South Korean report details alleged abuses at North Korea’s prison camps
Washington Post

A South Korean government-funded human rights group has released a series of raw firsthand accounts of North Korea’s political prison camps, Seoul’s first comprehensive attempt to catalogue the atrocities that Pyongyang denies take place.

The 381-page report, based on about 200 face-to-face interviews with defectors who survived the camps, is a significant step for a South Korean government that has long remained quiet about the human rights abuses of its neighbor.

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un issues rare public drubbing — of a roller coaster
MSNBC.com

This just in: North Korea is not a paradise in some ways — and this news comes from Pyongyang’s official mouthpiece, the Korean Central News Agency.

On Wednesday, KCNA reported that newly anointed leader Kim Jong Un had visited an amusement park where he scolded park officials for poor upkeep of the park, according to the Yonhap News Agency in South Korea.

N. Korea executed at least three over cannibalism: think tank
Yonhap News

North Korea has held public executions of at least three people on charges of cannibalism in recent years, a South Korean state-run institute said Thursday, the latest development that could support what has long been rumored in the isolated country.

There have been accounts among North Korean defectors in the South that some North Koreans ate and sold human flesh during the massive famine in the late 1990s that was estimated to have killed 2 million people.

Study: Outside media changing N. Korean worldview
AP via Google News

The growing availability of news media and cellphones in reclusive North Korea likely forced it to admit within hours that its long-range rocket launch last month was a failure, the U.S. human rights envoy to the country said Thursday.

The envoy, Robert King, was speaking at the launch of a U.S. government-funded study that says North Koreans now have unprecedented exposure to foreign media, giving them a more positive impression of the outside world.

Casino company analyst pleads guilty in $860,000 slot scheme
Las Vegas Review-Journal

As an analyst for the state’s largest casino company, Tony Ahn was a trusted employee who had access to valuable players club information.

But federal court documents show that Ahn, 27, betrayed that trust in 2009, hatching an elaborate slot machine scheme from within the company, then known as MGM Mirage, to unlawfully win $863,895 .

Ahn used his company position to identify regular customers with unused free play points, transferred the points to counterfeit players club cards and recruited people to gamble with the cards at the company’s casinos along the Strip, the court documents allege.

Ridgefield man pleads guilty to conspiring to defraud banks of more than $1.1M
Bergen County Record (N.J.)

A Ridgefield man pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiring to defraud banks by obtaining loans for companies that didn’t exist — part of a larger scheme that authorities say netted more than $1.1 million for an identity theft and fraud ring.

Hong G. Cho, 55, pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court in Newark to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Authorities said he conspired with an Edgewater woman to steal $115,000 from three Bergen County banks in 2007.

Palisades Park monument to WWII ‘comfort women’ sparks historical tug-of-war
Bergen County Record

Three Korean lawmakers on Wednesday placed bouquets of white chrysanthemums near a stone monu­ment in Palisades Park dedicated to “comfort women” — more than 200,000 Asians who were reportedly forced into sexual slavery by Japanese soldiers before and during World War II.

The moving tribute, however, comes just days after four officials from Japan’s Liberal Democratic Par­ty claimed that there is no proof sex slaves existed and asked for the mon­ument’s removal, saying it portrayed historical inaccuracies, Palisades Park Mayor James Rotundo said. Historical accounts, interviews and testimonials, however, document the story of the comfort women.

Giffords’ surgeon to speak at graduation
Arizona Daily Wildcat (Univ. of Arizona)

Dr. Peter Rhee, one of two surgeons who operated on former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the chief of the University of Arizona Medical Center trauma division, will speak at the undergraduate commencement ceremony on Saturday to remind attendees that every day is a good day.

Roy Choi Goes Vegetarian
NewYorker.com

The restaurants will stay open, and the old standbys will remain unchanged. Using more vegetables is, at least for now, mainly a culinary challenge. “Now everything I do, I’m trying to cook in vegetable state of mind, and if meat flies in meat flies in,” he said. “I’m like a boxer tying one arm behind my back, to see if I can knock you out.” Now at Chego, instead of just the Beefy T;—prime rib in chili fried rice—Choi is serving the Leafy T, featuring tofu. A special named MCA, in honor Adam Yauch, of the Beastie Boys, who died last week, is a rice bowl with mushrooms, cauliflower, and asparagus.

Cheezburger Creator Launches SimpleHoney To Find Hotels You’ll Love
Tech Crunch

Without being there, it’s hard to tell what a hotel is really like.

That’s what a startup called SimpleHoney is trying to solve. It was co-founded by Eric Nakagawa (a software developer who created the famous Icanhascheezburger blog) and Joyce Kim (a former corporate attorney who was previously CEO of Korean pop music site Soompi.com and is probably best-known to the startup community as co-host of the GigaOm Show).

South Korea’s foreign-born: The lovable Ms Lee
The Economist

MENTION Jasmine Lee at the Philippine market in Seoul’s Hyehwa-dong district, and faces instantly brighten. Ms Lee, born in the Philippines, recently became the first foreign-born South Korean to win a seat in the National Assembly, running for the ruling Saenuri party. “Everybody loves her”, says a Filipina stallholder selling cassava cakes.

Well, not quite everybody. After Ms Lee’s election last month, thousands of virulent Twitter messages labelled her a “mail-order bride” and plenty worse. The local media responded with a bout of soul-searching over the scourge of racism.

Soldier gets 6 years in prison for rape of South Korean teen
Stars and Stripes

A three-judge panel on Wednesday sentenced a U.S. soldier to six years in prison for raping a South Korean teenager in September.

Pvt. Kevin Robinson was found guilty of raping the 17-year-old at her residence in Seoul after a night of drinking. He also was convicted of larceny for stealing the victim’s laptop.

South Korea set to launch multi-billion-dollar expo
AFP via Google News

After four years of work and $10 billion in investment, an international expo will open Saturday at a glittering hi-tech venue on the site of a former dusty cement terminal in South Korea.

A total of 104 nations and 10 international organisations will stage exhibitions over the next three months in the city of Yeosu under the theme of “The Living Ocean and Coast”.

Tackling the Entertainment Industry’s Dark Corners
Wall Street Journal

Korea’s would-be stars, take note: The industry you are going to venture into will be a bit safer, if not more favorable.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said on Wednesday that it will tidy up some of the messiness of the entertainment industry, in conjunction with the Korea Entertainment Producers’ Association.

Spicy Food Fight: Fukuburger vs. Kalbi Burger
LA Weekly

A drive down Wilton Avenue led us to Koreatown’s Kalbi Burger, a strip mall diner that specializes in Korean-fusion burgers. When kimchi first met taco all those years ago, did anyone doubt that burgers would follow suit? The most recent addition to Kalbi’s list of creations, which include a banh mi burger and one involving sautéed kimchi and thousand island dressing, is the spicy “Jeju Do” Burger for $6.95, a pork burger named after the tiny island south of Korean famous for its fatty and succulent black pigs.

Benson Henderson vs. Frankie Edgar 2 Official as UFC 150 Headliner
MMA Weekly via Yahoo Sports

The Mile High City will welcome a main event rematch between Benson Henderson and Frankie Edgar as they headline UFC 150 on August 11. Henderson and Edgar will head to Denver for their second fight, as confirmed by UFC president Dana White on Tuesday.

Comical, creepy or kind of cool? A night in the countryside at 7 wacko Korean pensions
CNNGo

These Korean pensions are not in Seoul, but somewhere out there, with glow-in-the-dark walls, weird murals and beds shaped like beer cans, shoes and jail cells.

Photo by Eugene Yi

How K-Town Lost, and Won

Politics is dirty. Local politics is dirtier, and redistricting is as dirty as it gets. This spring, Koreatown fought back. The neighborhood will never be the same.

by EUGENE YI

The disbanding of an ad hoc political commission is a bit like the end of camp. Take the case of the Los Angeles City Council Redistricting Commission.  For its three-month existence, the 21 appointees of the commission spent hours together, often late into the night, poring over maps, gutting through accusatory public testimony and bickering, as they redrew the boundaries of the 15 council districts in the City of Angels. On Feb. 29, 2012, after they’d voted to approve the map that would be the fruit of their labor, each commissioner was given two minutes for some final thoughts. The arch-top windows lining the sides of the chamber had long gone dark, and nostalgia emerged as the commissioners reflected on the process.

“Hearing from … the Koreatown neighborhood council, I’m never going to forget that. Never going to forget everyone standing up at the same time in solidarity. That’s an image that’s going to be burned in my mind,” said commissioner Antonio Sanchez.

“I can still see, in my eyes at night, everyone sitting there with the white sashes across their chest,” said commissioner Ken Sampson, sounding haunted by the beauty-pageant-style protest sashes worn by hundreds of Koreatown protestors as they delivered their message: keep the neighborhood whole, and put it in a district where they could potentially elect a Korean American to the City Council.

Instead, the commission’s final map would leave the neighborhood’s political power split, as it has been for decades. For most, it wasn’t a surprise.  There are few parts of American democracy as nakedly political as redistricting, the decennial process that redraws electoral districts to reflect the latest census data. The term gerrymandering has been around for 200 years, and incumbents have long used redistricting to fortify their access to money and votes. There are winners, there are losers, and often, there are lawsuits.  This year, Koreatown lost, and Koreatown is talking lawsuit. Continue Reading »

Looking in Japan for Clues About Kim Jong-un
The Wall Street Journal

As some North Korea watchers parse the statements and style of new leader Kim Jong Eun for clues to his personality, other sleuths are plumbing the mystery of Mr. Kim’s ancestry.

JRT is doing its part, by digging into reports about Mr. Kim’s supposed grandfather, who like many compatriots came to Japan after Korea was colonized in the early 1900s, then returned after Japan’s defeat in World War II.

The ‘traitor’ grandfather of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un
The Telegraph (U.K.)

He also believes that the dictator, who is believed to be 29, will have been unaware of his grandfather’s background – which would have placed him in the lowest “hostile” class of North Korean society.

S.Korea, China to start free trade talks next week
AFP via Google News

South Korea will start talks next week aimed at securing a free trade agreement with China, its largest commercial partner and the world’s second biggest economy, officials said Wednesday.

Yi Seok 20th Century Boy
The Economist

A palace-born grandson of Gojong, the country’s penultimalte monarch, he is considered the Yi household’s rightful successor by many. Had the 20th century, with its colonialism, war and division of Korea, not happened, Yi Seok may well have been King of Korea.

Obama names Kang to arts council
Korea Herald

Emil Kang, music professor and also the executive director for the arts at the University of North Carolina, was nominated by U.S. President Barack Obama as a member of the National Council on the Arts on Tuesday, according to reports.

Rohnert Park Native and Former Miss Sonoma County Woman Among 37 Displaced in San Francisco Fire
Patch.com (Rohnert Park, Calif.)

Sara Choi, who grew up in Rohnert Park and was named Miss Sonoma County in 2008, was one of several dozen Mission District residents displaced in a Sunday morning apartment fire, according to people who know her on Facebook.

A Multicultural Comic Wows Arab Crowds With an Insider’s Touch
New York Times

One of the hottest acts in the Middle East these days is a South Korean stand-up comic who performs his routines in fluent, colloquial Arabic.

Wonho Chung’s father, a physiotherapist, moved to the Middle East in the 1970s with his wife, who is Vietnamese. Born in Jidda, Mr. Chung studied in Amman, where his family enrolled him and his two sisters in the country’s public schools. “We studied everything in Arabic — mathematics, biology, geography,” he said.

In an interview here he told how he became a comedian by happy accident.

Actor Justin Lee and ‘One Warm Night’
Hyphen Magazine

Actor Justin Lee, best known for his role as Annyong Bluth on “Arrested Development,” talks to Hyphen about growing up, launching the web series “One Warm Night,” and super powers.

Korean Hip-Hop on the Rise: Interview with Dynamic Duo
Audrey

Since 2003, Dynamic Duo has been captivating Korean hip-hop enthusiasts with their sound. Considered to be one of the main faces of Korean hip-hop, the duo talks to Audrey Magazine about their career, plans for the future, and a peek into their personalities.

Sandy Kim Puts Fresh Spin on Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll (NSFW)
Wired.com

Like many photographers who struggle to find subject matter worthy of photographing, Sandy Kim turns her camera on a subject with which she is intimately familiar – her friends, her love and her life.

Sylvester Stallone’s ‘Bullet to the Head’ for 2013 release
Digital Spy

Bullet to the Head, originally slated for April this year, casts Stallone as a hitman who teams up with a police officer played by Sung Kang to avenge the deaths of their respective partners.

Daniel Henney talks about his new movie ‘Shanghai Calling’ on KTLA’s ‘Live Morning Show’
allkpop

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, KTLA chose to introduce ‘LA Asian Pacific Film Festival (LAAFF)‘ and held an interview with Daniel Henney who was invited to attend the festival along with ‘E.R.’ actress-turned-movie-director Lily Mariye.

The reporter introduced Daniel Henney as the actor from ‘X-Men: Wolverine‘, and asked about his new starring role in ‘Shanghai Calling.’

Race revelations in Young Jean Lee’s The Shipment
National Post (Canada)

The Shipment, the latest work from up-and-coming American playwright Young Jean Lee, uses humour and shocking situations to explore racism and stereotypes.

Korean Club members to perform in Sunshine Musical Benefit
Orange County Register

The fourth annual Sunshine Musical Variety Show benefiting the Alzheimer’s Association will feature a return of the Korean American Choir directed by Duck Lee. Twenty costumed Korean ladies are scheduled to sing a number of traditional folk songs of their native country.

Heeyoung Kim’s prairie plant art on display at library
Northbrook Star (Illinois)

Northbrook artist Heeyoung Kim welcomed the public to a reception Saturday at the Northbrook Public Library, where she showed off the works that won her a gold medal in London — months before this summer’s Olympics.

9 Mother’s Day Gift Ideas Your Mom Won’t Hate
Gumship.com

So here are some suggestions that go beyond the usual jewelry and flowers deal. And some suggestions that need to be on there, because asian moms love it (see number 1).

The daughter of a Southern California police officer really, really wanted a Happy Meal.

Last week, Aram Choe was driving with his pregnant wife Elisabeth — who was experiencing contractions three weeks before her due date — but never made it to the hospital about 25 miles away from their home.

Continue Reading »

A Cautious Celebration for Kim
Huffington Post

So let’s not damn the new World Bank president Jim Yong Kim by association with the illegitimate, anachronistic process that put him there. Let’s not linger, right now, on the lack of a fair vote between countries for leadership of either the Bank or the IMF. Let’s not ask again, at least until tomorrow, how the bilateral donors of Europe and US can square their lock on these roles with their increasing emphasis on transparency and accountability.

Let’s celebrate, and look forward.

Hospital to live tweet brain surgery, put pics on Pinterest
CNN.com

The operation is called a brain tumor resection. It’s designed to remove a tumor to prevent seizures. It will be performed by Dr. Dong Kim, a neurosurgeon who helped lead the team that treated former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords after she was shot in the head in 2011.

12-Year-Old Gets Perfect Score on Math SAT
Patch.com (Buffalo Grove, Ill.)

Sixth-grader Joshua Yoon of Buffalo Grove scored an 800 on the same college assessment test taken by high school students this year.

Korean cuisine emerging as an influential global food trend: food consultants
New York Daily News

It was predicted to become one of the food trends of 2012. And if an appearance on the menus of family-style international eateries and celebrity-backed restaurant openings are anything to go by, all indications are that Korean cuisine is poised to become as ubiquitous around the world as Thai and Vietnamese fare.

North Korea Says Oh’s Wife is Dead
Wall Street Journal

The saga of Oh Kil-nam’s misguided venture into North Korea in the 1980s and the destruction it brought to his family took another sad twist Tuesday as word came from Pyongyang that his wife had died.

Backed by activist groups and a loud advertising campaign, Mr. Oh last year challenged North Korea to free his wife and two daughters, who had been kept there for more than 20 years.

South Korean Nuclear Inspector Dies in Iran Crash
New York Times

A South Korean nuclear inspector on a mission for the United Nations was killed, and a Slovakian inspector was injured, when their car overturned on Tuesday near a nuclear site southwest of Tehran, semiofficial Iranian media reported.

‘Hawaii Five-0′: Daniel Dae Kim on McGarrett’s return, epic season finale
EW.com

Daniel Dae Kim is well versed in secret keeping. It was, he jokes (or not?), a “job requirement” on Lost. But if there’s one thing he’s not coy about, it’s his praise for the Hawaii Five-0 writing team, who dealt with unforeseen circumstances brought on by co-star Alex O’Loughlin’s sudden absence to seek prescription drug treatment.

Theatre World names winners
Variety

Hettienne Park will be awarded a Theatre World award for outstanding Broadway or off-Broadway debut. Park will be awarded for her Broadway debut for “Seminar,” starring Alan Rickman and later Jeff Goldblum, as well as her off-Broadway debut for “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism & Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures.”

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