A meeting of South Korea's influential National Security Council yesterday was likely to touch on whether more could have been done to prevent the killing in Iraq of hostage Kim Sun-il.
The government's inspection and auditing body launched an investigation into the Foreign Ministry over possible delays.
Militants decapitated the 33-year-old Kim after Seoul rejected their demands to pull 670 South Korean military medics and engineers out of Iraq and drop plans to send 3,000 troops.
"One of the issues to be discussed at the meeting is follow-up steps related to the killing of Kim Sun-il, including the return of his body," said a spokeswoman for the council, which advises President Roh Moo-hyun.
Roh has argued the troop decision was a tough but vital step to support the US, an ally that maintains 37,500 troops in South Korea to deter long-time foe North Korea.
On Thursday, Roh ordered a full investigation into the kidnapping and beheading of Kim after it emerged the man was abducted three weeks before Seoul said it found out.
The Foreign Ministry is facing public anger over reports that the US news agency Associated Press had asked the ministry about a possible abducted South Korean in early June. AP's television agency had video footage of Kim in captivity at that time.
The government's inspection and auditing body began investigating the Foreign Ministry and the embassy in Iraq on Friday to help clear public suspicion about the killing.
"The Board of Inspection and Audit realizes this incident has to do with the trust in the government and we plan to do our best to make in-depth investigations and reveal the results as soon as possible to clear the public distrust," a board statement said.
The beheading shocked South Koreans and inflamed passions, triggering a rally near the US embassy for the last two days against the sending of South Korean troops to Iraq.
More than 300 civic groups plan to join a nationwide candle-light rally every evening until Kim's funeral, which will not be arranged until his body is returned home. The groups expect a large turnout this weekend.
The government planned to bring Kim's body back by tomorrow, a Foreign Ministry official told reporters.
"His body is scheduled to arrive at the Inchon airport at 5:30pm on Saturday via a Korean Air flight," he said. "The body will be transferred to Dubai from Kuwait and then leave for South Korea today."
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
RSS