Free Republic

CNN on Thursday released a group photo of the staff of a North Korean restaurant in Ningbo, China who made headlines by defecting en masse to South Korea last month. Family members of three of the workers who defected made the photo public on Wednesday, apparently under pressure from North Korean propaganda authorities. "I curse and condemn the South Korean puppet forces who allured and abducted our daughters," one of them said. "When I think of that I lie awake frightened and cannot sleep... Those South Korean puppet criminals, I want to tear them to pieces!" Intelligence authorities here declined...

The Foreign Ministry says the government and the U.S. state of Texas have signed a memorandum of understanding for the mutual recognition of driving licenses in each others’ territories. The two sides on Friday agreed to mutually recognize nonprofit driving licenses held by citizens and residents of both sides. Texas is the fifth American state with which Seoul signed the agreement, after Maryland, Virginia, Washington and Massachusetts. A ministry official said that the agreement will bring great benefit to South Koreans staying in or visiting to Texas, adding the government will continue to make efforts to ensure that South Korean...

What does Korean fried chicken and tomatoes have in common? Shrill protestors attempting to shame large food companies into overcharging consumers for their product in the name of either job protection for the smaller producers or increase wages for "underpaid" workers. Both camps showed a shrewd application of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. Exhibit A: Back in December of last year, Korean food chaebol Lotte started selling buckets of Korean fried chicken in their Lotte Mart grocery stores for 5,000 won each. The Lotte Mart Korean fried chicken bucket quickly gained a good enough reputation that customers stood in long...

This is a preliminary list of cities that have either boycotted Arizona or are considering doing so. San Francisco Los Angeles Madison, WI Austin, TX West Hollywood, CA Boston, MA Oakland, CA St. Paul, MN Springfield, MA Worcester, MA Washington D.C. Milwaukee, WI Chicago NYC, NY Boulder, CO

.... This clash between the police, brick-and-mortar restaurants and the truck food scene is not unique to Los Angeles. The business climate is worse in San Francisco. Initial setup costs for a truck food vendor in San Francisco can be as much as $150,000, according to the organizers of San Francisco Street Food Festival. Food and business permit costs an additional $10,000 per year. With those high-start up costs, one marvels at how most of these trucks can keep their costs down to less than $8 per dish. One Korean fusion taco truck vendor called Seoul on Wheels wasn’t able...

South Korean government workers are being given an unusual instruction - go home and multiply. At 1900 on Wednesday, officials at the Ministry of Health will turn off all the lights in the building. They want to encourage staff to go home to their families and, well, make bigger ones. They plan to repeat the experiment every month. The country has one of the world's lowest birth rates, lower even than neighbouring Japan.

USA Today reported the results of a study by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, published in the American Journal of Public Health. The Yale University study divided diners into three groups. • One was given menus with the calories listed for the dinner entrees. • Another group was given menus that cited the calories plus a reference number that showed the recommended daily caloric intake for the average adult: about 2,000. • A third group had menus with no calories listed.

Bae Yong Joon may be one of the few oenophiles still living in Korea based on wine's dropping popularity on the peninsula. (Photo courtesy of Arnaldo Bassini) Wine sales in Korea are continuing to decline according to a Dec. 8 Korea Times article. The Korea Customs Service told the Times that 2009 (at least the first 10 months) was the first year they noticed a decline in wine sales in Korea since the Asian financial crisis reached its zenith in 1998. However, the South Korean government expect wine imports from Europe and South America to improve after recently signed free-trade...

I was driving on Riebli Road near Santa Rosa, Calif. on Nov. 1 and noticed this sign by some vines of New Vine Zinfindel(Zin). It is owned by Bastoni Vineyards, according to WineMap. The US Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) reported that the 2008 average price for Sonoma County Zin, which is the basis for determining the grape sale contracts of the 2009 harvest, was $2,485.66 per ton. That's about $1.25 per pound. This is less than half that price.

A domestic meat importer yesterday filed a lawsuit against the broadcast network MBC and five producers of an investigative news program for reporting false facts about U.S. beef. Park Chang-kyu, president of A Meat and meat and restaurant chain Orae Dream, filed the lawsuit with the Seoul Southern District Court. He is seeking about 300 million won (240,000 U.S. dollars) in damages against MBC, five producers of “PD Notebook,” and actress Kim Min-sun. “Our companies suffered about 500 million won (410,000 dollars) in operating losses due to distortion of facts on American beef by the MBC program ‘PD Notebook.’” A...

U.S. President Barack Obama has declared Monday, July 27th, as National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day. The White House released the proclamation Saturday, a day before the armistice ending the Korean War was signed in 1953. Obama said that by virtue of the authority vested in him by the Constitution, he proclaims July 27th as National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day. He urged all Americans to observe the day with ceremonies honoring and giving thanks to distinguished Korean War veterans. He also asked federal departments, interested groups, organizations and individuals to fly the flag at half-staff in memory of fallen...

I don't need a calendar to know it's summer. I know it's summer time when newspapers and blogs worldwide start discussing, analyzing and criticizing Korea's history and ongoing medicinal consumption of boshintang (dog meat soup). A blogger for the LA Times newspaper posted a blog about the ongoing debate in South Korea over the consumption of dog meat. Members of a South Korean animal rights group called Coexistence for Animal Rights on Earth along with an American animal rights group called In Defense of Animals (IDA), sponsored a protest asking the South Korean government to make the killing of dogs...

The legal period for abortions will be shortened from 28 weeks of pregnancy to 24 starting July 8. And pregnant women will no longer be able to get an abortion simply because they have infectious diseases such as AIDS, rubella, chicken pox, or hepatitis, or suffer from hereditary diseases such as liver trouble, mental diseases, hemophilia, and epilepsy. The changes are included in a revision to the enforcement ordinance of the Mother and Child Health Act. The bill was endorsed by the government in a Cabinet meeting Tuesday. Lee Won-hee, a director at the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family...

The parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, trade and unification has approved a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States, despite strong resistance from opposition parties. The committee chairman Park Jin approved the passage of the bill on Wednesday. Some ten lawmakers of the main opposition Democratic Party and minority Democratic Labor Party protested, saying the bill’s passage was premature. GNP floor leader Hong Joon-pyo said the bill will be sent to a plenary session for final approval during an extraordinary session in June depending on the outcome of a South Korea-U.S. summit the same month. The FTA was signed...

The ASEAN Plus 3 Summit, which was to take place in the Thai resort of Pattaya, had to be cancelled due to attacks by anti-government protesters. Some 1,000 protesters broke the glass doors to the Royal Cliff Beach Hotel where the summit was to take place and stormed inside, demanding the resignation of the Thai prime minister. The leaders of other Asian countries fled to the roof and escaped by helicopter. Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and a few of the first ladies even shed tears of fear. Scenes usually reserved for action films, and unimaginable at global summits, ended...

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - It could turn out to be the world's longest graffiti space -- the massive concrete barrier separating Israel from the Palestinians. Over the Internet, a group of Palestinian graffiti artists is offering to spray-paint your personal message on Israel's towering security wall in the occupied West Bank. It costs 30 euros ($40) per message and they can be as solemn or wacky as you want. Everything goes, except for obscene, offensive or extremist hate speech. Clients get three digital pictures of the finished product. .... Organizers stress that revenue does not go to buy weapons...

VACAVILLE -- The faint flickering seen in the middle of the screen was a strong heartbeat, a sign that the baby inside the womb is healthy and that the pregnancy is viable. It was the first time for Llanira Andrade to see the baby growing inside her, which is nine weeks now and will be born sometime in August. "It's amazing," she said. "It's such a tiny little thing that grows so rapidly." Andrade is one of many young women seeking assistance at Alpha Pregnancy Resource Center. The 26-year-old and her husband were "a little shocked and excited," Andrade said...

The Chinese melamine scandal is expected to claim more lives after the country’s courts sentenced two people with alleged involvement in last year’s contamination to death and imprisoned an industry executive, say news reports. Tian Wenhua, who until last year headed Sanlu, one of the country’s leading dairy producers, faces life in prison for her role in allegedly turning allowing the sale of dangerous and substandard products, the Reuters news agency reported. Sanlu, which is partly owned by New Zealand-based cooperative Fonterra and has filed for bankruptcy as of this month, was one of a number of groups, including Arla...

What else is there to do on Fridays besides FReep and listen to TSN?! C'mon, eat, drink, breathe SAVAGE?Savage’s websiteLOTS of links to listen to the Savage radio show here!!!

DAVENPORT, Iowa — The reach of newspapers and their online sites among young adults in Lee Enterprises markets has grown from 54 to 64 percent over the past year. Use of the printed newspaper alone among young adults has grown from 48 to 55 percent. Those findings are among results of comprehensive audience studies by Wilkerson & Associates in Lee’s 10 largest markets. The studies measured seven-day reach of newspapers and their online sites from January to June in 2007-08. Lee Enterprises publishes 49 daily newspapers, has a joint interest in four others and publishes more than 300 weekly newspapers...