Lots of protests in Korea


Here is a photo from the conference at the Korea National Assembly yesterday. I participated in the symposium about mad cow disease and heard about how Korea has been forced to open its market to U.S. beef after pressure from the U.S. government. Dr. Mike Hansen from the U.S. Consumers Union had a lot to say about the situation at U.S. meat plants. Virtually no safety testing is going on and unsafe feed appears to be the norm. And just today, there is news that bone fragments were found in in a package of meat during quarantine inspections. Thus, the Korean government said Friday it will not allow the first batch of beef shipped from the United States to be sold in Korea...

Actually the Korean beef protest issue is part of a bigger picture. The U.S. and South Korea are negotiating a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and the U.S. demanded that Seoul must allow U.S. beef before any further FTA negotiations could take place. Opposition parties and NGOs are furious at the Korean government. I don't want to get involved in the politics of it all, but the case against U.S. beef is strong, and at least Korea should have taken the precautionary measures that Japan was able to impose, before it re-opened its market earlier this year.

As I was there, 72,000 demonstrators took to the streets in 13 cities around South Korea. Unfortunately, lots of violent protests against the FTA as well. Chosun has more details: Korea Sees Worst Labor Protests in Years

Seoul in late November was great, I hope everyone who goes there has as much luck with the weather as I did.

I also met and interviewed the producer at the TV program MBC PD File, who relentlessly uncovered the scandal with Dr. Hwang and his fake stem cell research.

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