American Buddhist Net

August 4, 2008
By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Sunday escalated a standoff over the shooting death of a South Korean woman visiting a tourist resort in the North. It threatened to expel South Koreans on the resort’s staff, a move that would effectively shut down a showcase of reconciliation between the two Koreas, as modest as it has been.

South Korea said in reply that it would continue to bar South Korean tourists from the resort, a principal source of foreign exchange for North Korea, until the North accepted a joint investigation of the killing of the woman, Park Wang-ja.

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SEOUL, July 31 Asia Pulse - Buddhist leaders on Thursday reacted angrily to President Lee Myung-bak over a controversial police search of the vehicle of their head monk, demanding the Christian leader fire his police chief and stop his "religious partiality."

Lee, an elder in a powerful presbyterian church in central Seoul, has become deeply unpopular with Buddhists following a series of government policies that they say are religiously discriminative. The discontent compelled Prime Minister Han Seung-soo to officially apologize last week.

The rift took a fresh turn, however, after Venerable Jigwan, the chief executive of the Jogye order, South Korea's largest Buddhism sect, encountered an embarrassing inspection inside the Jogye Temple grounds, central Seoul. Ven. Jigwan was departing for an outside meeting on Tuesday when police officers stopped the car. The monk rolled down the window and showed his face, but two officers, aware of his status, opened the car's trunk and continued their search efforts.

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Wed Jul 30, 2008

SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean man won his appeal against a one-year jail term for assisting in a suicide by throwing a lighter to his gasoline-soaked rival in love.

The Seoul appeal court reversed a lower court ruling, saying that the 30-year-old man had not believed the ex-lover of his girlfriend would actually set light to himself, Yonhap news agency reported Wednesday.

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SEOUL (AFP) — Thousands of philosophers from around the globe gathered here Wednesday for their first world congress in Asia to discuss ways to enhance dialogue between different cultures, organisers said.

The 22nd World Congress of Philosophy, being held under the theme of "Rethinking Philosophy Today," has drawn more than 3,000 prominent philosophers from some 150 countries.

It marked the first time that the event, held every five years, has taken place in Asia since it began in Paris in 1900. All of the previous world meetings were held in Europe or the Americas.

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Is it not time to stop adding "disgraced" to Hwang's name every time he makes the news? He paid the price. That event is over. ABN
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07-28-2008

South Korea's Buddhist monks have urged the government to allow disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk to continue his stem cell research.

"It is deplorable that research by Hwang Woo-suk and his team is suppressed unreasonably," the monks said in a resolution. "The government should approve the research in order to save a greater soul."

The resolution came ahead of the Health Ministry's decision Saturday over whether to approve Hwang's request to restart his work.

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Half of the population of North Korea doesn’t have enough to eat, according to 55-year-old South Korean Buddhist monk Pomnyun, who has been fasting since May 26.

July 29, 2008

Famine is estimated to have killed 2 million people in North Korea since the 1990s – nearly as many as the 2.5 million people reported killed during the Korean War.

Now food aid, which represents most of North Korea’s imports, might decrease because of higher costs of food and transportation.

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July 22, 2008

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) _ A South Korean court on Tuesday upheld an earlier ruling sentencing a former university professor to 18 months in jail for faking a Yale doctorate and embezzling museum funds.

The Seoul Western District Court said its appellate court affirmed its sentence against Shin Jeong-ah for using the fake degree to become an art history professor at a Seoul university and win financial sponsorship for a museum where she worked. The court handed down the first ruling in March.

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JULY 22, 2008 09:07

The recent Mount Geumgang shooting incident has put on a new face when South Korean intelligence authorities revealed a piece of information indicating that the North Korean soldier responsible for the death of a South Korean tourist may be a 17-year-old female soldier.

The information, if confirmed to be true, will be a key to determining whether the shooting down of the victim, Park Wang-ja, was “intentional” or “accidental,” the case’s biggest question mark.

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July 18, 2008

A row between South Korea and Japan threatened to spill over into Korean bedrooms yesterday after authorities in Seoul ordered the removal of posters advertising Japanese condoms from subway trains.

This week, South Korea recalled its ambassador from Tokyo in protest at guidelines for high school teachers in Japan reportedly saying that two islands in the Sea of Japan belong to Japan, while noting that South Korea also claims sovereignty.

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July 20, 2008

The founder of the Unification Church was released from a South Korean hospital Sunday, a day after he and 15 others were injured when their helicopter crashed on a mountain near Seoul.

The Rev. Sun Myung Moon, 88, was injured slightly when the Sikorsky S-92 helicopter crashed during an emergency landing and burst into flames in Gapyeong, about 37 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of the capital.

Moon was released from Cheongshim Hospital on Sunday, his spokesman Ahn Ho-yeul told The Associated Press.

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Thu Jul 17, 2008

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea's phantom hotel is stirring back to life. Once dubbed by Esquire magazine as "the worst building in the history of mankind", the 105-storey Ryugyong Hotel is back under construction after a 16-year lull in the capital of one of the world's most reclusive and destitute countries.

According to foreign residents in Pyongyang, Egypt's Orascom group has recently begun refurbishing the top floors of the three-sided pyramid-shaped hotel whose 330-metre (1,083 ft) frame dominates the Pyongyang skyline.

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By CHOE SANG-HUN
Published: July 13, 2008

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea blamed South Korea on Saturday for the death of a South Korean tourist, who was shot by a North Korean soldier before dawn on Friday morning after wandering into a restricted military area.

North Korea also refused to let South Korean officials enter its territory to investigate the shooting.

The incident, in which a 53-year-old woman was killed after apparently wandering into a restricted military zone near the North’s Kumgang resort, added chill to already-frosty relations between the two Koreas.

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Interesting phenomenon, well described. ABN
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Are South Koreans demonstrating a new model of citizen action?

11 Jul 2008 / David Bollier

When Howard Rheingold wrote about “smart mobs” five years ago, many people assumed that that the rapidly assembled Internet “mobs” would be a marginal phenomenon confined to cyberspace. But as a series of major protests in South Korea have demonstrated over the past month, digital technologies are helping large masses of people to coordinate their actions in highly sophisticated and powerful ways. Their political will suddenly matters.

People are using cell phones, text-messaging, laptops, camcorders, wifi and other tools to communicate about breaking events in near-real time. As people learn of events and change their behaviors accordingly, “flash mobs” materialize. Could the flash mob represent a new model of citizen action?

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July 9, 2008
By Sophia Soo

SINGAPORE (Reuters Life!) - Yoo Ye-eun is only five years old, but the South Korean preschooler is already a musical star who has mastered the piano, even though she cannot see it.

Born blind, Yoo has had no formal musical training. But her little fingers find the right notes on the piano, earning her renown at home and over the Internet, as well as an audience last week with Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

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July 9, 2008

SEOUL - A TRAINLOAD of food from Russia has arrived in North Korea, state media said on Wednesday, days after the United States delivered a shipload of wheat to alleviate severe food shortages.

The train carried food provided by Russia through the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) and arrived on Monday at the western border town of Sinuiju, the Korean Central News Agency said.

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By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter

Seoul Plaza, the Mecca for candlelit rallies over the last two months, is struggling to get back to normal. Under sweltering heat at noon Tuesday, dozens of workers were toiling to re-turf the round plaza and decorate it with flowers in front of City Hall.

The plaza is regaining its green, peaceful appearance as candlelit vigils are apparently waning, with civic groups and religious leaders positioned not to hold anti-American beef protests, at least not on weekdays.

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Where in Asia do people eat dog meat?

Monday July 7, 2008
By MAJORIE CHIEW

...In recent times, the bulk of dog meat has been produced commercially by dog breeding farms. Various breeds are reared but many farmers prefer St Bernards for their rapid growth, bulk and flavour. Today, however, they appear to have fallen from favour because of their substantial feeding costs.

Farmed dogs endure short, cramped, miserable lives. Brutal death awaits them. Many are said to be tortured or bled to death slowly. This results in adrenaline-rich meat which, according to folklore, makes men who eat it more virile.

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By Charles J. Hanley and Jae-Soon Chang, The Associated Press

Published: July 04, 2008 11:20 PM ET

SEOUL The American colonel, troubled by what he was hearing, tried to stall at first. But the declassified record shows he finally told his South Korean counterpart it "would be permitted" to machine-gun 3,500 political prisoners, to keep them from joining approaching enemy forces.

In the early days of the Korean War, other American officers observed, photographed and confidentially reported on such wholesale executions by their South Korean ally, a secretive slaughter believed to have killed 100,000 or more leftists and supposed sympathizers, usually without charge or trial, in a few weeks in mid-1950.

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One writer discovers that anonymity is the only way to explore Pyongyang, the North Korean capital

July 5, 2008

...Privacy was one thing I quickly learnt not to expect. Tourists are watched carefully by official guides, who report to the secret police. I was on a nine-day visit on a package offered by a British travel company - a handful offers trips - and I was monitored the entire time.

My guides, whose names I won't reveal in case I cause them trouble - which is why I am writing this article anonymously - were with me almost every moment I was not in a hotel room. They met me at Pyongyang's giant station, and hardly let me out of their sight.

The only time I was allowed to walk “on my own” from my hotel one afternoon, I soon discovered that X had been following. “You went farther than you said you would,” she admonished in a friendly way.

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VIDEO: Pyongyang traffic ladies

JULY 05, 2008

Following Roman Catholic and Christian priests, Buddhist priests finally held their own candlelight vigil to express opposition against U.S. beef imports.

The Buddhist Commission consisting of progressive Buddhist organizations such as the Buddhist Solidarity for Reform, Lotus World, and Solidarity of Buddhism and Environment Protection held “The Buddhist Ceremony to Protect the Sovereignty of the People and Encourage the Government to Repent” at Seoul Plaza, in front of Seoul City Hall, at 6 p.m. Friday.

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By Cathy Rose A. Garcia, Han Sang-hee,
Staff Reporters

Baekdamsa ? Spending a weekend at a temple is becoming increasingly popular these days, with more people seeking refuge from the noisy city to find peace of mind.

Many temples now offer weekend-stay programs, luring Koreans, foreign tourists and expatriates who want to experience the life of Buddhist monks at their picturesque sites dotted around Korea.

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Wednesday, July 2, 2008
By Bae Ji-sook

Seoul City is under heavy stress because of the huge number of tents pitched by religious groups supporting candlelit protests against the resumption of U.S. beef imports.

Christian groups Tuesday installed outdoor tents at Seoul Plaza, in front of Seoul City Hall building.

Protestant groups installed three tents next to those of the Catholic Priests' Association for Justice where priests are conducting a fast, causing a congestion of tents.

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July 1, 2008

SEOUL (UCAN): Buddhists in South Korea have protested what they see as the new government's bias against Buddhism and in favor of Christianity.

The Jogye Order, the country's largest Buddhist denomination, on June 24 issued a statement charging that Seoul's transport information system, Algoga (find your way), "intentionally" omitted mention of any Buddhist temples.

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July 1, 2008
By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL, South Korea — A United States freighter began unloading tons of American wheat in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, on Monday, as the government agreed to give international aid workers unprecedented access to its isolated, hunger-stricken territory, the United Nations World Food Program said.

The shipment is the first installment of 500,000 tons in promised American aid to be distributed by the World Food Program and American groups like Mercy Corps. The aid, and the North Korean agreement to invite 50 more food program experts and a consortium of American relief agencies, followed recent progress in efforts to end the North’s nuclear weapons program.

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