Kathreb

Twas not my intention to blog today but I stumbled across a couple of links today that I thought were interesting or at least might be interesting since I didn't have to to read them in-depth. The first one is from Time Asia which has a rather expansive coverage of current events in Korea, including an interview with President Roh. On the topic of politics our new Minister for Planning and Budget is our former Vice Minister. Nice to see for once they got in someone with practical background in this field. Yesterday afternoon we met in the auditorium for a farewell speech by outgoing Minister Chang Seung-Woo and then we reconvened a bit later for the welcome speech of our new minister Mr Park Bong-Heum. Even with my limited Korean I thought it was a good welcome speech and this was confirmed by my work colleague who told me he emphasised our need to work as a team for the greater good and his support of 'circle' activities such as the brown-bag meetings and creating a good working atmosphere for the staff. Very encouraging. He even came round to all the offices today to shake hands and say 'hi' to everyone.

The Korea Times has a line of the new Cabinet members. Notably four women have got ministerial positions for Justice, Health and welfare, Environment, and Gender equality portfolios. It remains to be see of the course the changes that will happen in each ministry. There is much speculation at this date but most expect that more important issues will see changes in the ministries delayed for a little while yet....hopefully until after I renew my contract.

The second bit of news of interest I read today was Harvard University's plan to create a 'blogoshpere'. Apparently some hot-shot blogger by the name of David Winner (could have gotten that wrong) has headed over there to help set this thing up. If successful it could be the pioneering case for other universities to follow in the near future. His work in this field can be followed at this address and at this address. I hope Stanford gets on board. Perhaps one day my blog page could be a highly respected source of information and opinion on Korea's economic and political development...or more realistically, maybe not. But it would give more people easy access to find out that my weblog page is NOT a vital or respected source of information and has dodgy opinions (and translations on occassion) that should be rapidly rejected.

Society Column
Anyone who's anyone this weekend is *obviously* going to the going away party of one my friends this Saturday night in Itaewon. The theme is some kind of thugs and gangsters deal, maybe girlz in da hood. I've been told to don hip hop jeans, white joggers, a bandanna and big hoop earrings. So if anyone see a scrawny little white girl trying to look way too cool for her clothes this weekend, you know who it is.

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