Ahn Cheol-soo Announces Political Run Against Himself

Ahn Cheol-soo, the independent presidential candidate who famously spent ten months saying he wasn't sure whether he would run for president while writing books about his potential policies and conducting a campaign lecture tour, has apparently announced a political run against himself after deciding to name his election camp "Ahn Cheol-soo's Sincere Camp".

Ahn said that he came up with the name because he believes 'sincerity is what moves the world', and it was said to be the most popular choice among Facebook posts from his supporters, narrowly beating "Me Me Me Me Me" which received the second largest amount of posts, though all from one poster. As a compromise, and because the AhnCheolsoosSincereCamp.com web address is too long, the campaign website will use MeMeMeMeMe.com to lay out Ahn’s policies for government.

But the sincerity platform appeared to immediately drive a wedge between Ahn and his wife, who on the same day was revealed to have been insincere in under-reporting the price of an apartment she bought in 2001, claiming it was 250 million won not 450 million, saving 10 million won in taxes. At a press conference in Seoul on Thursday he said he "could give various reasons" for what happened, several of which are believed to be tax evasion, but didn't, saying only that he will "live by stricter standards" from now on.

It is understood that the presidential candidate may write a book on the subject later however, provisionally titled "If She Did It", but that people would have to buy the book and draw their own conclusions because there was some ambiguity over the case; Ahn said that the documents relating to the apartment purchase were written by a real estate broker, with the defense apparently being that nobody else bothered to check that the price on the contract was correct.

The matter immediately generated speculation that Ahn's 'sincerity campaign' was effectively a political run against his wife, causing political analysts to question whether the electorate would be willing to use the presidential election to vote in what was emerging as a domestic matter between a married couple. But the speculation was quashed yesterday when Ahn put himself firmly in his wife's camp on sincerity matters, when he admitted - through a spokesman this time rather than sincerely in person - that he was also insincere with the tax authorities when he sold his apartment in 2000 for 240 million, not the 70 million he insincerely claimed.

Ahn explained that under-reporting and insincerity was common practice in the real estate market at that time, invoking the political defense that it was not really unethical if "everyone else was doing it", and it was also pointed out that tax evasion on property was not technically illegal in Korea until 2006. However, in his book earlier this year "The Problem With Everybody Else", Ahn had written at some length that severe punishments should be handed out to tax evaders, although having been caught this week he promised to "live by stricter standards" in future, for the second time in two days.

Political analysts generally agreed that insincere Ahn's sincerity campaign was the first time in Korean political history that a candidate had not only stood against other people on ethical issues, but also apparently himself at the same time. But despite the revelations of insincerity by the sincerity candidate, the latest polling suggests that Korean people are still willing to vote for Ahn, to stop behavior like Ahn's.

Ahn now plans to press ahead with his plans to create a new political democratic environment dominated by younger liberal voters with fresh and popular ideas, or 'hip-ocracy' as it has been dubbed.

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Weather Girl Refuses to be Pigeonholed as Weather Girl

A Korean weather girl has spoken out about her attempts to escape from the typecasting normally associated with the role. 29 year-old KBS weather girl Kim talked to the media this week in a series of two minute interviews to discuss her plans for a radical career change. "I've told people the weather for seven years and I really warmed to it," said Kim "but finally I think I’ve taken it as far as it can go."

Posing for the cameras, Kim says she doesn’t want people to think of her just because of her looks or body, but because she's also talented in other areas.

In her second interview, Kim privately admitted that she's had to battle with the age factor in telling people about the weather. "It's well-known that really only young women are able to forecast the weather due to their bone density, and once you hit your late twenties your abilities naturally decline. So the days ahead seem cloudy."

In her next interview, Kim spoke of her frustration with public perceptions of her job. "You have to wear clothes according to the forecast - anything from a light top in hot weather right through to plastic raincoats if it's raining heavily. It is a high pressure position." But with a degree in fashion design, Kim is perfectly qualified to cope with the constant wardrobe changes being a weather girl demands, although she points out that "it's an aspect of the role with which the public has poor visibility."

Kim added though that one of the few advantages of reaching an advanced age was that it opened up acting roles playing married women, or women who fall in love with a man who unknown to her is tragically suffering from an unusual terminal illness. "Acting is a high pressure profession, but I've been flooded with offers so I don’t fear a career drought" Kim forecast confidently.

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After "Gangnam Style", Should PSY Make "Dokdo Style" Sequel?

Leaders of both the Dokdo United New Democracy Party and the opposition New Dokdo Democracy United Party have reacted angrily to moves by the mainland government in Seoul to unilaterally appoint global Korean cultural ambassador PSY an honorary ambassador to Dokdo, a position that is normally mutually agreed between the two territories.

The appointment is being promised after PSY became an accidental global phenomenon following the launch of his "Gangnam Style" video, which exposes the intellectual deficit and mindless consumerist decadence within Seoul society, especially the Gangnam district which by law houses the most vacuous, corrupt and self-centered members of Korean coffee-drinking society, who ply their trade as economic prostitutes by day and often actual prostitutes by night.

Widely expected to be a hit in Korea where the gap between the rich and poor has significantly increased in recent years due to the successful implementation of government policies, the song unexpectedly resonated with international audiences surprised to discover Koreans had a sense of humor after years of the government promoting its "Angry Korea!" brand around the world.

Individual Koreans have sought to break away from the "Angry Korea!" branding before, most notably Ahn Cheol-soo by starring in the Hangover series of movies as well as the TV series Community, which depicts a series of misfits in a local college attempting to graduate in order to teach English in Korea. But PSY built on Ahn Cheol-soo's flamboyant gangster character which had proven popular with audiences, and took the standard to which successor stereotypical Asian male jesters will be compared to an entirely new level.

At a corporate level, The Korea Times has also broken away from Korea's angrily reality in recent years, repositioning itself as a comedy newspaper with stories of alien invasions, samurai invasions, and its satirical 'war on women' campaign. And even Mr. Pizza launched a foray into the world of satire, although this was largely seen as a commercially-motivated attack on Dokdo.

The revelation that humor may be a better approach than anger and chopping the tips of your fingers off to prove Korea's sovereignty over Dokdo has seen the mainland government now desperately trying to capitalize on this unexpected cultural windfall, by trying to entice PSY to produce a follow-up to "Gangnam Style", entitled "Dokdo Style".

"Dokdo Style" would defend Korea against Japan's continuous provocations regarding Dokdo, by promoting the provably Korean territory in a funny way. Some suggestions are to satirically depict the islands, which are home to over 150,000 people - mostly in Dokdo City, as merely a couple of rocks which only feature a lighthouse and police barracks to bring law-and-order to a non-existent population in the face of a non-existent Japanese military threat.

But some say the plan to make PSY an ambassador doesn't go far enough, arguing that if he were appointed President of Dokdo by the government he would have to be invited to state meetings and dinners around the world, guaranteeing a raised profile for the non-disputed provably Korean territory.

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Sex Offenders 'No Longer Trusted to be Honest'

In a bid to crack down on an outbreak of highly publicized sex crime stories in the media, the government has announced that it will update the addresses and other personal information of convicted sex offenders every six months instead of the current interval of twelve.

The existing law was intended to ensure that the whereabouts of sex criminals was known, but while they were required to update their address once a year, the police were not required to verify the information as it would mean getting out of their cars. The system therefore relied on the sex criminals being honest, but contrary to the government's hopes, findings suggested that they weren't.

It was also found that even where sex criminals did provide a valid address which was then posted on a government website for the benefit of their neighbors, they usually moved somewhere else within weeks for reasons which remain unclear, meaning that for as much as eleven months the government wouldn't know where they lived until their next required registration date.

The Ministry of Justice has also since discovered that even if the addresses of sex offenders are known, it doesn't necessarily create de facto safe zones as the criminals have simply bought cars and conducted attacks outside their neighborhoods. As a consequence, the Ministry wishes the public to know that it will now start confirming the vehicle ownership of convicted sex offenders, but other drivers can still continue to own their vehicles anonymously.

An official said the government is hoping that the new measures will lead to a reduction in reported sex crimes in the media.

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Woolly Mammoths Back on the Menu?

South Korean scientists along with researchers from another country have announced plans to try and bring woolly mammoths back to life, 10,000 years after they were hunted to extinction by citizens of the First Korean Empire.

The development has been made possible by the discovery of living cells within woolly mammoth tissue samples discovered deep in Siberia, which was populated at the time of its death by nomadic Korean tribesmen. While the territory is now occupied by Russia, the Russian authorities - recognizing Korea's historical claims in the region and cultural sensitivities, asked South Korean scientists to help recover the tissue samples while supervising the site in case the remains of any Korean hunters were discovered along with the mammoth's body.

It is hoped that if the mammoths can be brought to life, it will provide a boost to the struggling oriental medicine industry, which contrary to popular opinion is not Chinese as it is well-known to have originated in Korea. Oriental medicine practitioners believe there is a high probability that body parts from the large animals will cure a range of diseases that have not proven to be treatable with parts of tigers and other potentially endangered species, despite many years of efforts.

There are also hopes that the move may allow mammoths to be put back on the Korean menu, 10,000 years after they were last eaten. "Obviously, while we will only kill the mammoths for research purposes, it would be wasteful to just dispose of the body when an industry can exist which consumes them." said Kim, an official in the Ministry of Cloning.

Since the oriental medicine industry will mostly only require certain extremities such as mammoth feet and reproductive organs, it is likely that the bulk of the animal will be available for restaurant consumption. Many older Koreans, especially men, are said to be excited at the prospect of either taking powdered woolly mammoth penis supplements or eating them whole in a soup, which Korean legend says gives men the kind of legendary stamina in bed they currently lack.

Some have argued that it would be 'unethical' to kill mammoths for medicinal and food purposes as they will be an endangered species, but others argue that it cannot be unethical as the animals will only exist by virtue of being recreated, and as such, they should be grateful. "In any case," said Kim - a spokesman for the Ministry of Cloning - "if numbers run too low we could always clone more."

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Typhoon Ahn Forecast to Strike Korea Tomorrow

Months after it was first forecast, Typhoon Ahn is forecast to strike the Korean Peninsula tomorrow at around 3pm.

Tropical Storm Ahn first developed last October, when it was expected to affect Seoul, but it appeared to fade away quickly as – according to weather watchers – it lacked strength and momentum. But Ahn refused to completely dissipate, spending months alternating between tropical storm and tropical depression status. It was forecast to finally develop into a typhoon many times during this period, but it appeared unable to develop sufficient atmospheric substance, resulting in a lot of hot air being blown over South Korea for months.

The government is concerned that the long-lasting storm has led to many people becoming complacent of the danger that Ahn poses, but that it is important that the public realize that Ahn is deceptive. "Just because this storm has threatened the country for a long time, doesn't make it any less damaging when it finally makes landfall" said an official. Citizens are being warned to be careful of landslides once the typhoon hits.

Ahn's path across the country is expected to be erratic, according to forecasters, and its effects could be felt for several years.

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Ultra-Typhoon Sanba Threatens Korean Media Adjective Scale

With Typhoon Sanba scheduled to hit the Korean Peninsula on Monday, albeit the poorer southern coastal area far away from Seoul, weather forecasters and the media are struggling to find an adequate adjective to describe the megastorm, which it is admitted 'might actually be dangerous this time'.



In July, Tropical Storm Khanun was officially upgraded to a typhoon to make the news more interesting and give the impression that government officials were doing something. The upgrade also helped the Korean Meteorological Administration meet its prediction of five typhoons striking the country this summer.

Then in August, the public were warned that Super-Strong Typhoon Bolaven would be the 'strongest typhoon to hit the nation in decades', shortly before missed it by traveling up the West Sea as a fading tropical depression.

Controversy then arose over the path of the storm, with the Korean Meteorological Administration claiming it took one path, and every other weather forecasting agency in the world claiming it took another, raising suspicions that the administration fabricated data to meet its previous forecast. It was later claimed however that the KMA had merely launched a retrospective forecast based on newly-discovered historical facts.

Some say the issue merely shows that the Korean Meteorological Administration couldn't forecast a meteor in a meteor shower, but others have attempted to defend the organization, pointing out that it may have experienced problems in forecasting due to a decision to buy LIDAR equipment with a 10 kilometer range rather than 15, although this was absolutely nothing to do with the head of the KMA allegedly offering business favors to a company he used to work for, which supplied the less powerful equipment.

Whatever forecasts the KMA issues, with tropical storms now regularly being upgraded to typhoons to meet forecasting quotas and sell newspapers the troubling question has now arisen as to what to call a real typhoon - and one currently forecast to hit with a category 2 to 6 strength - which genuinely threatens the country.

Some have argued it should be called 'Killer Typhoon Sanba', but this description is not likely to be strictly accurate until it hits Korea, and consensus now appears to be forming around calling the killer storm 'Ultra-Typhoon Sanba'. This would leave the option open to any category 4 and 5 storms being called 'ultra-mega typhoons'. Ultimately though, it is thought that entirely new adjectives may need to be created to describe severe storms if the wind from your electric fan now classifies as typhoon strength in newspapers such as The Korea Herald.

According to data supplied by the US Navy and Air Force Joint Typhoon Warning Center, Ultra-Typhoon Sanba is expected to hit South Korea at 12:00GMT on Monday 17th September with winds of 212km/h and a storm surge of 4 to 5.5 meters, causing major damage, but higher newspaper sales and television news ratings.

With only days remaining before the storm hits, citizens are now likely to be kept busy over the weekend pasting newspapers over their windows, as wet Korean newspapers are known to protect homes from the effects of ultra-typhoons.

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Rising Korean Elderly Population Sparks Concerns

It has been revealed that due to Korea's aging population there will be one elderly person for every two adults in Seoul within 27 years, potentially making travel in the subway system unbearable.

Analysis of the 2011 census by Statistics Korea and survey data by the Seoul Metropolitan Government shows that by 2039 there will be an estimated 2.95 million elderly people queue jumping, pushing you in the back and generally giving Seoul's 5.98 million people of working age attitude as these unfortunate workers try to reach their offices in the morning and on their way home at night, if peer pressure and their managers allow them to leave at a civilized hour.

The trend is sparking fears that many older people will be unable to support themselves, because they will not have people of working age around them to lean against and fall into - only other old people - when badly hungover subway drivers get heavy-footed with their brakes and accelerators as usual.

Following increasingly difficult subway journeys, productivity is likely to drop among Seoul's working population leading to lower corporate profits. This is likely to bring forward the date when the 47.2 percent of people who were saving up for their retirement through Korea's unique insurance policy system of finite payment terms with unlimited promised payouts, discover they were all a pyramid-scheme type scam that could never pay out as promised.

Corporate and income tax revenues will also fall, resulting in the 36 percent of the population with public pensions discovering that the government will not be able to afford to pay out on them while funding the defense of the country at the same time, and the 45 percent of people who are relying on bank savings will have to face the reality that only 45 percent of Korean banks are likely to be still solvent by 2039 at the current rate of savings bank failures.

Meanwhile as several generations of people who are accustomed to seeking emergency healthcare every time they sneeze crowd the hospitals, younger working people with genuine illnesses will likely suffer from higher mortality rates, according to the research, and as worries about access to healthcare increase, fewer of them will choose to have children.

Mental health problems among the working population are also expected to rise as increasingly traumatic subway journeys take their toll, coupled with the realization that they are living in a society dominated by 70-year-old K-pop fans, the commercial pressure of which will prevent breakthroughs in the area of taste and culture.

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World's Oldest Boat Remains Found in Korea

An 8,000-year-old wooden boat, believed to be the oldest in the world, has been unearthed in Uljin, 330 kilometers southeast of Seoul.

The remains of the vessel along with a wooden oar were unexpectedly found by researchers while they were digging in a parking lot owned by Uljin County government. They were lying 180cm below the ground within the 'fourth occupation layer', although records indicating which foreign power was occupying Korea at the time have not survived, and little is also known about the previous three occupations.

The fourth occupation took place in the early part of the Neolithic period from 8,000 B.C. to 1,000 B.C., but the local government immediately announced that the boat dated back to January 1st 8,000 B.C., making it 8,000 years-old. Some mathematicians have even argued the boat could be even older, possibly 10,000 years-old.

While the remains of the vessel were quite badly corroded and its shapes hard to recognize, scientists said that if they were viewed at the correct angle while immersed in alcohol there was no doubt that it was the oldest boat in the world.

Uljin lies on the coast of the East Sea, and researchers believe the boat is actually one of two which provided a ferry service to Ulleung and Korea's Dokdo islets at the time.

There is also excitement at what is being referred to as the 'groundbreaking discovery' that the oar blade of the boat is said to resemble a wide trapezoid, a shape supposedly originally defined in Euclidean geometry. However, the Greek mathematician Euclid – who many call the 'father of geometry' – actually lived around the year 300 B.C., well after Korean shipbuilders had now provably invented the trapezoid and therefore geometry itself. This seems to make it a matter of incontrovertible fact that geometry was a Korean invention, and that Euclid once traveled to Korea's Dokdo Island and stole the idea for geometry from Koreans, as has long been suspected.

The invention of the boat before any other culture in the world also lends credence to the idea taught in several school textbooks that Koreans explored the world before anyone else and therefore have wide-ranging territorial rights in Asia and beyond.

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Urgent! Samurai Warriors Coming to Dokdo!

Watch for suspicious-looking tourists

The Dokdo Times has uncovered a plot by Japanese samurai warriors to attack the Korean territory of Dokdo.

The evidence was uncovered after the realization that Japan's tradition of "Kamikaze" suicide pilots during World War 2 and its assasins' murder of the Joseon Kingdom's Queen Min - totally without help or support from any Koreans - means that nothing can be ruled out. Logically, if nothing can be ruled out, everything can be ruled in, including an attack by armored warriors who have sworn an oath to die in suicide attacks against Korea in the service of their daimyo.

Worse, the probability of a samurai attack has been rendered self-fulfilling due to the detailing of the threat in the Korea Times, which has now invoked the K-logic principle of being true by virtue of being published in the Korean media.

Many experts claim that Korea's rocky islets in the East Sea are an impenetrable fortress capable of resisting any intruder, but some point out the islands have been seized before, making it entirely possible that they could be seized again.

We asked these unnamed experts under what circumstances could Korea see a best-case scenario of an armed clash?

Scenario 1: Disguised as tourists

One of the most plausible scenarios for an illegal entry and subsequent war are Japanese samurai setting foot on Dokdo by disguising themselves as tourists. This is exactly how the Forty-seven Ronin, secretly led by the Canadian-British-Japanese samurai outcast Kai Reeves, gained entry to Kira Yoshinaka's mansion in Edo. However, while the ploy worked under cover of 18th century darkness, it is thought unlikely to be successful in the middle of the daytime on a tourist boat, as samurai warriors would be easily spotted on board due to the suspicious bulk beneath their t-shirts.

As a precaution, ferry operators on Korea's Ulleung Island have been told to be on the look out for groups of 47 apparently overweight looking Koreans who don't appear to speak Korean. Officially, Japanese are welcome to visit the island, but unofficially they are not and the official position is just to give Korea a better international image and also to make the Japanese tourists waste their time getting to Ulleung.

But Navy officials claim it is unlikely that far-right Japanese samurai would secretly land on Dokdo because then they would have to walk home.

Scenario 2: Helicopter access

Another entirely conceivable scenario is an attempt by Japanese samurai to land at Dokdo International Airport using a helicopter. According to Shin In-kyun, head of the defense think tank Korea Defense Network (KDN) "If Japan sends one of its AH-64 Apache helicopters, the entire coast guard unit will be annihilated, allowing Japanese troops to seize Dokdo."

Experts note that Korea does not have a helicopter that can match the Apache, as its AH1S Cobras are incapable of carrying out a mission to Dokdo due to limited flight range and other shortcomings, such as them not working due to attempts to replace worn-out parts with locally produced copies. Korea plans to buy 36 Apache attack helicopters by the end of the year, with the aim of deploying them in 2015 after someone is finally found who can properly understand the English instruction manuals.

Scenario 3: Armed conflict

The best-case scenario would be a clash between a Korean Coast Guard patrol vessel and a ship full of Japanese samurai or ninja who have illegally crossed the maritime border as defined by Korea. A number of messages have been sent to various samurai begging them to provoke a military conflict, but so far Korea has been left disappointed.

But if the samurai ninja ship comes and attempts to land on Dokdo, it is almost inevitable that it will be accidentally sunk. Experts believe that after this accidental sinking, the Japanese Coast Guard will start a war against Korea to revenge the deaths of the samurai. The 40-mm guns of the Japanese patrol vessels and the 41-mm guns of the Korean patrol vessels can inflict serious damage on each other - which will hopefully lead to a bigger armed conflict because Korean Coast Guard ships cannot withstand heavy attacks, so there is a good chance of them being sunk, requiring an escalated response from Seoul.

The escalation may cause concern to Korean citizens on the mainland, who may fear becoming directly embroiled in the hostilities, but it is hoped that Korea and Japan may wage a naval war under a tacit agreement to confine the armed conflict to the waters around Dokdo. Experts believe people in both countries may support the idea of a pure naval conflict because as long as other people are being killed they would not consider it a serious security threat, and it would probably boost TV ratings and help patriotic politicians get elected, so really it is a win-win for everyone.

Meanwhile a spokesman for The National Police Agency reminded Korean citizens yesterday "If you believe you have seen a Japanese samurai, do not approach them, but instead call 113 and shoot them from a distance."


While Koreans are much taller than Japanese, and Korean men have evolved bigger hands after thousands of years of dealing with Korean women, the Japanese may be more numerous and appear as semi-transparent ninja-like characters
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Ahn Finally Decides to Tape Up Windows

"I will hold the tape thusly"

Prospective Presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo has finally announced his intention to tape up his windows in preparation for Typhoon Bolaven, which struck near Korea last Tuesday. Ahn said the decision had been a difficult one which he had agonized over, but that he had finally reached a critical point where he was prepared to make a commitment to a probable future course of action.

Some commentators immediately criticized Ahn's decision, pointing out that the typhoon had dissipated a number of days ago, but sources close to the the man who has become known as Korea's greatest procrastinator said that the window situation was analogous to the crisis facing Korean society – it would perhaps have been better to have taken action earlier but it is never too late to say something must be done and save the nation, and its windows.

A spokesman for Ahn's non-campaign said the prospective candidate had wished to maintain a "prudent, responsible attitude" in making the decision, and there were concerns that if he applied a solution to his windows and then they lost integrity during the typhoon, he would forever be associated with this loss of integrity.

The decision was said to have been further complicated in recent days by the question of whether to apply wet newspapers to the windows before taping them, or taping them and then applying the wet newspapers. Many Koreans believe wet newspapers protect windows from the affects of typhoon winds. In recent months particularly, large numbers of young people have rallied around the idea that wet newspaper pages with Ahn Cheol-soo stories on them not only protect windows from typhoons, but also nuclear blasts.

In a much anticipated television appearance late on Monday before the storm hit, Ahn said he would decide whether to apply wet newspapers to his windows after considering the wishes of the public.

Earlier this year, Ahn launched a book entitled "Ahn Cheol-soo's Thoughts", in which he laid out his concerns over the problems he perceived within Korean society, and promised solutions, and solutions to the problem of solutions which other politicians had promised. But the book had no thoughts on the issue of taping or newspapering windows. A new book is now planned called "Ahn Cheol-soo's Thoughts on the Use of Wet Newspapers in Typhoons", and the prospective candidate has already suggested it may be accompanied by a lecture tour in which young people disillusioned with existing methods of taping windows can learn about new ways of doing it.

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KMA team up with Northeast Asian History Foundation

The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) have announced a new weather forecasting service with the Korean Northeast Asian History Foundation (KNAHF).

Under the initiative, the KMA says it intends to draw on the Foundation's experience in the science of K-history - which has been described as 'presenting historical events as they should have occurred without foreign interference' – to announce weather forecasts for the past as well as the future, in order to allow it to correct any 'errors of weather history' or 'historical atmospheric distortions'.

The first joint KMA-KNAHF weather forecast has already been issued for Typhoon Bolaven. It shows the devastating Category 6 typhoon traveled along the path originally predicted by the KMA. This is a significantly different path from the one predicted and then historically documented by foreign weather agencies once it had passed, who bizarrely didn't even call it a typhoon once it was near Korea, but instead merely a 'tropical storm', even though it was always called a typhoon in Korea.

But the Korean Meteorological Administration says that the foreign weather agencies appear determined to stick to a twisted view of history based on false claims and facts, in order to bolster their claims over the path of the typhoon. With help from the Korean Northeast Asian History Foundation, they announced that new research proved that free from foreign influences – specifically in the form of Chinese fishing boats illegally in Korean waters – the storm would have taken the path predicted, not the one ultimately fabricated by these foreign elements, and therefore rightfully it did in K-history.

The KMA said it was absolutely scientific and professional in drawing up the path taken by Typhoon Bolaven, and that fabricating data was normally impossible, apart from the time in 1987 when the KMA fabricated the path of Typhoon Thelma in order to cover up a forecasting mistake.

Foreign scientists have criticized the KMA's and Northeast Asian History Foundation's insistence on creating what some have termed 'a false historical record' of the storm's path however, pointing out that satellite pictures clearly show that the typhoon took a path almost 100 kilometers away from the one claimed by the KMA, but KMA scientists said the government should investigate rumors that these foreigners were using the eyes from Korean children in order to develop their pictures from space.

Separately today, the KMA announced that its prediction over number of typhoons to hit Korea in August – three – which had looked likely to be wrong after only typhoons Bolaven and Tembin struck the peninsula, was proven correct late last night when Typhoon Sanba suddenly developed downwind of an electric fan in Mokpo. Warnings were hurriedly issued but fortunately the storm blew itself out after 30 minutes when the automatic timer ran down.

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