CL begins anticipated career

 

CL, the fierce and talented K-pop singer-rapper, will release her solo debut studio album in October following a series of single releases starting this month, her label said Friday.

In the run-up to the full album release, CL is first set to drop a single for the solo project "Alpha" on Aug. 24 with another single scheduled to follow in September, according to Very Cherry. The album will be released in its entirety in October.

Her agency did not elaborate on the details for the full album release date or the main track.

"Alpha" is the K-pop star's first solo studio album. CL had initially planned to release the album in November last year but postponed it to add more ideas and songs, according to her label.

The 30-year-old debuted in 2009 as a member of now-disbanded girl group 2NE1. After going solo, she released singles, including "Hwa" and "Five Star," in October. 

Girls' Generation

Girl group Girls' Generation attend a press event before a concert at Olympic Park Gymnastics Stadium in Seoul on Sunday.

englishnews@c

The Men Who Die for Kim Jong-il's Criminal Stupidity

North Korea's former deputy prime minister and National Planning Committee chairman, Kim Tal-hyon, who visited Seoul in 1992 leading an economic team, was a member of nation founder Kim Il-sung's family and an economics expert who enjoyed Kim's confidence. Returning home from Seoul, he realized that reform and market opening were the only way for the North to survive. He endeavored to revive the North Korean economy but committed suicide in 2000.

He fell out of favor with leader Kim Jong-il while attempting to turn around the Hungnam fertilizer plant which he saw as the key to resolving the North's food problem. The plant, built by the Japanese colonialists, was a sort of lifeline for the North's agriculture, producing over 1.6 million tons of fertilizer a year. But production plummeted due to obsolete equipment. Convinced that improved fertilizer production would help, Kim Tal-hyon staked his fate on building it up.

He reportedly urged Kim Jong-il to invest US$100 million in the latest equipment. A short while later, the Organization and Guidance Department of the Workers' Party held a rally of engineers and laborers at the People's Palace of Culture in Pyongyang. Kim went along and was dumbfounded to find himself denounced by participants. They reportedly shouted, "Kim Tal-hyon is a turncoat" and "betrayed the revolutionary classes." Relegated to nominally managing the February 8 Vinalon Complex in 1993, he committed suicide in August 2000 upon hearing a word that the State Security Agency were coming to arrest him. Workers at the Hungnam fertilizer plant reportedly wept when they heard the news.

Had the Hungnam fertilizer plant been renovated as planned, the North might have been able to reduce the scope of the mass starvation of tens of thousands of people in the 1990s. Kim Jong-il, while pouring $870 million into the construction of the bombastic Kumsusan Memorial Palace for Kim Il-sung, left the fertilizer plant to turn into a pile of scrap metal.

In 1997, another party leader was publicly executed in Pyongyang. So Kwan-hi, the then party secretary for agricultural affairs, had also been close to Kim Il-sung. Charged with minor graft, he was made a scapegoat by Kim Jong-il for the mass starvation. He was denounced as a spy for the U.S. imperialist and shot in front of tens of thousands of people. The State Security Agency claimed the starvation was all So Kwan-hi's fault, and North Koreans believed that, unable to credit that their "dear leader" himself could be to blame.

When the Lee Myung-bak government took office in 2008, Pyongyang started setting up another scapegoat. Choi Sung-chol, the former deputy director of the party's United Front Department, was thrown in a concentration camp because Kim Jong-il was angry about the unexpected election result in the South, where he had thought the Left would win.

Now reports say that Pak Nam-gi, the former director of the Planning and Finance Department, was executed by firing squad for the botched currency reform of late last year. Nobody thinks that Pak Nam-gi, who was in his late 70s, played the leading role in such an enormous task. The disastrous currency reform and its fallout are shaking the regime to its core, and North Koreans have to fear execution without having committed any serious crimes. The people know that they are dying in place of someone else.

Ulleung Island Airport on the Cards Again

The government has revived a plan shelved as unprofitable last year to build an airport on Ulleung Island, the nearest inhabited island to Dokdo.

The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs on Wednesday said an airport could block wave penetration to nearby areas and thus save it having to build a breakwater planned at the island’s Sadong Port, for which it has budgeted W170 billion (US$1=W1,051).

Instead, it decided to build an airport for smaller planes with up to 50 seats by 2017.

The ministry believes the airport would be economically viable if it cuts the total construction cost from W640 billion to about W400 billion by shortening the planned runway from 1,200 m to 1,100 m and reducing the width from 150 m to 80 m.

"There are various reasons why an airport on Ulleung Island would be significant, including the care to a remote region it would show and that it could galvanize the leisure industry there," a ministry spokesman said. "As it takes just an hour to fly from Gimpo Airport in Seoul to Ulleung, it'll make visiting Dokdo much more convenient as well."

N.Korea Tight-Lipped on Possible Flood Damage

North Korea saw torrential rains drench the country on Tuesday and Wednesday, just as they caused flooding and havoc in Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and other central regions of the South. The downpours are forecast to pelt the two Koreas throughout Thursday.

The [South] Korea Meteorological Administration said Wednesday that the reclusive communist state had 115 mm of rain in Kaesong, home to one of the North's key industrial complexes, as well as 42 mm in Sariwon, North Hwanghae Province, and 29 mm in Haeju, South Hwanghae Province.

It also predicted that between 30 ml and 60 ml of heavy rain would fall each hour in some areas of the North from Wednesday night to Thursday morning, accompanied by thunder, lightning and gusty winds.

But Pyongyang has not updated the weather conditions there or reported any resulting damage except for on Tuesday, when it reported heavy showers mainly in South Hwanghae Province. This region experienced sustained downpours of more than 30 ml per hour on average during the rainy season in the middle of the month.

The North's state media issued almost real-time updates of the havoc wreaked by the weather from July 12 to 17, but it has fallen silent on the issue since the Associated Press suggested Pyongyang may have altered a photo of a flooded road near the Taedong River to exaggerated flood damage. The photo in question was supplied to the AP by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

Meanwhile, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has started to distribute aid for rain damage to North Korea's Hwanghae Province, the Voice of America said on Wednesday.

Seoul is sinking and I don't want to swim

Some 70 mm of rain per hour pounded the Seoul metropolitan area on Tuesday afternoon, leaving four missing and traffic severely congested. Lightning caused an explosion that led to one death. Over 400 cases of flooding were reported in Seoul alone.

Pocheon in Gyeonggi Province had the heaviest precipitation of 198.5 mm, followed by Namyangju and Uijeongbu in the province with 191 mm and 190.5 mm. Next were Dongdaemun district with 180 mm and Nowon district with 173.5 mm, both in Seoul.

Pedestrians walk through heavy rain in downtown Seoul on Tuesday. /Yonhap

Thunderstorms lashed Seoul and Gyeonggi Province through the night and rain kept pouring until early Wednesday morning, affecting traffic in the morning rush hour.

A mass of hot and humid air from the south collided with a cold and dry air mass over the Korean Peninsula, forming strong precipitation clouds, the Korea Meteorological Administration said. The rain will continue until Thursday and the central regions will likely see up to 300 mm of rain, it added.

englishnews@chosun.com / Jul. 27, 2011 08:57 KST

Seoul flooded

Trapped citizens wait for rescue at an intersection near the Gangnam subway station on Wednesday morning. /Yonhap

A record downpour on Wednesday left 39 people dead and eight missing in Korea. It was the most rainfall since Korea began gathering weather data in 1907. Some 620 people were left homeless, while the power at 66,093 homes was cut off and 720 homes were inundated.

Seoul was paralyzed once again by torrential rain. Heavy downpours began on Tuesday afternoon and continued sporadically until Wednesday. Accumulated rainfall recorded until 10 p.m. on Wednesday was 579 mm in Yangju, 545 mm in Pocheon, 527.5 mm in Dongducheon, 517 mm in Hanam, and 503.5 mm in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi Province, 465 mm in Seoul and 440.5 mm in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province.

The amount of rain that fell on Seoul from Tuesday to Wednesday beat the previous record precipitation for the month of 390.6 mm recorded on July 10, 1940.

The downpours triggered a landslide at a mountain resort in Chuncheon early Wednesday morning, killing 13 students from Inha University in Incheon who were there doing volunteer work at a nearby elementary school during their summer vacation. Another landslide in a suburb in southern Seoul left 17 people dead. Swelling waters at a stream in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province killed six people, and three bodies were found after a landslide in Paju just north of Seoul.

Parts of Mt. Umyeon in Seocho in Seoul are washed by torrential rains on Tuesday and Wednesday.

◆ Gangnam Hit Hardest

Wednesday's deluge submerged many parts of the affluent Gangnam area of southern Seoul. Drivers abandoned their cars in waist-deep water, while mobile phone services were immobilized when rainfall damaged signal relay stations. Traffic at the Gangnam intersection, one of the busiest in Seoul, came to a grinding halt. Power-lines in the Gangam and Seocho districts became submerged on Wednesday morning, triggering a blackout that affected 20,000 households. A dozen banks around the Gangnam intersection were shut due to the power outage.

◆ Traffic Paralyzed

The rain submerged some subway lines, main highways and low-lying parts of the capital, creating hellish conditions for commuters. Parts of Gwanghwamun in downtown Seoul were submerged in waist-deep water, causing traffic to come to a halt. Police blocked some 20 areas in the capital, trapping millions of commuters in their vehicles and causing many to report late to work.

Vehicles are submerged in floodwaters at the Daechi Intersection in Gangnam, Seoul on Wednesday morning. /Yonhap

◆ More Rain Predicted

Weathermen forecast another 250 mm of rainfall between Thursday and Friday in Seoul and other parts of central Korea. High winds and thunderstorms are also expected between Thursday night and Friday morning, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration.

The KMA predicted more than 60 mm of rain per hour in Seoul, Gyeonggi Province, northern Chungcheong Province and Gangwon Province with some areas seeing between 50 to 150 mm or even 250 mm of precipitation. It also warned of more landslides.

The rain could bring accumulated precipitation between Tuesday and Friday to as much as 700 mm, or half of the average annual rainfall of 1,450.5 mm in the capital.

The total amount of rain that fell on the capital between June 22, the start of the summer monsoon, and Wednesday was 1,259.5 mm, or 86.8 percent of the average yearly precipitation.