Supporters Seek Release of Vietnamese Activist July 13, 2006 Leader of an O.C.-based anticommunist group is being held in S. Korea, awaiting extradition to Vietnam, which wants to try him as a terrorist.
For months they have rallied in the streets of Little Saigon and outside the South Korean consulate in Los Angeles, pleading for the release of an anticommunist leader they insist has wrongly been branded a terrorist. Chanh Huu Nguyen, 57, a one-time construction engineer who spearheads the Garden Grove-based Government of Free Vietnam organization, has been detained in Seoul since April. He was being held at the request of the Vietnamese government, which wants him extradited so that he can be tried for terrorist acts, including failed plots to bomb Vietnamese embassies in the Philippines and Thailand. But where the communist country sees a terrorist, hundreds of supporters in the United States' largest Vietnamese enclave see a freedom fighter. They have held vigils, hunger strikes and rallies. They have sent signed petitions asking the United States, South Korea and the United Nations to intervene.
LONDON [MENL] -- Iranian military representatives were said to have attended North Korea's Taepo Dong-2 missile launch.
At least 10 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps attended the Taepo Dong-2 intermediate missile launch. South Korea's official Yonhap news agency said the IRGC personnel were senior engineers who sought to learn from Pyongyang's missile program.
Yonhap reported on July 1 that the IRGC engineers participated in the preparation for the Taepo Dong launch. The news agency said the IRGC has been examining Chinese-origin missile technology for Iranian procurement.
South Korean sources said Iran and North Korea could be planning a project for the joint development of new liquid missile propellant. Yonhap quoted the sources as saying that the propellant could be used for both Iranian and North Korean missiles.
[Exclusive] President lobs informal criticism at U.S. : International : Home http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/141578.html >Referring to U.S. sanctions in response to allegations of dollar counterfeiting >by the North, President Roh said he “is reminded of the [pre-modern] practice of ,” >beheading an accused criminal before sending his case to the king. He compared >the allegations, made in early fall 2005, to “demanding to see [the North’s] account books >without first showing the evidence” of its alleged counterfeiting activities.
the United Nations Security Council today demanded that the country suspend all related activities and required States to prevent the import or export of funds or goods that could fuel Pyongyang's missile or weapons of mass destruction programmes. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=19211&Cr=Korea&Cr1=
The Council required all Member States, “in accordance with their national legal authorities and legislation and consistent with international law,” to exercise vigilance and prevent missile and missile-related items, materials, goods and technology being transferred to DPRK's missile or WMD programmes.
States were also required to exercise vigilance and prevent the procurement of missiles or missile related-items, materials, goods and technology from the country, **as well as the transfer of any financial resources in relation to its missile or WMD programmes.
Japan has long been North Korea's shopping mall of choice when it comes to military components. It has the advantages of proximity, advanced technology and a large population of ethnic Koreans, many with family ties to the North or to the pro-Pyongyang General Assn. of Korean Residents in Japan.
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, who has tussled with the North before, could not resist a response to Pak, and requested the floor after the North Korean left the council chamber.
"This has been a historic day ? not only have we unanimously adopted resolution 1695, but North Korea has set a world record in rejecting it within 45 minutes after its adoption," he said. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4049712.html
>>975 Currently several Korean organizations such as VANK are promoting a mass movement to change the international name of the marginal sea between Japan and Korea from the longstanding "Sea of Japan" to "East Sea," the latter of which the Korean side claims to be the legitimate name of the marginal sea.
Please refer to the following link. This is a movie created by Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It gives a nice concise explanation on the issue.
Also, there is arising another movement in Korea to promote the name of "Korean Sea" in the case that "East Sea" will not be adopted as the international name of the marginal sea. We believe that such an inconsistent attitude of the Korean side only causes confusion. Please reconsider which name is more appropriate for the international name of the marginal sea.
Man wanted over attempted murder 07jul06 AN arrest warrant has been issued for a Korean man wanted over the attempted murder of a seven-year-old boy at his Sydney home. Kyung Keun Son, 47, was wanted on two counts of attempted murder over the attack in Strathfield yesterday afternoon, police said. The boy suffered serious head injuries and remained in a critical but stable condition at Westmead Children's Hospital today. His 43-year-old mother, who suffered injuries to her arm and face, was at the boy's bedside. Son is described as being of Asian appearance, 170cm tall, of medium to large build, with a chubby face and short, white hair. http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,19714561%255E1702,00.html
Korean-run local brew ‘factory’ found; Hospital supervisor caught selling abortion pills for KD 40 each
Liquor factory found: Police have arrested three Koreans for manufacturing and trading in locally made alcohol, reports Al-Rai Al-Aam daily. The daily quoting a security source said a police patrol saw a Korean man carrying a carton. However, when he saw the police, he abandoned the carton and escaped in a building under construction. Police took possession of the carton which contained seven bottles of locally made brew and went looking for the man. When the police entered the building they found no one.
chihiro RE: TOKYO Rendevous FIVE! - 7/15/2006 4:16:31 PM
Okay due to unforseen circumstances, I cannot attend tonight. Boo! I have to go to the sea tonight at 7...its too bad, I wanted to see the dudes I saw last time before going back to Boston, as well as the ones I never met. Oh well, have fun though
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/56732fa8-14fe-11db-b391-0000779e2340.html N Korea threatens to bolster war deterrent Financial Times, UK Jul 16, 2006 North Korea threatened on Sunday to “bolster its war deterrent” in response to UN-agreed sanctions to curb its missile programme, but the US and China told Pyongyang it faced no option but to return to talks. Pyongyang had re-sponded angrily to the UN decision, saying it would not be “bound to it in the least”, and asserting that “the vicious hostile policy of the US towards [North Korea] and the irresponsibility of the UN Security Council have created an extremely dangerous situation on the Korean peninsula”, according to the state news agency, quoting a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman. “Our republic will bolster its war deterrent for self-defence in every way, by all means and methods now that the situation has reach-ed the worst phase due to the extremely hostile act of the US.”
Japan's government said it aimed to adopt measures to restrict the transfer of funds to North Korea. Tokyo has a foreign exchange restriction law, but until now the cabinet had made no decision to implement it.
The flow of funds from Japan to North Korea is thought to have dwindled considerably over recent years, and Tokyo's banning of the ferry service to North Korea, after its recent missile tests, has further cut off opportunities for Korean residents in Japan to carry suitcases of cash there.
**Other transfers are made by companies through banks in Hong Kong, Macao and Switzerland, including owners of pachinko (pinball) parlours, many of whom are of Korean descent.
Japanese banks with links to the Macao-based Banco Delta Asia, which has been the target of US sanctions, have already voluntarily suspended transactions.
Visitors to Kyoto have two choices: succumb to a monumental depression or avert the eyes. The only way to love the place is to hop from one exquisite pocket to the next, seeking gardens so sublime they stun, approaching temples so gorgeous that nothing else matters, and then deliberately blanking out what's in between. Everyone does it, Japanese included.
"The unseen for us does not exist," wrote Junichiro Tanizaki in his 1933 essay on architecture, In Praise of Shadows.
Fortunately for Tanizaki, he lived before the arrival of Kyoto's latest main street blight, the pachinko parlour, a variation on poker machine gaming. In pachinko, the players are paid out in buckets of silver ball bearings that they trade for cash at the end of a session. Though it is no worse than any other form of daylight robbery, pachinko takes a murderous toll on peace and quiet. Win or lose, the parlours sound like a metal hailstorm in a tin shed against an exploding soundtrack of techno pop. At a World Heritage site!
It is a shock to depart Tokyo in a sleek, white bullet train on a search for the real Japan and arrive in Kyoto to find that
>>985 I would like to share a strange experience that I had a few weeks ago in France.
I was at the Japan Expo, the gathering for French Japanese anime lovers. There were ten Japanese artists invited to the Expo as guests. The ceremony went on nicely and smoothly though all the sudden, eleven uninvited Korean anime authors, inclding one who deals with anti-Japan social theme, stormed in. They called themselves as official guests and took over the place.
French fans must have felt like being robbed: It must have been like being told to, or even forced to, try some Korean food such as Kimichi and Purukogi while visiting a Sushi bar.
Not only that. Those eleven retards got excited or something and later on started yelling something like "Change the title from 'Japan Expo' to 'Korea & Japan Expo'!" and "This is our Expo!".
At the end of the ceremony, I had nothing to say but "They have to grow up".
A Korean woman who admitted making illegal immigrant women pay off their smuggling debt through prostitution was sentenced today to 10 years in prison.
Mi Na Malcolm, known as Sora, also was ordered to pay a $460,000 fine. She must forfeit a 2006 BMW, a 2004 Lexus, more than $218,900 in cash and electronic equipment, U.S. Attorney Richard B. Roper said.