Cynthia Yoo has another review of the week's events at English OhMyNews, and there's another interesting article, translated by Yoo from another staffer's blog, on the protest against Lee's appointment of his crony Gu Bon-heung as CEO of the Yonhap cable news network (YTN). I'm gratified to hear that the major Korean web portals are resisting Lee's attempts to control political debate on the Internet, and that media organizations have condemned the government's punishment of MBC for airing segments (back in April and mid-May) skeptical of the safety of US beef.
The Korea Herald has run another American op-ed piece, "Where Did It All Go Wrong For Lee?", which begins by casually referring to "the ongoing violent protests in South Korea over imported beef from the United States." If it also referred to, say, the violent regime of Lee Myeong-bak, it would be a bit more balanced. But I looked again at Cynthia Yoo's article, and golly gee, there are violent protests going on in Korea now, as you can see in the photo below. The corporate media aren't denouncing them, though, because they're protests against Japan's claim of Dokdo Island as Japanese territory. President Lee has been making tough noises about Korean pride, and no doubt he hopes to boost his abysmal approval ratings by doing so.
Photo ©2008 Song Ju-min, from OhMyNews International.
