American Buddhist Net

Seoul - Japan's Foreign Affairs Ministry said Thursday that it would make no reparations to Korean individuals who suffered under its colonial rule, contradicting a 1965 document, a news report said. The 1965 document, recently declassified by the ministry and obtained at the weekend by South Korean media, said Tokyo believed that Korean forced labourers or conscripts were eligible to seek compensation as individuals.

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The rape and murder of a teenage girl in Busan is testing Korea’s years-long suspension of practicing capital punishment.

The controversy was stoked Tuesday after Justice Minister Lee Kwi-nam said the government is “carefully reviewing the possibility of carrying out executions.”

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea executed a former senior official last week as punishment for the country's botched currency reform, a news report said Thursday.

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Tokyo - The Japanese government has come under fire for a tuition-fee-waiver programme approved Friday, which critics say would discriminate against Korean students if North Korean schools in the country are excluded. A House of Representatives committee approved the bill to waive educational fees at public high schools. The bill would also allow private schools to be granted 120,000 yen to 240,000 yen (1,330 to 2,660 dollars) per student depending on the student's household income.

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North Korea refused to accept a group of South Korean Buddhists for a visit on the same day that the South’s government authorized the trip.

The move is something of an about-face for the North, which had not earlier discouraged such trips.

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America talks the talk; Pyongyang walks the walk. At least according to Kim Jong Il's domestic propaganda machine. In countless posters displayed in city centers, North Korean resolve is contrasted with American spinelessness. "If we say we do something, we do it," a towering Korean People's Army soldier shouts in one poster as he slams his clenched fist down on the continental United States. "We don't utter empty words!" Other posters depict North Korean fighter planes and missiles destroying the U.S. Capitol while helpless American soldiers, mere spindly, insectlike creatures, are hoisted effortlessly on bayonets or squashed under missiles.

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The Ven. Beopjeong, who passed away yesterday, did not seek the post of abbot at his Buddhist temple let alone a high-ranking position in the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, the largest of its kind in Korea. He was instead a great man who left a significant mark on Korean Buddhism. Though he lived a humble life in propagating the spirit of “non-possession,” he left a vast legacy to the Korean people.

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The government approved the planned visit by a group of Buddhists to North Korea later this week to discuss the holding of a rally for Buddhists from the divided halves in the North, an official at the Ministry of Unification said Thursday.

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Foreign and local media have reported that a Korean man had married a large pillow with a picture of a female anime character at a church in Japan.

Lee Jin-gyu, the guy who fell in love with his dakimakura -- a kind of large, huggable pillow from Japan with an image of a popular anime character on it -- however, told local press today that he has not yet married his "girlfriend".

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Phenomenon: Love in 2-D
Goodbye, Woman; Hello, Dolly!
Inventor spends Christmas with his perfect woman - a £30,000 custom-made fembot

Seoul - South Korea's largest Buddhist order said Thursday it had asked the country's football governing body to stop Christian players from making prayer gestures after scoring a goal.

The Jogye Order has urged the Korea Football Association (KFA) to ban the practice especially during nationally televised games, an official of the order said.

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The Venerable Beopjeong, a much-respected Buddhist monk and author of top-selling essay collections, died from lung cancer yesterday. He was 77.

Beopjeong, whose most famous book is "Without Possession," maintained a frugal and secluded life while preaching the virtue of possessing nothing, a soothing message to Koreans tired of chasing their possessive desire in vain.

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Killed, aborted or neglected, at least 100m girls have disappeared—and the number is rising

IMAGINE you are one half of a young couple expecting your first child in a fast-growing, poor country. You are part of the new middle class; your income is rising; you want a small family. But traditional mores hold sway around you, most important in the preference for sons over daughters.

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Seoul - The high cost of raising children is a major barrier to reversing South Korea's drop in fertility rates and the ageing of the population, a media report said. A survey of 2,453 adults by Maekyong Business Newspaper found that 60 per cent cited cost as a main reason for making them reluctant to have more than one baby.

The survey result came amid growing concern that the nation is not having enough children to maintain the population.

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Reporting from Tokyo and Seoul - As a former South Korean intelligence agent, Kim Young-kwang knows all about subterfuge, secret documents and international intrigue.

But that's just soulless spy craft compared with what he considers the most engaging case of his life. It's a 100-year-old riddle that involves heroes from two nations, a Chinese prison, a Buddhist monk, a dose of Seoul politics -- and a voice from the grave.

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Oriental medicine may still be an unfamiliar concept to most expats and even those who are interested are often discouraged by linguistic barriers.

One person to turn to is Raimund Royer, Korea's one and only Western oriental doctor.

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Last December, the South Korean government found itself walking a tightrope while planning to join the international troops in Afghanistan.

It was a complexity created by a number—number “4” to be precise.

As it happened, South Korea was the 44th member to join the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force fighting the insurgents in Afghanistan. The number “44” bothered the government.

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A couple hooked to the internet in South Korea raised an online child but let their own baby daughter starve to death, a media report said.

The couple in South Korea was hooked to an online game where they were raising a virtual daughter. They used to spend upto 12 hours a night at internet cafes, leaving their three-month-old daughter alone at their apartment in Suwon, South Korea, Daily Mail reported Friday.

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The dreaded morning-after feeling could be a thing of the past after scientists in Korea came up with a technique that allows drinkers to avoid a hangover.

A team of researchers in South Korea added extra oxygen to drinks and found that the body was then able to metabolise the booze quicker and eliminate the alcohol quicker - cutting down the after effects.

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Information on price of rice passed to defector in South Korea

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SEOUL : North Korea on Thursday threatened to tear up all tourism agreements and contracts with South Korea unless the Seoul government lifts its embargo on tours to the North, according to state media.

Pyongyang said it would revoke all inter-Korean accords and contracts on tours unless South Korea takes quick action to resume tour programmes suspended two years ago after North Korean soldiers shot dead a Seoul tourist.

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Japan's top Internet forum 2channel was offline Tuesday after an apparent mass hacker attack from South Korea over slanderous comments on their Olympic figure skating queen Kim Yu-Na.

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A South Korean second-hand shoe-shop owner stole more than 1,200 pairs of designer shoes by pretending to be a mourner in many funeral homes and hospitals.

So much more than just a man with an uncontrollable fetish for shoes, this haul of footwear was the haul to end all others. The police have put the “lost soles” on display in the hopes of reuniting them with their original owners.

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Seoul - North Korea detained four South Korean citizens and was questioning them on charges of illegal entry, state media said Friday. The Korean Central News Agency said the four people had been "recently detained" but gave no further information about their identities or how and when they had entered the communist country.

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When inter-Korean tension heightened due to the killing of a South Korean tourist by a North Korean soldier at Mount Kumgang in 2008, the restoration center for endangered species on Mount Jiri was at a loss.

The center is working to save the Asiatic black bear, an animal native to the Korean Peninsula. North Korea is the only place to import the rare species, so the center has keen interest in inter-Korean ties.

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...No South Korean figure skater has won an Olympic medal, much less gold, as is expected from the willowy Kim, 19. So not only does she have to shoulder enormous athletic expectations, but also Kim’s main rivals, Mao Asada and Miki Ando, are from Japan, which occupied the Korean peninsula for 35 years through the end of World War II.

More than a half-century later, South Korea’s nationalistic fervor and sense of victimhood still inform sporting rivalries between the two nations.

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Jang's family which lives in Dogok-dong, southern Seoul, recently spent a dreamy two weeks with a rental dachshund "Jerry." Jang only planned to have Jerry to stay for five days, but the kids loved him so much that Jang had to extend.

"Many customers extend the rental period. Kids in particular hate to return them. Some just end up buying the dog because they become so attached to it," said Park Jeong-hwan, president of Dog Rent, a dog rental shop based online.

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One of the top Bush-era lawyers who authorized waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics exercised "poor judgment" but should not be disbarred, an internal Justice Department review showed.

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As Americans stumble around trying to understand John Yoo, I cannot help but notice that his legal opinions are classic examples of Confucianism, the political philosophy based on the teachings of the ancient Chinese philosopher, Confucius. There are literally hundreds of millions of people in China and Korea who share views similar to Yoo's on the "strong unitary executive," which is a euphemism, in Yoo's hands, for an "imperial presidency," or the president as emperor. In many ways, if you want to understand how most political thinkers in China and Korea (and to a lesser extent Vietnam) think, just listen to John Yoo. ABN

Much like your choice of air carrier, there aren’t many hotels to choose from when planning a trip to Pyongyang. You can’t exactly go to priceline.com and put in a bid for a non-smoking room at a four star hotel with a great view and no covert listening devices hidden in the light fixtures. Perhaps in a few decades you will be able to do so, but for now you will find yourself at whatever hotel the tour company assigns you to. Ours was the Yanggakdo Hotel, a 47 story, 1,000 room behemoth conveniently located on Yanggak Island in the middle of the Taedong River. Since, as a tourist in North Korea, you are not allowed to wander around without a guide, the hotel’s island location certainly makes it easier for the North Koreans to prevent you from doing so.

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ANSAN, South Korea (Reuters Life!) - South Korea's future can be seen on a street in suburban Seoul where signs are written in Thai, Chinese and Vietnamese and the workers who power the local factories have come from 15 different countries.

With the lowest birth-rate in the developed world and an aging population, South Korea needs foreign workers to keep its economy going, but this has caused rifts in the homogenous state that has yet to decide if it can trust its future to foreigners.

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