LPGA says players must speak English

Concerned about its appeal to sponsors, the women’s professional golf tour, which in recent years has been dominated by foreign-born players, has warned its members that they must become conversant in English by 2009 or face suspension.

“We live in a sports-entertainment environment,” said Libba Galloway, the deputy commissioner of the tour, the Ladies Professional Golf Association. “For an athlete to be successful today in the sports entertainment world we live in, they need to be great performers on and off the course, and being able to communicate effectively with sponsors and fans is a big part of this.

“Being a U.S.-based tour, and with the majority of our fan base, pro-am contestants, sponsors and participants being English speaking, we think it is important for our players to effectively communicate in English.”

The L.P.G.A. and the other professional golf tours, unlike professional team sports, are dependent on their relationships with corporate sponsors for their financial survival.

Although Galloway insisted that “the vast majority” of the 120 international players on the L.P.G.A. circuit already spoke enough English to get by, she declined to say how many did not. There are 26 countries represented on the L.P.G.A. Tour. South Korea, with 45 golfers, has the largest contingent.

The L.P.G.A.’s new language policy — believed to be the only such policy in a major sport — was first reported by Golfweek magazine on its Web site Monday. According to Golfweek, the L.P.G.A. held a meeting with the tour’s South Korean players last week before the Safeway Classic, at which the L.P.G.A. commissioner, Carolyn Bivens, outlined the policy. Golfweek reported that many in attendance misunderstood the penalty, believing they would lose their tour cards if they did not meet the language requirement.

Even so, the magazine reported, many South Korean players interviewed supported the policy, including the Hall of Famer Se Ri Pak. “We agree we should speak some English,” said Pak, who added that she thought fines seemed a fairer penalty than suspensions. “We play so good over all. When you win, you should give your speech in English.”

She added: “Mostly what comes out is nerves. Totally different language in front of camera. You’re excited and not thinking in English.”

Major League Baseball, which has a high percentage of foreign-born athletes, said it had not seen the need to establish a language guideline. Pat Courtney, a spokesman for M.L.B., said baseball had not considered such a policy because it wanted its players to be comfortable in interviews and wanted to respect their cultures.

“Given the diverse nature of our sport, we don’t require that players speak English,” he said. “It’s all about a comfort level.”

The National Hockey League, which is based in Canada where English and French are the official languages, also places no such requirements on its players, although several clubs provide players with tutors if they express a desire to learn English.

The National Basketball Association, which had 76 international players from 31 countries and territories last season, follows a similar approach to the N.H.L.

“This is not something we have contemplated,” said Maureen Coyle, the N.B.A.’s vice president for basketball communications.

The only N.B.A. players in recent years to have used an interpreter are China’s Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian. Yao, who began playing in the N.B.A. with the Houston Rockets in 2002, no longer needs an interpreter.

In fairness, comparisons between the L.P.G.A., an independent organization not affiliated with the PGA Tour, and other sports bodies are imprecise. The L.P.G.A., much like the PGA Tour, is a group of individual players from diverse backgrounds whose success as an organization depends on its ability to attract sponsorships from companies looking to use the tour for corporate entertainment and advertisement.

Rarely are N.B.A. players called upon to play one-on-one with a corporate executive whose decision to write a sponsorship check is predicated on whether one had a good time shooting free throws with Kobe Bryant.

There is much more to it, but a large part of the economic success of a golf organization is predicated on whether a corporate entity decides to underwrite a tournament and whether a television network decides to broadcast it. All of those decisions are based on the tour’s being able to market its athletes.

The L.P.G.A. started a program in 2006 to help international players learn English and transition into American culture.

“It’s been very successful thus far,” Galloway said.

There are risks to the path on which the L.P.G.A. is about to embark. Legal experts said the new policy could result in legal action. Arthur S. Leonard, a professor of law at New York Law School and an expert on employment issues, said that in some states a potential claim of national origin discrimination could be made if the players were able to show that the rule singled out players of a particular origin.

He added that the L.P.G.A. “would be subject to the New York state human rights law with respect to any tournaments taking place in New York, and it is possible that the public accommodations provisions of that law could apply to this situation.”

Galloway said the policy had been thoroughly vetted by the tour’s lawyers and that it did not single out any one group.

“Absolutely not,” she said. “This applies to all of our membership.”

In South Korea, Yonhap, a news agency, disagreed, saying on its Web site that the decision “raises suspicions that it is targeting Korean players.”

Kwak Sang Il, an official for the Korea Ladies Professional Golf Association, said that the organization’s board of directors expected to meet to discuss the L.P.G.A.’s requirement, although the group had no comment.

Kwak said he was concerned about the impact the requirement would have on Korean players, but he said that to a degree, he could see the motivation behind the L.P.G.A.’s decision.
“When a player wins the championship, you want to expose her to the media, but if she can’t speak English well, it limits the publicity efforts of the organizers,” he said.

“We have a similar problem when a foreign player wins a title in a tournament held in Korea and the player can’t speak Korean at all," he said.

Leonard’s analysis of the L.P.G.A. policy as it related to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits workplace discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin, seemed to concur, up to a point.

“This is not really an English-only requirement,” he said, noting that players would not be required to speak only English. He added, “If the L.P.G.A. can show that English proficiency is a relevant qualification to competing in a professional golf tournament in the U.S., they would have a defense to any claim that they are discriminating unlawfully.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/sports/golf/27golf.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
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LPGA says players must speak English

South Korea win Olympic gold medal in baseball

Seconds after Chong Tae-hyon's final pitch that secured an Olympic gold medal for the South Korean baseball team, 23 of his teammates stormed the mound in jubilation, with 14 of them no doubt more ecstatic than the others.

Chong induced Cuban second baseman Yuliesky Gourriel to ground into a double-play with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning, putting the finishing touches on a 3-2 win at Beijing's Wukesong Baseball Field on Saturday.

Korea wasn't considered a medal favourite in the men's tournament, but went unbeaten in all nine of its games to win gold in its first-ever appearance in the Olympic final.

As a result, 14 members of the team won't have to report for two years of military duty.

Earlier Saturday, the United States doubled Japan 8-4 to win bronze after failing to compete for the 2004 Summer Games in Athens.

But it will be the performance by South Korea that will long be remembered as an upset in baseball's last Olympic hurrah for at least eight years. ◦

South Korea win Olympic gold medal in baseball

South Korea to end ban on revealing gender of unborn children

South Korea's Constitutional Court overturned a ban on doctors telling parents the gender of unborn babies, saying Thursday the country has grown out of a preference for sons and that the restriction violates parents' right to know.

South Korea introduced the ban in 1987 to try to prevent abortions of female fetuses in a country that had traditionally favored sons in the widespread Confucian belief that males carry on family lines. Abortion has also been illegal but practiced widely.

On Thursday, the Constitutional Court said it was too restrictive to ban doctors from telling parents the gender of the unborn for the entire pregnancy because there was little chance of aborting fetuses older than six months due to risks for mothers.

"The legislation's purpose is recognized in that it helps resolve the sex-ratio imbalance and protects the fetuses' right to life," the court said in the ruling. "But it overly limits the basic rights of parents and physicians by placing a blanket ban through the latter half of pregnancy."

It also said the preference for sons has lessened to a point where the ratio of newly born boys and girls in the country has almost reached the natural level of 100 girls to 106 boys.

"Considering this, we cannot but question whether the sex-ratio imbalance is a serious social problem and whether the fetus gender notification is serving as a cause for abortion," it said.

The court ordered the law be revised to reflect the ruling by the end of next year, and said the current ban will stand until the revision. Rulings by the Constitutional Court cannot be appealed.
Judge Kim Bok-ki, who serves as the court's spokesman, said the ruling means the law should allow doctors to let parents know their babies' gender in the latter half of pregnancies.

The Korean Medical Association, the country's largest doctors' association, welcomed the ruling.

"It is natural for doctors to give patients information collected during diagnosis," the association said in a statement.

The court case began in late 2004 when a lawyer filed a petition after doctors refused to tell him the gender of his unborn baby. The following year, a doctor filed a similar suit after he was suspended for half a year for violating the ban.

A violation of the current ban is punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine of $9,830.
The ban has been enforced relatively strictly at large hospitals, but not at neighborhood clinics that offered gender information in various ways, including telling parents whether the baby is "cute" or "energetic" — allusions to girls or boys.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080731/ap_on_re_as/skorea_baby_gender_2 ◦

South Korea to end ban on revealing gender of unborn children

Seoul World’s 5th Most Expensive City

Seoul ranked as the fifth most expensive city to live in, according to a world-renowned consulting firm, Wednesday.

Mercer's recent Cost of Living Survey, which covered 143 cities, showed Moscow as No. 1, followed by Tokyo, London and Oslo.

The survey took into account the cost of 200 items including housing, transport, food, clothing, household necessities and entertainment.

"The higher cost of living for cities such as Seoul, Singapore and India can be attributed to their highly valued quality of living," said Yvonne Traber, Mercer's principal research manager.

Reflecting the current inflationary pressures and the weakened dollar, the researcher pointed out the risk of higher living costs, especially for expatriate-level housing and other services. The Mercer survey is regarded as the most comprehensive cost of living survey, which helps multinational companies and governments determine compensation allowances for their expatriate employees.

In the survey, Moscow was the world's most expensive city for expats for the third consecutive year, while the Paraguayan capital of Asuncion turned out to be the least expensive for the sixth consecutive year.

Three of the world's top 10 costliest cities for expatriates are in Asia. Besides Tokyo and Seoul, the third entry was Hong Kong.

Among other Asian cities, Shanghai climbed two rungs to 24th, while Beijing remained unchanged at 20th.

In Vietnam, Hanoi dropped 35 places to rank 91st and Ho Chi Minh city fell 40 places to 100th.

An increase in residential property prices has helped Singapore climb one notch to 13th. Jakarta and Bangkok were 55th and 95th, respectively.

"Despite Asian cities dominating the top 10 most expensive places to live, the cost of living in Asia will not deter many companies and their employees as Asia is the current focus for foreign direct investment from multinational bodies for higher growth revenue," Asia Pacific Information Product Solutions chief Neo Siew Khim said.

Analysts say the external economic outlook for emerging East Asia has dimmed amid prospects for slower growth, tighter credit conditions and higher inflation, which is pushing Asian central banks to tighten their monetary policies.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2008/07/123_28078.html ◦

Seoul World’s 5th Most Expensive City

Wisdom in Crowds in Korea?

Michael B. Han, CFA Portfolio Manager
Matthews International Capital Management, LLC

Last month, South Korea’s decision to resume U.S. beef imports triggered massive protests in Seoul. For more than 40 days the city was moved by rallies that escalated into an outpouring of tens of thousands who took to the streets to oppose a trade deal they feared could expose the public to mad cow disease. The issue has posed a political crisis for South Korean President Lee Myung Bak, who took office following a landslide victory just four months ago.

Until about five years ago when a case of mad cow disease was detected in the U.S., South Korea had been among the top importers of American beef. Though many U.S. officials maintained that there were no statistically significant safety risks to U.S. meat exports, Korea, along with Japan and the European Union, imposed a blanket ban, later resuming conditional imports. Then in April, public outcry ensued when President Lee, a former chairman of Hyundai with a reputation for action that has earned him the nickname "The Bulldozer" agreed to lift the U.S. beef ban. The move was seen as one expected to help clear the way for a broader U.S.–South Korea free trade agreement that has been stalled. But by June, growing public uproar over the issue led Lee’s presidential aides to resign over the flap.

In and of itself, the reopening of the domestic Korean market to U.S. beef may not seem to justify the widespread furor that it unleashed. But what the public backlash really represents is Korea’s fear that its government is not acting in its best interest. The mostly peaceful protests have not been demonstrations against the U.S., or against free trade. Rather, the frustrations have been directed at the leadership’s lack of sensitivity to concerns over health risks, and highlight fears that the government prioritizes business over public safety.

President Lee has since publicly apologized over the situation and modified his earlier trade deal to limit U.S. beef imports to younger cattle, believed to be at less risk of mad cow disease. Despite the moves, however, the beef protests have given rise to sharp criticisms of the administration’s other plans for economic reform, including possible plans to privatize the public health care system and plans to build a grand canal. There have also been criticisms over Lee’s cabinet member selections.

How does a president’s landslide election victory plummet to record low approval ratings just a few months later? To begin with, South Korean voter turnout has been quite low, and many voters in the last election generally felt they were choosing between the “lesser of two evils.” Many protesters also regard President Lee’s beef deal as a rash and reckless act that stood to realize merely $1 billion in beef imports.

It is still unclear what will become of any free trade agreements between the U.S. and South Korea but the wider issue is that of Korea’s distrust of government. That Koreans feel inclined to take to the streets en masse may also indicate the lack of effective legal and political systems for public disputes. Compared to the U.S., Korea’s legal system is less approachable for the average person and the society is generally less litigious. When class-action lawsuits are not an option for protection, it is easier to understand why many may be moved to protest publicly. The danger, however, is that the political distrust is breeding voter apathy and diminishing turnouts at election time.

What is remarkable to note, however, is the ability of protesters to affect public policy. Following public backlash to the beef issue, the U.S. has reportedly looked further into establishing a system to verify the age of its livestock. The U.S. media has also begun to urge tighter regulation on the food inspection system. It seems that the aggregate wisdom of crowds and their voices have carried across the Pacific.

Evolution of Democracy
There are significant differences between the culture of demonstration in Korea now, compared to that of 20 years ago. Pro-democracy movements in South Korea in the 1980s were largely driven by college student leaders and frequently turned violent. Though recently there have been increasingly violent clashes between protesters and police, demonstrations over the beef issue began calmly when the majority of ordinary citizens participated. They have included young parents with children, executives in suits, middle school students, Roman Catholic nuns and Buddhist monks. Another important difference is that unlike the pro-democracy movements of two decades ago, the recent beef protests have involved no single, specific ideology, political leaning or special interest group. The protests involved passionate debate among participants, who remained respectful to each other. Commentators have credited Koreans for protesting peacefully, noting the high level of public participation as evidence of a maturing democracy. South Korea’s high Internet penetration rate, and its use of the Internet to mobilize the public over social issues, are also seen as signs of a highly educated society.

Indeed, Korea places great emphasis on education. It ranks fifth out of 35 developed nations in terms of its percentage of graduates under age 35 with four-year college degrees or higher, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The country also ranks third behind only India and China in terms of the number of students it sends to the U.S. each year to pursue higher education degrees. (In 2007, more than 62,000 Korean students came to the U.S. for school.)

The evolution of democracy in Korea is also evident in the decreasing signs of corruption where business and politics overlap. In the 1980s, two former presidents, Chun Doo Whan and Roh Tae Woo, had received illegal contributions of $1 billion and $500 million, respectively, from businesses. Both former presidents were convicted, and subsequent leaders have been accused of taking far less in kickbacks from business. The most recent offense—involving $10 million in controversial campaign contributions—by former President Roh Moo Hyun indicated there is a large decline in the size of dubious financial contributions to politicians.

Economic Democracy, the Next Evolution
Just as political democracy benefits grassroots movements, economic democracy benefits minority shareholders. Following the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Korean officials improved government transparency by adopting accounting standards similar to those of the U.S. The next step is to improve corporate governance.

In Korea, public participation, not activist hedge funds, paved the way to economic democracy. Non-government organizations (NGOs), which comprise professors and lawyers, have been involved in shareholder activism over the past decade. NGOs such as the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy and Solidarity for Economic Reform, backed by minority shareholders’ voting rights, initiated a proxy battle against majority shareholders of what is known as chaebol, or large family-controlled conglomerates. Chaebols have played a significant role in the exportoriented growth of Korea’s economy. Though many chaebol affiliates have grown to become top-tier players in their fields, many could still benefit from improvements to corporate governance.

Armed with professional volunteers, NGOs have uncovered tax evasion cases or revealed other questionable corporate transactions that have benefited chaebol families at the expense of minority shareholders. NGOs are developing the skill of using litigation and proxy battles to enhance public awareness over complicated corporate governance practices. The organizations have also rallied against bad policy proposals regarding the adoption of poison pills.

Shareholder activism initiated by NGOs has also begun to move institutional shareholders. The National Pension Service (NPS), the country's leading institutional investor and the only national pension fund, voted against two business tycoons (both formerly convicted of fraud) who were seeking re-election to the boards of their respective corporate subsidiaries. The NPS’ first attempt to remove the two board members failed because the two tycoons had large holdings.

The fund currently has $220 billion in assets under management, and its asset allocation in the domestic equity market has been growing rapidly, which indicates that NPS may play a significant role in the future. There also appears to be a stronger likelihood that, going forward, people will be more concerned with corporate governance, which is critical to the performance of their retirement savings. Corporate governance and political transparency deserve more public attention than they currently receive. Fortunately, we continue to see signs of positive change—even if it’s in the form of surprisingly massive beef rallies. We see an evolving sense of democracy among those who are mobilizing to shape public policy. As these trends continue we hope minority shareholder value will be enhanced and a more vibrant sense of entrepreneurship will evolve.

http://www.matthewsfunds.com/about_asia/asia_insight.cfm


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Wisdom in Crowds in Korea?

Video: Bluetooth in Korea

Interested in technology? See my Future of Less blog ◦

Video: Bluetooth in Korea

Progressively Paperless in Korea

I took this picture today in the Jungang subway station in Taegu (aka Daegu), the third largest city in South Korea. You can buy a condensed book (looks like less than 50 pages) for about US$2 in the vending machine. Several of the titles were about Warren Buffet, becoming a CEO, and other business management kinds of things. Many of the books were about learning English, one of Korea's national pastimes. Hillary’s book was for sale too.

Certainly, in a place like Korea, this technology will soon be replaced with machines with thousands of titles that will be transferred directly from the machine to your phone. Paperless doesn’t mean no paper. But digitizing the content means thousands more titles to choose from, lower distribution costs, more revenue, and happier customers. And after that, no machines. It will all be books on demand downloadable over the air.

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Progressively Paperless in Korea

The cell phone turns 20 years old in Korea

Making mobile calls was a privilege of the very rich in 1988 when there were only 784 subscribers who dared to pay 4 million (about US$4,000) for a bulky handset heavy as a dumbbell. Now after two decades, phones have become as light as a cigarette lighter and the industry has become one of Korea's most lucrative businesses with more than 44 million regular customers.

The mobile service industry today celebrates its 20th anniversary here. While the number of subscribers has grown more than 56,000 times, the average phone price has dropped from 4 million to virtually zero when including subsidies, making it an every-day, every-hour item for modern Koreans.

"It is the coming-of-age day for the mobile phone. It is not just a means of communications anymore. It is the center of communication,'' said Kim Shin-bae, CEO of SK Telecom. "It is not exaggerating to say that Korea's IT industry, which accounts for 29 percent of its gross domestic product, started from the spread of mobile phones.''

Korea's mobile phone service took off as a car-mounted system in 1984, known as car phones. Korea Mobile Telecom, which was a subsidiary of Korea's public telephone company, was its lone operator.

It was July 1, 1988 when Korea Mobile Telecom launched a full-swing mobile phone service that used handheld phones made by Motorola and other foreign firms in Seoul and the metropolitan area, in time for the Seoul Olympic Games that fall.

The critical moment came in 1996 when the government adopted a new technology platform called CDMA (code division multiple access) for the first time in the world, while many other countries opted for the GSM (global system for mobile communication) type. The decision has helped local electronics firms such as Samsung and LG use Korea as a test bed for CDMA phones before they export them to the United States and other nations.

Samsung and LG are now the world's second and fourth largest mobile phone sellers. Exports of mobile phones grew from a mere $470,000 in 1996 to $18.6 billion last year.

The network service industry too has seen remarkable growth. Korea Mobile Telecom was privatized in 1994 when SK Group purchased its controlling share. KTF and LG Telecom later joined the race, while others like Shinsegi and Hansol were merged into SK Telecom and KTF, respectively.

Technological advancement and competition among the three firms have continuously lowered the call rate. In 1988, users were charged 1,286 won for a three-minute call from Seoul to Busan. This is now 324 won on average for the same call, which is about 3 percent of the 1988 price when considering inflation.

One victim of mobile phone's rapid success is the pager. It was the dominant communication device in mid and late 1990s, with some 15 million users in its heydays. Now about 40,000 people are using them, many of them medical workers.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/07/133_26769.html
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The cell phone turns 20 years old in Korea

Video trailer: Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

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Video trailer: Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

U.S. beef selling well despite protests

American beef began reaching Koreans' dinner tables despite anti-U.S. beef candlelit vigils and lingering public concern over its safety.

Most big discount stores are still reluctant to deck their shelves with American beef in fear of public backlash. But it seems to be a matter of time before refrigerators of restaurants and households of Koreans are filled with "Made in U.S.'' beef.

Midday Friday, dozens of people were standing in line in front of a five meter square butcher's shop "A-Meat FC'' in Keumchon, southwestern Seoul. Some, seemingly from remote areas, rushed to join the crowd after parking their vehicles in nearby spaces. The shop's inside was bursting at the seams with customers while five workers were busy tapping electronic cash registers and packing ordered meat.

"We have skipped meals for days,'' a cashier said. "Customers gather from opening till closing time.'' This imported-meat-only shop began selling American beef on Tuesday, six days after the government's official notification of U.S. beef imports.

"It's selling like hot cakes,'' said Park Chang-kyu, the shop owner. "Of course, it was not an easy decision to sell American beef amid public sentiment hostile to U.S. beef. But look. It's amazing.''

A male customer, who drove to the shop from Yeoido to buy beef, said "I will buy U.S. beef equivalent to 100,000 won ($100). American beef fits our taste and is much cheaper than Korean beef.''

Prices of U.S. beef vary― sirloin is 2,300 won per 100 grams, and beef for Bulgogi and soup are 900 won and 650 won, respectively.

"The prices are roughly one third of Korean beef,'' Park said. "We purchase 5 tons of U.S. beef per day but it's insufficient to meet customers' demand. We plan to buy more.

''Currently, there are only two beef shops dealing with American beef in Seoul including A-Meat F.C. But a growing number of shops are expected to handle American beef from next week at the earliest as the demand for the imported beef soars.

According to the association of meat importers, 2 tons of U.S. beef have been sold since July 1 through the two butcher shops.

Two other restaurant chains with 50 branches nationwide ― Damiso and Oredrim ― are considering adding U.S. beef to their menu.

Hi-Food, a mass-circulator for imported beef, also said it planned to ask the quarantine office to check 400 tons of U.S. beef they imported from August but recently decided to advance the date to next week to meet customers' demand.

"We have received numerous calls from clients. We cannot help handling American beef again despite outstanding concern over the meat,'' said Park Bong-soo, Hi-Food president.

The meat-importing association, comprised of 130 wholesalers and retailers, will launch a nationwide campaign from July 15 to raise public awareness of safety of U.S. beef and to boost consumption.

The Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said Friday more than 1,000 tons of American beef have completed quarantine inspection.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/07/117_27045.html
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U.S. beef selling well despite protests

Korean Wives Decide Where the Money Gets Spent

Korea is behind other countries in terms of gender equality, but is not so when it comes to who controls the household budget. Statistics show that women in two out of every three couples are in charge of the money.



The National Statistical Office (NSO) published the Life of Woman in Statistics report to commemorate the week of women, running from July 1 through July 7.

The report showed that wives in 65.3 percent of households determined where money was spent. 29 percent said the husband and the wife jointly decide, and only 5.7 percent left the man in charge.

Women also controlled the education of children ― as to which private institute they should go. Only 3.1 percent had fathers decide children's education while 39.2 percent left it totally to moms. The rest made decisions jointly.

The statistics show that around half of women are economically active. Women in their 40s were the most active, with 65.8 percent participating in economic activities. For those in their 30s, meanwhile, the ratio was 56.3 percent, reflecting the fact that many women of this age quit their jobs to take care of kids, returning to the job market later.

The results showed that an increasing number of women succeeded in getting good jobs. Some 19.3 percent of females were in professional or managerial level positions, up 7.1 percentage points from a decade ago. Among rookie diplomats who passed the difficult government exam last year, two out of three were female. Among lawmakers, 41 out of a total 299, or 13.7 percent, were women. Although this is still low compared with other countries, the ratio has been rising continuously. In 1996, only 3 percent of lawmakers were female.

In some workplaces there are too many women. About 73 percent of teachers at elementary schools were female. In 1990, the figure was only 50.1 percent.

Women are getting married older than before. The average age of a first time bride was 28.1. Grooms, meanwhile, were 31.1 years old on average. In 2000, however, brides were 26.5 years old, and grooms, 29.3 years.

Things have gotten better for baby girls as well. Parents are not preferring boys as much as before. There were 107.4 boys born to every 100 girls in 2006, while a decade ago it was 111.6 boys to every 100 girls.

Korea's female population totaled 24.19 million, or 49.8 percent of the entire population. They can expect to live to 82.36 years on average, 6.62 years more than males whose life expectancy hovered around 75.74 years. The gap has been decreasing since 1985, when women outlived men by 8.37 years.

The biggest death factor for women in 2006 was cancer, followed by cerebro-vascular disease, heart disease, diabetes and suicide.

Last year, 29,140 foreign women married Korean men, and 9,351 married foreign men.

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Korean Wives Decide Where the Money Gets Spent

Speaking a Foreign Language is Sexy in Korea

Tip for men on a blind date: learn some foreign words beforehand. Women are impressed, according to a survey.

"I like men speaking good English. It makes them look sexy, intelligent and very competent,'' said Yang Mi-kyoung, a 24-year-old who works for a fashion goods company.

"They also look very confident and I feel I could proudly introduce him to anyone,'' she added.

"I would like to marry a woman who can teach our future children English by herself. I know it sounds a bit selfish but we can save money and they can learn the language during life,'' Kim, who works at a construction company, said.

Matchmaking company Duo and English educational institute franchise YBMSisa.com conducted a survey of 242 single males and 315 females and found more than 66 percent of males and 82 percent of women have had experience of being attracted to the opposite sex with good foreign language skills.

Most replied that fluent foreign language speaking skills made their date eligible and competent, while some said the quality is important because they themselves do not have it. Both men and women thought being able to speak other languages is a basic attainment for everyone. Some said they want their counterpart to teach their future children English.

Moreover, 31 percent of women said a man's foreign language skill guarantees better income, indicating economics is a key reason for attraction.

However, the respondents themselves had little expectation for themselves in improving their language skills. About 77 percent said they have studied other languages after work. However, they said it was for their own satisfaction and that all they need is to be able to watch movies without having to read the captions below all the time. Instead, they had high hopes for their future spouses. The majority said they want the other to speak other languages in life.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/07/117_26926.html ◦

Speaking a Foreign Language is Sexy in Korea

Bush Wins in North Korea Deal

The metric by which any diplomatic deal is judged is simple: Which side got more for less? By that measure, the U.S. and the Administration of President George W. Bush are the hands-down winners in the North Korean nuclear deal announced this week.

It might not look that way at first. North Korea's 60-page declaration of its nuclear capabilities is probably only mildly helpful. It may contain new information on how much plutonium it has produced for its weapons arsenal, or shed light on other aspects of its program. But unpacking North Korea's lies from any strands of truth is a lifetime's work.

What the U.S. did get, though, was real progress on a long-standing aim - the destruction of the Yongbyon nuclear facility, where North Korea's plutonium has been produced. The 1994 deal agreed by the Clinton Administration required that nuclear work at Yongbyon be verifiably frozen, but the new deal requires that the plant be incapacitated. On Friday the North Koreans blew up the facility's cooling tower and they have also committed to destroying, under international monitoring, the other functioning parts of the plant.

Gary Samore of the Council on Foreign Relations, who negotiated the agreed framework in 1994 for President Clinton, says the new North Korean deal gets more than what he got on Yongbyon.

"The Bush Administration has achieved an additional measure beyond what the Clinton Administration achieved in terms of Yongbyon ... a very, very substantial disablement which would make it difficult and time-consuming for the North Koreans to resume production." Says his Council colleague Charles Ferguson, "The Bush Administration has achieved more than the Clinton Administration in terms of really doing a substantial amount of disablement of that facility."

And what did the U.S. give in order to achieve this? The primary chit handed over by the U.S. was to take North Korea off the list of state sponsors of terrorism. That sounds important, but Pyongyang has been on that list for more than a decade solely for the purposes of negotiation.

The last act that could qualify as a sponsorship of terrorism by North Korea was its involvement in the bombing of a South Korean airliner in 1987, and diplomats have been dangling removal from the list for the better part of ten years as an inducement to give up some of their nuclear capabilities and information.

"The state sponsor of terror list is a very political list," says Ferguson, "From a technical standpoint they should have been taken off that list a long time ago." Most important, the only significant result of taking the North off the list is that the U.S. is no longer required by law to block international lending to Pyongyang. The U.S. still can, if it likes, block that lending given the control it has over such loans at the World Bank and elsewhere. "

If we learn 45 days from now that the North Koreans lied and cheated in their plutonium declaration," says Samore, "there's nothing that prevents the United States as a matter of policy from blocking loans."

None of which means the overall deal gets the U.S. free and clear of the North Korean nuclear threat. On the contrary, that threat is as bad as it has ever been, practically speaking. For starters, the North still has, by most estimates, between six- and ten-weapons worth of plutonium, obtained since the Bush Administration in 2001 abandoned negotiation in favor of confrontation. The U.S. has a long and hard road to negotiate that plutonium out of Pyongyang's hands. Just as bad, the North very likely has an equally threatening uranium-enrichment program separate from the plutonium program, and though no one knows where it is or how much, if any, highly enriched uranium it might be capable of producing.

Still, considering that U.S. negotiator Chris Hill has managed to get destruction of Yongbyan in exchange for the meaningless delisting, the U.S. and President Bush have made out quite well in this deal.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080628/wl_time/bushwinsinnorthkoreadeal;_ylt=AgC.2fbfNVYUdW..vcwn8MyCscEA

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Bush Wins in North Korea Deal

New entrant comes to Korean condom market

Staff at Durex, the world’s largest condom maker, promote the security of condoms in downtown Seoul to mark the start of its business in Korea.

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New entrant comes to Korean condom market

Why South Korea Won't Bite the Apple

South Korea is proud of its electronics makers and tech-savvy consumers. Samsung and LG won't roll out the welcome mat for the new iPhone 3G

Despite the buzz generated by the June 9 unveiling of the first major makeover of Apple's (AAPL) iPhone, there's one place on the planet the U.S. brand isn't likely to generate much buzz, at least in the near future: South Korea. The country is one of the most advanced mobile Internet markets in the world, and electronics companies have worked hard to make sure tech-savvy Korean consumers don't fall for foreign brands.

This is a place where Nokia (NOK) is virtually absent. Google (GOOG) has struggled in Korea too. Its six-year-old Korean-language search service lags far behind market leader NHN. And while consumers in other countries have embraced the iPod, most Koreans are just not that into Steve Jobs and the work of his Apple designers. Many analysts say the iPhone 3G, the next-generation iPhone (BusinessWeek.com, 6/9/09) with faster Internet access that will sell for as low as $199 (half the current entry-level price), probably won't do the trick either. "Apple can't expect to be acclaimed as a premium brand in Korea," says Thomas Kang at market researcher Strategic Analytics.

The big problem for Apple is simple. Koreans are more attracted to phones made by local consumer-electronics powerhouses Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, both of which roll out scores of sleek multimedia handsets featuring leading-edge technologies every year. The Big Two together control nearly 80% of the Korean handset market.

Samsung's Answer to the iPhone
Eager to play up their innovation bona fides, the Korean companies are determined not to take a back seat to Apple. For instance, less than 24 hours before Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced details of the new iPhone, Samsung unveiled a new touchscreen smartphone, called Samsung Omnia, its answer to the new iPhone. LG, for its part, last year actually beat the original iPhone by three months in the race to introduce a touchscreen model, (BusinessWeek.com, 5/1/08) offering the Prada phone, the outcome of LG's joint efforts with the Italian fashion house.

Like the iPhone, Samsung's Omnia works like a small handheld PC. It runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 and features Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Opera 9.5 as its Web browser. It also sports a 16 GB memory, a five-megapixel camera with antishake technology, music and video players, 3G capability, Bluetooth, WiFi, an FM radio, and GPS functionality. It will go on sale in Southeast Asia later in June and in Europe in July, though pricing has yet to be announced. "Although the iPhone boasts intuitive user interface, it doesn't really outshine Korean phones in functions and technologies," says telecom analyst Yang Jong In at brokerage Korea Investment & Securities.

Special Software for Internet Access
LG is working on a slew of new smartphones too. In the past two years, LG has changed into a trendsetter (BusinessWeek.com, 5/8/08) from a second-tier phonemaker by launching models with a distinct look and feel. In April it rolled out the Secret, which used carbon fiber and tempered glass for the first time in a phone—a design meant to preserve the model's sleek style from wear and tear. It is also equipped with a five-megapixel camera, Movie Maker software enabling the user to mix music with videos, and a Google package allowing access to the Internet, Gmail, Google Maps, and YouTube videos.

Korea's regulatory requirements could also discourage the iPhone's debut in the market. To help smaller companies develop Internet-related applications at lower costs, the Seoul government in 2005 made it mandatory for all mobile-phonemakers and content providers to use a software standard for Internet access, called WIPI, or Wireless Internet Platform for Interoperability, in Korea. "I doubt Apple will be bothered to develop a new WIPI-enabled phone just for the Korean market," says spokesman O Young Ho of KT Freetel, Korea's second-largest mobile carrier, known as KTF, that is in talks with Apple to sell the new iPhone.

A Little Crack in the Armor?
Little wonder the three Korean operators aren't in a hurry to forge a partnership with Apple. Both SK Telecom, the country's largest wireless carrier, with a 50.5% market share, and LG Telecom (with 18%) have made it clear they have no plans to offer the iPhone. O says Apple is one of many phone manufacturers that KTF (with 31.5% share) is in contact with for its future handset lineup but admits there are big gaps in their negotiation terms.

Some industry-watchers bet KTF will eventually strike a deal with Apple, probably within a year. "KTF has been desperately trying to offer differentiated services to narrow its gap with SK, and the iPhone could be one option," says Stan Jung, telecom analyst at brokerage Woori Investment & Securities. Meanwhile, the Korean government says it will review its policy requiring WIPI for all Internet-capable phones now that business environments have changed in the past three years.

http://www.businessweek.com/print/globalbiz/content/jun2008/gb20080613_275686.htm

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Why South Korea Won't Bite the Apple

North Korea invites TV crews for nuclear show

North Korea has invited foreign television stations to broadcast its planned destruction of a key facility at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, South Korea's chief nuclear negotiator said Sunday.

Five broadcasters — each from the five countries in nuclear talks with North Korea — have been asked to cover the planned blowing up of the cooling tower at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, Seoul's nuclear envoy Kim Sook told reporters.

Kim said CNN was chosen as U.S. broadcaster, but did not name the other four stations invited from South Korea, China, Japan and Russia.

Pyongyang also has notified the five stations of a date for the tower's destruction, Kim said, without elaborating.

The North's move indicates a breakthrough is imminent in the impasse that has held up the six-party nuclear negotiations for months, since the tower's destruction is supposed to come only after Pyongyang submits its long-delayed list of nuclear programs.

North Korea agreed last year to disable its nuclear facilities and fully account for its nuclear programs in exchange for economic and political concessions.

The denuclearization process reached an impasse as Pyongyang failed to meet an end-of-2007 deadline for declaring its nuclear activities, although the North has made progress in disabling its nuclear facilities so they cannot be easily restarted.

Kim said the North is expected to present the nuclear declaration "soon" but declined to specify a date.

The cooling tower's destruction — a symbolic act designed to show Pyongyang's intent to abandon its nuclear ambitions — is part of a series of carefully sequenced reciprocal moves that
Pyongyang and Washington agreed to take to move the nuclear talks forward.

Once the North submits a nuclear declaration, the U.S. government is supposed to begin the process of taking Pyongyang off Washington's terrorism and sanctions blacklists. Next would come the North's destruction of the cooling tower, which is supposed be followed by a resumption of six-nation nuclear talks.

U.S. officials said all of these developments could happen within the next 10 days while U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in or en route to Japan, South Korea and China next week.

Kim said he would travel to Beijing later Sunday for talks with his U.S. and Chinese counterparts. U.S. chief nuclear envoy Christopher Hill has been in the Chinese capital since Friday for talks with China's envoy Wu Dawei.

The six-party nuclear talks were last held between late September and early October.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080622/ap_on_re_as/koreas_nuclear;_ylt=AryjrS4PbaA8T2CVl1fQJ0dvaA8F
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North Korea invites TV crews for nuclear show

S. Korea, US agree on beef deal; protests continue

South Korea said it will resume imports of U.S. beef after American and South Korean suppliers agreed to block meat from older cattle, aiming Saturday to soothe health concerns that sparked weeks of demonstrations against new President Lee Myung-bak.

Still, protest leaders argued the plan doesn't go far enough and staged the latest of their daily candlelight rallies. The rally caused the main intersection in downtown Seoul to be blocked as thousands of riot police prevented demonstrators from marching to the presidential Blue House.
Procedures to put the new import agreement into effect were to start Monday, Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon said, but it was not clear when American beef would reach South Korean markets.

Lee, a pro-U.S. conservative who took office in February, had agreed to allow resumed American beef imports in April — seeking to improve relations with Washington and pave the way for a larger free-trade deal between the two countries to help reinvigorate the South Korean economy.

The beef-loving South has allowed intermittent U.S. beef imports since banning it in 2003 after the first case of mad cow disease was discovered there.

The April agreement had few restrictions on what meat would be allowed, sparking protests against Lee for caving in to American demands and failing to consider public opinion about health risks. In the wake of demonstrations that grew as large as 80,000 people, Lee replaced all his top advisers and his entire Cabinet also has offered to resign.

The demonstrations have since dwindled, and police said about 9,600 protesters gathered Saturday evening in Seoul.

Some of them turned violent, however, dragging a police bus with ropes off a barricade and smashing its windows, TV footage showed. Riot police responded by spraying fire extinguishers at the demonstrators. There were no reports of serious injuries.

The U.S. government had refused to renegotiate the April deal, worried it would set a precedent for other countries to back out of trade agreements.

Instead, U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said the new arrangement — agreed to after talks last week with her South Korean counterpart — was a "commercial understanding" between U.S. exporters and South Korean importers that only meat from cattle younger than 30 months would be shipped, believed to be less at risk for mad cow disease.

The plan is "a transitional measure, to improve Korean consumer confidence in U.S. beef," she said in a statement.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will set up a "voluntary" system to verify the age of beef, Schwab said. If South Korea finds beef has been shipped that violates the agreement, it can take action only against the specific product or company involved.

"The age verification system will be in place until concerns over safety of U.S. beef subside," South Korean Trade Minister Kim told reporters in Seoul. He said South Korea will have the right to inspect U.S. slaughterhouses, and will not import parts of cattle such as brains, eyes, skulls and spinal cords that can carry mad cow disease.

The new agreement drew criticism from both sides in the trade dispute.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, argued there was no scientific reason to limit imports of American beef. U.S. meat has been certified as safe to consume by the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health.

"The implications of this agreement set an unfortunate precedent for U.S. beef trade with Korea and other countries," Baucus said in a statement.

The coalition of South Korean civic groups that has supported the protests said the voluntary agreement did not go far enough and vowed to continue demonstrating.

"We made it clear that a complete renegotiation is the only alternative that can fundamentally solve the people's concerns about mad cow disease," the coalition said in a statement.

Eating meat products contaminated with mad cow disease is linked to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare and deadly nerve disease.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080622/ap_on_re_as/skorea_us_beef;_ylt=AiEeYgYE7lkYlWHuGywhpZuyBhIF
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S. Korea, US agree on beef deal; protests continue

Korean Buddhists Worried About Beef Imports ?!?!?!?

Buddhist monks participate in a candlelight vigil on a street leading to the U.S. embassy and the presidential Blue House in central Seoul June 10, 2008. About one million people fearing infection of mad cow disease across the country demonstrated Tuesday evening to demand a full-scale renegotiation of a beef deal with the U.S. and the resignation of President Lee Myung-bak as they commemorate the historic June 10 mass pro-democracy demonstrations in 1987.

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Korean Buddhists Worried About Beef Imports ?!?!?!?

South Korea to resume U.S. beef imports

South Korea's government announced Thursday it is going ahead with a much-criticized deal to resume imports of U.S. beef — a move that could escalate the daily street protests against the plan.

Agriculture Minister Chung Woon-chun said in a nationally televised announcement that the government has finalized new quarantine regulations for U.S. beef in accordance with an April 18 agreement with Washington.

The new regulations call for South Korea to import nearly all cuts of American beef without restrictions on the age of the cattle. That represents a significant easing of previous rules, which banned imports of meat attached to bones or from older cattle considered more susceptible to mad cow disease.
The relaxed rules will take effect as soon as they are published in a government journal in a few days.

Thursday's announcement, which had been delayed amid anti-government protests, was the final administrative step necessary to resume U.S. beef imports.

It cleared the way for American beef to return to South Korean store shelves for the first time since last year, when limited imports were briefly allowed before again being suspended.

Some 5,300 tons of U.S. beef, shipped earlier to South Korea but held in customs and quarantine storage facilities, will begin undergoing inspections early next week before being put on the market, according to the ministry.

Chung sought to dispel public concern over mad cow disease, saying the government would immediately halt imports if a new case of the illness breaks out in the United States, and would strictly control cattle parts banned over the disease.

"The government will protect the people's heath and food safety by thoroughly managing the inspection and distribution of U.S. beef," he said.

Still, the announcement is likely to intensify anti-government rallies in Seoul, which have been held on a near-daily basis in recent weeks to protest the agreement. Protesters believe the accord does not adequately protect the country from infected beef.

A small group of protesters staged a rally Thursday outside the government building where the announcement was made. Police estimated some 10,000 protesters would gather Thursday night in central Seoul for a rally.

Under the deal, South Korea pledged to scrap nearly all the quarantine restrictions imposed by the previous government to guard against mad cow disease. South Korea suspended imports of U.S. beef after the first American case of mad cow disease appeared in December 2003 in a Canadian-born cow in Washington state. Two subsequent cases were also discovered.
Several efforts to resume imports foundered after banned substances such as bones were discovered in shipments from the U.S.

Protesters accuse the government of ignoring their concerns about food safety. Worries about mad cow disease have been fanned by some sensational media reports, but both governments have repeatedly said American beef poses no health risk.

Scientists believe mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, spreads when farmers feed cattle recycled meat and bones from infected animals. The U.S. banned recycled feeds in 1997. In humans, eating meat products contaminated with the cattle disease is linked to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare and fatal malady.

The rallies, which began in early May, have been mostly peaceful, although tensions flared this week after the government instructed police to take a harder line.

Police have detained more than 200 protesters in recent days, later releasing 92.

The protests are a major headache for President Lee Myung-bak, who took office three months ago. He sought last week to reassure the country over the safety of U.S. beef, but failed to ease public anger.

Critics accuse Lee of making too many concessions on the beef issue in an attempt to gain U.S. congressional approval for a broader bilateral free trade agreement.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080529/ap_on_re_as/skorea_us_beef_6

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South Korea to resume U.S. beef imports

Let Then Eat Juche

A DECADE after a famine killed 500,000-1m people in North Korea, recent news from the benighted country suggests it is once again on the brink of mass starvation. The state food distribution system seems to have broken down everywhere, including the capital, Pyongyang, which usually gets special treatment from Kim Jong Il's regime. In the absence of public distribution, North Koreans rely increasingly on informal or illegal markets for grain. There, a new paper by the Peterson Institute for International Economics (IIE) in Washington argues, recent extreme price rises appear consistent with the onset of famine.

Good Friends, a Buddhist human-rights group in South Korea, says that in rural areas families are again adding tree-bark and grass to their diet, and foraging for food in the wild. It says that in South Pyongan province in west-central North Korea, people are already dying of starvation, while listless farmers ignore officials' calls to plant this year's rice. Last month the World Food Programme (WFP) called for urgent help to avert a “serious tragedy”.

North Korea, admittedly, has a chronic food crisis. The 23m-odd population is large for the country's arable land, and the weather is often unfavourable: late-summer floods in 2006 and 2007 caused widespread damage. But North Korea's neighbours, China and South Korea, share similar features without going short of food. By contrast, North Korea is both international ward and pariah. Its reckless foreign policy hinges on nuclear blackmail, which deters foreign donors, and the regime frustrates efforts to ensure aid goes to those who most need it. It has suppressed agricultural markets while failing to spend on rural infrastructure or even fertiliser. Crucially, an unreformed economy means inadequate exports of goods or commodities that could pay for food imports.

Calculating North Korea's food needs is a politicised game of inadequate data. The IIE paper, by Stephan Haggard, Marcus Noland and Erik Weeks, reckons that the country needs 4m tonnes of grain a year (one-fifth less than estimates by the WFP). The authors conclude that, in the absence of the massive food aid that was supplied in the years after the famine, there is now less than 100,000 tonnes to spare.

In one sense the situation is more critical than in earlier years. In 2005, after a decent harvest, the regime sought to stamp on burgeoning markets, redirect grain supplies through the public-distribution system and get people to return to their work units: male vendors were banned from markets and then, last year, women under 50. Yet the public system is under strain. Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University says that some cities have not accepted ration coupons for food since last year. It is not just grain itself: electricity and fuel for threshing and transport are also short. People are forced on to the black market, where rice has shot up from 860 won (about $6) a kilo a year ago to 3,100 today. Income per head is perhaps $500 a year.

In theory, America is ready to assist with big supplies of aid, but that could take time and, possibly, a satisfactory declaration of North Korea's nuclear programmes. The WFP struggles to raise money and awareness over North Korea's plight. Yet since late 2005 North Korea has restricted its operations in the country.

Grain can come fastest from China and South Korea. But China is concerned about its own food supply, imposing taxes and quotas on exports as global prices rise. China is coy about food donations, but North Korean ingratitude probably reduces the potential amount. After last summer's floods, China refused to ship UN grain by rail until North Korea returned at least some of its 1,800 missing wagons.

As for South Korea, previous levels of aid are now in doubt under the new administration of Lee Myung-bak. Mr Lee has tied future South Korean assistance to the North to denuclearisation and human rights. Emergency aid is exempt from such conditions, he says, but the North must request it. Having reacted furiously to Mr Lee, Mr Kim's regime will be loth to do so.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans escaped the previous famine by fleeing to China. Covert cross-border trade also helped alleviate some misery. This year, ahead of the Beijing Olympics, China wants no trouble, while North Korea has also cracked down at the border. Good Friends says that in February 13 women and two men were executed for planning to cross into China. The regime calls the first famine the “arduous march” under Mr Kim's glorious leadership. If there is to be a second march, it seems no North Korean is to be allowed to escape its rigours.

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11332771 ◦

Let Then Eat Juche