Thursday, December 17, 2009

Daily Kor for December 17, 2009: Treacherous times

This is a bit of a quick-and-dirty edition of the Daily Kor. The semester is over, I'm flying to the Bay Area the day after tomorrow, and I've got some stuff to do and people to see before we go our separate ways for a while. A "quick and dirty" edition means I mainly focus just on the Washington Post and Yonhap.

A big story today is the bus crash near Kyŏngju. Reckless and haphazard driving by bus operators working on a schedule is why I will never ever go anywhere long distance by bus — I'll take the train, drive my own car, or even fly — unless I absolutely have no other choice. I hate not being in control when careening down a road. I was not always this way, but too many really bad drivers around me in California, Korea, and now Hawaii has made me so uncomfortable with someone else driving that I end up exhausted at the end of the trip.

Curiously, however, I'm okay with taxi drivers, even though they're among the most reckless. I guess it's because on short jaunts through Seoul it's a lot harder to drive off a cliff. Not impossible, though.

Anyway, my hopes and prayers are with the victims of this tragedy and their families.
  1. Tour bus carrying dozens of elderly travelers plunges off road near Kyŏngju, killing at least eleven fourteen (BBC, Korea Times)
  2. Seoul-based Open Radio for North Korea cites "high-level source" in Pyongyang as saying that Kim Jong-il's health is worsening as he suffers from chronic laryngitis brought on by excessive smoking and drinking (AP via WaPo)
  3. Seoul court issues arrest warrant for former Prime Minister Han Myungsook (Xinhua, Joongang Daily)
  4. Unemployment rate for November rises to 3.3 percent (Yonhap)
  5. US Envoy on North Korea Stephen Bosworth says North Korea must address its uranium program (AP via WaPo)
    • Seoul says North Korea told Bosworth that UN sanctions are unreasonable (Yonhap)
  6. KCNA says North Korea's population was tallied at 24 million in October 2008 (Yonhap)
    • Kushibo's Komment: Give or take a famine or two.
  7. Lobster fight gambling ring broken up at Noryangjin Fish Market; 37 arrested (Korea Times)

2 comments:

  1. Pic at the bottom.

    Loser gets to be eaten!

    Winner gets to be eaten too! Well, okay, I'll knock it unconscious before I toss him into the pot of boiling water. It's the least I can do... ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Later on, I'm going to present a little photo essay from a trip I took with Daniel Gray (of "Seoul Eats") to Noryangjin Fish Market. One scene was basically knocking an escaping fish unconscious.

    ReplyDelete

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