ROK and Inter-Korean relations
February 2007
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Office Workers Snap Up Weekend Trips Abroad
Short weekend trips overseas are gaining great popularity among young office workers. Although they require two nights spent on the airplane -- Friday and Sunday -- they are in high demand due to relatively low prices. Most travel agencies saw programs offered for February sold out and started selling March packages.
The weekend airtel programs usually consist of plane tickets and accommodation, letting customers spend their time as they want. Prices for most programs to Japan are some W300,000 (US$1=W939) and some programs to Chinese cities such as Shanghai, Qingdao, and Weihai cost as little as W100,000. This makes overseas trips affordable for many who can't afford the time and money for a Europe trip costing at least W2 million and lasting at least a week.
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Inter-Korean Ministerial Talks Resume in Pyongyang
The 20th inter-Korean ministerial-level talks started in Pyongyang on Tuesday, seven months after the last round collapsed in the wake of the North's missile test last July. A 40-strong South Korean delegation led by Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung left from Gimpo Airport to fly directly to Pyongyang on Tuesday morning. A South Korean government official said the two sides will hold the first plenary session on Wednesday and the last on Thursday afternoon of Friday morning. "The goal is to normalize inter-Korean relations," he added
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Koreas to hold cabinet-level talks amid new detente this week
South and North Korea are set to hold a new round of high-level talks this week, with Seoul hoping to revive inter-Korean reconciliation after a recent landmark deal over North Korea's nuclear dismantlement
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N.K. defector dreams of leading a unified Korea
After a 4-year journey to the South, high schooler at top of his class
feature]
Twenty-one-year-old Yang Hyeok will begin his senior year of high school next month.
Nearly nine out of ten North Korean defectors such as Yang are older than their South Korean classmates due to the wide differences in school courses between the two Koreas, as well as the time it takes defectors to reach South Korea, which can sometimes encompass years.
[Refugee reception]
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Time Is Not Ripe for S-N Summit'
By Park Song-wu
Staff Reporter
Minister Song Min-soon
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Song Min-soon said in a television interview on Sunday that conditions for holding a second inter-Korean summit are not yet mature enough.
He reiterated that the government ``has no working plan'' for the cross-border summit now, underlining that one of the critical conditions for the summit to be held is progress in the nuclear standoff.
``The summit could take place if there is something to agree upon,'' Song said on a KBS program. ``We will be able to hold the summit when there is a clear subject to discuss for an agreement. But now it is too early to tell whether the conditions are mature.''
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The Ministry of Unification's Work Plan for 2007
February 20, 2007
The Ministry of Unification's Work Plan for 2007
The Ministry of Unification reported its Work Plan for 2007 to the President by a written report on February 6.
In the report, the Ministry presented "realization of inter-Korean relations based on peaceful coexistence and coprosperity" as its policy vision, and set up six strategic targets and 19 performance goals.
* Six Strategic Targets: (1) Building the foundation of the peace system on the Korean Peninsula (2) Promoting the inter-Korean economic cooperation for coexistence (3) Developing the Gaeseong Industrial Complex project in a stable way (4) Advancing the humanitarian project substantially (5) Enlarging and developing the inter-Korean socio-cultural exchanges and cooperation (6) Expanding the foundation of the policy toward the North
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N.K. defectors often find solace in religion
For many, church provides a social network, window into S.K. society
[Feature]
Until settling in Heilongjiang Province, China, after fleeing from North Korea in 1997, Pyongyang's ideology of juche, or self-reliance, was comforting to Yu Jin-ok. During his childhood in Musan, North Hamgyeong Province, Kim Il-sung, and Kim Jong-il were like religion to him. Yu had never heard the name "Jesus."
He first learned about Christianity when he began to work as a farmer in Heilongjiang. Yu's family met other North Korean defectors and ethnic Koreans in China through a church there. At the time when he first heard about Christianity, he was more interested in meeting other people and sharing food together. Naturally, his faith in the religion accumulated little by little.
[Refugee reception]
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Academics Brand Roh Administration a Resounding Flop
An assembly of senior academics says the government has been a complete failure over the past four years. The group, named Policy and Leadership Forum, evaluated the four years of the Roh Moo-hyun government in cooperation with the Chosun Ilbo in five meetings since January to look into the administration's political, diplomatic, economic and social achievements.
The group cited three root causes. First, it said the Roh Moo-hyun government has pursued anachronistic goals. Where people expected the government to consolidate security, stabilize politics, reinvigorate the economy, bring together society and boost the nation's status on the world stage, it instead put the top priority on overthrowing the old guard, which it regards as the root of all evil. It has focused on correcting past wrongdoings, abolishing the decades-old National Security Law, revising private school and media laws and taking over full operational control of Korean troops from the U.S. The slogans were equality, independence and participation.
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Unification Minster Says Summit Talks Would be Useful
Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said Tuesday that the government was hoping to sell lots in the inter-Korean industrial complex in Kaesong, North Korea before the end of March, and no later than mid-April. The government's plans to sell lots in the unsold 1.9 million-sq.m area of the 3.3 million-sq.m complex last June were suspended following the North's nuclear and missile tests.
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For a North Korean defector, adaptation bittersweet
16-year-old Yeong-sik finds life in the South far from his expectations
[Feature]
The number of North Korean defectors that have entered South Korea since the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War has surpassed 10,000. Of this group, about 16.6 percent are aged 25 or younger.
These youths will lead the era of reunification with South Korea. Their adaption to a new society has brought them feelings of both excitement and fear, happiness and sorrow, and hope and confusion. What will their lives be like from today forward?
On February 17, a day before Lunar New Year's Day, there was no sign of the approaching holiday at the Nowon district apartment of 16-year-old Yeong-sik (not his real name). Yeong-sik's mother, 42, who came to South Korea with Yeong-sik and an 11-year-old daughter in September last year, said that the traditional ancestor-worship services widely performed during the New Year's holiday in South Korea were not common in the North. Her family has not yet fully adapted to South Korean society, as they have only been living in South Korea for 52 days since leaving Hanawon, a state-run settlement facility for defectors.
While staying at the South Korean consulate in Shenyang in northeast China's Liaoning Province, Yeong-sik thought, "If we go to South Korea, we will become happy unconditionally." He heard that South Korean society provides defectors with a car and a maid, and he believed it.
However, when he left Hanawon, he began to worry about the future, after coming to the realization that it is hard even for South Korean people to succeed, and that his family's situation would be even worse. He said emotionlessly, "I left Hanawon knowing the life here would not be easy."
He was right. He was disappointed immediately when he saw the apartment where his family was going to live. The floor was filthy, and the toilet rattled whenever it was flushed. It took two days for the family to clean the apartment. The apartment's "veranda" had no windows.
However, what made Yeong-sik even more sad was the fact that no one was there to welcome them to their new home. The reality of South Korea, with its urban jungles and population of 45 million, was that no one knew about their existence.
The daily existence in South Korea, completely different from what he had expected, began to hit home. In North Korea, they drank water from natural sources, but in South Korea, they had to buy it in bottles. Everywhere they went, they had to pay transportation fare.
Yeong-sik was not unhappy all the time. He said that he is satisfied with the feeling of freedom he has, wherever he goes or whatever he does. He is happy because he can go anywhere he wants. The Internet, that so-called limitless sea of information, is another merit of South Korean society, he said.
[Refugee reception]
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S-N Korean Summit Gaining Ground
By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter
Talk about an inter-Korean summit this year is getting louder and louder despite Chong Wa Dae's repeated denials, as influential figures in and outside the government float its possibility day after day.
Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said Tuesday that summit talks with North Korea would be a ``useful'' means of dialogue to resolve the North's nuclear issue and ensure peace on the Korean Peninsula.
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Seoul to ask North to resume reunions
February 20, 2007 Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said over the weekend that in upcoming inter-Korean ministerial talks Seoul would address the issue of resuming reunions of separated families.
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Pope's Letter to Be Delivered to North Korean Catholics
Pope Benedict XVI has addressed a letter to North Korea's Catholics to be delivered by a South Korean delegation of the Catholic humanitarian organization Caritas at Pyongyang, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Monday quoting a Caritas spokesman.
The visit by the Catholic relief organization will take place on March 27-31 and is intended to ``strengthen relations with the authorities and analyze needs,'' AFP quoted Caritas spokeswoman Nancy McNally as saying.
Caritas is a confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development and social service organizations working to build a better world, especially for the poor and oppressed, in over 200 countries and territories.
The global news agency said the letter is a reply to a Christmas address sent to the pontiff by the National Korean Catholic Association.
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Lee Pledges to Resume Inter-Korean Family Reunion
By Lee Jin-woo
Staff Reporter
Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung has pledged to persuade North Korea to resume the suspended inter-Korean family reunions at an early date.
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Korea University President Gives Up
Judging Conscience by Popular Vote
Korea University President in Plagiarism Charge
Stop Choosing University Presidents by Election
Most Faculty Skip Vote on Korea Uni President's Future
Korea University President Lee Pil-sang on Thursday resigned after 56 days in the job under growing pressure over plagiarism allegations. Lee Seung-hwan, chief of the university's external cooperation affairs, told reporters the university president decided to resign after listening to opinions from various quarters and submitted a resignation letter to Hyun Seung-jong, the director of the schools’ foundation.
The plagiarism allegation surfaced as soon as President Lee took office. A university panel concluded he plagiarized six research papers and published the same papers under different titles in two different scholarly journals. The crisis worsened when Lee called a vote of confidence after the panel announced its findings.
[Corruption]
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Two Koreas to Resume Ministerial Talks This Month
Would an Inter-Korean Summit Pay Off for the Left?
Rumors Abound of Another Inter-Korean Summit
Let the North Wind Blow by Kim Dae-joong
Suspicious Haste in Resuming Inter-Korean Talks
The two Koreas on Thursday agreed to resume ministerial talks in Pyongyang on Feb. 27. Representatives from the two Koreas met for a total of 40 minutes, 30 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the afternoon, in the North Korean border city of Kaesong, in the fastest agreement between the two sides on record. Unification Ministry spokesman Lee Kwan-se, the South Korean representative, said the two sides “agreed that we need to hold talks at an early date." He added they did not discuss the agenda for the talks. But the ministers from both sides will likely focus on the rice and fertilizer aid North Korea requested during the last round. Before contacts were suspended due to North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests, the South Korean side had focused on reuniting families separated by the Korean War, prisoners of war and abduction victims who remain in the North
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Rumors Abound of Another Inter-Korean Summit
Cheong Hyung-keun, a senior lawmaker with the opposition Grand National Party, insisted during a GNP meeting Thursday that a "reliable source" told him that working-level negotiations are underway between Seoul and Pyongyang to hold a summit between South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Seoul on Liberation Day, Aug. 15.
The lawmaker said that the South Korean government is aggressively pursuing talks with Pyongyang to accomplish very specific goals
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Would an Inter-Korean Summit Pay Off for the Left?
A possible inter-Korean summit is crystallizing as the core of conflict between ruling and opposition parties as the government intensifies efforts to make a top-level meeting happen this election year. On Monday, the ruling Uri Party secretary general, Won Hye-young, stepped up the rhetoric by saying, "We desperately need to exchange special envoys" with the North. Opposition Grand National Party chairman Kang Jae-sup charged the government was “supplicating” the North.
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Repairing inter-Korean relations an uphill battle
Early stages will not be difficult; however, ties were strained even before last July’s missile test
[Analysis]
» North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il (left) and Kim Dae-jung at Pyongyang Sunan International Airport on June 13, 2000.
Regarding official inter-Korean talks, which stopped in July last year due to the North’s test-launch of a Daepodong 2 intermediate-range missile, the South Korean government has decided the two Koreas will seek to narrow their differences through ministerial-level meetings.
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S.K. was ready to offer as much aid as North Korea demanded: Roh
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said that his government was ready to offer whatever aid North Korea demanded to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programs.
Roh said he had thought that "We should be ready to meet whatever demands are imposed by North Korea (at the six-nation nuclear talks) in order to settle its nuclear problem, because it will still prove to be a profitable business," although he refrained from actually making such remarks during the talks, apparently to avoid affecting the negotiation process which ended Tuesday.
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Number of N. Korean defectors to S. Korea tops 10,000
The number of North Korean defectors to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War exceeded 10,000 on Friday, the South's Unification Ministry said.
"Ten North Korean defectors arrived in South Korea today, brining the total number to 10,006," the ministry said in a statement.
After heavy floods hit the North in the mid-1990s, the annual number of North Korean defectors reached double digits, and in 1999 the number swelled to a triple-digit level. In 2006, as many as 1,578 defectors arrived in the South, a rise from the previous record of 1,139 in 2002, according to government data.
In a bid to increase support for North Korean defectors who are trying to adapt to its society, South Korea plans to nearly double the amount of cash incentives for North Korean defectors after they are employed for one year.
[Refugee encouragement]
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Roh: South’s aid program is like the Marshall Plan
Calls for more steps to ‘put life into the North’s economy’
February 17, 2007
President Roh Moo-hyun at a meeting with Korean residents in Italy yesterday where he defended his administration’s North Korea policies. By Ahn Seong-sik
President Roh Moo-hyun drew on post-World War II history yesterday in comparing the recent agreement at the six-party talks on North Korean nuclear weapons to the Marshall Plan, a massive U.S. aid program that stabilized Western Europe and fended off communist inroads.
“There is frequent criticism that we are pouring out aid to the North,” Mr. Roh told South Korean residents in Italy. “After the war, the United States had several plans and investments, and among those the most efficient was the Marshall Plan.” He noted the great benefits Washington had reaped from its investments: “Inter-Korean relations are being worked out, and we have the Kaesong Industrial Complex, but due to the North Korean nuclear crisis this has been stopped. It’s something that we can move forward with because it’s ours. If we put life into the North’s economy, we can achieve even more than the Marshall Plan.”
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Telephone Message to Chief Delegate of South Side to Inter-Korean Ministerial Talks
Pyongyang, February 14 (KCNA) -- The head of the north side delegation to the inter-Korean ministerial talks sent a telephone message to the chief delegate of the south side to the talks.
In the message the head of the north side delegation agreed to the proposal for having a working contact between delegates for the opening of the talks made by the chief delegate of the south side through his message, stating that there is no change in the DPRK's stand to boost the inter-Korean relations, guided by the basic spirit of the June 15 North-South Joint Declaration.
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Roh Describes NK Aid as Mini-Marshall Plan
By Ryu Jin
Korea Times Correspondent
ROME _ President Roh Moo-hyun said Thursday that South Korea’s aid to North Korea could produce effects similar to those of the Marshall Plan, which funded the rebuilding of Europe after World War II.
In a meeting with South Korean residents here, Roh reaffirmed his determination to replace the armistice signed after the 1950-53 Korean War with a peace treaty.
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65% Oppose Hasty Talks With North
By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
About two in three people want the government to exercise prudence in resuming talks with North Korea in accordance with the Stalinist regime’s commitment to abolish its nuclear capabilities, a survey said yesterday.
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Inter-Korean dialogue to restart
The deal came after intense negotiations in Beijing
North and South Korea have agreed to resume ministerial talks, a day after a nuclear disarmament deal was reached.
Cabinet-level talks have not taken place between the two Koreas since Pyongyang's missile tests last year.
On Tuesday a deal was reached during six-nation talks in Beijing, in which Pyongyang pledged to shut its main nuclear reactor in return for fuel aid.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice welcomed the agreement, but warned that it was "not the end of the story".
[Agreement070213]
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Roh calls for inter-Korean negotiations on peace treaty
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, now on a state visit to Spain, said the settlement of North Korea's nuclear problem would lead to inter-Korean negotiations on the establishment of a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
Meeting with South Korean residents in Spain on Tuesday evening, the president said the inclusion of a clause calling for the inter-Korean talks on establishing a permanent peace treaty among the agreements of the just-ended six-party denuclearization talks would have "far-reaching effects."
He also noted that the eventual establishment of a peace treaty will pave the way for Seoul's external credit rating to rise to the top level in the world.
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2 Koreas to pave way for ministerial meeting
February 15, 2007
The Roh administration, it became clear yesterday, was prepared to resume ministerial talks with North Korea whatever the outcome of the last session of the six-way nuclear negotiations in Beijing.
An agreement was struck in those talks only in the pre-dawn hours on Tuesday after difficult negotiations.
Yesterday, the Unification Ministry’s spokesman, Yang Chang-suk, said that Seoul had proposed to Pyongyang on Monday that a working group meeting be convened on March 15 in Kaesong, North Korea, to discuss a resumption of ministerial meetings.
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Roh Wants Koreas to Sign Peace Treaty
By Ryu Jin
Korea Times Correspondent
MADRID _ President Roh Moo-hyun said Tuesday that South and North Korea should discuss ways to bring a lasting peace to the Korean Peninsula with other countries. He welcomed the agreement reached in the six-party talks in Beijing.
Later in the day, Roh, who is on a weeklong European tour, had a telephone conversation with President George W. Bush. The two exchanged views on the agreement struck Feb. 13 in the last round of the six-party denuclearization talks, his aides said.
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Koreas to Resume Ministerial Talks
By Lee Jin-woo
Staff Reporter
South and North Korea will hold working-level talks today to discuss the resumption of ministerial talks in the North Korean border city of Kaesong.
The Ministry of Unification made the announcement the day Pyongyang agreed to shut down and seal its nuclear facilities and invite back IAEA inspectors in return for one million tons of heavy fuel oil and other aid.
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Early Inter-Korean Summit Is Possible?
By Lee Jin-woo
Staff Reporter
Former and incumbent unification ministers Wednesday welcomed the joint agreement on dismantling North Korea’s nuclear programs adopted Tuesday in Beijing.
They also presented a positive outlook for holding another inter-Korean summit soon.
During the fifth round of six-party talks, North Korea agreed to shut down and seal a nuclear facility and invite back inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in return for the equivalent of one million tons of heavy fuel oil in humanitarian aid programs.
[Agreement070213]
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Former Governor Supports Sunshine Policy
By Lee Jin-woo
Staff Reporter
Sohn Hak-kyu
Former governor of Kyonggi Province
Sohn Hak-kyu, the former governor of Kyonggi Province, Monday renewed his pledge to support the engagement policy with North Korea that was initiated by former President Kim Dae-jung.
Sohn, who is considered the main opposition Grand National Party's relatively reform-minded underdog, said he has been faithful to reconciliatory inter-Korean policies for several years.
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N.Korea Is Close to Achieving Its 1956 Action Plan
Six-party talks resumed in Beijing on Thursday to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis. Nobody would oppose a genuine resolution of the deadlock and the establishment of a substantial and practical international peace framework for the Korean Peninsula.
But a careful look at the North Korean regime and its South Korea and international policies gives rise to many concerns. Foremost is a strategy for unifying the peninsula through the communization of the South. Once the core knot in a chain of knots is disentangled, the theory goes, the other knots are easily untied. On April 28, 1956, three years after the armistice, the North Korean Workers' Party at its third national convention announced six stages for peaceful unification. It has consistently pursued them over the past 50 years through Kim Il-sung’s and Kim Jong-il’s orders and actions by its fifth column in the South. The latest round of the six-nation talks looks worryingly like an operation to untie the last knot and nearly complete those stages.
The six stages are: a unified government to be established in a general election; turning the armistice into a firm peace by minimizing armed forces and withdrawing U.S. forces from South Korea and an end to the South Korea-U.S. mutual defense treaty; “democratic principles” to be realized in the South for the achievement of peaceful unification by guaranteeing freedom of political action by political parties, social organizations and individuals; boundaries to be removed to promote peaceful unification; joint struggle against American imperialism and enemies of peaceful unification; and an international agreement to maintain peace in Korea and peaceful settlement of the Korean question. This last stage calls for convening an international conference with representatives of the two Koreas and Asian countries.
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Opposition party opposes Seoul taking lead role in oil support for N. Korea
South Korea's main opposition party said Sunday that it opposes Seoul taking a leading role in supplying heavy fuel oil to North Korea in exchange for the communist country scrapping its nuclear program.
The largest party in the National Assembly said it is ludicrous for South Korea to take on the majority of the burden of relieving Pyongyang's energy needs. The Grand National Party (GNP) has 127 lawmakers in the 299 seat parliament. The ruling Uri Party has 109 seats.
[Dissension]
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North human rights: Mum’s the left’s word
Liberals say North must be judged from a ‘specific viewpoint.’
February 12, 2007
Park Seok-jin is a devoted human rights activist in Seoul, one who is not afraid to complain bitingly about infringements of basic civil rights in Korea or elsewhere. Mr. Park’s Sarangbang Group for Human Rights runs a Web site that deals with a wide range of concerns from Palestine to trans-gender issues. But there is one area where he is notably silent: infringements on human rights by the government of North Korea. He is one of many liberal or left-wing activists who seem to have given North Korea a pass on its human rights record.
Asked about those issues directly, Mr. Park says he is more concerned about the fighting between conservatives and liberals in South Korea over the matter.
[Human rights] [Manipulation]
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Aide Claims NK Remittance Scandal Fabricated
Park Jie-won
Former presidential spokesman Park Jie-won said yesterday the remittance of $500 million to North Korea in 2000 was made by the Hyundai group purely on a commercial basis.
He claimed the prosecution announcement that he masterminded the remittance to realize a summit between former President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, was fabricated. ``I have fought for the past four years to prove my innocence,’’ he said in a statement after he was given amnesty.
The chief architect of the inter-Korean summit was been jailed for pressuring the state-run Korea Development Bank to lend $500 million to the Hyundai group so that the company could remit the money to North Korea to realize a summit in June, 2000.
He expressed regret that he did not have his rights fully reinstated although he was pardoned, hoping that this will happen as soon as possible.
[Hyundai loan]
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. Korea's unification minister defends cash payments to N. Korea
By Sohn Suk-joo
SEOUL, Jan. 26 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's unification minister on Friday denied that North Korea has diverted cash it earned through inter-Korean economic cooperation for the development of its nuclear weapons.
Lee Jae-joung, Seoul's point man on the communist neighbor, also stressed that North Korea earns such money "in a transparent and legal manner," saying the government will expand and deepen inter-Korean economic cooperation in the future.
"This criticism is based on unidentified assumptions (rather) than on firm ground," Lee said in a luncheon meeting with the European Union Chamber of Commerce in Korea (EUCCK) at the Lotte Hotel in downtown Seoul.
[Diversion] [Toolkit]
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‘2 Koreas Discussed Exchange of Envoys’
By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter
In the initial days of his administration, President Roh Moo-hyun pushed for the exchange of special envoys with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, though it was not related to a summit, Chong Wa Dae said Monday.
``It is true that Seoul and Pyongyang once discussed the exchange of special envoys. No exchange was made, however, though I cannot tell you all the detailed background,’’ presidential spokesman Yoon Seong-yong said at a press briefing.
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‘2 Koreas Came Close to 2nd Summit in 2003’
SEOUL (Yonhap) _ Former South Korean President and Nobel Peace laureate said Sunday that the two Koreas came close to holding a second summit of their leaders in 2003 but the plan was aborted for unknown reasons
Asked whether the United States was a factor that led to the failure of a second inter-Korean summit, Kim said, ``I have no idea because I didn't hear any more.’’
[US dominance] [Friction]
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Rumors Abound of Another Inter-Korean Summit
Cheong Hyung-keun, a senior lawmaker with the opposition Grand National Party, insisted during a GNP meeting Thursday that a "reliable source" told him that working-level negotiations are underway between Seoul and Pyongyang to hold a summit between South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Seoul on Liberation Day, Aug. 15.
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Korean Wave Swamps N.Korean Authorities
South Korean popular culture has become a headache for North Korean authorities, who seem unable to stem its samizdat spread there. Quoting North Korean refugees, a government official said Thursday many South Korean soap operas and movies have made their way into North Korea, and some young people find it difficult to keep up with their colleagues if they miss any South Korean dramas or movies. In Pyongyang, “Worry about yourself,” a variation on Lee Young-ae’s celebrated line from “Sympathy for Lady Vengeance” (“Do good to yourself”) has become a catchphrase. The dramas “Autumn Fairy Tale” and “The Immortal Admiral Yi Sun-shin” are also popular.
Scenes from 'Sympathy for Lady Vengeance' and 'Autumn Fairy Tale' and a poster for 'The Immortal Admiral Yi Sun-shin.'
According to a survey of 30 North Korean defectors who settled in South Korea, popular songs and dramas from the South are not only all the rage in Pyongyang; they have also found their way to border regions like Kaesong, Nampo and North Hamgyeong Province. South Korean actors like Bae Yong-joon and Jang Dong-gun have many fans there. North Koreans buy South Korean videotapes and CDs from people who frequently travel across the Chinese border, the survey shows. Nor is the trend confined to dramas and movies. North Koreans also reportedly copy South Korean hairstyles and fashions. The survey was conducted by the Ministry of Unification and Hanawon, a state-run helping North Korean defectors adapt to life in the South.
To stem the tide, all North Korean authorities can do is mutter about an “ideological penetration scheme”, encouraging people to re-arm themselves with sound ideology, and strengthen surveillance. A government official here said authorities in the North are laboring to improve ordinary people’s lives with measures like an increase in investment in light industries, out of concern that a growing desire for social change fueled by what they see in the soaps and movies could lead to the collapse of the North Korean regime.
[Hallyu] [Culture war] [Softpower]
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University head claims faculty wanted him out
February 03, 2007
Facing accusations by a peer review panel that he had plagiarized his students’ work, Lee Phil-sang, the Korea University president, claimed yesterday that he had been pressed to reject his appointment to the presidency by professors there before he assumed office. Mr. Lee sent a one-page letter to the faculty council of the university in addition to his defense on the plagiarism charges.
Media reports resulted in the organization of a seven-member panel to investigate; the group told the faculty council last week that it had found at least five instances of plagiarism.
Through an aide, Mr. Lee complained that three business professors had accosted him just before his inauguration ceremony on Dec. 21, telling him to plead illness and cancel the ceremony. He said the trio threatened to investigate his public ations and report any plagiarism to the media.
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