Lee says the 15-year-old fights her attempts to get him to log off, screaming and physically lashing out at her entreaties. She pulls up her sleeves to reveal bruises she says come from his blows.

Her son is among some 2 million people classified by the government as "Internet addicts" in South Korea, a nation of 49 million considered one of the most technologically wired in the world.

Some are becoming increasingly violent.

South Korean gov’t: 2 million ‘addicted’ to the internet

They’re known as ajumma, a word long applied to married women with children but which in recent years has taken on a pejorative connotation that irks Kim.

Among many South Koreans, it’s now often used to conjure an image of homemakers who disdain full-time jobs to while away afternoons on park benches, in coffee shops and at social clubs, bragging about their children and, if they’ve got the money, go on shopping sprees.

South Korea’s homemakers don’t want to be pegged – Los Angeles Times

The gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, was found already dead by his own gun. His toll: 32 people–27 students and five professors–were dead. It was the deadliest peacetime shooting incident by a single gunman in United States history, on or off a school campus.

Fredericksburg.com – Va. Tech shootings were felt by Koreans

Korean Night promoted better understanding of both traditional and modern Korean culture Monday at the Oklahoma Memorial Union.

“We’re basically trying to spread the Korean culture across the campus, and get to the general student body so they can learn more and appreciate the Korean culture more,” said Jason Kim, Korean Student Association vice president.

Performances included HwaKwanMu, a traditional Korean dance and a traditional Korean drum line.

OUDaily.com | Korean Night embraces tradition, modern culture

The availability of a heavier, bulkier and brawnier V-6 meant that many of the old Sonata’s parts had to be enlarged to handle the engine, even though few customers actually bought it. With only a four-cylinder engine available, the steel in the Sonata’s front frame rails can be thinner and it can use smaller brakes than if it had the bigger engine, explained John Krafcik, president and CEO of Hyundai North America.

Review: Sonata ascends to sedan pantheon – MotorHead- msnbc.com

MBC, the South Korea’s second biggest TV station, reveals some shocking secrets on a program called "Mysterious TV Surprise." In its program on March 7 this year, it claimed that Zhu Yuanzhang, the builder and first emperor of China’s Ming Dynasty, could possibly have been a Korean.
In the following days, several influential South Korean media outlets published the "news" in quick succession, including the Web sites of Newsen, JoongAng Daily and Yahoo ROK and so on.

What to rewrite, history or South Korean mindset? – People’s Daily Online

This Chinese article is so snarky I had to laugh.  Here’s the punch line:

And frankly speaking, China had controlled Korea many times both on military affairs and culture in history, so these ideas are understandable.

Despite a wide age and academic gap, over half of foreign spouses married to Koreans showed relatively high satisfaction with their lives here, according to survey results released yesterday.

The Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs surveyed about 131,000 foreign spouses between July and October last year, in what was the widest-ranging government-run survey of marriage immigrants ever conducted.

The Korea Herald : The Nation’s No.1 English Newspaper

Then why is Cambodia placing a ban on such marriages?

Seoul – Cambodia’s government has put a temporary ban on marriages of its people to South Koreans in a preventive measure against human trafficking, an official at the South Korean embassy in Cambodia told the Yonhap News Agency Friday.

The ban only applies to South Korean-Cambodian couples. Nearly 60 per cent of international marriages in the South-East Asian country are arranged matches to South Koreans, the official said.

Cambodia puts temporary ban on marriages to Koreans
Read more: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1542265.php/Cambodia-puts-temporary-ban-on-marriages-to-Koreans#ixzz0icmPkA5e

Two bulls enter the oval arena, bellowing loudly, and exchange momentary glares. Then they clash head to head — and there’s not a matador in sight.

Centuries after the tradition began, Korean bullfighting still draws frenzied crowds who don’t seem to miss the bloodshed of the Spanish version.

"The bulls fight each other. Whereas the bullfighter is always the winner in the Spanish version, our winner is undisclosed until the end," Cheongdo county mayor Lee Joong-Geun told AFP this week as the annual bullfighting festival began.

No death in the afternoon at S.Korea bullfight

SEOUL (AFP) – North Korea has sent around 1,000 workers to South Africa to help build or renovate stadiums hosting the upcoming World Cup football tournament, South Korean media reports said Monday.

However a World Cup co-ordinator in South Africa and the project manager on one of the 10 host stadiums denied the report.

JoongAng Daily said the North Koreans were working at four to five stadiums, including Soccer City in Johannesburg, where the opening and closing ceremonies as well as the final will be staged.

"The North’s government will likely demand loyalty from those workers and collect their wages to add to their foreign currency reserve," a Seoul government official told the paper.

But the manager of the Soccer City renovation project said the report was untrue.

"One thing for sure is we’ve never had any Koreans, North or South, on Soccer City," said Mike Moody of construction firm Grinaker-LTA.

"To the best of my knowledge, no one’s employed any Koreans anywhere," Moody told AFP.

Ndavhe Ramakuela, World Cup co-ordinator for the city of Polokwane, also said no North Koreans were involved in construction there.

"I’ve been on site a thousand times and I didn’t spot any Koreans," Ramakuela told AFP.

N.Korea ‘helps South Africa prepare World Cup stadiums’: reports – Yahoo! News

SEOUL – North Korea’s rhetoric is such a familiar noise during United States-South Korean war games that most people don’t pay attention. Nor does anyone outside the US and Korean military establishments seem to care much about the exercises themselves – Key Resolve and Foal Eagle.
The real exchange of fire seems to be going on quite separately. That’s a debate among Americans and Koreans over one of the most contentious issues between the US and South Korea, namely the plan to give "operational control" over all military operations to a South Korean commander in the event of war with the North.

Asia Times Online :: Korea News and Korean Business and Economy, Pyongyang News

The most frequent excuse given is that Korea does not posses the Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence (C4I) to assume operational control.  Bullshite.  I propose that the Korean reluctance to assume OPCON is cultural rather than technological…it stems from Confucian filial piety. The US military is seen subconsciously as the doctrinal, organizational, and technological “father” or “ancestor” of the Korean military and is to be obeyed, respected, and supported.  Certainly there are fiscal issues involved as well, but the proverbial elephant in the room is filial piety.