Today's News

International Desk: The devastating earthquake in Haiti continues to top the reporting here, as Dong-A Ilbo files a story about the Korean government "offering" USD 10 million for relief and rebuilding efforts. Korea Times leads with a suggestion that the government "is considering dispatching peacekeeping forces to earthquake-hit Haiti in a bid to help relief activities and maintain public order, a government official said Tuesday."

Also, some number of Facebook subscribers wore red clothing today, as if that would do anything to help matters at all. Many Haitians also wore red, but that was actually their blood or the blood of their loved ones.

(My personal suggestion, give to Partners in Health, Dokte Paul Farmer's organization I profiled here a while ago.)

Local Desk: A lower court today cleared TV producers of all charges relating to a program in which they lied like a Persian rug about the possibility of obtaining "crazy cow" disease from tainted American beef. In its ruling, the court said, "The contents of the program were within the boundaries of freedom of press." Curiously, the decision is painted here as one of "conservative" prosecutors vs. "liberal" judges.

The Times leads with a report that Universal Studios will finally bring a decent amusement park to Korea with real cartoon characters that anyone has ever heard of.


Weather: The cold snap has come to an end, with high temps yesterday and today being above freezing. However, it drizzled all day, slowly melting the piles of snow that hug every curb, turned black by road residue and the settling of airborne pollutants. Walking to work was a real treat for your humble narrator--well, it would have been, but I turned around and took the subway.

Sports: The Taeguk Warriors rebounded from a pair of friendly losses to beat Finland 2 - 0 Tuesday, says the Times.

The match against Finland is seen as preparation for the match against Greece at the World Cup.
“It’s difficult to say which team is better, Greece or Finland. But today, Finland did not play very well,” the boss explained.
Huh explained that his team must be more active in defending against the taller, stronger Europeans, especially when they are on the attack near the Korean net.

In other soccer news, storied athlete Seol Ki-hyeon has signed to play for Pohang Steelers, as his club career in Europe seems poised to wind down as he enters his thirties.

Makkuli Desk: "Name one person and one thing that are most associated with Korea University," began the article by Oh Young-jin and Kang Shin-who in the Korea Times. Well, after nearly a year and a half here, I thought I should know something like this, but I was stumped. Actually, now that I know the answer, I'm still stumped.

Turns out, Korea University, which is basically Korea's answer to Harvard, one of the three prestigious universities known as SKY (Seoul National, Korea, Yonsei), is planning to produce its own brand of makkuli, a fermented rice wine a bit stronger than beer, in a pilot plant set to open in May.

Now, I did my fair share of drinking in college (actually, I probably drank for two or three, but let's not get into that), and in my day, colleges even had watering holes on campus (the Golden Spur was in the student union at USC, for example), but we didn't have our own brand of hooch!