Daily Kor for November 26, 2009: Won't somebody please think of the children?!

It's a day when the government has sought to do things that will protect children. First, we have news that maximum sentences for child molesters and various violent criminals will be raised to thirty years. This is to prevent outrageous cases like that of the guy who raped and then destroyed the internal organs of a young girl known only as Nayŏng; he was a repeat offender who kept getting ridiculously low sentences, in part because he kept claiming to be drunk at the time.

The second thing for the children is having them start school a year earlier. This will protect them, I guess, because they won't be running around the streets or watching reruns of CSI on OCN.

Meanwhile, Kim Jong-il totally dissed the head of the Russian parliament by not meeting him when he went all the way to Pyongyang. The two countries are next door to each other, but have you seen Russia? That's really far. KJI did have time to meet the Chinese defense minister. The picture from that story — which doesn't include the defense minister himself — is below.

[above: In this undated photo recently released by the Korea Central News Agency, Dear Leader Kim Jong-il cracks up reporters with his "blind man who thinks salad bar is a restroom" routine.]

1. DPRK leader Kim Jong-il meets with Chinese defense minister, says North Korean friendship with China is "unbreakable" (Reuters, AFP); Russian parliamentary speaker returns to Moscow without meeting Dear Leader (Yonhap)
2. Maximum sentence for those convicted of sex offenses against children or violent crime raised to thirty years (Yonhap, Korea Times, Korea Herald, Joongang Daily)
3. Age at entering primary school may be reduced to five (Korea Times, Korea Herald)
4. Government to combat shrinking birthrate with campaign against abortion while encouraging skilled immigration (Yonhap)
5. With twenty-two new fatalities reported in past week, South Korean H1N1 "swine flu" deaths pass the 100 mark (AFP, Yonhap, Korea Times); flu spread reportedly may have peaked in late October (Korea Herald)
6. ROK government airlifts seven tons of supplies to storm-hit Cambodia (Yonhap, Korea Times, Korea Herald)
7. Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launches effort to draw comprehensive genome map of various diseases in effort to determine how they affect Koreans (Yonhap)
8. 2010-2012 Visit Korea campaign kicks off in Shanghai (Korea Times, Yonhap)
9. Korean Communications Commission cuts daily limit on text messages from 1000 to 500 in effort to fight spam (AFP)
10. Rail workers go on strike; KORAIL vows all trains will operate according to schedule (Korea Times, Korea Herald, Joongang Daily)
11. Dear Leader Kim Jong-il calls on workers to upgrade their technical skills for IT age to improve people's standard of living (Xinhua, Yonhap)
12. North Korea calls for implementation of international aid commitments (Yonhap)
13. Corporate tax rate to fall to around 20% next year (Korea Times)
14. South Korean manufacturers' confidence drops for second straight month (Bloomberg)
15. South Korea and Australia to hold third round of free-trade talks (Yonhap)
16. Six South Korean Internet service providers earned 2 billion won from June to November selling pirated copies of movies (Yonhap)
17. Smaller and cheaper "female-only cabs" to debut in December (Korea Times)
18. LG Household buys 90% stake in TheFaceShop (Reuters via Forbes, Joongang Daily)
19. Consumers ecstatic as iPhone finally comes to island nation of Lilliput (Wired)