Word: seoul
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...have seemed like a bizarre, one-off media moment, but in recent months, gangsters like Cho have been intruding into Korean public life with disturbing regularity. A long-running influence-peddling scandal in Seoul has yielded a steady stream of revelations about unsavory ties between gangsters and politicians. One of the biggest shockers came in October when the eldest son of President Kim Dae Jung was forced to admit he had met at least twice with the powerful mobster-cum-political-fixer at the center of the scandal. Koreans nervously laughed off the finger-cutting protesters as nationalistic nitwits...
...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, the fists crawled out of the woodwork. "Now," the prosecutor says, "they want the favors returned...
...develop nuclear weapons and missile technology. That talent is being put to commercial use in an attempt to spin off a high-tech industry in a decidedly low-voltage nation. "The rocket fired over Japan in 1998 required software capability," says Kim Jin Mook, an Internet entrepreneur in Seoul with North Korean business contacts. "That's proof of their capability...
...South Korean businesses?ranging from entrepreneurial cowboys to staid conglomerates?are testing the waters. Several now employ Korean Computer Center (KCC), a state-owned enterprise in Pyongyang, to write software. Its specialty is Mission Impossible-type programs such as voice recognition and fingertip identification. Seoul-based Deshine.com, meanwhile, is importing animated films...
...animosity, it is probably in the South's interest to facilitate the North's economic growth. "If North Korea collapses and forces premature unification, both sides would be completely ruined," says Dong Yong Seung, an economist who concentrates on North Korean issues for Samsung's Economic Research Institute. "Seoul can't support both economies...