Here he is stepping off a boat on his way back in Sokcho, North East of Seoul.
He got lost last December while working on the Woojin-ho, a squid fishing boat, in the Northern part of the East Sea and was picked up by a North Korean military boat.
I am sure they gave him a good quizzing after picking him up but at least they gave him back in the end.
This sentence makes no sense to me. Perhaps they are trying to confuse the North Korean officials by distorting time.
Two North Korean soldiers, who were rescued last week by the South Korean Navy in the waters off Sokcho in Kangwon Province, were sent back to the North on Wednesday after weeks of medical treatment, officials at the United Nations Command (UNC) said.
from here
According to the Dong-A Ilbo , Kim Jong-Il is a fan of the series and gets it brought in on DVD.
I wonder is he falling behind because of the sanctions.
Maybe he had to resort to watching illegally uploaded grainy versions of it online.
It is probably one of the downsides of being an Internationally isolated Dictator.
KBS has a story on two North Koreans that were killed by suspected Nazi Skinheads in Vladivostok.
The Vladivostok police said the victims were hospitalized on Sunday but one died the following day and another the day after.
Violent racist skinheads are becoming a huge problem in Russia. Below is a scary program by Ross Kemp where he got an unpleasant insight into their ideas and methods.
Apparently, he wants to sign a document declaring the end of the Korean war with Kim Jong-Il in return for a dismantling of the North’s nuclear program. This then could lead the way for a direct meeting between Kim and Bush.
White House spokesman Tony Snow after the summit said if Pyongyang dismantles its nuclear program, “we are willing to do a whole series of things…including a declaration of the end of the Korean War,” but did not reveal Bush’s offer. According to the source, Bush also said he is willing to offer new economic incentives to the North, though it was not clear what. The offers mark a significant shift in Bush’s tack on North Korea, a country he included in the “axis of evil” and whose leader he described as a “tyrant.”
Its all very nice but unfortunately it will never happen. Kim Jong-Il will never agree to the above for one basic reason. His control of the people is dependent on painting the U.S as the evil enemy poised to attack via it’s South Korean puppet state.
Signing an end to the war would undermine this. Dismantling the nuclear program would also be going against the Songun Chongch’i policy so there is no chance of that either.
So I think its a good move from Washington. Offering North Korea a poisoned olive branch that they can’t take. It makes the U.S look less hardline without having to compromise.
I would like to be a fly on the wall for this meeting.
Journalists from North and South Korea will meet for the first time in 60 years today to discuss ways to promote inter-Korean exchanges and reconciliation, organizers said yesterday.
The two-day meeting, scheduled to start today at Mount Kumgang, a scenic resort on North Korea’s east coast, will bring together 123 from South Korea and 50 from the North, according to a statement from the South Korea-based Journalists Association of Korea.
None of the journalists at the meeting will be from any of South Korea’s major newspapers. They are mostly from left-leaning publications and press-related civic groups.
No doubt there will be a lot of time spent plotting ways to encourage the removal of USFK and suchlike. I wonder how many of the journalists are from the KTU/other unions or Hancheonyeon
Below is the footage associated with this earlier post.
According to the Dong-A Ilbo , Russia has built a wall beside the Duman river which forms the border between itself and North Korea.
Russia started a project to “stabilize the river bed of the Duman River and to reinforce defenses on the border between Russia and North Korea” in November 2004. It completed a bank revetment 12.995 km-long along the riverbank in July last year. Now it has strengthened it along a 9.45 km stretch where the bank had been eroded by water.
Could it be that Russia is quietly preparing to stem a huge flow of refugees given that North Korea is on the verge of collapse?
This follows China’s decision to put up a 20Km fence along their border.
Also in the same article is a reference to what could be the next territorial dispute for Korea.
Meanwhile, some say that the return of Nokdun Island, which belonged to Joseon until the 19th Century would become more difficult due to the bank revetment. International law experts explained that if Russia builds a dike around Nokdun Island, it would provide more evidence of practical possession, and their claim to the island would be stronger.
Nokdun Island is four times bigger than Yeouido and is located in the river mouth of Duman. Nokdun Island was claimed by Russia when North Korea signed its border treaty. However, it had been Joseon territory from King Sejong’s reign through 1860 when a Beijing treaty was made. Many records support this fact, including some documents proving that General Yi Sun-shin stayed on the island for three years and that Joseon farmers cultivated this island into farmland and set up a palisade.
When Imperial Russia obtained the Maritime Province from China according to a Beijing treaty, it claimed Nokdun Island as its territory over the transom. Nokdun Island has been connected with the Russian side after sand in the upper stream of the Duman River came down and accumulated after the 1800s. Russia’s military units are located on this island at present.
This could be something that will rear its head again in the future.
The JoongAng Ilbo is speculating that the North Koreans may be both distinguished easily and discriminated against due to their different physical appearances in a post unification scenario.
The Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention surveyed the physical condition of 1,075 North Korean defectors ranging in age from 20 to 39 in 2005. According to the results of the survey, the average height of North Korean males was 165.6 centimeters, and that of North Korean females 154.9 centimeters.
By comparison, an average South Korean man was 172.5 centimeters tall and a woman 159.1 centimeters tall in a survey the same year by the Ministry of Health and Welfare of the same age group.
“The measurements show that North Korea’s health and nutrition condition regressed to that of the 1960s,” an official at the Health Ministry said. The communist country has been suffering from food shortages and the collapse of its public health and medical care system.
The physical gap may be widening, experts here worried. Chung Woo-jin, a professor at Yonsei University’s Graduate School of Public Health, said the height difference between men of the two Koreas could be more than 11 centimeters by 2025, with a 6-centimeter difference in women’s height. He also said South Koreans’ body type is becoming “Westernized,” with longer legs, while North Koreans are developing longer upper body parts.
Of course the North Koreans may say that McDonalds and Dunkin’ Donuts are distorting the perfect Korean DNA and creating weakened genetic freaks.
This is a strange way to communicate. I am sure that Kim Jong-Il was not losing sleep about any potential impending attack from the South.
President Roh Moo-hyun has reportedly asked Cambodia to convey to North Korea the message that South Korea does not intend to attack.
Cambodia’s public information minister quoted Roh as saying that in light of Phnom Penh’s favorable ties with both Koreas, Seoul wants Cambodia to help enhance inter-Korean relations.
Maybe it will make Hun Sen feel more important. Kim Jong-Il may respond by asking Bhutan to tell Seoul to sod off.
While we are on the topic of Roh, I learned something new today.
Apparently he has a fan club.
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