As South Korea honors the dozens of fallen sailors killed in the
Chonan sinking, presumably by the hand of North Korea, international news agencies like the
Washington Post,
BBC, and
UPI wonder about the odd situation of a country that is militarily attacked but does not respond.
- Nation mourns Chonan sailors with five-hour funeral (Yonhap, Korea Times, Korea Herald, Joongang Daily, Donga Ilbo)
- President Lee meets with PRC President Hu Jintao to discuss situation on Korean Peninsula (Yonhap)
- South Korea gives Prudential anti-trust green light in takeover of AIG (Reuters)
- Zimbabwean opposition demonstrates against DPRK national soccer team in their country in protest of North Korean involvement in five-year conflict in 1980s (AP via WaPo)
- New Zealand racist sentenced to sixteen years in prison over killing of South Korean hitchhiker (BBC)
- Chile and South Korea agree to deepen trade ties (Yonhap)
- Moon landing skeptics say lunar photos are actually cantaloupe (BBC)
That racist murderer in New Zealand should have received a stiffer sentence - it was a really horrible crime.
ReplyDeleteThere was an extremely disturbing article on the NZ Yahoo! news site.
The main point in both the article and the video is that skinhead group membership appears to rise as the economy deteriorates. They claim that the current recession in New Zealand has contributed (along with other factors) to recent (re-)growth of skinhead groups. They then connect this to a similar rise that took place in the early nineties.
I was a student back then, and remember a run-in I had with a skinhead on a dark, deserted street one night. But for a long time after, I didn't really see many skinheads around. Maybe I was just lucky. I heard one or two stories from my foreign language students (foreign students studying English in NZ) about their experiences... mostly minor (non-violent) stuff - young, white, poor-looking types shouting obscenities, and generally being obnoxious.
I find this whole skinhead gang issue particularly concerning as my parents retired to the area (Westland) where this killing occurred. It's a beautiful place, and attracts large numbers of tourists, but has few employment opportunities (except labouring, farming, mining, etc.) outside the tourism and service sectors.
The skinhead group the murderer belongs to seems to be based in the district or nearby. And they don't just target non-whites, they seem especially violent, hateful, and resentful of society at large.
For anyone who reads the article (and watches the video)linked above: "pakeha" = white person. It's a Maori word.
Actually, I should have written "West Coast," not "Westland."
ReplyDeleteThanks for the insight, Schplook.
ReplyDeleteIn the US, too, such racist skinheads often target Whites as well, particularly those who mix socially or romantically with non-Whites.