CINA

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Since y'day the S.K. (bourgeois) media is reporting about Seoul's plan to fingerprint foreign "suspects" from August (K. Times, 4.04) as a regulatory action to intensify 

the pre-G20(summit) state terror...

Here's what today's (reactionary) JoongAng Ilbo has to say:

Foreign travelers to be fingerprinted

 
Korea will install a fingerprint authentication system in major airports and seaports with the aim of keeping dangerous foreigners from entering the country, the Justice Ministry said yesterday.

The announcement comes as Seoul continues its preparations for the G-20 Summit.

“For a safe G-20 Summit, foreigners who are suspected to have criminal backgrounds will need to go through fingerprint identification,” said an official at the Justice Ministry.

The news also comes as the nation is on full alert over foreigner identification following reports last week that two Pakistani men suspected of being members of the Taliban snuck past the port authority in Gunsan, North Jeolla.

The Justice Ministry has submitted a bill to the National Assembly that will make it mandatory for all foreign adults coming into Korea to register their fingerprints with the government...

However, the ministry does not need the Assembly’s approval to install a fingerprint identification system, which links to a National Police Agency database that keeps records on foreigners who have committed crimes in or been deported from Korea...

If the system identifies a foreigner with a dangerous criminal past, he or she will be handed over to the police for further investigation.

The ministry said that the fingerprint authentication system must be installed at key places, including Incheon International Airport, by August in order to have it fully operational by the G-20 Summit in November.

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2918769

Related:
☞ G20 security (Korea Herald, 4.05)

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Source: 용산철거민참사대책위

Related stuff:
☞ [3.22] 전철연 연대밤 (2008)

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Enjoy(??) the weekend reading!!

North Korea on the Road to Ruin
By Aidan Foster-Carter

Last year saw two spectacular own goals. Missile and nuclear tests were a weird way to greet a new US president ready to reach out to old foes. The predictable outcome was condemnation by the UN Security Council, plus sanctions on arms exports that are biting.

Domestic policy is just as disastrous. December’s currency ‘reform’ beggars belief. Did Kim Jong-il really not grasp that redenomination would not cure inflation, but worsen it? Or that brazenly stealing people’s savings – beyond a paltry minimum, citizens only got 10 per cent of their money back – would finally goad his long-suffering subjects into anger and rioting? Forced to retreat, officials even apologised. One scapegoat was sacked – and possibly shot.

By his own admission Kim does not do economics. In a speech in 1996, when famine was starting to bite, the Dear Leader whined defensively that his late father, Kim Il-sung, had told him ‘not to get involved in economic work, but just concentrate on the military and the party.’

That awful advice explains much. Incredibly, North Korea was once richer than the South. In today’s world, this is the contest that counts. ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ is no mere slogan but a law of social science.

Having taken an early lead, Kim senior threw it all away. He built the world’s fourth largest army, crippling an economy which he refused to reform, viewing liberalisation as betrayal. His own personality cult was and is a literally monumental weight of unproductive spending.

Used to milking Moscow and Beijing, in the 1970s North Korea borrowed from Western banks – and promptly defaulted. That was not smart; it has had to pay cash up front ever since.

Pyongyang also resorts to less orthodox financing. In 1976 the Nordic nations expelled a dozen DPRK diplomats for trafficking cigarettes and booze. In December, a Swedish court jailed two for smuggling cigarettes. More than 100 busts worldwide over 30 years, of everything from ivory and heroin to ‘supernotes’ (fake US$100 bills), leave scant doubt that this is policy.

Yet morality aside, it is stupid policy. Pariahs stay poor. North Korea could earn far more by going straight. The Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC), where South Korean SMEs employ  Northern workers to make a range of goods, shows that win-win can work. Yet Pyongyang keeps harassing it: imposing arbitrary border restrictions and demanding absurd wage hikes.

Now it threatens to seize US$370 million of South Korean assets at Mount Kumgang, a tourist zone idle since a Southern tourist was shot dead in 2008 and the North refused a proper investigation. Even before that, Pyongyang’s greed in extorting inflated fees from Hyundai ensured that no other chaebol has ventured North. Contrast how China has gained Taiwanese investment.

In this catalogue of crassness, the nadir came in 1991 when the dying Soviet Union abruptly pulled the plug on its clients. All suffered, but most adapted. Cuba went for tourism; Vietnam tried cautious reform; Mongolia sold minerals. Only North Korea, bizarrely, did nothing – except  watch its old system crumble. GDP plunged by half, and hunger killed up to a million. Now famine again stalks the land. The state cannot provide, yet still it seeks to suppress markets.

All this is as puzzling as it is terrible. China and Vietnam show how Asian communist states can morph towards capitalism and thrive. Kim Jong-il may fear the fate of the Soviet Union if he follows suit. True, his regime has survived – even if many of its people did not. Yet the path he is on is patently a dead end. Kim’s own ill-health, and a belated opaque bid to install his unknown third son as dauphin, only heighten uncertainty. Militant mendicancy over the nuclear issue – demanding to be paid for every tiny step towards a distant disarmament, then backsliding and trying the same trick again – will no longer wash. North Korea has run out of road; the game is finally up.

What now? A soft landing, with Kim Jong-il embracing peace abroad and reform at home, remains the best outcome. But if Kim obdurately refuses change, we need a plan B. The US and South Korea have contingency plans for the North’s collapse. So does China, separately. Tacit coordination is urgent, lest future chaos be compounded by a clash of rival powers – as in the 1890s. Koreans have a rueful proverb: when whales fight, the shrimp’s back is broken.

But Beijing will not let it come to that. China is quietly moving into North Korea, buying up mines and ports. Some in Seoul cry colonialism, but it was they who created this vacuum by short-sightedly ditching the past decade’s ‘sunshine’ policy of patient outreach. President Lee Myung-bak may have gained the G-20 chairmanship, but he has lost North Korea.

Nor will Kim Jong-il nuzzle docile under China’s wing, though his son might. As ever North Korea will take others’ money and do its own thing. In early 2010 new fake ‘super-yuan’ of high quality, very hard to detect, started appearing in China. They wouldn’t, would they?

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2010/04/01/north-korea-on-the-road-to-ruin

Related articles:
☞ The trap of drawing a picture of N.Korea (Hankyoreh, 4.02)

☞ Chinese Financial Support of N. Korea Questioned (VoA, 3.31) 

☞ North Korea Strains Under New Pressures (WSJ, 3.30) 

☞ N. Korea faces likelihood of widespread upheaval (HonululuAdvertiser, 3.28)

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KCTU's "Directives for 2010" (the English version was published just y'day):

The KCTU will be at the forefront to stop labor oppression and protect democracy

  
Labor rights are essential for democracy

Korea’s Ministry of Labor denied the registration of the Korean Government Employees' Union on March 6, for the third time in three month. Not just for KGEU, the ministry ordered the Korean Construction Workers’ Union (KCWU) to revise their union establishment report, and the Korean Transport Workers’ Union (KTWU) and Korean Teachers and Education Workers' Union (KTU) got such orders, too. Almost half the members of the KCTU are about to be illegalized.    

Labor rights constitute the essence of democracy. The Korean government’s plot to destroy labor unions is, therefore, an attempt to tramp the democratic constitution. In this sense, the KCTU’s struggle is not just for protecting union members’ rights but also for reviving the suffocated democracy throughout the society.

               
We will struggle and negotiate at the same time

The KCTU set 2010 major action plans and directives in a recent the Central Executive Committee meeting. The KCTU has set maximizing negotiating power through powerful struggle as the main objective for 2010. That explains why it has decided to participate in the Time-off System Deliberation Council, while the Korean Railway Workers Union, the Korea Cargo Transport Workers' Union, the Korean Construction Workers’ Union and other major organizations determined to unfold an all-out struggle, which includes a general strike. The Korea Metal Workers’ Union has also decided to mobilize support in specific periods.    

The government, ruling and opposition parties, and the Federation of Korean Trade Unions agreed to revise the Trade Union and Labor Relation Adjustment Act in a back-door negotiation last December to prohibit companies from paying full-time union officials and allow multiple unions at the workplace-level with many restrictions posed on their right to bargain. The KCTU Central Executive Committee remains firm against the revision and committed to its re-amendment. The Committee has reaffirmed that its participation in the Deliberation Council was aimed at maximizing negotiating power and rescinding the revised laws. The powerful massive struggle will back up the negotiation processes.

The KCTU will hold a rally that will be attended by about 10,000 unionists on March 27. By April 20, the Federation plans to complete its preparation for a general strike, which is scheduled to take place in late April. Moreover, beyond fighting for wage increase of union members, the KCTU will unfold a nation-wide wage struggle for a minimum wage increase and other measures so that all people can secure basic rights to live.

 
We will judge the Lee gov't and the ruling GNP at the local election in June

Across the nation, people aspire to judge the current government and the ruling party. The coming local election in June will be the judgment day. The KCTU will focus our resource to meet the nation-wide aspiration. We strongly believe that it is our mission to deal a blow to the ruling party in the election. In that sense, we will play a central role in gathering all democratic, progressive forces through solidarity, coalition, unity and integration.

 
We will organize People’s Action to counteract G20 in November

The Seoul G20 Summit in November should be a stage for people and workers around the world to express their indignation about the unfairness of globalization, not a ceremony to celebrate governments’ achievements. G20 is an antiquated attempt to return to neo-liberalism in an era of crisis it has brought about. Koreans refuse to be spectators to this ceremony. During the G20 period, the KCTU will do everything in our power to stage a massive anti-neo liberalism struggle that will gain attention of people and workers around the globe. To this end, we will prepare to hold People’s Action and be a leader of a great transformation.

 
Government turnover in 2012 is an important mission to KCTU

Lame-duck effects have already started for the Lee government and the June local election will prove that. In 2012, when the next prudential election is scheduled to take place, we should revive democracy by defeating the current powers. The KCTU will be at the forefront to protect democratic society against unilateral politics of the current government and the ruling party. In that process, we will show our union members and Koreans how the KCTU can meet their aspirations.

http://kctu.org/6680

Insha'Allah!!!(^^)

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S. Korea's "rulers" are to open new possibilities to escalate their ongoing struggle against the Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union(KTU) by using some kind of (well, let's say) psychological warfare, as yesterday's conservative bourgeois newspaper JoongAng Ilbo reported (of course not without an element of spitefulness):

Names of teachers in KTU to be released

 
The Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union has been a thorn in the side of local governments with its alleged political activities. But now the table might be turning.

Last Friday, the Seoul Central District Court dismissed a request by Education Minister Ahn Byong-man that the names of the union members not be made public. After the announcement, the Education Ministry said it had sent a list of the union member names to the National Assembly as requested.

Grand National Party lawmaker Cho Jeon-hyeok, also a member of the National Assembly’s education, science and technology committee, received the names. “By April 20, we plan to reveal the teachers’ names, their schools and subjects [they teach] on the Internet so that teachers and students will be able to find out about them easily,” he said.

Previously, students and parents were able to learn the total number of the union members through the Web site www.schoolinfo.go.kr However they now will be able to check whether the students’ teachers are associated with the union. This development has sent shock waves through the union. Officials say around 340 members have dropped out of the union since the court’s dismissal of the Education Ministry’s request. Shortly after its legalization in 1999, the union saw a rise in membership, reaching its peak in 2003 with 93,860 members. Since then, however, the number has dropped. By March of last year, the union had 69,530 members, or 20 percent of all teachers nationwide.

Since all civil servants and educational workers in Korea are banned from collective political activity, the union has said its members are simply exercising their rights to free speech.

Last year, the union held an anti-government protest and released a statement saying that the Lee Myung-bak administration was endangering democracy. Last month, police discovered that 120 union members and the Korean Government Employees’ Union had registered as members on the Democratic Labor Party Web site.

Police said they suspect the DLP collected around 17 billion won from the teachers and other civil servants.

Currently, the union is resisting the court’s ruling. Um Min-young, spokesman for the union said that the union will apply for another injunction against GNP lawmaker Cho to stop him from revealing member names. He said that doing so would be an invasion of and a breach of individual rights.

One union member said that “the ideological conflict that will surface in schools after the revelation of member names is unimaginable” adding that revealing the names of members is a means the government is using to destroy the union.

Many parents and school principals however, welcomed the new plan. Chae Hyo-jin, 41, a mother of a child in high school said that she “will be able to prepare for any circumstance [regarding her child’s education] only when I know the political tendencies of the teachers.”

Lee Nam-yeong, head of the teachers’ cooperation division at the Education Ministry said, “I doubt that a movement [by parents] to refuse letting a teacher [educate their children] will surface, but this new revelation will make it possible for parents to check what kind of education their children are getting.”

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2918516

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Pyongyang's "rulers" are very well-known for their special sense of perfect - mostly very empathic - timing for the release of statements, threatening the rest of the world...

Yesterday, while the (S. Korean) "public angst was building at the lack of success in rescuing missing sailors from a sunken patrol ship" (Yonhap), it was KPA's turn to scare the S.K. public(*), as KCNA(3.29) reported: 

 
KPA Warns Any Act of Disturbing Security and Order in DMZ 

These days witness a lot of serious developments in the area along the Military Demarcation Line where huge armed forces are standing in acute confrontation for which the south Korean military authorities are to blame. They may drive the present touch-and-go situation to a more dangerous phase.

A spokesman for the Panmunjom Mission of the Korean People's Army issued a statement on Monday in this regard:

The south Korean military warmongers have been busy staging an anti-DPRK psychological warfare in the Demilitarized Zone with agents specializing in this warfare and other riff-raffs involved since the mid-February under the signboards of "visit," "tour" and "observance".

It is a well-known fact that the south Korean military concluded what it called "MOU on supporting news coverage of the DMZ" with 15 media organizations in a bid to let their reporters tour not only the DMZ but nearby frontline areas and prepare materials for anti-north smear campaigns and release them by means of newspapers, broadcasting services, internet, etc.

As already known to the world, Paragraph 9 of Article 1 of the Armistice Agreement stipulates that "No person, military or civilian, shall be permitted to enter the Demilitarized Zone except persons concerned with the conduct of civil administration and relief and persons specially authorized to enter by the Military Armistice Commission."

It is preposterous for the U.S. and south Korean sides to allow those who have nothing to do with the civil administration and relief to enter the DMZ, given that the Military Armistice Commission was completely demised and the military machines of both sides tasked to supervise and control the implementation of the AA in place of the commission have not been in existence for nearly two decades due to the deliberate moves of the U.S. to scrap the AA.

In the final analysis, all these moves of the south Korean military warmongers cannot be interpreted otherwise than deliberate acts to turn the DMZ into theatre of confrontation with the DPRK and a site of psychological warfare against the north in disregard of the AA and strain the overall situation on the Korean Peninsula.

The U.S. is a signatory to the AA and responsible for implementing it.

It is, therefore, obliged to stop the moves of the south Korean military authorities to misuse the DMZ for meeting their sinister purpose.

The U.S. side should cogitate about the grave situation in which the security and order in the DMZ which have so far been observed for form's sake are disturbed and this area is turning into a total military zone and a theatre of inter-Korean confrontation and a site of psychological warfare against the north in contravention of the AA.

The Panmunjom Mission of the KPA clarifies the following principled stand to cope with the prevailing situation:

1. The U.S. side should force the south Korean authorities and military warmongers to halt at once their moves to disturb the security and order in the DMZ if it is interested in the peace and security on the peninsula as a signatory to the AA.

2. The south Korean military warmongers should roll back without delay their foolish plan to turn the DMZ into a theatre of confrontation with the DPRK and a site of psychological warfare against the north and stop their rash acts, if they want to escape the unexpected strike of the KPA.

3. If the U.S. and the south Korean authorities persist in their wrong acts to misuse the DMZ for the inter-Korean confrontation despite our warnings, these will entail unpredictable incidents including the loss of human lives in this area for which the U.S. side will be wholly to blame.

Intolerable is any act of disturbing the security and order in the DMZ.

http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2010/201003/news29/20100329-01ee.html
 

* Interpretation by K. Times: "NK Warning to Scare Away DMZ Tourists"/"Naughty N.K. scaring the tourists. Bad North Korea. Bad.", note by The Marmot's Hole(3.30)

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Malaysia:

Massive Exploitation and Oppression of Migrant Workers, Combined with Manhunt and Mass Deportation

Last week Amnesty International(AI) accused Malaysia(MAL) over migrant workers abuse, but the Malaysian gov't - surprise, surprise(!!) - is ignoring AI's demand to reform its migrant worker law...

Today the Nepali Nagarik Daily reported that the Malaysian "authorities" have arrested, partly by using massive violence, over 500 Nepali un-documented migrant workers (among hundreds migrants from other South Asian countries) in the recent days.

The "authorities" started an operation named 'Sweep Operation' from February 24 to curb the "illegal" migrant workers.

Malaysian detention center: captured migrant workers

It is estimated that there are about one million un-documented migrant workers (according to al-Jazeera) with about 50,000 from Nepal alone.

Migrant workers in Malaysia - mainly employed in construction sites, factories, restaurants and palm oil plantations - are subject of massive exploitation and oppression...

According to AI large numbers of migrants find when they arrive that they are given lower-than-promised wages and forced to work in unsafe conditions.
It said arbitrary arrests and extortion were other common complaints.

While many Malaysian firms depend on a large supply of migrant labour, "Migrant workers come to Malaysia to escape poverty and to provide for their families. Once they arrive, however, many workers toil in conditions that amount to labour exploitation," AI said in its latest report.
 

Sounds somehow familiar, doesn't it? It's almost comparable with the situation of migrant workers in S. Korea (and many other countries)...

For more please check out:
☞ Malaysia must end abuse of migrant workers (AI, 3.24)

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Y'day the German (conservative) daily newspaper Die Welt wrote the following:

Conflict with the South

Warship sinks - North Korea possibly not involved

On Friday, according to the (South Korean) Ministry of Defense, an unexplained explosion in the ship's stern tore the vessel in two after it fired off a warning shot at an "unidentified object". But the object wasn't a North Korean naval ship, as primarily supposed, instead it was very likely a flock of birds...

And the moral of the story? Never try to attack the infamous species of the "North Asian Torpedo Seagull"!!

The 'Cheonan', before it attacked "a flock of birds"...

...and afterwards - bottom up

If you want to follow an interesting (??) discussion about the possible cause of the incident, please check out the related contribution on OFK!

Related article:
☞ Speculations vary on cause of ship sinking (K. Herald, 3.28)

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"Enjoy" (well, you should memorize!!^^) the weekend lesson, entitled:

The Youth Captain, Comrade Kim Jong-eun is a Mt. Baekdu style of captain who bears the perfect dignity and qualifications of the great men in history and carries on the ideology and leadership of the Great General (*)

1. The Youth Captain, Comrade Kim Jong-eun is a good model of loyalty, one who displays the highest level of loyalty to the Great General (aka Kim Jong-il).

1.1 He is the one who faithfully carries forward the achievements of the Military-first revolution, which the Great General has enhanced.

2. The Youth Captain, Comrade Kim Jong-eun is a great figure who presents the ideology and appearance of the Great Leader (aka Kim Il-sung) and the Dear Leader.

2.1 He is a master of ideology and theory who has inherited the General’s nature.

3. The Youth Captain, Comrade Kim Jong-eun is a remarkably talented person who bears all the ability of a great general, which the Great Leader also bore.

3.1 He harbors military genius and leadership qualities as well.

4. The Youth Captain, Comrade Kim Jong-eun has all the human qualities, which are eternally moderate.

4.1 He is the one who takes care of the people’s lives with a warm heart and love.

5. The Youth Captain, Comrade Kim Jong-eun is well-versed in the Juche Ideology, military science, Juche politics and economics, Juche literature and arts.

5.1 He has a wide knowledge of all other fields like world politics, economics, the military and culture.

* "Education" material(**), released in late January for KWP cadres and KPA officers.
** Please keep in mind that absolutely nobody in the N.K. public (except a very tiny group around the "Dear Leader"/but of course they've nothing to do with the N.K. public!) knows something about the (f*cking)"Youth Captain, Comrade Kim Jong-eun"...

 
Somehow related:
☞ Signs of Big Bang in North Korea? (K. Times, 3.25)
☞ N. Korea threatens 'nuclear strikes' on S. Korea, US (AP/Ynet, 3.26)
☞ US-S. Korean Moves to Bring down System in DPRK Warned (KCNA, 3.26)

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Today's Hankyoreh is reporting the following:

Gov't employees fired for KGEU launch ceremony

MOPAS is banning all KGEU activities in an effort to prevent the union from functioning

The Lee Myung-bak administration has decided to dispense heavy-handed punishments to the government employees who attended the launching ceremony of the Korean Government Employees’ Union (KGEU) and a rally of union leaders on March 20 and expel union leaders who actively participated from public office. The KGEU said the launching ceremony is an event that has been held annually since 2003, and that the Lee administration is misusing its authority to hand out heavy punishments without asking questions in order to repress government employee unions critical of the government.

The Ministry of Public Administration and Security (MOPAS) said Wednesday that KGEU, which had its foundation notification documents returned on two occasions by the Ministry of Labor, had violated the law by pushing though with a launching ceremony after issuing protests. MOPAS said it has made the decision to fire 18 union leaders, including 13 headquarters heads including KGEU Vice Chairman Park Yi-jae (an employee at Masan City Hall) and Secretary General Ra Il-ha (an employee at Anyang City Hall). It also plans to punish all government employees who attended the rally after confirming their identities. Union Chairman Yang Seong-yun (an employee of Seoul’s Yangcheon-gu Office) was fired by Seoul City Hall in November of last year for violating the legal ban on civil servants engaging in collective actions by taking part in a rally to “condemn government repression of government employee unions” in July of the same year.

MOPAS regards the KGEU as an illegal group and is not allowing any activities to take place under that name. Lee Song-ok, head of MOPAS’s Civil servant Association Policy Division, said MOPAS plans to block KGEU branches from establishing offices and said union offices currently using the KGEU name must take down their signs. It also banned government employees from hanging banners or posters with the KGEU name, distributing so-called “propaganda materials” using the KGEU name, or holding picket demonstrations using the KGEU name. If the union homepage is run under the KGEU name, it will be blocked at offices. If a government employee does violate one of these regulations, MOPAS has decided it will levy up to 5 million Won ($4,384) in fines in accordance with the Labor Union and Labor Relations Mediation Law. By banning all activities under the KGEU name, the ministry has virtually rendered the union unable to function.

In response, KGEU spokesman Yun Jin-won said the Lee Myung-bak government’s attempt to kill the government employees union has reached an extreme level. Yun said a launching ceremony is a right of the union, and to regard this as illegal and severely punish participants is unjust. In response to MOPAS’s decision to designate KGEU as illegal, Yun said KGEU is not illegal, but rather a union currently preparing to be founded. He said the union filed a suit on March 9 in an administrative court to overturn the Labor Ministry’s atypical decision to return KGEU’s foundation notification documents, and until the court issues a decision, the union is legal.

The notification system was created as part of a system to recognize that workers were forming unions as part of their Constitutionally-guaranteed rights. No one is required to obtain permission from the government to exercise his or her Constitutional rights, and prior to the Lee administration, notifications of new unions have been accepted, as long as there have been no serious problems.

Meanwhile, the Labor Ministry, which twice returned the KGEU’s foundation notices in December of last year even though the notices are not supposed to undergo fierce scrutiny, returned its foundation notification documents a third time on Wedensday, saying KGEU could be disqualified because previously fired employees and duty managers are eligible to sign up and participate.

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/412231.html

Related article:
☞ Gov't to dismiss unionized civil servants for illegal rally (Yonhap, 3.24)