Clear & resounding message from Sinn Féin Republican Youth Béal Feirste and Belfast Sinn Féin elected reps:
Refugees welcome in Ireland.
Open the borders.
Saturday, 5 September 2015
This is the draft prologue from my manuscript I'm finalising over the next 3-4 months. This prologue is set in Seoul. The manuscript is titled RED PACK BANG and is about international control, transport and crime; its a novel. If you'd like to read Chapter one, please indicate by leaving a comment or just by viewing the prologue.
Prologue
The
President’s Palace, Seoul, South Korea
The North Korean and Chinese delegates,
outside the main palace’s formal photographic room, were dutifully waiting for
the ceremonial single ‘knock’ to be delivered by the official usher.
The crowd of one hundred and twenty five
photographers and journalists were separated from the guards and officials by a
pristine red velvet rope.
The Usher was a gaunt, white haired, and
obviously venerated old Korean gentleman wearing a formal suit, and white silk
gloves. He must have been eighty and must have seen the decades of trouble and
of wonder in Korea, a nation separated by the foreign and the insane. That hard
time was over now. The healing had begun.
He knocked once on the great reinforced
oak doors with a ceremonial carved golden staff. He paused, respectfully, as
per custom; and then opened the thick sound-proofed doors inwards.
The carnage that awaited them all became
the last thing, apart from the shattering jags of glass and the singularly
bright red-orange flash, any of them ever saw.
In addition to the bodies of the Usher,
the US President, the translator, the Secret Service Agents, the Chinese and
North Korean delegates, one hundred and thirty six other people were
incinerated by the explosion of the sidewinder missile that came straight through
the heavily armoured ‘impenetrable’ glass of the South Korean Presidential
Palace’s formal photographic room, straight through the massive open doors,
fully detonating within the packed lobby.
The Red Package had been delivered.
KOREA news
Singapore firm building major new commercial building in N. Korea
By Chad O'Carroll A Singaporean-linked company is building a major new commercial building in Pyongyang, which will incorporate a large department store and office space, sources in North Korea have told NK News.
The building, which recent photos show to be at least 24 floors high, is located near Tongil street – in the south of Pyongyang – and currently appears to be in the latter stages of construction. “The Southeast Asian development department store on Reunification Street is getting built pretty damn quickly,” a source familiar with the construction, who requested anonymity, told NK News. “Sparks are falling off the building at night time constantly.
“As far as I know it’s a Singaporean company that’s funding the entire thing … they will be opening their own stores there,” the source continued, adding that rumors in-country suggest it will house “Pyongyang’s largest department store.”
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Over the border: What Dandong means to N. Korea
By Dr. Andrei Lankov
At a cursory glance, the Chinese city of Dandong is quite unremarkable; just one of many medium-sized cities to be found in China. It has its fair share of slums dating to the first half of the last century, not to mention its share of skyscrapers that play host to a Chinese nouveau riche doing their best at imitating their Western middle class counterparts.
For the student of North Korea, however, this place is vital, and is potentially a veritable gold mine. This is, after all, the major channel for goods, money, intelligence and knowledge flowing in and out of North Korea.
Dandong, together with the North Korean city of Sinuiju on the opposite bank of the Yalu/Amnok river, serves as North Korea’s major entry port to China and, broader speaking, the entire outside world.
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Why some N. Korean defectors’ stories fall apart
By Jiyoung Song In its report released in February 2014, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry accused North Korean leader Kim Jong Un of committing crimes against humanity and called for the case to be referred to the International Criminal Court. For its report the COI, having been denied access to North Korea, instead carried out 240 confidential interviews with North Korean refugees living in South Korea, Japan, the UK and the U.S., including Shin Dong-hyuk.
In January 2015, however, the DPRK government released a video of Shin’s father, claiming Shin’s stories were fake. When questioned Shin confessed that parts of the stories in his book were not correct, including sections on his time in Camp 14 and the age he was tortured.
There are numerous other stories told by North Koreans that have later been found to be unreliable, even by North Korean standards.
Click here for the full article at NK News |
South Korea’s Dead Governors Society
By Fyodor Tertitskiy There are many disputed territories in the modern world. China claims ownership of Taiwan, Japan claims that South Kuril Islands should belong to it, Argentina claims the Falklands, Gabon claims the island of Corisco, etc. The complete list would be huge.
Usually the pretending country created formal territorial units on the soil it claims. For example, the PRC formally has the “Taiwan Province” and Japan created the counties of Kunashiri, Shikotan, Shibetoro, Shana and Etorofu, which lie on the islands Tokyo has no control of. In some cases a “government in exile” is created, which should wield symbolic power over the claimed land. For example, Georgia has the Government of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia, which, according to Tbilisi is the legitimate government of Abkhazia – despite the latter being a de-facto independent country since 1992.
A similar organization exists in South Korea as well. It is called the “Department for the Five Northern Provinces” and, as one may guess, it is considered the legitimate government of North Korea.
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Until they are home: The unit that scours for Korean War remains
By JH Ahn At the end of August the South Korean Ministry of National Defense Agency for KIA Recovery & Identification (MAKRI) announced that it will launch a new set of mass recovery missions at a site near Yanggu, in South Korea’s Gangwon Province. Lee Young-suk, a 16-year veteran of the organization, expects it to approach this new mission to retrieve remains from the Korean War in accordance with its principles.
“Our slogan is ‘First in, last out,’” said Lee, MAKRI’s current director of investigation. “Our recovery agents are always the first to show up at the recovery site and the last to leave until the very last remains of the fallen are recovered.”
Lee spoke to NK News over the phone as he was working on an island in the Yellow Sea, west of the Korean Peninsula, searching for the remains of an ROK Special Task Force team killed near the area battling North Koreans in the Korean War.
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Yukio Mishima books
I'm just recalling Mishima's novels that I've read over the years and am thinking of reading again soon...The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea I recall was very good and sharp; dark/bright incisive mind...so I think I will begin with this.
At the moment I'm slowly re-reading Camus' The Outsider. Stunning literature.
After Mishima will come a re-reading of Yasunari Kawabata's works.
I like re-reading a book after about a decade. New meanings and nuances flow. I recall I've read Hesse's Steppenwolf 3 times now, the first time when I was 20 and I found it to be very dark and brooding. At 40 years of age I found it to be quite fascinating. At 60 years of age I found it to be very funny/humorous...so it depends when you read things as well as what you read.
At the moment I'm slowly re-reading Camus' The Outsider. Stunning literature.
After Mishima will come a re-reading of Yasunari Kawabata's works.
I like re-reading a book after about a decade. New meanings and nuances flow. I recall I've read Hesse's Steppenwolf 3 times now, the first time when I was 20 and I found it to be very dark and brooding. At 40 years of age I found it to be quite fascinating. At 60 years of age I found it to be very funny/humorous...so it depends when you read things as well as what you read.
South and North Korea News
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Top Stories Today
N. Koreas Choe Ryong-hae returns home empty-handed (Yonhap News)
A key aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has failed to hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.
A key aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has failed to hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.
SK to provide 3 billion KRW in aid for inter-Korean forestry initiative (The Daily NK)
In a show of good faith, the South Korean government is planning to provide 3 billion KRW in funding for cooperative exchange between the South and North.
In a show of good faith, the South Korean government is planning to provide 3 billion KRW in funding for cooperative exchange between the South and North.
DMZ film fest to open inside civilian control line (JoongAng Ilbo)
The seventh DMZ International Documentary Film Festival will kick off its eight-day run within miles of the demilitarized zone with a documentary about the life of a North Korean pop artist.
The seventh DMZ International Documentary Film Festival will kick off its eight-day run within miles of the demilitarized zone with a documentary about the life of a North Korean pop artist.
North Korea video shows two on trial for watching American films (The Daily Telegraph)
The two accused, aged 30 and 27, are made to stand outside in front of a 100-strong crowd as the charges against them are blasted out of loudspeakers attached to a van.
The two accused, aged 30 and 27, are made to stand outside in front of a 100-strong crowd as the charges against them are blasted out of loudspeakers attached to a van.
NK leader possibly visited weapon factory during China's military parade (Korea Times)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has inspected a machinery factory in a northwestern border city, the North's official media said Friday.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has inspected a machinery factory in a northwestern border city, the North's official media said Friday.
Friday, 4 September 2015
The Boy
The boy is about 8 years old. He is from Korea. He comes to our home with his older brother and his mother on Friday afternoons to learn Mandarin from my wife. I have never met this boy but my wife tells me that when he comes into our home he runs straight to the lounge I love to lie on all day and he lies on it, outstretched, as if in deep bliss for as long as he can before being called to his lesson. Then, he has to go to the toilet in the bathroom I use, and then he comes out, happy and refreshed, ready to learn everything. This is his pattern.
Knowing this, I have taken up the habit of brushing down the lounge and putting a nice fresh cotton blanket on it, for him, and I have taken to mopping out the bathroom before he arrives, every time.
I have never met this small boy, you know, and I would doubt I ever will as I am never here at his lesson time, but I think that he may be me. I wish him well indeed. I like him. He already knows quality of life at eight.
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