Worth a thousand words

This stunning picture of the Korean peninsula taken in late January by a member of the international space station crew says it all.  The photograph can be downloaded in various resolutions from the NASA web site here.   I've annotated the photo accompanying this post (click to see a full size version and read the annotations clearly) to show the national capital area (수도권 sudogwon) which surrounds Seoul and includes Incheon and Gyeonggi Province.   As noted by NASA, the capital of North Korea, Pyongyang, shows up as comparable to a smaller South Korean city.  Also, the dot clearly visible just north of Seoul is the Kaesong industrial complex jointly operated by North and South Korea which was located there because of its proximity to the large new seaport/teleport/airport in Incheon.

Three quarters of South Koreans now own smartphones!

Smartphones, as of this writing, are now owned by about three quarters of the South Korean population.  According to a panel speech at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the percentage had reached 73% by the end of 2013.    The graphic accompanying this post is adapted from one  published in a Korean language news outlet and is based on data provided from government and industry sources.

Google, Psy and the mobile video revolution

The Korea Herald reports today that Google is "fast catching up with Korean rivals" in online advertising sales.  The article noted that "According to the sources who have access to internal data, Google raked in some 100 billion won ($93.8 million) in revenue from its online display adverts in Korea last year, a significant improvement from the 40 billion won posted a year earlier."  Reportedly, Google's performance "raised alarms" in the local portal market, long dominated by Naver and Daum.
As the article notes, it may be more than sheer coincidence that Google's improved performance came as Psy's "Gangnam Style" received huge attention on YouTube.   However, Google's performance is part of a much larger phenomenon, the shift to mobile access of the internet in which video content is a major driver of data traffic.
The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning conducted an analysis of wireless data traffic during a selected 24-hour period in the fourth quarter of 2013 (according to this Korean-language report by Yonhap News).  It showed that video accounted for 45.1 percent of all traffic, by far the largest single category.  Web portal access accounted for 19.3 percent of traffic, followed by use of social networking services (SNS) with 13.1 percent of the total.

U.N. releases report on human rights abuses in North Korea

Publication by the United Nations of its report on human rights abuses in North Korea adds an important new ingredient to the role of information and the media in Korean reunification. The report documents what are called "unspeakable atrocities" by the government of North Korea against its own people.  Compiled by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the DPRK, the report was compiled without cooperation of North Korea's government.  As reported in a UN news release, “The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world. These crimes against humanity entail extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation,” the report says, adding that “Crimes against humanity are ongoing in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea because the policies, institutions and patterns of impunity that lie at their heart remain in place.”

The Commission of Inquiry conducted Public Hearings in Seoul (20-24 August 2013), Tokyo (29-30 August 2013), London (23 October 2013) and Washington, D.C. (30-31 October 2013) during which almost 80 victims and witnesses of human rights violations as well as experts provided testimony on the human rights situation in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.  Complete transcripts and videos of the public hearings are available on the web site of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the DPRK.  The full report is downloadable here.

Internet governance: major challenge for Korea in hosting this year's ITU Plenipotentiary

The ITU Plenipotentiary Conference hosted by Korea this Fall in Busan offers many potential benefits for the host nation.  However, it also poses a number of challenges.  Perhaps the greatest of these will be to reconcile Korea's vote at the December 2012 WCIT meeting in Dubai, which was widely perceived as one against an open and free internet.  While I have not explored this topic in depth, I did note in a January 2013 post that "Perceptions are important, and many observers might have expected that the nation with the world's most advanced and extensive broadband networks would have voted the other way, simply to avoid any confusion about whether it favors a free and open internet."
As reported by ZDNet, the WCIT-12 conference triggered a unanimous vote by the U.S. House of Representatives during the Dubai conference aimed at pushing the U.S. government to fight the United Nations in its bid to control and change the Internet. The EU's upper house, the European Parliament, also voted to oppose the U.N.'s plans to regulate the Internet, prior to the opening of WCIT-12.   Governments were not the only ones to react.  In the weeks leading up to WCIT-12 Google launched a web-based campaign in favor of a free and open internet, one which was joined by other corporations and NGOs.
Although internet governance is not the only issue on the table for the ITU Plenipotentiary, it looms large.  It would appear that the host nation will have to clarify why it voted with China, Russia and the other nations favoring greater government involvement in internet governance.  Fortunately for the Park Geun-hye administration, the vote took place under a prior administration.