http://www.international.ucla.edu/korea Facilitate cutting-edge research about Korea at UCLA en-us Yu In-Chon, South Korea's minister of culture, sports and tourism, met Tuesday with UCLA Korean studies faculty members and Nicholas Entrikin, the vice provost for international studies. Yu, a well-known former actor, heard from CKS Director John Duncan and Professors Burglind Jungmann, Sung Deuk Oak, Lisa Kim Davis and Dong-suk Kim about their current research and thanked them for building an excellent Korean studies program at UCLA.http://www.international.ucla.edu/korea/article.asp?parentid=111952One of the standing committees on South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission documents Korean War deaths including mass killings of some 100,000 South Koreans by their own military, police and allies. Dong-Choon Kim of Sung Kong Hoe University discussed the work of the committee he leads earlier this quarter at UCLA.http://www.international.ucla.edu/korea/article.asp?parentid=107791Now in its third year, the Korean Studies in the Americas program brings students to UCLA from four Latin American countries, supports collaboration among faculty, and sends American Koreanist scholars north and south for lectures. Funded by the Seoul-based Academy of Korean Studies, the UCLA-administered program has begun to snowball, attracting interest in the form of travel grants for Latin American students and faculty members visiting Korea and the United States.http://www.international.ucla.edu/korea/article.asp?parentid=105981Beginning in the fall of 2008 there will be a student initiated and run Korean Studies Graduate Student Colloquium.http://www.international.ucla.edu/korea/article.asp?parentid=96042Rebecca Kim discusses why ethnic-oriented, collegiate Christian groups grow faster than multi-racial ones.http://www.international.ucla.edu/korea/article.asp?parentid=92241In impoverished North Korea, Rudiger Frank of the University of Vienna observes modest changes in the direction of a market economy. http://www.international.ucla.edu/korea/article.asp?parentid=89545One scholar says the United States needs to adopt an approach that allows North and South Korea to normalize relations quickly.http://www.international.ucla.edu/korea/article.asp?parentid=83719This summer Sung-Deuk Oak, a UCLA faculty member in Asian Languages and Cultures, was chosen to be the first scholar funded under the Dong Soon Im and Mi Ja Im endowment. He'll be charged with telling a remarkable story in the history of religion.http://www.international.ucla.edu/korea/article.asp?parentid=79083A conference this month in Koreatown was the first step in bridging studies of Korea carried out in North and South America. Under a five-year grant, UCLA Korean studies researchers and their Latin American colleagues are planning collaboration and exchanges.http://www.international.ucla.edu/korea/article.asp?parentid=74931A Nine Day Program in Seoul, Korea, July 25-August 3, 2007http://www.international.ucla.edu/korea/article.asp?parentid=20574