"North Korea revives a tactic; Plans to send its cheerleaders to Asian Games" by Sam Kim | Bloomberg News July 13, 2014
SEOUL — In 2003, several North Korean women in white cheerleading uniforms scrambled from buses and climbed a pole to pull down a welcome banner during an international athletic competition in South Korea.
The sign showed a photo of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il shaking hands with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung. The women, dubbed a ‘‘legion of beauties’’ by the South’s media, told reporters they were angry that rain might soak the image of their ‘‘Dear General.’’
The scene underscores the conflicting symbolism of North Korea’s decision this year to send a cheerleader squad to the South for the Asian Games after a nine-year hiatus.
While many South Koreans associate them with a period of detente that also included the development of a joint industrial park and a cross- border tourism program, the women serve as a propaganda tool for a regime trying to divert global attention from human rights abuses and nuclear weapons.
Look who is waving the the bloody shirt, hey!
‘‘The dispatch of young, playful, and gorgeous cheerleaders is intended to help enhance the North’s dark, poverty-stricken and totalitarian image abroad,’’ said Kim Jung Bong, a political science teacher at Hanzhong University in the South. ‘‘The North thinks that if the cheerleaders succeed in changing that perception among South Koreans toward the North positively, that will pressure President Park Geun Hye to engage the North more actively through concessions.’’
South Korea said it would accept the cheerleaders along with a team of North Korean athletes that had already been scheduled to participate in the games in Incheon this September.
Also, South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Eui Do criticized what he called the North’s irrational claim that its nuclear weapons development can safeguard the people of both Koreas.
Why is that irrational?
But enough of that, back the cheerleading war media spin:
The 2003 cheering squad was the second of three groups to appear in the South at sporting events, with members handpicked from the children of ruling party and military officials. In 2005, they included Ri Sol Ju, then a teenager and now the country’s first lady. Ri was unveiled in 2012 as the wife of current leader Kim Jong Un, who took over the country upon the death of his father Kim Jong Il in 2011.
See: The Iron Lady of Asia
Well, they say behind every great man....
While the South’s media covered the squads favorably, the 2003 incident with the banner was a reminder of the deep psychological and emotional divide the two nations would face in the event of unification, with two starkly different systems in place since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce.
Looks to me like a certain agenda-pusher wants to keep them apart.
The period of improving relations between the Koreas hit turbulence in 2006 after the North conducted the first of its three nuclear tests and began touting atomic development as a deterrent against what it calls US hostility.
Can't blame them there. Iraq didn't have them and we invaded.
After its latest underground detonation in February last year, the North threatened to strike the United States and South Korea with nuclear missiles, claiming it had succeeded in making its warheads smaller and lighter.
The sinking of a South Korean warship and the North’s bombardment of a South Korean island in 2010 have also damaged ties.
The cheers have kinda died down, huh?
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I even hear some booing:
"China leader visits Seoul first, in snub to N. Korea" by Foster Klug | Associated Press July 03, 2014
SEOUL — Xi Jinping’s first visit to the Korean Peninsula as China’s president is to Seoul, not Pyongyang, which means that North Korea’s best friend has snubbed it for its most bitter rival. A flurry of recent rocket and missile tests, the latest Wednesday, has made the North’s displeasure crystal clear.
They were probably scheduled defense exercises.
Xi’s choice to meet Thursday with Park Geun-hye, the president of South Korea, rather than North Korean leader Kim Jong Un upends past practice — ever since Beijing and Seoul forged diplomatic ties in 1992 — to make Pyongyang first. It highlights Beijing’s interest in nurturing booming economic ties with Seoul, while sending Pyongyang a message about its destabilizing pursuit of nuclear weapons.
For Washington and the region, it underlines China’s growing influence on the southern side of the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Beijing, entangled in hostile territorial disputes across Asia, may see an opportunity to boost its influence with the rare neighbor that feels generally positive about China.
In WWIII parlance, by the summer of 2014 AmeriKa had begun to lose ground in Asia. Chinese forces had managed to cut trade deals and expand their military operations zone, and it presented a problem for the American President Obama.
‘‘In some ways the budding closeness between Xi and Park echoes much older patterns in East Asia, when China exercised a relatively benign hegemony over many of its neighbors,’’ said John Delury, an expert on China and Korea at Seoul’s Yonsei University.
All of Asia is cheering for that.
In the week before Xi’s visit, North Korea fired seven short-range projectiles, including two launched Wednesday into waters off its east coast. Analysts said they are a message of anger directed at Xi’s choice of Seoul rather than Pyongyang.
The war paper does not look happy, no.
The two-day summit will be Park’s fifth meeting with Xi.
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"China, South Korea agree to boost economic ties" by Youkyung Lee | Associated Press July 04, 2014
SEOUL — China and South Korea Thursday agreed to measures that will expand the use of China’s tightly controlled currency and boost trade as Xi Jinping made his first presidential visit to the Korean Peninsula.
Wow, that narrative I'm providing is really accurate.
Expectations were high that Xi’s summit with South Korea’s president, Park Geun H ye, would expand an economic and business relationship that has flourished in the past decade. Xi was accompanied by 250 business executives including luminaries such as Jack Ma, founder of the Alibaba e-commerce empire, and Robin Li, chairman of search engine Baidu. The Korea Chamber of Commerce said it was the biggest ever foreign business delegation to South Korea.
Related: Yahoo For Alibaba
Yahoo for South Korea.
A statement from South Korea’s finance ministry and central bank said the South Korean won will become directly exchangeable with the yuan, joining major currencies such as the US dollar, Japanese yen, and euro that are convertible with the Chinese currency. The decision also makes the yuan only the second currency after the US dollar that is directly convertible with the won.
There is a major threat to the dollar-based world looting $y$tem that has propped up the bank$ters for so long.
At a press conference, Park said South Korea and China will aim to complete long-running free trade talks by the end of this year. ‘‘Through these measures, exchange between companies and citizens in the two countries will become faster and more free,’’ she said.
China also gave South Korea a green light to invest billions of dollars in Chinese bonds and stocks.
The currency pact is another step forward in China’s ambitions for the yuan to rival the US dollar as the favored currency for trade and financial transactions.
The minute the U.S. loses that its people will suffer and we shall kill the bankers and politicians that served them.
Chinese leaders say they plan eventually to let the yuan float freely, but analysts say that might be decades away. Beijing is reluctant to allow big changes in the currency for fear of hurting exporters that employ millions of workers.
South Korea’s two-way trade with China was $229 billion last year, exceeding the combined value of its trade with the United States and Japan. Xi told reporters that the two countries will strive to boost their trade to top $300 billion.
China is also a crucial market and a production base for South Korean exporters such as Samsung and LG, which are key investors for China.
But nearly all South Korean exporters and importers use the US dollar to do business with their Chinese counterparts because the won and yuan are not directly traded, incurring additional costs. More than 90 percent of exports and imports with China were transacted in the US dollar in 2013, according to the Bank of Korea.
Because of the threat of military force hanging over their heads.
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"China’s president reminds Korea of shared war history" by Choe Sang-Hun | New York Times July 05, 2014
SEOUL — China’s visiting president, Xi Jinping, reminded South Koreans on Friday that their two countries had fought “shoulder to shoulder” against Japan more than four centuries ago, underscoring what analysts have called the main goal of his first official visit to the country: drawing South Korea away from Japan and the United States.
“Whenever there was a crisis, Korea and China always helped each other and overcame the crisis together,” Xi told a group of students at Seoul National University through a Korean interpreter.
“Four centuries ago during the Japanese invasion,” he said, people of both nations had held Japan in “enmity” and had “marched together shoulder to shoulder to the battlefields.”
Maybe they should be a little worried.
China’s Ming dynasty sent soldiers to Korea during the 1590s to help Koreans fight Japanese invaders and keep them from reaching China. Xi also cited Japan’s military aggression in the 20th century, although he did not mention China’s own invasions of Korea centuries ago, or the much more recent Korean War, during which China fought on the North Korean side.
“Even young Koreans with the fuzziest sense of history know that the Ming saved Korea from state collapse,” said Lee Sung-yoon, a North Korea expert at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
“By reinforcing this history, Xi is planting the seeds of pro-Chinese sentiment among the next generation of South Korean leaders,’’ Lee said. “In his effort to build a coalition with South Korea to collude against Japan, Xi is fanning the flames of nationalism, accentuating the common history of victimization at the hands of Imperial Japan in the 20th century.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry confirmed Friday that during his meeting with President Park Geun-hye on Thursday, Xi had proposed holding joint memorial services with South Korea next year to mark the 70th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II. Park’s office declined to comment on the Chinese announcement.
Xi’s trip comes as relations between South Korea and Japan are at their chilliest point in years, largely because of historical disputes rooted in Japan’s colonial rule over Korea during the decades leading up to World War II.
They are better with the North.
Many South Koreans are wary of what they consider Japan’s attempts, under Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, to whitewash its behavior during the war and the preceding decades. This has complicated matters for Washington, which would like its two key Asian allies to work together more closely in a region where China has been increasingly assertive and North Korea remains unpredictable.
Oh, yeah, the North!
Many South Koreans have complained that the Americans were condoning a dangerous move when they supported Japan’s decision this week to reinterpret its Constitution to expand its military role in the region.
Xi tapped into such sentiments Friday, sending the message that South Koreans have a friend in China as they ponder Northeast Asia’s fast-changing economic and geopolitical landscape.
South Korean trade with China now exceeds that with the United States and Japan combined. Most South Koreans, however, still regard the country’s close military alliance with the United States as its best guarantor of security.
So I am told by my pro-empire paper!!!
“It’s China’s strategy to make South Korea drift away from the United States,” said Lee Byong-chul, senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Cooperation in Seoul.
I would rather that than have it wrenched away in a war!
A nice, peaceful collapse of empire that falls in on top of itself.
--more--"
Not really that far-fetched when you think about it:
"China’s president reminds Korea of shared war history" by Choe Sang-Hun | New York Times July 05, 2014
SEOUL — China’s visiting president, Xi Jinping, reminded South Koreans on Friday that their two countries had fought “shoulder to shoulder” against Japan more than four centuries ago, underscoring what analysts have called the main goal of his first official visit to the country: drawing South Korea away from Japan and the United States.
“Whenever there was a crisis, Korea and China always helped each other and overcame the crisis together,” Xi told a group of students at Seoul National University through a Korean interpreter.
“Four centuries ago during the Japanese invasion,” he said, people of both nations had held Japan in “enmity” and had “marched together shoulder to shoulder to the battlefields.”
Maybe they should be a little worried.
China’s Ming dynasty sent soldiers to Korea during the 1590s to help Koreans fight Japanese invaders and keep them from reaching China. Xi also cited Japan’s military aggression in the 20th century, although he did not mention China’s own invasions of Korea centuries ago, or the much more recent Korean War, during which China fought on the North Korean side.
“Even young Koreans with the fuzziest sense of history know that the Ming saved Korea from state collapse,” said Lee Sung-yoon, a North Korea expert at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
“By reinforcing this history, Xi is planting the seeds of pro-Chinese sentiment among the next generation of South Korean leaders,’’ Lee said. “In his effort to build a coalition with South Korea to collude against Japan, Xi is fanning the flames of nationalism, accentuating the common history of victimization at the hands of Imperial Japan in the 20th century.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry confirmed Friday that during his meeting with President Park Geun-hye on Thursday, Xi had proposed holding joint memorial services with South Korea next year to mark the 70th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II. Park’s office declined to comment on the Chinese announcement.
Xi’s trip comes as relations between South Korea and Japan are at their chilliest point in years, largely because of historical disputes rooted in Japan’s colonial rule over Korea during the decades leading up to World War II.
They are better with the North.
Many South Koreans are wary of what they consider Japan’s attempts, under Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, to whitewash its behavior during the war and the preceding decades. This has complicated matters for Washington, which would like its two key Asian allies to work together more closely in a region where China has been increasingly assertive and North Korea remains unpredictable.
Oh, yeah, the North!
Many South Koreans have complained that the Americans were condoning a dangerous move when they supported Japan’s decision this week to reinterpret its Constitution to expand its military role in the region.
Xi tapped into such sentiments Friday, sending the message that South Koreans have a friend in China as they ponder Northeast Asia’s fast-changing economic and geopolitical landscape.
South Korean trade with China now exceeds that with the United States and Japan combined. Most South Koreans, however, still regard the country’s close military alliance with the United States as its best guarantor of security.
So I am told by my pro-empire paper!!!
“It’s China’s strategy to make South Korea drift away from the United States,” said Lee Byong-chul, senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Cooperation in Seoul.
I would rather that than have it wrenched away in a war!
A nice, peaceful collapse of empire that falls in on top of itself.
--more--"
Not really that far-fetched when you think about it:
"US students in middle of pack on financial knowhow" by Jennifer C. Kerr | Associated Press July 10, 2014
WASHINGTON — The United States runs in the middle of the pack when it comes to the financial knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds, according to an international study released Wednesday.
We are not number one?
We are not number one?
China’s financial hub of Shanghai had the highest average score for teens who participated in the testing for the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Eighteen countries and economies were studied. Shanghai was followed by the Flemish community of Belgium, Estonia, Australia, New Zealand, the Czech Republic, Poland, Latvia, the United States, Russia, and France.
At the bottom of the list: Croatia, Israel, the Slovak Republic, Italy, and Colombia.
Ha-ha-ha-ha!
God's chosen people!
Ha-ha-ha-ha!
God's chosen people!
The testing is part of OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment, which aims to evaluate education systems. This is the program’s first assessment of financial literacy of teens.
The questions on the two-hour paper test ranged from simple to complex. The easiest ones asked students to display basic financial skills, such as recognizing the purpose of an invoice or comparing prices per unit to determine which had a better value.
The most difficult asked students to do things like review two loan proposals with differing rates and terms and choose the better offer.
Shanghai notched the top average score of 603. The United States had an average score of 492. Colombia, at the bottom, scored 379.
So what is Shanghai doing right?
Michael Davidson, head of schools for the OECD, said Shanghai schools identify students who are struggling and provide the support they need. Successful systems, he said, are ones that don’t let students fall behind....
Somehow I can't help but feel there is a le$$on there for AmeriKans.
Somehow I can't help but feel there is a le$$on there for AmeriKans.
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As for those smart Chinese, they don't Diller around when it comes to NSA spyware or false accusations that are force-fed enough to crack you up.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"N. Korea fires missiles near border" Associated Press July 14, 2014
SEOUL — North Korea launched two ballistic missiles into the sea on Sunday, South Korea said, the latest in a series of test-firings seen as expressions of anger over the North’s failure to win talks on receiving outside aid and over US-South Korean military drills.
The missiles, believed to be of Scud variations, were fired from the city of Kaesong near the border with the South and had a range of about 300 miles, said a South Korean military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of department rules.
North Korea experts said it was highly unusual for Pyongyang to fire missiles from a city just 12 miles from the heavily fortified border separating the two Koreas. The North usually test-fires missiles from its eastern port city of Wonsan, about 80 miles from the border.
‘‘It is remarkable that missiles were fired from Kaesong, a symbol of North-South cooperation,’’ said professor Yang Moo-jin of Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies.
The jointly run Kaesong Industrial Complex brings together South Korean-owned companies with North Korean labor.
North Korea regularly conducts test-firings but this year has launched an unusually large number of missiles. South Korean officials have confirmed about 90 test-firings of missiles, artillery, and rockets by the North since Feb. 21.
--more--"
Also see: As profit falls, Samsung ponders tactics vs. Chinese rivals
As for those smart Chinese, they don't Diller around when it comes to NSA spyware or false accusations that are force-fed enough to crack you up.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"N. Korea fires missiles near border" Associated Press July 14, 2014
SEOUL — North Korea launched two ballistic missiles into the sea on Sunday, South Korea said, the latest in a series of test-firings seen as expressions of anger over the North’s failure to win talks on receiving outside aid and over US-South Korean military drills.
The missiles, believed to be of Scud variations, were fired from the city of Kaesong near the border with the South and had a range of about 300 miles, said a South Korean military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of department rules.
North Korea experts said it was highly unusual for Pyongyang to fire missiles from a city just 12 miles from the heavily fortified border separating the two Koreas. The North usually test-fires missiles from its eastern port city of Wonsan, about 80 miles from the border.
‘‘It is remarkable that missiles were fired from Kaesong, a symbol of North-South cooperation,’’ said professor Yang Moo-jin of Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies.
The jointly run Kaesong Industrial Complex brings together South Korean-owned companies with North Korean labor.
North Korea regularly conducts test-firings but this year has launched an unusually large number of missiles. South Korean officials have confirmed about 90 test-firings of missiles, artillery, and rockets by the North since Feb. 21.
--more--"
Also see: As profit falls, Samsung ponders tactics vs. Chinese rivals
