mine found in Gangwon- not a coal mine, either

UPDATED: I'm updating this on Aug 1, 2011, after a week of nightmarish rain and deadly floods in Seoul and Gangwondo.  Mudslides occurred in various mine fields and there are now mines that are not accounted for.  We don't know where they are.  Friends of mine wonder how the mines could have been tumbled in a multi-ton mess of mud and not have gone off.  I do too, but they were first to bring it up.  I suppose these are old and unstable mines.  Hit them with a hammer enough and something might happen on the twentieth try even if it didn't the previous 19 times.

From Marmot's Hole, The Herald and the Joongang.

Joongang: The areas where the search is focused on include air-defense entrenchments in Mount Umyeon, Gyeonggi and Gangwon, as well as some areas in Yangju, Gyeonggi. The border areas where North Korea’s wooden land mines are often discovered at a time of flooding were also included. 
Note that Umyeon is in Seoul, just south of the Han.  I lived near Sadang Station and learned the danso at the Korean Traditional Performing Arts Centre just below Umyeon mountain.

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ORIGINAL POST
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The Joongang reports that recent storms in North Korea have washed land mines -the exploding kind, if you really didn't know -into South Korea.  It appears that two mines drifted in the ocean and landed on South Korean islands, but the one in Gangwondo was carried by a river.

I have heard that mines shifted by storms, floods and mudslides are a problem in South Korea, too.  Without being able to recall the specifics, I do recall hearing that some mine fields in South Korea are impassible to South Koreans because the current locations of the mines is unknown.

Arirang is also reporting on the story.
Hmm.  the Joongang seems to describe the Gangwon mine as being in a river:

One mine was found on Gyodong Island, one on Bolum Island in Incheon, and the other in Suip Creek in Yanggu District in Gangwon.

. 
...but Arirang states that it was found at sea:
.

Two were discovered in waters off the west coast near Incheon and the other on the east coast off Gangwon Province.

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  I have discussed cross-border flooding before.

Goseong Fishing Fleet kept in Harbour

Via ROK Drop, is this image and brief report on the results of tensions in the West Sea carrying over to the East Sea.

From Yonhap, this is a picture of a harbour in Goseong in which the boats are in lockdown.  Goseong is the Northernmost of harbours in South Korea.

I am not a war-monger, but...

I'm happy to have Lee Myeong Bak in power now and not, for example, Roh Mu-hyun.

From the Herald:

President Lee Myung-bak on Monday vowed to “immediately exercise (Seoul’s) right of self-defense” if North Korea attempts military provocation again as he announced several countermeasures against the North, which allegedly sank a South Korean warship in March.

“From now on, the Republic of Korea will not tolerate any provocative act by the North and will maintain the principle of proactive deterrence,” Lee said during a televised national address, which was followed by a joint press briefing by the ministers of unification, foreign affairs and defense.

“If our territorial waters, airspace or territory are militarily violated, we will immediately exercise our right of self-defense.”

Lee defined the Cheonan’s sinking as “a surprise North Korean torpedo attack,” saying that it “constitutes a military provocation against the ROK.”

I'll admit I am a bit of a chicken-hawk in this case. I don't want to be here if a battle starts, but I would like to see the end of the Korean War. If I were still in Gangneung, I might finally be happy to have our university buzzed by fighter jets during classes.

Use the Chinese model for reunification, not the German model

So says the German ambassador to Korea, Mr. Seidt.

My personal recommendation would be not to follow the German example because the situation is different, I would recommend looking to the Chinese example," German Ambassador Hans-Ulrich Seidt told Herald Media publisher Park Haeng-hwan during a recent courtesy call.

The ambassador's statement reflects a different environment and political settings.

"Look how China managed Hong Kong, Macau, and now they are managing Taiwan," he pointed out.

Some of his reasoning makes sense to me.  Seidt described how European countries that threw off communism had internal pressure to force the change and North Korea does not appear to.

On the other hand, East Germany was relatively poor compared to West Germany (man, I really hope I have 'east' and 'west' right) and North Korea is in a similar, though much more extreme, position.  Hong Kong and Taiwan offered far better standards of living than China did or does and I think Macau did, too.  Hang Kong and Macau were held by leases which offered a clear and legal way to reunite with China.

I have trouble finding the hubris to argue with the German ambassador about how Germany reunified, but I have to question his thoughts on how the Chinese model would be appropriate for the Koreas.  The best I can do is note that outside pressure, from China, paved the way for unification with Hong Kong and Macau, while a mix of inside and outside pressure worked for Germany.  For Korea, most of the work will have to be done outside of North Korea.

Hmm, maybe I'm coming around.

What does the DMZ symbolize?

A tank-trap near the DMZ.

At four kilometres wide and a few hundred kilometres long and with almost no human presence, the DMZ might reasonably be considered a haven for wildlife.  It is the reverse of a scar, a band of natural, healthy green between developed and over-developed land where even the farms cover the ground in black plastic wrap.

Some wildlife does thrive there, with many reports of deer (saber-toothed deer, cool!), boar and giant pheasants. Still, as GI Korea notes, this is a bit much (quoting from another source):

It is a refuge for Asiatic black bears, leopards, rare Korean tigers, and birds such as the red-crowned crane, which has long used the area as a wintering grounds.

Yes, the crane are there, but no bear, leopards or tigers have been seen (sorry, some bad quoting - GI Korea reports that no bear or the like have been seen - he quoted a journalist as above).   The four kilometres in width is too narrow: if a bear or tiger had been there, it would have been seen by now...and probably seen limping along on three legs.

Yes, there is nature aplenty in the DMZ and, aside from possibly-leaking explosive mines, very little pollution.  Depending on where this water actually comes from in the DMZ, it likely is very pure (the link is to another GI Korea post, more recent, but behind the times as the water has been around for a while now).

So, is the DMZ a wildlife sanctuary?   As I've described, it is more and less than that.

Can it be a symbol of peace?

"The DMZ has created a natural reserve for endangered species at the cost of the tragic war," said Lee O-young, professor emeritus of Ehwa Woman's University and an advisory member for the group.

"We have to make the DMZ a symbol for the so-called Natural Capitalism, a new trend that avoids over-production and over-consumption."

Gyeonggi Governor Kim Mun-soo asked for the group's efforts in order to preserve the area's cultural and historical meanings.

The group plans an orchestra performance themed on world peace next year near the Peace Dam on the Bukhan River, which was built in 2005 to prevent possible flooding of North Korea's Imnam Dam.

The 2010 DMZ Peace Forum is also scheduled in August next year, the group said.

I guess it can be, but it seems to require some serious double-think.  The DMZ, a boundary between two heavily armed nations and where no one goes to preserve a delicate armistice, one that is broken every few years, is also a symbol of natural beauty and home to animals too light to trigger the land-mines.  Because it is so natural and wild, it seems peaceful if you don't look too closely (to see those mines) or too widely (to see the huge military presence on either side).  Because it seems peaceful, it is a symbol of peace.

Okay, got it.

Oh, this Natural Capitalism thing ("a new trend that avoids over-production and over-consumption") sounds a lot like the slow cities of Jeolla Province.  In both cases, the end product was never intended.  Here, the land is not over-developed because it is a war-zone! The slow cities are slow because the young people are flocking to the big cities.  The cities can well be described as dying, and the DMZ, well, are Natural Capitalists planning on starting wars, then signing armistices to create more?

Now, symbol of peace or not, it is one thing that Korea is famous for.  No, my parents did not know about kimchi when I first came here, but we all knew about the DMZ.  It is Korea's most famous landmark and a tourist attraction.

As a tourist attraction it is a popular one:

According to the provincial government, about 27.06 million tourists visited the province during the first half of the year, up about 1 percent from 26.78 million on-year. The number of foreign tourists rose by 175,000....

The number of tourists to the Cheolwon area, where tours of the demilitarized zone are being promoted, grew by a hefty 180,000. 

These numbers seem hincky - half the population of Korea visited Gangwondo?  There were really 175,000 more foreign tourists visiting Gangwon Province in half a year?  Perhaps I am being racist in not believing this number -foreign does not mean white after all.  I likely would not recognize most foreign tourists as foreign.

Anyway, it is a tourist site and I strongly recommend visiting panmunjeom.  This place lives up to it's reputation and I felt simultaneously scared and fascinated.  From the Korea Times:

...the DMZ was once said to be the ``scariest place on Earth’’ by former President Bill Clinton. 

According to Time, that should not serve as an excuse not to visit. 

Inside the bright-blue-hued conference rooms that sit atop the tense border in Panmunjeom, visitors are able to cross a few timid feet into North Korea. 

Outside the buildings, a look across the border will be met with icy glares from a North Korean soldier with binoculars. 

Some see this as a problem, however (same article):

Time magazine listed the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) as one of the top experiences one can have in Asia in its latest issue, but South Korean officials and marketing consultants question whether it spoils the country’s image. 

From South Korea's perspective, the DMZ magnifies its negative association with communist North Korea, which policymakers are seeking to avoid. 

The country’s image has been damaged and clouded by the actions of the Stalinist state. Whenever Korea is mentioned in any corner of the world, many ordinary people often conjure up negative images of nuclear weapons or dictator Kim Jong-il.

This badly damages the positive image of South Korea, which is an OECD member, the ninth-largest exporting country in the world and a tech-savvy nation. 

Michael Breen, a Korea Times columnist and a PR consultant in Seoul said, ``Many Korean officials consider the DMZ to have a negative impact on tourism and would prefer that it is not promoted.''

Again, it is a symbol of peace or war?  Can a land where humans literally fear to tread due to land-mines ever be accepted as a positive?

The DMZ has given South Korea fifty years of prosperity and stability; at the same time it has kept the North Korean people out-of-sight and recently (without Russian aid) suffering greatly. The DMZ has given us four kilometres of distance and curtaining so we can't see what is happening, but we are getting reports that beyond the DMZ is a hell-hole and Kim Jong-il is probably thrilled that we are looking at the DMZ and thinking about the DMZ and not beyond it.

The DMZ is a pretty bandaid hiding a hideous wound and we are admiring the bandaid.

The DMZ is a beautiful place and you should go and see it.  I wish it were as endangered as the animals it protects.  See it, but look around and see more than it.  It is a symbol of deliberate, selective blindness.
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Added later: More of the same at the Herald:
 Well, perhaps not quite the same.  In one article they discuss making the DMZ an ecological park and dividing the DMZ into regions for industry and development.

The government plans to develop border areas with North Korea into a center for inter-Korean cooperation, international peace and ecological protection.

The Ministry of Public Administration and Security yesterday announced the plan during the meeting of the Presidential Committee on Regional Development attended by President Lee Myung-bak.

The ministry will designate the Demilitarized Zone as an ecological preservation zone to protect rare wildlife and the natural environment.

More than 3,000 rare species of animals and plants are found in the 907-square-kilometer heavily fortified border.

...

"Supra-regional belts represent new territorial growth axes of the nation combining industries, culture, tourism and infrastructure," said Lee Yong-woo, a senior researcher of the state-run Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements.

The strategy seeks to make the best use of the nation's geoeconomic advantage, as it is located in the center of Northeast Asia and positioned to serve as the gateway both to the Pacific Rim and Eurasia, he said.

The government plans to finalize comprehensive plans for each of the supra-regional belts including financing, infrastructure and industrial development in the first half of next year, the committee said.

Actually, these regions may encompass area outside the DMZ, but seem to include it.

I guess China won't absorb North Korea if the government falls

There has long been concern that, should the North Korean government collapse, China would move in on a 'peacekeeping' mission and somehow end up in full control.  I have seen many articles and posts on the subject, but only found this one while preparing this post.

To many Koreans, judging from past actions, this fear is reasonable.  Look at koguryo. And Gangdo.  All, right, just go to this search I made at the Marmot's hole.

And why not?  Norht Korea is said to have great natural resources that the locals were unable to recover and exploit.  Plus, the population is less well-off than China's so any assistance would go a long way.

Here is why not.  From the Dong-a:

North Korean organizations in charge of raising foreign currency are bringing in and burying industrial waste from China for money, a report released yesterday said.
...
One North Korean scientist said, “Our country in effect is turning into China’s industrial waste site,” adding, “Even tap water in Pyongyang has become so polluted that it is no longer potable.”
...
North Korea is reportedly taking in foreign industrial waste in secret in the form of its border trade with China.

Dong Yong-seung, head of the economics and security team at Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul, said, “Though no data is available that can tell us the exact situation, Chinese companies might believe that sending industrial waste to North Korea for burial is cheaper than disposing of it in China in compliance with Chinese environmental regulations.

North Korea is also not just bringing in waste just from China. Former North Korean defector Kim Heung-kwang, now head of a coalition of former North Korean intelligentsia in South Korea, said, “Companies that earn foreign currencies brought in waste vinyl from Germany and France for 300 U.S. dollars per ton in early 2000 and buried it in soil.”

I suspect that if China is sending toxic waste to North Korea, the Norks aren't carting it across the entire country, yet perhaps we need to even more closely monitor the water that crosses the DMZ.

S.K plans forestation project for N.K.

From the Herald:

[F]orestation has been one of the top priorities among President Lee's North Korea policy tasks ever since he vowed as a presidential candidate to plant 100 million trees north of the border.

The president ordered related ministries on Tuesday to gauge the impact of the planned forestation project on the entire Korean peninsula and review measures to support North Korea's forestation.

Lee made the instruction while presiding over a Cabinet meeting which finalized the South Korean government's plan to cut the nation's greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent below expected levels in 2020, or a 4 percent reduction from 2005 levels.

"POSCO went all the way to South America to plant trees," the president said, referring to the steelmaker's ongoing forestation work in Uruguay to secure carbon emission rights.

...

Images provided by NASA showed that vast forest fires hit a large part of central North Korea last month.

The U.S. space agency said multiple fires had been burning in North Korea since mid-October, with several hot spots located in a mountainous region in the center of the country.

Here is an Lee Myung Bak project I can agree with wholeheartedly.  It seems to have everything one wants in an aid project: benefit to the North Koreans, benefit to the South Koreans and benefit to the world.

For the North Koreans, planted trees will stabilize hillsides, reducing erosion and mudslides.  In the long term, the wood can be harvested.

For the South Koreans, stabilized hillsides and deep tree roots hold water in the soil, reducing floods - like the one that on the Imjin River, starting in North Korea, but killing six South Koreans in late summer.

For the world, well, the article discusses carbon offsets, so that's clear.  There's more.  When a poor country loses it's forests, it becomes a lot poorer, fast.  I am thinking of the world's best/worst example of that: Haiti and the Dominican Republic.  The D.R. side has forests and is relatively well-off, while Haiti is a craphole.

So there is H1N1 in North Korea

Yonhap brings word that a recent defector was diagnosed with the disease.  His condition is 'stable' - I hope that means he has or will recover.

No flu, flu and Bird Flu/ no jets today

Editted before posting: The links are good. I had to search for sentences in the article, and google gave me full URLs for linking purposes.

I am using my old computer at work. I seem unable to see the full links for newspaper articles. The URLs I am using here for linking are only to the newspaper main page. I'm sorry but you'll have to hunt through to find the articles I am describing. I will edit the post this evening to include links.
From the Dong-a, I learned there is no swine flu in North Korea:

North Korea officially refers to swine flu as new influenza, but many in the North call it swine flu because of international media.

The communist country said yesterday that it has no cases of the flu so far, adding it has no reason to hide any flu outbreaks.

Pak Myong Su, in charge of infectious disease control at the North’s Health Ministry, told the Japan-based daily Chosun Shinbo Oct. 14, “A weakened health infrastructure doesn’t lead to the outbreak of the new flu. If so, this will not undermine our image.”

I recall the communist countries of Europe denying that AIDS existed in their pure and more-wholesome countries. They certainly feared that news of such diseases would undermine their image. Of course, it would be challenging to undermine my image of North Korea.
I was interested to read, though, that it was known by the public as swine flu because of 'international media'. I guess international bad news is transmitted there.

Elsewhere in the article, I learned that there is a new flu from China that medicines don't work on and that North Korean doctors don't have the ability (testing materials or knowledge, I don't know) to recognize the swine flu. But there is no swine flu in North Korea. And it there were, it wouldn't reflect badly on them.

There is swine flu in South Korea but today is the University Entrance Exam and there is no second chance to take it. You take it today or you wait a year.

From the Joongang:

High school seniors nationwide had their temperatures checked at schools where they gathered for last-minute preparations yesterday, and re-takers underwent the checkup process at regional education offices. Some 677,000 people, up 18 percent from last year, will be taking the state test, which will decide their college admission next spring.

Under the Education Ministry guidelines, there will be two separate rooms at each school acting as a CSAT venue for students who are confirmed with and suspected of having the flu.

Each room can house between 15 and 28 students. Some 14,000 teachers nationwide who have been selected as supervisors of the flu rooms have been vaccinated. Anyone showing flu symptoms during the test will be relocated to the separate rooms.

Wow! "Yes, we know you have swine flu and, hysterical exaggerations aside, it can kill you. You can take the test in that room, over there. Feel a little dizzy? Just hang onto the sides of the desk a moment. We'll give you until six PM to finish the exam. You can see a doctor or take your medicine after that."

Although my sympathies go out to all the Entrance Exam takers today, I particularly feel for the sick ones. Fighting!
I am thrilled though, to be teaching today without the frequent roar of fighter jets training overhead. The whole country changes it's behaviors to allow the students the best conditions to work.

I don't know if the migration patterns of birds are responsible but bird flu virus has been found in South Korea recently. From the Chosun (and a good link!):

The resurgence of bird flu in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province is causing concerns to health authorities as the H1N1 flu scare continues. A low pathogenic bird-flu virus was found in excrement of migratory birds in a reservoir in Chuncheon. Despite the low infectiousness, health authorities claim they cannot rule out danger to humans or mutation and pledged to stay alert.

The worst-case scenario is that patients infected with the H1N1 virus could additionally contract bird flu, leading to a mutation that gives rise to a new supervirus. "But that doesn't necessarily mean that a new form of virus will be formed when the bird flu virus appears amid the spread of H1N1 virus," a health official said. "But if that did actually happen, the situation we've seen so far would be a mere shadow of what lies ahead. That's why we have to take preventive measures."

Viruses can share genetic information so I guess a 'supervirus' could be created. As I recall (Bird Flu is so 2005), bird flu wasn't very contagious between people. You could catch it from a bird but not spread it to other humans. Simply making it infectious among humans would be a big step toward 'supervirus' status.

Another boat comes south

One Free Korea links to a Korean article about eleven defectors who escaped North Korea by boat recently. Click on my link and look at that boat and imagine how far they had to travel and how bad it must be there to attempt it.

---

Koreabeat has a post about another defector, a young girl whose mother didn't make it -I think she is alive but still in the North - and the family who adopted her.

[H]er birth mother was caught by Chinese police and deported to North Korea. Mother and daughter have had no contact at all since. Yeon-ah then made her way to Laos and Thailand, and from there to South Korea. There are currently 90 such North Korean orphans living in South Korea, with between one and nine more arriving every month. Few are adopted.

Gangwon and the view north

This photo, from the Joongang Ilbo, was taken near Cheorwon and shows productive fields in South Korea and grim, brown ones in North Korea.

HT to The Marmot

Imjin river flood revisited

In looking for further information about the recent flash flood from North Korea, I see that I am not alone. At the Marmot's Hole, Oranckay stated that the North was testing a weapon, one that was deniable but capable of threatening Seoul itself. The Herald discussed the military angle but also reports that any explanation at this time is only speculation.

I would like to write about a different aspect of the flood - how the people died. As with the cause of the flood, I can only speculate, but I base my opinion on how the flood in Jirisan at the end of July, 1998 caused so many deaths.

First, the six Koreans (South Koreans, from the Herald article, I see a child presumed to be North Korean has also been found) were camping by the river.

The problem is, what does "by the river" mean? For the deaths caused by the Jirisan floods it meant actually on dry sections of the riverbed itself. I was unable to find much online about the 1998 flood but Kushibo linked to a Sally Ann article. People had even parked their cars on the riverbed. I had hiked along the river at some time before the flood and know that signs existed warning people not to camp "by the river".

If the victims of the recent flood also camped on exposed portions of the riverbed, I don't want to directly compare them to the Jirisan victims. The flood in Jirisan was caused by a fairly major typhoon and the campers should have put a little thought into their choice of campsite considering the heavy rain. There was no such warning at Imjin: from the above-linked Herald article: Speculation rose over what was behind the unusual discharge which came without notice when the area saw almost no rainfall recently.

Surprise flood on Imjin River

About six months ago was International Trans-boundary Water Day. I contributed a post about using radar to track rain in North Korea to judge Imjin River water levels - most of the river is north of the DMZ.

Apparently, there was a surprise flood there this morning causing six missing on this side of the border.

The same content in English. I also see that six weeks ago, there was concern of flooding in North Korea because "Seasonal floods are common in North Korea where decades of deforestation have left the country without a natural protection of tree cover."

Fishermen returned from N. Korea

I don't have any special insight to the story but it is my beat, so I should at least provide links and background.

About a month ago, a fishing boat with four crew from Sokcho crossed into North Korean waters. So far, I think no one is publicly saying why although suggestions of navigation equipment or engine failure have been common. I have not heard anyone mention espionage although it is probably in everyone's sub-conscious.

Last night, they came home. Well, they were returned to South Korean territory -with their boat. I suspect none of the crew have been home nor will be for a few days longer. They may have had some contact - closely monitored - with their family.

For my mother and other foreign visitors, I think the return of the fishermen is connected to the offers of family reunions for Chuseok (An important holiday coming soon); both are related to offering more of a carrot to South Korea. The previous government was very North-friendly but the current one is not (and I approve, for all that's worth). Threats and missile launches haven't brought significant offers of aid so North Korea is trying a friendlier tack.

Anyway, on to some links:

The Korea Times

The Marmot's Hole

ROK Drop

probably poor navigation

Via the Marmot's Hole, I see a fishing boat on the East Coast crossed into North Korean waters and was towed to a North Korean harbour. I suspect the boat is lost, to enrich the North Korean fishing fleet, but I hope the crew are returned, and in good time.
BBC
Reuters

Image from offshore motorboat.

1st North Korean Defector living in Gangwondo

Here is a man who just seems comfortable.

From the Chosun, comes a biography of Rhee Young-gwang, the first defector from North Korea.  His defection is particularly interesting as North Korea was doing better economically at the time.

Excerpts:

As a 21-year-old North Korean soldier, Rhee Young-gwang crossed the border and came to South Korea in the night of Sept. 18, 1967, just three months after he entered the military. At a press conference one month afterwards, Rhee said, "I came here to travel the world." Intelligence agents and journalists alike had a hard time with his seemingly preposterous reason for defection at the height of the Cold War. 

Now, 42 years later, Rhee is living deep in the mountain in Jeongseon, Gangwon Province, having chosen a philosophical life in nature rather than globetrotting.

Rhee Young-gwang (right) and his wife, Park An-ja

But travel is still on his mind. "My dream is to sail from the East Sea down to the South Sea and then to the Yellow Sea and reach the Yalu and Tumen Rivers in a rubber boat when the Koreas are unified. Then I would like to go to Fiji and live peacefully until I die," Rhee says.

hhkkl

World Water Day 2009: Transborder water

Cr!key Creek, via All My Faults are Stress Related has invited bloggers to post about water basins and aquifers that cross political boundaries for World Water Day (March 22).

Quoting Cr!key Creek:

There are hundreds of water basins and aquifers that straddle our political boundaries, at both international and national levels. Neighbours stick their own straws into the same glass. This has historically led to both conflict and cooperation.

"Over the last 60 years there have been more than 200 international water agreements and only 37 cases of reported violence between states over water."

In the spirit of World Water Day, and in an effort to contribute towards transboundary cooperation, I propose that all us waterbloggers (and other bloggers too!) dedicate one or more of our posts that day or beforehand specifically to transboundary water issues. What's more, I further invite you to email your posts' URLs to me at crikeycreek/gmail/com once they're up so I may link to all of them from one central location, and thus provide an archive of the collaboration.

The UN website has this to say:

The world’s 263 transboundary lake and river basins include the territory of 145 countries and cover nearly half of the Earth’s land surface. Great reservoirs of freshwater also move silently below our borders in underground aquifers.

With every country seeking to satisfy its water needs from limited water resources, some foresee a future filled with conflict. But history shows that cooperation, not conflict, is the most common response to transboundary water management issues.

© World BankOver the last 60 years there have been more than 200 international water agreements and only 37 cases of reported violence between states over water. We need to continue to nurture the opportunities for cooperation that transboundary water management can provide.

We share the responsibility for managing the world’s transboundary waters for current and future generations.

Gwynne Dyer is not so optimistic that cooperation with continue to be the norm.

Shared water is a big deal everywhere. We Canadians, especially from around the Great Lakes, constantly hear rumours of American plans to to try to pump or move Great Lake water to the southern Midwest, as their underground aquifers are drying up, leaving farmers with nought but sinkholes.

Here, president LMB's canal system could be jeopardized... ah, I'll leave that dead horse alone.

Here in South Korea, two-thirds of the Imjin River basin is in North Korea. A September, 2008, article in the Korea Times describes the effects a dam the North Koreans are building across the river.

``If [the imjin River] dam is completed, the amount of water flowing into the Imjin River in the South is expected to decrease,'' Kim said.

Beside the decreased water flow, Rep. Kim said water quality has worsened and flood control is at risk.

Kim urged K-Water to take adequate measures to secure the water supply.

The lawmaker also asked the government to sit down with their North Korean counterparts to discuss mutually beneficial use of water resources.

``The water resource issue should be addressed through inter-Korean dialogue,'' he said.

The lawmaker said the government should quickly complete the ongoing construction of the Peace Dam near the North Han River, which is designed for flood control in Gunnam, Gyeonggi Province.

Kim's conclusions are based on a dam, completed 2003, on the North Han River: A Korea Water Resources Corporation (K-Water) report found that the amount of water reaching the Hwacheon Dam in the South has decreased by 43 percent following the completion of the Imnam Dam.

Finally:

``The water resource issue should be addressed through inter-Korean dialogue,'' he said.

The lawmaker said the government should quickly complete the ongoing construction of the Peace Dam near the North Han River, which is designed for flood control in Gunnam, Gyeonggi Province.

Flood control is also an important issue in Flood Runoff Simulation Using Physical Based Distributed Model for Imjin River Basin. In this article, from the Journal of Korea Water Resources Association (Volume 12, #1, 2009/January, by Bak Jin-hyeok and Heo Yeong-taek), researchers attempted to use indirect means to estimate water levels and flows reaching South Korea. The methods are indirect as South Korean researchers are not welcome on that side of the border. The main tool used is hydrological radar.

I was only able to read the abstract, as the full article is in Korean (and didn't jump out at me on Google - I found the journal at my university's library). It appears that the radar measures rainfall. The result was not completely successful but peak flow was accurately predicted.

To complete my review of news regarding rivers crossing the DMZ come the, um, quaintly titled A Dragon Swamp is a Microfilm, which Taped a History of Nature. Fish Hunting of the North Korean Soldiers (Internet translators make reading fun!)
The article starts:

Visitors at the armies near the boarder (sic) area are carrying water bottles these days. The visitors of border area armies at places like Inje, Hwacheon, and Yang-gu run to the wells as soon as they are done with visiting their sons. They get to see their son and bring some clean water back. The scenery of people carrying water bottles is a new phenomenon caused by contaminated water supply in cities. The soldiers at DMZ must be happy with the water they are getting. It is free of the danger of carcinogenic chemicals such as Benzene or Toluene. The parents of soldiers at DMZ are even told that they should have no worries about their sons who reside in such a clean area.

This news may not be true as the water comes from North Korea, and, as the water is leaving their area of influence, they have no pressing need to keep it clean.

South Korean soldiers have the rivers under constant observation against infiltration by North Korean soldiers. Strange things interest the soldiers and intelligence officers. A rubber shoe, size 230mm, floated down and civilian habitation in the basin was deduced.

More seriously, a mass of dead fish floated down Seohwa Creek (near Inje, Gangwon - no date given) and concerns over poisoning were quickly raised. Eventually, it was decided that North Korean soldiers had gone fishing with explosives.

Interestingly, several rare fish were found among the dead. An animal called "tongari" was also mentioned - not in the river but in the area. It is brown, has a waving tail and looks 'cut' (probably 'cute'). However, it has a stinging tentacle.

The behaviour of the two groups of soldiers is to be expected: the North Koreans, at the point where the water leaves North Korea, don't waste much concern with how they treat the water while the South Koreans, at the beginning of the river for their country are not allowed to dip a toe in the river.

Quick: call VANK!

A newspaper is describing a sea by it's non-Korean name.

And it's the Joongang Daily.

The North deploys artillery on coast of the Yellow Sea

Seoul developing countermeasures to contend with the potential new threat...

Now, the news is serious and I want people to take it seriously, but, come on, the Yellow Sea? Where's that? North (and South) Korea have the East Sea (on their East Coasts, unsurprisingly) and the West Sea (On their west coasts). South Korea has a South Sea as well, but North Korea does not.

Yellow Sea? Nope.

A little background on VANK, for my mother and others outside of Korea:

VANK, a civic group with more than 15,000 members here and abroad, has been working hard to correct and promote historical facts about Korea on the Internet, textbooks in foreign countries and other publications and media.

	A screen capture on Wikipedia: “Liancourt Rocks” comes up when Web users search Dokdo. [YONHAP]

Established in 1999, VANK has been playing a key role in promoting the view that the sea between Korea’s east coast and Japan is properly named the East Sea, not the Sea of Japan, as named in many foreign publications, textbooks and Web sites.

“We are monitoring well-known Web sites like Wikipedia.com, CIA World Factbook, Encyclopedia.com and other Web dictionary sites, and our members living overseas also let us know if there is anything to be corrected in publications or school textbooks in foreign countries,” said Lim Hyeon-suk, a researcher for VANK.

Currently the group is monitoring hundreds of Web sites of foreign universities, international organizations, media outlets, Internet search engines, Web portals, government bodies, intelligence agencies, research centers and even airline companies. Major monitoring targets include official Web sites of the United Nations, foreign ministries of each country, the U.S. Library of Congress, Yahoo and even ESPN and TV Guide.

Background also from the Joongang (July 18, 2008). Their wikipedia article appears to be this one.

If "Sea of Japan" is incorrect, then "Yellow Sea" must be as well. Get to work, VANK (I figure that if they are 'monitoring hundreds of Web sites', mine must be on the list).

Left hand: What is the right hand doing?

There is an interesting pair of articles in the Korea Times. On the 2nd, there is a brief report that the Canal project may be revived (background on the canal here, here, here,...) Two days later, reports of a North Korean dam affecting water flow in the Han River are described.

Boy, there's an angle I hadn't even considered; the canal is clearly a bad idea for financial, environmental and agricultural reasons - but it is also susceptible to sabotage by the Norks?

Christian donations not helping South Korea help North Korea

My reader(s) may know that I am not fan of religion and I hope that was not colouring my opinion when I read a Newsweek article about Christian groups donating supplies to North Korea.

In the larger picture, many international groups, the UN, for example, have chosen not to donate supplies to North Korea because North Korea will not allow inspectors to go in and see where the food and such are going. South Korean groups have taken up the slack and are more concerned with getting at least some aid to the people even while knowing most goes to the elite.

GI Korea has followed this story with a slightly different viewpoint from mine. He believes that no aid should be given without inspection. I agree that the more inspection the better, but I can understand how, if they were my relatives, I would give plenty with the hope of them getting a little.

Recently a Canadian-Korean pastor had been detained but was released. Korean citizens are not released and the GI, again, sees this as weakness on the South Korean Government's part. In this case, I think it was not the nationality of the pastor so much as the knowledge that Christian groups are responsible for a major part of the aid received. (I may have mixed up the links to the GI -sorry 'bout that)

From the Newsweek article:

South Korean churches are competing to provide humanitarian aid to their compatriots in the atheist north. It's harder to give help than it should be.

Pastor Douglas Shin has learned the cost of good intentions-especially in North Korea. Every time the Seoul-based Protestant missionary goes in with another shipment of food for the hungry, the regime's officials grab much if not all of it for themselves, he says. Once, when he tried to negotiate a visit to the capital, Pyongyang, they demanded that he bring a whole rail car loaded with 60 tons of flour and supplies. He finally bargained them down to a 10-ton food shipment, delivered just inside the border by truck from China. At least they let him hand out some of it to people on the streets.

That willingness to cut deals is making North Korea increasingly dependent on Christians from the peninsula's southern end. While nongovernmental agencies like World Vision and Save the Children, fed up with the North's rampant corruption and lack of transparency, have closed down or sharply reduced their activities there, South Koreans are racing into the void.
...
By that measure it's tough to beat the Rev. Yonggi Cho of Seoul's Full Gospel Church, the world's largest single house of worship, with 780,000 congregants. Early last month Cho and 250 fellow South Koreans attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the Full Gospel's $22 million cardiac center on the banks of Pyongyang's Daedong River. ...

North Korea's few churches-Potemkin temples to give the illusion of religious freedom, critics say-are getting costly makeovers courtesy of religious groups on the far side of the DMZ. Seoul's Presbyterians are spending nearly $3 million to rebuild Bongsu Church in Pyongyang, while Baptist groups are planning to invest a similar sum in nearby Chilgol Church, which was once attended by the mother of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung.

The southerners aren't competing for converts; proselytizing remains strictly forbidden in the atheist North. The real prizes (for now, at least) are trophy assets-the kind that look good on church Web sites and help fill the collection plates. (My bolding)

Anything is an improvement on North Korea's present health-care system. Even in privileged Pyongyang hospitals lack electricity and running water as well as basic equipment and supplies. And the facilities outside the capital are far worse. At the People's Hospital in Kusong, some 30 miles north of Pyongyang, patients are X-rayed by a 40-year-old Hungarian-built fluoroscopy machine that emits dangerous levels of radiation. Orderlies fashion bandages from cotton grown on the hospital grounds, and intravenous drugs are administered with upended soda bottles. Conditions at Kusong would be even more desperate without donor groups like the Maryland-based Eugene Bell Foundation, which insists on delivering aid directly its final destination. If North Korean officials refuse, the foundation warehouses its aid until permission is given.

Regular site visits by donor representatives are basic to responsible NGO work, not only in North Korea but everywhere else, says Eugene Bell director Stephen Linton. "People who think otherwise are kidding themselves."(my bolding)

Seems I'm putting up the whole article. Let's see. A South Korea Christian group spent a million dollars (US or Canadian - they're the same now -Ha, Ha) to build a church that when completed, didn't have a cross (I guess that's bad - it was significant enough for the journalist to mention). The South Korean Jogye Buddhists rebuilt a temple at the Gumgang tourist area but it was seized by the North Korean branch of the order.

The SK government has had no luck in the construction, or supplying of hospitals and recommends against it. They supply doctors at a few hospitals in North Korea to help the citizens and teach the North Korean doctors and find that is the hardest thing for the NK government to profit from.

They also point out that Cho's church-funded hospital will provide surgery costing about $3000 in a country with a $760 per capita income.

Well, the GI and I agree that No M-hyun's government didn't treat North Korea with sufficient firmness. Although I can sympathize with the motivations of the Christian groups making donations, I don't think they are helping the situation either.