Word: korean
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...According to a spokesman from the South Korean consulate in Hong Kong, the family also said that Jade did not adapt to Dutch culture or food. "They said she had not adjusted to a new home, that there were some problems," he says. But some specialists are skeptical of that explanation as well. "My gut feeling is it's just an excuse," says Law Chi-kwong, an associate professor of social work at the University of Hong Kong. "That only happens when the adoption took place when the child is already six or seven years old. It would not happen...
...Jade's case has also attracted particular attention in South Korea, where international adoption has often been a fiercely debated social and political issue. In the past half-century, more than 150,000 South Korean children have been adopted internationally. More than 2,000 were adopted by overseas parents in 2005, although the government has taken steps to reverse this trend. Some lawmakers have argued for restrictions, or even a ban, on international adoption - and particularly on private adoptions, which may not include rigorous vetting of prospective parents...
...Last week, at an international symposium titled "North Korean Human Rights Abuses Awareness Week," cohosted by the cabinet secretariat and the Foreign Affairs and Justice Ministries, specialists from Japan, South Korea and the U.S. met to confer on the abductee issue in the context of broader human rights violations in North Korea. Their view was clear: "We will not have satisfaction on denuclearization, human rights or the abductees until the [North Korean] regime is gone," says panelist Michael Green, senior adviser and Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies based in Washington...
...Regime change, however, is looking unlikely. Relations between the U.S. and North Korea have thawed since Washington agreed to unfreeze some $25 million in North Korean funds after Pyongyang agreed to dismantle the Yongbyon reactor; the U.S. is also considering removing the North from its blacklist of state sponsors of terror, an offer that previous Japanese leaders have insisted should be left off the table until the abductees issue is resolved...
...getting little help from its neighbors. While Lee Myung Bak, the conservative-leaning Seoul mayor widely tipped to win South Korea's Presidential elections on Dec. 19, is expected to take a harder line with the North generally, Japan's single-minded focus on the abductions makes South Korean observers squirm. Kim Hyun Ho, director of the Chosun Ilbo Research Institute for Korea, notes that while Seoul claims more than 480 abducted citizens of its own, it worries that such a "very political" issue could cloud ongoing nuclear negotiations. "South Korea doesn't want this to be an obstacle...