May 9th, 2013 at 5:52 pm » Comments (0)

Check out Traversing Korea on the Luxury Train Rail Cruise Haerang bit.ly/130qiAH — KTO London (@CoolstuffKorea) May 9, 2013

May 8th, 2013 at 4:10 am » Comments (24)

Just in case anyone working in a hagwon sees this happen, corporal punishment is illegal: By Nam Hyun-woo Education authorities will crack down on “hagwon” or private institutions allowing their teachers to impose corporal punishment on their students. The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE) said Monday that many private teachers continue to physically discipline students in breach of the Juvenile Protection Act. It has therefore decided to file complaints with law enforcement authorities against teachers who violate the law as well as sanctioning institutes found to be culpable. The
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May 3rd, 2013 at 3:55 am » Comments (2)

This is the first time Korea has given someone refugee status for this reason: A South Korean court has granted refugee status to an Ugandan woman who claims she cannot return home for fear of being persecuted for her sexual orientation, officials said Wednesday. The 27-year-old Ugandan woman, whose name remains undisclosed, fled to South Korea in 2011 after her family members were killed by neighbors because she was a lesbian. She soon petitioned the Seoul government for refugee status but the justice ministry rejected her application, saying she did
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April 24th, 2013 at 4:08 am » Comments (1)

The talks to reach a deal to allow South Korea to reprocess nuclear fuel for their domestic energy industry has once again been put off: SEOUL, April 24 (Yonhap) — South Korea said Wednesday that it has failed to win U.S. permission to enrich uranium and reprocess spent nuclear fuel in negotiations aimed at renewing a bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement. Instead, the allies agreed to extend the current agreement by two more years until March 2016, said a senior official at Seoul’s foreign ministry who is privy to the highly
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April 23rd, 2013 at 4:33 am » Comments (2)

It looks like the North Koreans may have been sending a message to the ROK Defense Minister who is a frequent target of North Korean propaganda and vitrol: SEOUL, April 23 (Yonhap) — A suspicious white powder sent to the South Korean defense minister on Tuesday turned out to be wheat flour and an investigation was underway to determine who was behind the act, military officials said. Earlier in the day, Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin received a parcel containing a threatening letter and white powder, in what the ministry called
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April 21st, 2013 at 8:17 pm » Comments (8)

It is nice to see something Korea related on CNN that does not involve hyping North Korea’s nuclear threat: Los Angeles, California (CNN) – “Have you been to Koreatown yet?” my friend asked eagerly over the phone. It was my third week as a resident of Los Angeles, and I could no longer claim the pure shock of moving to a city so sprawling, so overwhelming, as the reason I had yet to explore its most interesting neighborhoods. But I had to answer “no.” In a city as vast as
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April 16th, 2013 at 8:02 am » Comments (4)

I have not been to Saipan before, but for whatever reason it is a location that many Koreans I know either have visited or want to visit. It appears that the Asiana flight crews agree with them: Flight attendants are the latest to weigh in on the debate about the world’s best travel destinations. Asiana Airlines asked 1,825 of its cabin crew members for their preferences for different travel purposes. As for family-oriented vacations with children, Saipan came out on top with 46 percent. Respondents cited the natural environment, recreational
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April 2nd, 2013 at 3:14 am » Comments (7)

For those that have Netflix I highly recommend checking out ESPN documentary 9.79* which goes into great detail investigating the circumstances around the infamous 100 meter sprint during the 1988 Seoul Olympics that saw Ben Johnson lose the gold medal due to steroid use. In the documentary Johnson admits to beginning his steroid use after he won a bronze medal in the 1984 Olympic Games. He says that he had to use steroids to compete with Carl Lewis who Johnson claims was using them as well. Something I did not
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March 19th, 2013 at 2:27 am » Comments (2)

Thomas Friedman at the NY Times seems quite amazed by the treatment a Harvard philosopher received in South Korea: I just spent the last two days at a great conference convened by M.I.T. and Harvard on “Online Learning and the Future of Residential Education” — a k a “How can colleges charge $50,000 a year if my kid can learn it all free from massive open online courses?” You may think this MOOCs revolution is hyped, but my driver in Boston disagrees. You see, I was picked up at Logan
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February 26th, 2013 at 2:14 am » Comments (3)

Considering that Korea has been working hard to export their nuclear energy technology, it does not look good when the locals do not trust the technology you are trying to sell: Korea will build as many as 18 thermal power plants by 2027 while also significantly expanding the generation capacity of clean, renewable power sources, such as solar and wind farms, the government said yesterday. The move comes as the country’s electricity consumption is expected to grow by an annual average of 2.2 percent, from 482.5 billion kilowatt-hours this year
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