Nodutdol | News | January 2009

NEWS | January 2009

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

New York Times, January 27, 2009: Clinton Raises Prospect of Direct Negotiations With North Korea

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton suggested on Tuesday that there could be high-level direct negotiations with North Korea, and offered the view that American relations with China had been overly dominated by economic concerns during the Bush administration.

In her first remarks to reporters as the nation’s chief diplomat, Mrs. Clinton reaffirmed the Obama administration’s commitment to continued multilateral negotiations with North Korea over its nuclear program, with China, Japan, Russia and South Korea also taking part. But she noted that there have also been one-on-one talks between the United States and North Korea within the context of the six-party arrangement.

Monday, January 26, 2009

SUMMER INTERNSHIP ANNOUNCEMENT-APPLY NOW!!!

Application Deadline: March 15, 2009

Through grassroots organizing, Nodutdol for Korean Community Development seeks to bridge divisions created by war, nation, gender, sexual orientation, language, class, and generation among Koreans and to empower our community to address the injustices we and other people of color face here and abroad. Nodutdol works in collaboration with other progressive organizations locally, nationally and internationally as part of a larger movement for peace and social change. To learn more about Nodutdol, go to http://www.nodutdol.org.

In 2009, Nodutdol, as part of a national coalition, will launch a national campaign for the ratification of a Peace Treaty on the Korean peninsula. Summer interns will assist in the campaign in many different ways, and responsibilities may include:

• Studying the origin of Korea’s national division and the history of the people’s movement for peace and national unification;
• Surveying Korean American youth and students to assess general attitudes on the prospect for peace and unification on the Korean peninsula;
• Developing workshops and educational materials aimed at reaching and mobilizing a broad base of Korean American youth and students in the campaign;
• Developing outreach materials and utilizing mass media to promote a national Peace Treaty tour;
• Making contacts with student organizations on local campuses to arrange workshops and other educational events;
• Bringing together student leaders from various campuses and organizations to form a host committee for the national Peace Treaty tour; and
• Facilitating workshops and giving presentations at schools, churches, and community organizations.

Internship will be 10 weeks from June through August. (Exact dates/times TBD.)

Send resumes and cover letters no later than March 15, 2009 to:

Summer Internship Search Committee
Nodutdol for Korean Community Development
5322 Roosevelt Ave, 2 floor
Woodside NY 11377

Or to [indicate, ‘summer internship’ in the subject]

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Radio Transmission Reveals Police Armed Security Guards for Yongsan Crackdown by The Hankyoreh

Security guards bearing sledgehammers stormed demonstration site with police before deadly fire broke out.

» Members of the “Committee against the Brutal Suppression of the Yongsan Demolition Protest” urge the government to fire Seoul Police Commissioner Kim Seok-ki at a press conference in front of the Seoul Central Prosecutors’ Office in Seocho-dong on January 23. Earlier, two Democratic Party lawmakers released a recording of a police radio transmission that revealed police had engaged and armed security guards in its crackdown on the January 20 demonstration, which ended in the deaths of six people.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

NODUTDOL SHOWS SOLIDARITY AT GAZA RALLY, NYC JANUARY 2009

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Analysis: Obama foreign policy favors diplomacy by Robert Burns, AP writer on Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON – Diplomacy now trumps defense as the main instrument of American foreign policy.

At least that is the intent that President Barack Obama and his change-minded secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, spelled out on their first days. They made clear that the military will be a prominent — but no longer dominant — tool for achieving U.S. goals abroad.

The message was reflected clearly in Obama’s decision, on his second full day in the White House, to close the military-run prison for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and to include the State Department in a broad government study of how to proceed with terrorist detentions in the future.

In a subtler but equally telling way, the commander in chief’s decision to visit the State Department before stepping foot in the Pentagon indicated his intention to elevate the role of diplomacy.

Setting the stage for what amounted to Obama’s first foreign policy address since his inauguration, Vice President Joe Biden told State Department employees on Thursday that Clinton’s charter is to “put diplomacy back in the forefront of America’s foreign policy,” and to do so immediately.

“For too long, we’ve put the bulk of the burden, in my view, on our military,” Biden said.

Obama put it this way: “A new era of American leadership is at hand, and the hard work has just begun. You are going to be at the front lines of engaging in that important work.”

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

A Call for Change, Rejecting Bush Era, Reclaiming Values by David E. Sanger of the New York Times

A Call for Change
Rejecting Bush Era, Reclaiming Values

By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: January 20, 2009

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address on Tuesday was a stark repudiation of the era of George W. Bush and the ideological certainties that surrounded it, wrapped in his pledge to drive the United States into “a new age” by reclaiming the values of an older one.

It was a delicate task, with Mr. Bush and Dick Cheney sitting feet from him as Mr. Obama, only minutes into his term as president, described the false turns and the roads not taken.

To read his words literally, Mr. Obama blamed no one other than the country itself, critiquing “our collective failure to make hard choices” and a willingness to suspend national ideals “for expedience’s sake” — a clear reference to the cascade of decisions ranging from interrogation policies to wiretapping to the invasion of Iraq.

Yet not since 1933, when Franklin D. Roosevelt called for a “restoration” of American ethics and “action, and action now” as Herbert Hoover sat and seethed, has a new president so publicly rejected the essence of his predecessor’s path.

When Mr. Obama looked forward, however, he was far less specific about how he would combine his lofty vision and his passion for pragmatism into urgently needed solutions.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

US abstention stuns security council by Julian Borger and Ian Black of The Guardian

US abstention stuns security council
by Julian Borger and Ian Black
The Guardian

A UN resolution calling for an end to the fighting in Gaza was weakened at the last minute by a surprise US abstention, it emerged yesterday.

Diplomatic sources said the US was closely involved in the drafting of the security council resolution calling for a ceasefire and that Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, had defended it in the face of pressure from Israel. The US abstention, at the final vote, stunned British and French diplomats.

The resolution, calling for a truce and a withdrawal of Israeli troops once a “durable” ceasefire had been achieved was passed 14-0, but the US abstention will soften its impact in Israel, where signals sent from Washington are carefully scrutinised and where an election is looming.

Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister, issued a statement saying the resolution was “not practical” and the offensive against Hamas in Gaza would continue.

Israel opposed the resolution on the grounds that it put the state on an equal footing with Hamas, and did not give a complete guarantee against further attacks from Hamas rockets.

Thursday night’s call from Washington ordering an abstention appears to have come after an eleventh-hour appeal to the White House from Olmert.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

A Video clip by Israel Social TV regarding Soldiers refusing to serve the Terror in Gaza

Click Here for the page

There are a lot of voices within Israel against the recent attacks in Gaza, however Western media fails to report on these voices. Amnesty International USA also reported on December 18, 2008 three Israeli teenagers were jailed because they refused to serve the army when called. Israel, like the Republic of Korea, has a draft system and everyone must go to the army when drafted. It takes a lot of courage to be a conscientious objector in the country, because it has a greater impact on the person in their society.

For the detailed report on these three teenagers, click here.

As Korean Americans with a passed-down history of occupation and division, the Palestine issue deeply resonates an urgent sense of solidarity, justice and action within ourselves.

Not another nickel, not another dime, no more money for Israeli crime!
Free, free Palestine, End, end the occupation!
Gaza, Gaza, Don’t you Cry, Palestine will never die.
No justice, No peace.
U.S. out of Middle East!

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Obama Raises Estimate of Job Creation in Plan by By JEFF ZELENY et al. of the New York Times

By JEFF ZELENY and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: January 10, 2009

WASHINGTON — One day after the nation’s unemployment rate was reported to be at a 16-year high, President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday again raised the estimate of how many jobs would result from his economic recovery plan, saying it would create or save three million to four million, nearly 90 percent of them in the private sector.

President-elect Barack Obama, joined by Adrian M. Fenty, the mayor of Washington, at right, ordered a half-smoke, a local sausage delicacy, for lunch on Saturday at Ben’s Chili Bowl.

Friday, January 9, 2009

“잊을 수가 없어 나를 경멸하던 엄마의 눈빛을” by Park Soo-Jin of the Hangyoreh

기지촌 할머니 51명 설문조사…국가는 미군 요구대로 여성들 관리하던 ‘거대한 포주’
(for the article on Hangyoreh 21 website, click here

2008년 평택은 들썩이고 있다. 주한미군 기지의 2012~2013년 평택 이전계획이 나온 뒤, 온갖 장밋빛 구상들이 쏟아졌다. 개발지구의 땅값은 치솟았고, 시내 곳곳에는 ‘슈퍼평택’ ‘국제도시 평택’ 등의 펼침막이 펄럭인다.

미군 부대 캠프 험프리(K-6)가 있는 평택 안정리에도 재개발 바람이 불어닥쳤다. 이곳에서 수십 년 동안 미군을 상대했던 ‘기지촌 할머니’ 59명은 골목 깊숙한 곳에서 숨죽이며 이 바람을 지켜보고 있다. 한평생 ‘출구 없는 삶’을 산 이들은 생존의 마지막 보루인 단칸방에서조차 밀려날까 마음 졸이고 있다. <한겨레21>은 평택시 안정리에 살고 있는 ‘기지촌 할머니’ 51명의 이야기를 들었다. [편집자]

▣ 평택=글 박수진 기자
▣ 사진 류우종 기자

1월8일 추운 밤이었다. 경기도 평택시 안정리 10여 개의 클럽이 불을 밝힌 큰길에서 5분쯤 걸어갔다. 허름한 2층짜리 시멘트 건물 1층. 파란색 페인트가 드문드문 벗겨진 미닫이 나무 대문을 밀었다. 힘을 줘도 잘 열리지 않고 삐그덕거리기만 했다. 간신히 문을 열고 들어서자 앞이 캄캄했다. 0.5평(1.6㎡) 부엌이었다. 벽을 더듬어 스위치를 찾았지만 불은 켜지지 않았다. “할머니”를 부르자 안쪽 또 다른 미닫이문이 천천히 열렸다. 그제야 불빛이 비쳤다.

월세방에서도 쫓겨날 상황

방문 앞 검붉은 연탄보일러 옆에 연탄 20여 장이 쌓여 있는 게 눈에 들어왔다. 김귀자(78·가명) 할머니는 천식이 심해져 두 달째 병원에 있다가 이날 퇴원한 길이었다. 할머니의 단칸방 화장대 거울에는 60~70년대 할리우드 여배우처럼 머리를 부풀려 올린 젊은 시절의 흑백사진이 놓여 있다. 사진 속의 ‘그녀’는 단아한 표정으로 미소를 머금고 있다. 김 할머니는 천식 때문에 한 마디 하고 숨을 몰아쉬고, 또 한 마디 하고 숨을 몰아쉬었다.

“1963년이었을거야. 윤복희가 미니스커트 입기도 전에 내가 먼저 미니스커트 입고 부츠 신고 평택극장을 돌아다녔어. 그때 파라다이스 클럽 기주(문지기)하던 사람이 지금도 여기 사는데, 날 보면 놀려. 에이(A)급 색시였던 그 김 마담이 늙은이가 다 됐다고….” 1951년 21살에 결혼한 김 할머니는 애가 들어서지 않았다고 한다. “대를 끊을 거면 제 발로 나가달라”는 시어머니의 성화에 1년 만에 집에서 쫓겨나, 부산 미군부대 안 클럽의 웨이트리스로 취직하면서 ‘기지촌 생활’을 시작했다.

‘애를 못 낳는다’던 그는 몇 년 뒤 거짓말처럼 아이를 가졌다. 미군의 아이였다. 김 할머니는 “애가 안 들어선 것이 내 탓이 아닌데 쫓겨난 것이 억울해”라고 말했다. 태어난 애를 “싸들고” 전남편과 시어머니를 찾아가 따지기도 했다. 클럽 웨이트리스 생활, 마담 생활, 미군과의 동거 등 40여 년의 기지촌 생활이 김 할머니에게 남긴 건 월 8만원짜리 단칸방과 천식·골다공증·담석증과, 6살 된 아들을 입양 보내고 먹었던 수면제 28알의 기억과, 2년 전 32년 만에 다시 만나게 된 아들 제임스뿐이다.

김 할머니처럼 ‘기지촌 생활’을 한 할머니 59명이 여전히 미군기지 캠프 험프리(K-6)가 있는 평택시 안정리에 살고 있다. 매주 화요일 오후 2시면, 할머니들은 안정리 팽성읍에 있는 햇살사회복지회로 모인다. 안정리에 살고 있는 기지촌 여성노인을 돌보는 활동을 하는 단체다. 8일에도 어김없이 모인 할머니들은 “등 붙일 만한, 떠나야 할 불안감 없이 살 수 있는 집 한 채만 있었으면 좋겠다”고 말했다.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Ex-Prostitutes Say South Korea and U.S. Enabled Sex Trade Near Bases by Choe Sang Hun of NY TIMES

Ex-Prostitutes Say South Korea and U.S. Enabled Sex Trade Near Bases
by Choe Sang Hun
New York Times (January 7, 2009)

for the NY Times page, click here

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea has railed for years against the Japanese government’s waffling over how much responsibility it bears for one of the ugliest chapters in its wartime history: the enslavement of women from Korea and elsewhere to work in brothels serving Japan’s imperial army.

Now, a group of former prostitutes in South Korea have accused some of their country’s former leaders of a different kind of abuse: encouraging them to have sex with the American soldiers who protected South Korea from North Korea. They also accuse past South Korean governments, and the United States military, of taking a direct hand in the sex trade from the 1960s through the 1980s, working together to build a testing and treatment system to ensure that prostitutes were disease-free for American troops.

While the women have made no claims that they were coerced into prostitution by South Korean or American officials during those years, they accuse successive Korean governments of hypocrisy in calling for reparations from Japan while refusing to take a hard look at South Korea’s own history.

“Our government was one big pimp for the U.S. military,” one of the women, Kim Ae-ran, 58, said in a recent interview.

Scholars on the issue say that the South Korean government was motivated in part by fears that the American military would leave, and that it wanted to do whatever it could to prevent that.

But the women suggest that the government also viewed them as commodities to be used to shore up the country’s struggling economy in the decades after the Korean War. They say the government not only sponsored classes for them in basic English and etiquette — meant to help them sell themselves more effectively — but also sent bureaucrats to praise them for earning dollars when South Korea was desperate for foreign currency.

“They urged us to sell as much as possible to the G.I.’s, praising us as ‘dollar-earning patriots,’ ” Ms. Kim said.

Monday, January 5, 2009

North Korea vows to bolster its military in 2009 by Hyung-Jin Kim of the Associated Press

[Happy new year, everyone. This is Juyeon. Have I told you that I have problems with the sensationalism in the news media? The title could have been “North Korea Reaffirms Its Commitment to Denuclearization,” or “North Korea Changes Its Tone in New Year’s Address Hoping to Build up Ties with the Incoming Government of President-elect Barack Obama.” But, of course, then, the ‘reclusive country’ will sound too tame and good, right? Besides, what’s up with the conservative extremes who intentionally want to block any effort the south and the north may be able to make by ruthlessly provoking the north with balloons? As if they represent all Korean people! Aarrgh! Sorry to put personal comments here in the news column. Couldn’t help myself.]

North Korea vows to bolster its military in 2009
by Hyung-Jin Kim (The Associated Press) Google page of the AP News

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea ushered in 2009 with an appeal Thursday to unite around leader Kim Jong Il and bolster the country’s military while reaffirming its commitment to denuclearization.

North Korea traditionally marks New Year’s Day with a joint editorial by the country’s three major state-run newspapers representing its communist party, military and youth militia force. Outside observers pore over the statement for insight on the reclusive country’s policy direction.

This year’s message accused South Korea of an “anachronistic confrontation policy” and stressed the need to strengthen the country’s 1.2 million-member military — the backbone of Kim’s totalitarian rule.

However, it lacked the country’s usual criticisms of the United States, an indication the country may hope to build up ties with the incoming government of President-elect Barack Obama.

A President Forgotten but Not Gone by Frank Rich at Opinion Section in the New York Times (1-3-09)

A President Forgotten but Not Gone
by Frank Rich
Published January 3, 2009 Op-ed by Frank Rich on Bush

WE like our failed presidents to be Shakespearean, or at least large enough to inspire Oscar-worthy performances from magnificent tragedians like Frank Langella. So here, too, George W. Bush has let us down. Even the banality of evil is too grandiose a concept for 43. He is not a memorable villain so much as a sometimes affable second banana whom Josh Brolin and Will Ferrell can nail without breaking a sweat. He’s the reckless Yalie Tom Buchanan, not Gatsby. He is smaller than life.

The last NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll on Bush’s presidency found that 79 percent of Americans will not miss him after he leaves the White House. He is being forgotten already, even if he’s not yet gone. You start to pity him until you remember how vast the wreckage is. It stretches from the Middle East to Wall Street to Main Street and even into the heavens, which have been a safe haven for toxins under his passive stewardship. The discrepancy between the grandeur of the failure and the stature of the man is a puzzlement. We are still trying to compute it.

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