Cambodia has temporarily banned its citizens from tying the knot with Korean nationals, officials at the Korean Embassy in the Southeast Asian country said Friday.

On its Web site, the Korean embassy announced that it was notified of the decision by the Cambodian government on March 5 through an official document.

According to officials of the embassy, the Cambodian government claimed that the measure was drawn up in line with efforts to prevent human trafficking.

The government has also expressed its concern that marriages to Koreans through brokers or matchmakers have become common practice, although it is illegal there.

The number of marriages to Korean nationals accounts for nearly 60 percent of the country’s total multicultural marriages, according to them.   [Korea Times]

When I think of the term “human trafficking” I tend to think of the smuggling of women to be used in the sex industry.  As far as I know of Cambodians are not a nationality popular in the Korean sex industry.  However, according to this posting over at the Marmot’s Hole, the Cambodian government is trying too ensure that marriages for Koreans are for love and not simply a business transaction to find a wife.  I don’t see how you can legislate whether someone is really in love or not, but this whole story just seems strange.

Honduras has withdrawn its designation of a Korean-born woman as its new ambassador to South Korea after realizing belatedly that the country’s law bans naturalized citizens from serving as envoys to their countries of origin, an official at Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said Friday, according to Yonhap News.

Last month, Honduras asked for South Korea’s diplomatic consent after naming Kang Young-shin, 57, as ambassador to Seoul. But the Central American nation later found during a legal review that she is not eligible for the post, as she is a former South Korean citizen, the ministry official said.

Kang, 57, a graduate of a teachers’ university in Seoul, worked as an elementary school teacher before moving to Honduras in 1977 when her husband, now deceased, took a position as a professor in the Central American nation.

She became a naturalized Honduran citizen in 1987.  [Korea Herald]

I was actually wondering about this when I first posted on this story a few weeks ago.  Why would you want someone to represent your country as an ambassador when she put in to have her Korean citizenship restored?

Having a third child wasn’t in Mrs. Kim’s plans. She and her husband are already struggling to get by.

But getting an abortion, once so routine here that South Korea was known as “Abortion Republic,” is no longer easy. In recent weeks, the government has begun enforcing a long-ignored ban on the procedure for the first time.

It took Mrs. Kim 10 tries to find a doctor willing to perform an abortion, and he’s demanding nearly $1,000 in cash. To scrape together the money, the six-weeks pregnant woman took a second job cleaning an office building overnight for a few weeks.

“I can barely afford to have an abortion. How can I afford to raise and put a kid through college?” the 31-year-old secretary said, dunking a rag into a bucket of water.

South Korea outlawed abortion in 1953 with exceptions for rape, incest or severe genetic disorders. Yet authorities turned a blind eye for decades, as the nation sought to tame population growth. For $300, women could get an abortion at almost any OB-GYN clinic.

That changed earlier this year, a shift that pro-choice activists say was motivated by the country’s plunging birthrate. The Ministry of Health and Welfare even announced it would set up a hot line for citizens to report on law-breaking doctors or pregnant women.  [The New Haven Register]

You can read the rest at the link.

The National Human Rights Commission said yesterday that any school that forces a student to drop out because she is pregnant is being discriminatory and infringing on her right to an education.

The announcement follows the case of Kim Su-hyeon, 19, a teenager who was forced to drop out during her senior year of high school last year because of a pregnancy.

Though many Western countries allow pregnant high school students to complete their educations, Kim’s case is the first of its kind in Korea to be decided by the commission.

Kim agreed to reveal her real name to the JoongAng Ilbo, commenting that she hoped her case would help other teenage mothers who have been forced to end their studies.

Last April, Kim, who attended Ganghwa Girls High School in Incheon, took a pregnancy test.

The result was devastating.

“I held on to the test kit and just wept,” she recalled. “Everything went black.”

The father: Kim’s boyfriend, Choi Seong-ho, 25 years old at the time.

After some discussion with Choi, Kim decided to have the child but also continue with her high school education. But when teachers learned of the situation, they told Kim to bring her parents to school because she needed to drop out or go to another school. They told Kim that school regulations state that any student who disrupts the moral code of the school with an “unwholesome relationship” is subject to expulsion.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

Read the rest at the link, but something I found also of interest was that the school threatened to turn in her boyfriend for having sex with a minor.  However, I thought the age of consent in South Korea was 13?

An American diplomat based in South Korea fled to the Philippines after facing charges that he swindled a local woman out of nearly $200,000, police in the southern city of Busan said Monday.

The suspect, a 50-year-old official with the Department of Homeland Security, is accused of taking 220 million won ($194,000) from a widow he had known since 2007. He allegedly told her the money would go toward building a school in the Philippines and promised her a high return on the investment, Busan Haeundae police said.

An investigation later found he had no business plan and gambled her money away, officer Nam Geun-chan said.

The suspect confessed during questioning in November but secretly fled the country on March 3, two days before U.S. authorities were to strip him of diplomatic immunity, Nam said.

The man, who was not identified, had worked in customs in Busan, about 280 miles (450 kilometers) southeast of Seoul, screening U.S.-bound export items, Nam said. He had been granted diplomatic immunity in South Korea because he was considered a diplomat, Nam said.

The U.S. Embassy in Seoul confirmed Monday that the suspect left the country without informing officials.  [SF Gate]

Korea and Denmark have promised to further strengthen bilateral cooperation in developing renewable energy sources and improving fuel efficiency.

President Lee Myung-bak and Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen, who is on his first official visit to Korea, held a summit at Cheong Wa Dae on Thursday.

Lee said the two countries agreed to cooperate in many fields, especially in conserving energy and developing green technologies. Information technology, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals were also discussed as areas where the two countries can join efforts, he added.  [Chosun Ilbo]

Korea may want to be careful on far it goes with its recent efforts in so called green technology:

There is no evidence that industrial wind power is likely to have a significant impact on carbon emissions… Denmark, the world’s most wind-intensive nation, with more than 6,000 turbines generating 19% of its electricity, has yet to close a single fossil-fuel plant. It requires 50% more coal-generated electricity to cover wind power’s unpredictability, and pollution and carbon dioxide emissions have risen (by 36% in 2006 alone).

Flemming Nissen, the head of development at West Danish generating company ELSAM (one of Denmark’s largest energy utilities) tells us that “wind turbines do not reduce carbon dioxide emissions.” The German experience is no different. Der Spiegel reports that “Germany’s CO2 emissions haven’t been reduced by even a single gram,” and additional coal- and gas-fired plants have been constructed to ensure reliable delivery…

Industrial wind power is not a viable economic alternative to other energy conservation options. Again, the Danish experience is instructive. Its electricity generation costs are the highest in Europe (15¢/kwh compared to Ontario’s current rate of about 6¢). Niels Gram of the Danish Federation of Industries says, “windmills are a mistake and economically make no sense.” Aase Madsen , the Chair of Energy Policy in the Danish Parliament, calls it “a terribly expensive disaster.”  [Via Andrew Bolt]

Just another reason why wind will at least in the near term always be a niche energy source.  The best “green” technology for energy creation if you judge it by carbon emissions continues to be nuclear power in my opinion and the Koreans are already well on their way to taking even further advantage of that and even exporting this technology.

A U.S. luxury cruise ship carrying 710 “special passengers” will call at a Busan port later this month, officials at Busan Port Authority said yesterday.

Carrying 710 U.S. homosexual men, the Azamara Quest, a 30,277-ton six-star cruise ship, will arrive in Busan at 7 a.m. on March 22, they said.

A U.S. travel agency reportedly bought all 710 passenger seats on the ship exclusively for gay men for an 11-day travel program that will take them to Shanghai, Busan, Hiroshima, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

After the ship arrives in Busan, passengers are expected to tour the downtown of the country’s second largest city or Gyeongju in North Gyeongsang Province which is famed for an array of cultural and historical tourist attractions.  [Korea Herald]

You can read the rest at the link, but I am just trying to imagine the scene of over 700 gays taking Texas Street by storm.

The government of Honduras has reportedly appointed Kang Young-shin as ambassador to Korea. Kang (57) was born in Korea and moved to Honduras 33 years ago. A diplomatic source said, “The Honduran government sought agreement for Kang’s appointment from the Korean government at the end of last month, and if there are no reasons to disqualify her, she will take up her post in April.” Kang will be the first overseas Korean to return to her home country as the ambassador of a foreign country.

Kang in a telephone interview said President Porfirio Lobo Sosa called her personally and said, “I trust you. Please work hard for us.” She added, “He seems to have considered the close relationship with Korea.”

Kang became the first Korean immigrant to Honduras back in 1977 when her husband, Song Bong-kyung, who died in 2008, was hired to teach Taekwondo at the military academy there. In 1986, Song taught Taekwondo to President Lobo, who was a minister at the time, and they developed a lasting friendship.  [Chosun Ilbo]

Read the rest at the link, but I was surprised that the Honduran government appointed someone like her to this position when if you read the rest of the article, last year she put in to have her Korean citizenship restored.

South Korean President Lee Myung Bak urged South Koreans Monday, on the anniversary of a popular uprising for independence from Japanese colonial rule, “not to be bound by the past.”Noting that this year marks the centennial anniversary of Japan’s colonization of Korea in 1910, Lee said that instead of focusing on the past, South Koreans must “embrace the world, forge ahead to a new future of common prosperity for mankind.”

Though the president did not explicitly discuss South Korea’s relations with Japan, his remarks amounted to a reconfirmation that the two countries should forge a future-oriented relationship, without forgetting history but instead using it as a mirror.

“We can’t take even a step forward if locked in the obsolete frame of ideology. We can’t go on the path of advancement if the people remain divided due to confrontation and conflict,” Yonhap News Agency quoted the president as saying in an address during a ceremony held to commemorate the 91st anniversary of the March 1 uprising for independence.  [Breitbart]

Statesmanship really from both sides of the Korea-Japan disputes has been rare so it is good to see President Lee trying to influence popular opinions within Korea in regards to Japan.  However, all it will take is some right wing ultra-nationalist in Japan to say something stupid that the Korean ultra-nationalists can jump all over to start another round of Japan bashing that will make President Lee’s overtures all for naught.

A group of health experts and civic activists Monday called for the government to ban the manufacturing and distribution of cigarettes.

They urged the government to conduct intensive rehabilitation programs for smokers and encourage tobacco farms to convert to other industries.

The Tobacco Free World and the Korea Association of Health Promotion, among others, are pushing to prohibit the selling and making of tobacco products within 10 years.

Those who violate a proposed law would be imprisoned up to five years or fined up to 50 million won. The members are planning to submit the bill to the National Assembly within a year.  [Korea Times]

I think I will get no argument from anyone that smoking is bad for you, however there are a lot of other things that are bad for you and they are not banned.  I have personally been far more effected by drunks than people smoking cigarettes, but you don’t see anyone trying to ban alcohol.  So where do you draw the line on this?