Free Republic

March 02, 2006 The AP Katrina Briefing Story - Rathergate Connection Yesterday, in looking at the AP piece on the Bush Katrina briefings (Rewriting Katrina History - AP Style), I had this to stay about the AP's work: ...[I]t has all the hallmarks of the Bush Air National Guard story on 60 Minutes II by Dan Rather and Mary Mapes. The AP has dressed up mundane video to try and prove that President Bush (and everyone else) knew that the levees in New Orleans were going to breech. The problem is the evidence they present in their story to make...

June 25, 2005 According to a poll by the Joong-Ang Ilbo, 42 percent of South Koreans say they believe another war could take place on the Korean Peninsula, with many believing North Korea and the United States would be responsible for it. Marking the 55th anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War, the newspaper conducted a random telephone survey of 767 men and women over 18 years old. The respondents include 189 persons in their 20s, 179 in their 30s, 169 in their 40s and 230 older than 50. With a confidence level of 95 percent, the poll's sampling...

'I think she -- she'll -- she'll get the nomination. But think about it. His philandering launched her career to the Senate. It got her to the Senate. But if she can't keep the dog on the porch, how is she going to keep the terrorists in check as Commander-in-Chief? I can just see it now'............

<p>Bush will push his tough stance that North Korea's announced nuclear development must be stopped soon either "diplomatically or militarily."</p> <p>Roh favors patient diplomacy. South Koreans aren't panicking over possible North Korean nukes. Their overriding goal is ultimate reunification.</p> <p>A 155 mile-long coiled barbed wire "wall" here at the DMZ has separated the two countries since the war stalemate in 1953. But there's evidence of thawing relations.</p>

South Korea's presidential foreign policy adviser urged North Korea Wednesday to return to nuclear talks no later than next month. Meeting with reporters, Chung Woo-sung said he welcomed North Korea's recent indication that it would rejoin six-party talks on its nuclear weapons programs. The United States announced Tuesday that North Korea had agreed to return to the six-party talks, without giving a specific time, during contacts in New York on Monday. Chung, foreign policy adviser for President Roh Moo-hyun, said the signals sent by North Korea were not so bad, though he cautioned, We cannot definitely say the six-party talks...

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan's soccer association on Tuesday accepted FIFA's choice of Bangkok as a new venue to play the June 8 World Cup qualifier against North Korea. Soccer's governing body made the decision after receiving no appeal against a judgment made last month ordering North Korea to play the match in a neutral country -- and with no spectators -- as punishment for crowd trouble during home defeats to Bahrain and Iran in March. FIFA also fined the North Korean soccer association $16,770.

Korean seaweed soup or miyeok-guk is gaining popularity as a post-childbirth food in the U.S. It is reportedly the most popular dish among new mothers at Queen of Angels-Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles, where half of the 80-90 new mothers recovering there order the restorative soup. More and more general patients are ordering the soup as well, the hospital said. The phenomenon started after Korea's CHA Medical Group took over the medical center from Tenet Healthcare Corp. in February. "Seeing Korean mothers eating seaweed soup after childbirth, white, black, Latino and Armenian mothers as well as general patients...

Political associates of Secretary of State Condi Rice are stirring the 2008 presidential pot on her behalf. While she takes the high road, they're pushing her name out there. "She definitely wants to be president," said one. But, the friend added, Rice isn't planning on quitting to run. "She wants to be drafted," he said.

CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown has the first interview with Dan Rather following the cancellation of 60 Minutes Wednesday. It will air on Sunday night. Here is Rather's reaction to the cancellation: "I'm disappointed because it is -- for what everyone thought of 60 Minutes Weekday [it] was another place where journalists were at least trying to deliver overall, in the main, integrity filled journalism that matters. Now there's one less place for that. And I'm disappointed about it...What I wanna do first is be concerned about the people who are at risk in losing their jobs. That's first...

May 14, 2005 Following reports on North Korea's activities at a tunnel near its northeastern city of Kilju, which is viewed by some intelligence analysts as a possible nuclear weapons test site, South Korean sources said yesterday the North has many such underground facilities. Intelligence sources in Seoul estimate that North Korea has 8,200 such tunnels nationwide, with a total length of 547 kilometers (340 miles). A South Korean businessman who visited Pyongyang recently for an economic project told the JoongAng Ilbo he had seen thousands of laborers and soldiers disappearing into a tunnel between the city center and Sunan...

Japan’s Sankei Shimbun reported Wednesday high-quality so-called Super X counterfeit US$100 bills were brought into Japan in March by a North Korean freighter. The notes are high-quality forgeries capable of fooling even electronic counterfeit detectors. Sophisticated notes nicknamed Super K circulated in Southeast Asia in the 1990s, but the Super X is much more accurate. Japanese police said 10 of 7,100 US$100 bills brought in by the captain of North Korean freighter Lee Myong Su 7, which docked in Tottori Prefecture on March 23, were Super X counterfeits, according to the paper. The skipper told police he was given the...

South Korea's defense chief said Wednesday his ministry has not detected any signs North Korea is set to conduct a nuclear weapons test. Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung also said South Korea has received no intelligence from the United States about North Korea's alleged preparations for a test. So far, there isn't any sign of the North's nuclear test at all, he said in an interview with a group of South Korea college students invited to his office in Seoul. When we assume a situation in which an atomic bomb is exploded on the Korean Peninsula, South and North Korea will...

The armistice, signed in Panmunjeom, was signed by military commanders from the North Korean People's Army and the Chinese People's Volunteers, but not from South Korea or the United States. The U.S. and South Korea both accept the armistice to this day because they were part of the United Nations Command (UNC), which included 16 member nations in all that had sent troops to the region following North Korea’s invasion of the South in June 1950. The UNC is a signator to the Korean armistice. (SOURCE: Wikipedia) Should the U.S. accept direct talks with North Korea over the latter’s nuclear...

North Korean children play a shooting game with a toy gun aiming at a portrait of U.S. President George W. Bush at Namjun kindergarten in Shinwiju, Pyongan-Budo, North Korea. The photo was released by Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on May 9, 2005. (Reuters

2005-05-07 - SEOUL — As North Korea accelerates the pace of its nuclear weapons program, the United States and its allies have limited options to prevent one of the world's poorest and most erratic nations from becoming a nuclear power. In a matter of weeks, faint hope that North Korea might be coaxed into voluntarily dismantling its nuclear facilities through multinational talks has all but evaporated. The Bush administration appears to have ruled out any kind of preemptive strike on North Korea, which with its conventional artillery alone could inflict massive casualties on neighboring South Korea and the more than...

O'Reilly's Post-Election "Hemorrhage" In response to this morning's post about Paula Zahn's ratings, a CNN insider says: "FNC should be less concerned with Zahn's performance and more concerned with the fact that O'Reilly continues to hemorrhage viewers month-over-month since October." Here are the monthly averages: October: 3,166,000 November: 3,080,000 December: 2,610,000 January: 2,478,000 February: 2,391,000 March: 2,320,000 April: 2,178,000 May-to-date: 2,096,000

Military officials said yesterday that an analysis of a North Korean missile test Sunday indicated that Pyongyang has upgraded its short-range missile capability, enabling it to strike U.S. military bases that are being established 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of Seoul. "Tracking the trajectory of the missile, it appeared to be a ballistic missile, not a cruise missile such as Silkworm," a military official told the JoongAng Ilbo. The official said the missile appeared to be equipped with a guidance system using an inertial navigation system to increase its accuracy. Cruise missiles fly at a normally low, designated altitude and...

North Korea: In Washington, it passes for business as usual. But in the real world, the spectacle of Sen. Hillary Clinton harrumphing about Pyongyang's nuclear capability sets off the hypocrisy alarm. During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last Thursday, the junior senator from New York noted that "we haven't been all that successful preventing" North Korea's "continued attempts to obtain nuclear weapons." "And," she went on, "we find ourselves now in a position that strikes me as a failed policy with grave consequences for the region and the world." She later told The New York Times that Pyongyang, which...

North Korea has said the country’s average life expectancy declined by 5.5 years between 1993 and 2002, from 72.7 years to 67.2 years, apparently due to food and medicine shortages. According to a population report Pyongyang submitted to the UN, life expectancy for men declined from 68.5 years to 63.1, while that for women dropped from 76.1 years to 71. However, North Korean statistics are notoriously unreliable. According to World Health Organization figures, life expectancy in South Korea was 73 years for men and over 80 for women. North Korea also said its natural birth ratio was 96.4 percent. According...

November 25, 2004 The South Korean government intends to send up to 500 more combat troops to Iraq to strengthen security of the 3,600-man contingent already deployed, a diplomat in Washington and a lawmaker in Seoul said yesterday. "The government believes that the Zayituun unit in Iraq is extremely short of self-defense capabilities, leaving the troops open to terrorist attacks," the diplomat said. The unit in Iraq includes about 400 combat troops. The number is far too low if the Korean force faces conflict, the Washington source said. The diplomat forecast that radical Iraqi resistance forces would move into the...