Ex-US Senator Mike Gravel intends to make Korea more democratic

Coming from Switzerland, a country with a long history of direct democracy - according to Senator Mike Gravel the only country in the world! - and having had the chance to listen to this Ex-US Senator's vision to launch a National Initiative in Korea to give the people more power attracted our attention.
Mike Gravel decided to launch this Initiative after having found out that the Korean Constitution - which was written using the German and Japanese Constitutions as a role model - states that only the people can amend the Constitution - which is why he thinks the Korean Constitution is superior to the US Constitution!
Senator Gravel's idea is to get enough people on board to sign on the Initiative and create a non-partisan Central Election Management Committee to conduct all elections.
We hope that he will succeed in this ambitious project!
Senator Gravel will be back in Korea in September 2009.

Link to the National Initiative in Korea

"Korea, Democratic People's Republic of"

Something I have to mention at this point as North Korea is in the news intensively again: I'm always stunned anew that, again, we received a letter from abroad addressed to "Korea, Democratic People's Republic of". And it was not some ignorant lunatic, but a reputable consulting firm! Believe it or not: Even the Swiss government used to send our mails to North Korea, until we notified them about the error.

To clarify: "Korea, Democratic People's Republic of" = NORTH Korea - the country under the dictator Kim Jong-Il. But no worries: We live in "Korea, Republic of" = SOUTH Korea, a country with a representative democracy.

Just when I thought this couldn't be topped, I received another letter from the Swiss authorities with the correct address in Seoul, but stating the country as... CHINA! Is this as good as it gets? I wonder...

Our dear northern neighbor

KAL's cartoon in the Economist May 30 - June 5th 2009 edition "Kim's bombshell"

In South Korea people take the North Korean issue much less seriously than in the rest of the world, although the nuclear threat would be greatest for this country. It needs to be said that not much is known in the world about North Korea, and the media tends to jump at every little piece of news they can get to make it a sensation.
The South Korean calmness probably comes from the fact that the South Koreans can identify more easily with the North Korean culture than other countries. Although the countries have been at war for decades, a diplomat who's dealt with both Koreas once told me that the people are exactly the same - Koreans - except they are thinner and on average 8 centimeters shorter in North Korea.