In the News

From the Chosun Ilbo:

“Korean hostage negotiators have agreed to direct talks with Taliban kidnappers in Afghanistan, a purported spokesman for the Islamists militants told DPA Thursday. The news agency quoted Qari Yousuf Ahmadi as saying Korean Ambassador to Afghanistan Kang Sung-ju spoke directly by phone with his Taliban counterpart.”

I have to say I really hope this is not true, but given some of the statements from the country’s leadership over the past several days, I have a bad feeling.

Talk about completely legitimizing kidnapping as a political tool. So, the next time the Taliban wants something accomplished with a certain country (definitely Korea) they’ll just grab and threaten to kill a few unarmed civilians as a means of opening “negotiations.”

I haven’t commented before about the kidnappings because I didn’t (and don’t) think I have the background to add anything substantive to the discussion. But it gets to the point that you feel like you’re ignoring the elephant in the room by not talking about it.

I have been linking to stories on the link blog at the upper right. If you’re interested in what’s being said in South Korea, I recommend reading posts (and the comments)  here, here and here for starters.

I think I’ll be sticking to the buses and cabs for the next several days.

Apparently, a section of railbed collapsed in northwestern Seoul yesterday, and the Korean Railroad Corp. kept trains running through the area up until the ground gave way, despite warnings that a nearby construction accident was endangering the track.

Pic from the JoongAng Ilbo.

Police said the accident happened after retaining walls on a subway construction site next to the railway collapsed, spilling sand under the railway into the construction site and collapsing the track bed.
It could have been worse.
A train carrying around 150 passengers passed the accident spot seven minutes before it collapsed, even after the Korea Railroad Corp., the state-run operator of the railway, was informed that signs of a railway collapse were appearing just 17 minutes before the accident.
Ssangyong Engineering and Construction, which was in charge of the project next to the railway, said it detected an impending collapse at 4:30 p.m., 44 minutes before the accident, and withdrew all of its workers from the construction site, according to police.
Police said the company informed the Korea Railroad Corp. at 4:57 p.m.
But the railway operator allowed trains to keep running, merely slowing their speed to 20 kilometers per hour, police said.
Of four trains passing the accident spot after that, two were carrying around 150 passengers each. One bound for Munsan passed at 5:02 p.m. and one bound for Seoul passed at 5:07 p.m.

But I bet no one had to wait on a late train! And, that’s the important thing, right?

OK. This is old news.
But I just watched the video of Stephen Colbert “challenging” Rain. I have to say I think it’s freakin’ hilarious, and I’ve never watched The Colbert Report. (David didn’t even know who he was—Colbert, that is. We are all too aware of the phenomenon that is 비.

I understand why some Korean netizens were offended by the M*A*S*H reference, but, really, when I lived in the States I don’t think I would have gotten the joke: “I’m gonna be all over you like egg on a bowl of bibimbap!”

I think it shows mainstream America has come a long way in changing its view of Korean culture. You have to be a certain level of cool before comedians will even think making fun of you is worth their time. (It is debatable whether that’s a good thing …) As for being derogatory, the whole point of the skit is that he’s dissing Rain for beating him out as the number one “most influential” person in the world—which is the real joke.