U.S. Envoy Talks With Chinese About North Korea
New York Times

The State Department’s senior envoy on North Korea said Wednesday that he had discussed “all aspects of the North Korea issue” with Chinese officials, including sanctions on the North, during a one-day visit to Beijing.

“I think this is all a work in progress,” the diplomat, Glyn B. Davies, said at a briefing for reporters in Beijing. “The Chinese have said to us that they will faithfully implement U.N. Security Council sanctions and are doing so. And, as I’ve said before, we take them at their word.”

U.S. gov’t urges N. Korea to free jailed American
Yonhap News

The U.S. government called Wednesday for North Korea to release an American citizen jailed there, saying Washington’s top priority is to secure the safety of its nationals.

“We urge the DPRK (North Korea) authorities to grant Mr. Bae amnesty and immediate release,” Patrick Ventrell, deputy spokesman for the State Department, told reporters. “There is no greater priority for us than the welfare and safety of our U.S. citizens abroad.”

Canadian linked to Algeria attackers faces 10 years in prison
CBC News

Prosecutors in Mauritania have accused a jailed Canadian man of helping prepare an attack on an Algerian gas plant in January and have asked a court to extend his sentence to 10 years from two.

Aaron Yoon, 24, formerly of London, Ont., was convicted last July in Nouakchott on charges of having ties to a terrorist group and of posing a danger to national security. He has served almost half of his two-year sentence.

On Monday, prosecutors told a court that Yoon had acted in connivance with those responsible for the Jan. 16 attacks on an Algerian gas plant and the four-day siege that followed, killing more than 80 people. Yoon has denied involvement and protested that he is innocent.

South Korean Media Blast Abe’s ‘Numerical Provocations’
Wall Street Journal

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is facing a challenge from Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto as the most reviled Japanese politician in South Korea, but the Korean media gave Mr. Abe’s latest militaristic photo opportunity top billing Wednesday.

The largest-circulation newspaper in South Korea, Chosun Ilbo, ran at the top of its front page a photo from Sunday of Mr. Abe in a trainer jet, as did two other nationally circulated papers. Others carried it on inside pages.

All drew attention to a marking on the jet with the number 731, which they noted was the same number as that of a Japanese biological and chemical warfare research facility that performed human experiments during the 1937-45 Sino-Japanese War and World War II.

Choi and O’Farrell in contentious battle for council seat
Los Angeles Times

Theirs has become the most contentious of the four council races on the May 21 ballot, with the candidates accusing each other of homophobia and race-baiting, and their supporters clashing in the streets. Allegations of threats and voter fraud in Little Armenia have prompted investigations by the police and Los Angeles County prosecutors.

The battle is being waged against a backdrop of uneven campaign fundraising and a torrent of spending by independent groups that don’t have the same limits as candidates. Choi, who has the support of many in the city’s political establishment, including Villaraigosa, the powerful federation of labor, and the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, has raised nearly twice as much as O’Farrell.

Choi has also benefited from nearly $600,000 in independent spending, nearly all of it from labor unions.

“That’s who he’s going to be accountable to,” O’Farrell insists. He pointed to Choi’s comments in an endorsement meeting with a major city employee union earlier this year as proof.

Hyongsoon Kim: The Koreatown Advocate
LA Weekly

On the 24th floor of Century Plaza Towers, in his office at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, attorney Hyongsoon Kim enjoys expansive views of West L.A. and the Pacific Ocean but revels in what’s closer to hand: a mess of legal briefs, boxes and court documents strewn about the room. “This chaos to me invites creativity,” says Kim, 34. “You’re not going to find a lot of attorneys who will agree with me. … But litigation is chaos. You can’t control every piece of it. It’s good for a litigator to thrive in chaos. Because that’s what you’re in the middle of.”

Kim studied to be a classical musician as a teen, attended Cal State L.A. at age 15 and earned his law degree from Columbia at 22. Today he’s lead attorney in a federal lawsuit that’s shining a light on Los Angeles City Hall chicanery by challenging a controversial 2012 gerrymander that handed City Council president Herb Wesson more power. The lawsuit alleges that Wesson, the L.A. City Council and the redistricting commission illegally used race as the main factor to redraw voting-district boundaries for Wesson’s City Council District 10. The contorted land-grab consolidated Wesson’s black voter bloc — and diluted the power of rising Koreatown.

Tiger Mom Amy Chua Responds to Tiger Baby
Wall Street Journal

It’s a sign of just how deep tensions are around parenting today that, over two years after Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” was published, its combination of shocking revelation, serious reflection and tongue-in-cheek exaggeration still sends T. Rex-scale ripples skittering across the surface of our sociocultural Dixie cups.

Two weeks ago, novelist Kim Wong Keltner’s “Tiger Babies Strike Back” was published — her nonfiction account of growing up under the paw of her authoritarian Tiger parents. Last week, the web was abuzz over the release of UT Austin psychology prof Su Yeong Kim’s longitudinal study tracking the parenting styles and social outcomes of over 400 Chinese American families in the Bay Area, which seemed to show that children of Tiger Parents had both poorer emotional health and lower GPAs than those of parents who embraced warmer and fuzzier child-rearing strategies.

Florida prom-goers aid in car accident rescue
NBC News

Prom-goer Peter Kim told NBC Miami that he grabbed a young boy from the overturned van and helped calm the mother.

“We laid her down, and we tried to calm her down. She was just panicking, she was in shock,” Kim said. “She was screaming out, ‘Where’s my baby? Where’s my baby?’”

Philadelphia woman gets probation for Montco car insurance scam
The Intelligencer (Doylestown, Pa.)

A 69-year-old Philadelphia woman, who engaged in a car insurance scam with a Montgomery Township man, will not have to go to jail for her crimes.
Kathleen B. Chung, of the 500 block of Penny Lane, Philadelphia, last week was sentenced to seven years of probation on two felony insurance fraud charges and a misdemeanor false reporting charge to which she pleaded guilty in February.

Chung also will have to perform 125 hours of community service and pay her half of the $24,554 restitution ordered in the case.

Co-defendant Kyung Soon Kim, 53, of the 100 block of Robertson Court, Montgomery Township, will pay the remaining half of the restitution as part of the sentence he received last month following his guilty plea to theft and conspiracy charges. Kim also was sentenced to two weekends in jail and handed a seven-year probation sentence. As part of that sentence, Kim will pay a $5,000 fine and perform 200 hours of community service.

Star Trek: Into Darkness Interviews Part II: – John Cho and Simon Pegg
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Sara Fetters: Speaking of evolution, was it easier this time to step into the shoes of these characters? Do you still feel the pressure of decades of Star Trek lore?

John Cho: It was easier. We’ve done it once and we went through that anticipation of whether it was going to be accepted. Also, the welcome was exceptionally warm with the last film. For me, I felt like it wasn’t on us, it’s really all on J.J (Abrams). He’ll take the rap.

Ken Jeong Excited About ‘Community’ Renewal, Calls Cast ‘Harlem Globetrotters Of Comedy’
Huffington Post

Ken Jeong was pretty ecstatic when he dropped by “Late Night.” His show, “Community” had been picked up for a 13-episode fifth season by NBC. And despite it not being on the schedule yet, it was a pretty big deal. The show had been considered by many unlikely to return and was one of only two comedies to be renewed at NBC (the other being Parks & Recreation).

“Fifth season,” Jeong said proudly. “Five, six seasons and a movie!” The latter is a catch-phrase that’s been trumpted by fans of the show for the past few years, encouraging NBC to stick by the cult favorite. They’re inching ever so much closer to that goal, even if these latest two have been shorter season orders.

Some of the Juiciest Bits of ‘Rodham,’ the Hillary Clinton Movie Biopic: Sex, Scandal, More
The Daily Beast

Ed. note — Kim immigrated to the States at the age of 9 and considers himself Korean American.

Rodham was written by Young Il Kim, a relatively unknown South Korean. Though casting and filming haven’t begun, the movie is set to be produced by Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen of Temple Hill Entertainment (The Twilight Saga) and directed by James Ponsoldt, whose coming-of-age drama The Spectacular Now was a standout at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The screenplay for Rodham was a hot commodity in Hollywood, earning a place on the 2012 Black List—an annual compendium of the best unproduced screenplays floating around Tinseltown. And according to The Wrap, “industry executives who have read the script claim it offers a potentially award-worthy role for one lucky ingenue.” Kim, meanwhile, has received the Sundance Institute’s Alfred P. Sloan Commissioning Grant to develop his next project—an original, untitled script based on the life of Stephen Hawking.

Check out our story on Kim and his screenplay from last month’s issue of KoreAm:
April Issue: Young Il Kim’s Hillary Clinton Screenplay Earns Hollywood Hype

Gay South Korean film director to marry in bid to pry open closet
Reuters

A gay South Korean film director is set to symbolically marry his long-term partner, saying he aims to pry open the closet in this conservative Asian country where homosexuality is still taboo and gays have been subjected to hate crimes.

AS Monaco Reportedly Targeting Park Ji-sung
Chosun Ilbo

AS Monaco are thinking of grabbing Park Ji-sung from Queens Park Rangers, Patrice Evra from Manchester United and Carlos Tevez from Manchester City in one fell swoop, according to Goal.com on Monday.

“Monaco are considering moves for both Carlos Tevez and Patrice Evra as the Ligue 2 champions-elect construct a team intended to win France’s top division at the first attempt next season,” it reported.

Christina Kim happy to be back in Mobile, looking for good week at Mobile Bay LPGA Classic (video)
al.com (Ala.)

No one has ever had trouble finding Christina Kim. Her high-energy approach to golf and life in general and her bubbly personality have made her a favorite with fans on the LPGA Tour.

That’s especially true in Mobile, where Kim won the 2005 The Mitchell Company Tournament of Champions crown at Magnolia Grove’s Crossings Course. She bested many of the LPGA’s top players at that time in winning the then-limited field event on the city’s Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail course.

Unfortunately for Kim, that is the most recent of her two LPGA Tour victories. The California native who now lives in Orlando has been slowed by injuries in recent years but told AL.com she is looking forward to this week’s Mobile Bay LPGA Classic, a course she knows well and one on which she is comfortable playing.

Michelle Wie looks to make a run at this week’s Mobile Bay LPGA Classic
al.com

This week, Wie will seek her third victory in a LPGA Tour event — her first came in the 2009 Lorena Ochoa Invitational, the other at the 2010 CN Canadian Women’s Open — when she competes in the Mobile Bay LPGA Classic at Magnolia Grove’s Crossings Course. The par-72 course on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail will welcome Wie and 143 other golfers seeking the tournament title.

Gripping Photos Capture the Mirror Worlds of North and South Korea
Gizmodo

Architectural photographer Dieter Leistner was born the same year East Germany began construction on the Berlin Wall. He was 37 when it fell. Maybe that’s why his interest in North and South Korea feels so personal—he spent forty years in another divided country.

Leistner’s new book, Korea – Korea, is a compendium of images that were shot in 2006, in Pyongyang, and 2012, in Seoul. Each spread compares two different public spaces in each city, including bus stops, subway cars, and public squares. In a foreword to the book, curator Klaus Klemp explains his perspective as a German:

The Korean American man imprisoned in North Korea is currently serving his 15-year sentence at a “special prison,” according to brief report from the reclusive country’s state media.

The brief dispatch from the Korean Central News Agency said Kenneth Bae, whom they refer to as Pae Jun-ho, was serving time in a special facility but did not elaborate further. Two experts on North Korean law told the Associated Press they did not know what a “special prison” was.

Bae, 44, was sentenced earlier this month by the North Korean Supreme Court to serve 15 years of hard labor for “hostile acts against the state.” It was the same charge levied against journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee in 2009 after they illegally entered North Korea. Continue Reading »

Joomi Lim and Xavier Ricolfi at their New York City showroom.

Statement Jewels

Joomi Lim employs skulls, spikes and titanium for an edgy, high-end jewelry line.

story by DAVID YI
photographs by VICTOR CHU

It’s an early Friday afternoon, and jewelry designer Joomi Lim and her partner in business and life, Xavier Ricolfi, are running out of time.  They’re conducting a meeting in their New York City showroom with a potential distributor, while simultaneously directing contractors on how to set up the lighting in the new space.  They take time to speak with this reporter, before dashing off to an event at Saks Fifth Avenue to promote their line, Joomi Lim.

“It’s always this busy,” Lim says, chuckling.

The couple just came back from a whirlwind trip to Paris Fashion Week, where they participated in major trade shows and had meetings with many of the boutiques that carry Joomi Lim.  The high-end jewelry line retails from $74 for rings to close to $800 for statement necklaces. The collection also offers earrings, cuffs and bracelets.

Today Joomi Lim is carried in major retail stores throughout the world, including Opening Ceremony, Bergdorf Goodman, 10 Corso Como in both Milan and Seoul, and Liberty London. The jewels are also often featured in fashion publications like British Vogue and Teen Vogue, and can be seen on celebrities like Rihanna and Miley Cyrus. Continue Reading »

A potential candidate for prime minister of Japan and mayor of one of Japan’s largest cities drew the ire of many after he said women who were forced into sexual slavery in World War II served a vital role in helping the country’s war efforts.

The mayor of Osaka, Toru Hashimoto, made the controversial remarks on Monday speaking to a group of reporters, according to the New York Times.

“When soldiers are risking their lives by running through storms of bullets, and you want to give these emotionally charged soldiers a rest somewhere, it’s clear that you need a comfort women system,” he said, according to the New York Times.

When pressed later, he insisted that brothels “were necessary at the time to maintain discipline in the army.” Other countries’ militaries used prostitutes, too, he said, and added that in any case there was no proof that the Japanese authorities had forced women into servitude.

Instead, he put the women’s experiences down to “the tragedy of war,” and said surviving comfort women now deserved kindness from Japan.

Continue Reading »

Lee with family at the Anaheim/Orange County Walk of Stars

Los Angeles is naming a new elementary school after a Korean American living legend.

The board of directors of the Los Angeles Unified School District met today and approved the new elementary school’s name to be the “Dr. Sammy Lee Medical and Health Science Magnet Elementary School,” named after the 92-year-old former Olympic diver.

Dr. Lee was the first Asian American to win a gold medal for the United States and competed at the London Olympics in 1948 and the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Finland, winning gold medals in the 10-meter platform at both Olympics.

The native of Fresno, Calif., was already a physician when he won his gold medals, having earned a medical degree from the University of Southern California in 1947. He also served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during the Korean War. Continue Reading »

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