of reconciliation, but with the fruits...

Six South Koreans were missing near the border with the North, after a sudden rise in a river possibly due to water released from a dam in the North, a fire and rescue official said Sunday. "North Korea likely released water from its dam in the Imjin River," said an official at a fire station in Yuncheon, a town in northern Gyeonggi province just south of the border. "Six people are missing and the search and rescue operation is under way," he said, adding another 10 were rescued.

Kimchi brings both health and beauty, according to devotees trying to promote South Korea's most famous food -- a pickled and fermented vegetable dish -- to the wider world. "You know why there are so many beautiful women in Korea and Korean women have such smooth skin? It's because they have been grown on kimchi," claims Kim Sung-Hoon, who chairs an upcoming Gwangju Kimchi Festival. "If you want to age gracefully and have beautiful skin, eat Korean kimchi," said Kim, a former agriculture minister. Such assertions are not new given kimchi's iconic status -- it has its own museum in...

In the midst of public outcry over the decision by Scottish authorities to free Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, convicted in 1991 for his involvement in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, the anniversary of an older case of state-sponsored terrorism, the shooting down by KAL 007 by Soviet jet fighters in 1983, is almost forgotten by the media and public. When a bomb planted by Libyan terrorists tore Pan Am flight 103 from the sky on December 21, 1988, 270 people — 259 of them on the plane and 11 more on the ground — were killed....

Previously, I alluded to the Balhae(발해,渤海) topic or the North-South States Period: "By the way, on a tangent here, for those Koreans, who believe in this newly created North-South States Period Theory or 남�시대 (신�+발해 = Korea), let me tell you -- it's pure rubbish, which I would like to address in detail one day(The main question behind that issue comes down to who were the Mohe (�갈, �鞨) people (A Schizophrenic Han : Breaking Down Borders: Korea)." Well, I'm not sure if it's "pure rubbish" anymore. A lot of information that is available on this topic is the subject...

A report on Internet speed in the United States says the country isn’t likely to catch world leader South Korea for 15 years. Or for much longer — at current growth rates, the United States will only reach South Korea’s speed today in 15 years. The report, by the Communications Workers of America, details Internet download and upload speeds all over the United States and some of its affiliated territories. In the last year, the average upload speed in the United States “barely changed,” the report said, and download speed only grew a little, from 4.2 megabits per second in...

—South Korea plans to launch its first space rocket around 5 p.m. Tuesday after a technical glitch halted the countdown minutes before blastoff last week, according to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. The rocket is to be launched from the Naro Space Center, the country's spaceport in Goheung, South Jeolla Province, 485 kilometers south of Seoul. South Korea has been working on the two-stage launch vehicle with Russia's Khrunichev State Space Science and Production Center, which developed the first, liquid-fuel, stage. The second solid-fuel stage was developed by South Korea. South Korea reportedly spent 502.5 billion won ($402.4...

SEOUL, South Korea — A high-level North Korean delegation conveyed a message from their leader Kim Jong Il to the South Korean president during a rare meeting Sunday at the presidential Blue House. President Lee Myung-bak and the North Korean officials discussed inter-Korean cooperation during the half hour meeting, presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said. He said he could not provide details about the contents of Kim's message. The Blue House meeting — the latest sign of warming ties between the two Koreas after months of tension — took place just hours before the funeral of Kim Dae-jung, the former South...

South Korea will launch its first space rocket, commissioned to put an experimental satellite into orbit, at 5 p.m. local time Wednesday, the government said. Naro, or the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1, will blast off from the Naro Space Center, the country's spaceport in Goheung, South Jeolla Province, 485 kilometers south of Seoul. The exact time for the liftoff of the KSLV-1 was announced at midday after a final review of preparations and weather conditions. South Korea has been working on the two-stage launch vehicle with Russia's Khrunichev State Space Science and Production Center, which developed the first stage, liquid-fuel...

(Kim Death) (LEAD) Former President Kim dies at 85 SEOUL, Aug. 18 (Yonhap) -- Former President Kim Dae-jung died at Seoul's Severance Hospital at 1:42 p.m. Tuesday after a long battle with pneumonia and related complications, hospital officials said. He was 85. Kim, who served as president from 1998-2003, was admitted to Severance Hospital in western Seoul on July 13 with pneumonia and put on a respirator three days later. He underwent surgery on his bronchial tubes in late July as part of procedures to facilitate his breathing. Beginning late Monday night, Kim's health condition suddenly deteriorated, with his heart...

Yonhap news agency says former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung has died.

North Korea announces the resumption of tourism and the reunification of families divided by war, with effect as of October 3. The communist regime does not rule out nuclear attacks if the military exercises between the United States and South Korea violate national borders.