Word: cholla
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...President Kim: despite his announcement of a nationwide crackdown on organized crime, his party got thrashed in critical October by-elections. Newspapers and opposition politicians have hinted for months?without providing evidence?that Yeo was trying to bribe pols in the President's party to help a businessman from Cholla province, Kim's home region. Yeo was convicted a decade ago of running the biggest gang in the Cholla city of Kwangju...
...Shadowy figures like Yeo have sparked concern about the growing influence of what Koreans call "political gangsters," powerful godfathers who mingle easily in business and political circles. The media never fail to point out that Yeo also comes from Cholla, an underdeveloped region famous for its gangs. Oppressed by Korea's previous military governments, Cholla politicians and gangsters got to know one another, sometimes in prison. The gangsters acted as bodyguards and did other favors for pols, says Kim Kyu Hun, head of the Seoul district prosecutor's violent crimes division. When President Kim's party came to power...
...There is no evidence the President's son, Kim Hong Il, himself a legislator, broke the law. His crime may be the company he keeps. Ahn says Cholla's pols should have stopped meeting gangsters once they became important figures in government: "What's the public going to think? If you remain friends with fists, they are going to ask you for favors." Koreans may root for gangsters in the movies, but nobody wants to see the fists getting their hands on real power...
...return 20,000 noses that its army amputated from Korean soldiers and civilians. The noses, as well as the heads of Korean generals, were taken as spoils of war during an invasion in 1597. Protected until now in a special memorial, they will probably be buried in the Cholla province of South Korea. That region suffered the worst of the long-remembered brutalities...
...happens, Kim Dae Jung is a native of South Cholla province, of which Kwangju (pop. 800,000) is the capital. Cholla is the poorest region of the country, and was consistently neglected by President Park during his 18 years in power. The people of Cholla have long complained of unfair treatment by the central government. Most of all, they resent the fact that their area has been deprived of the industrialization that has benefited the rest of the country. When they learned last week that the government in Seoul had arrested Kim Dae Jung, they rose up in protest...