Mad cow

In the past few weeks, there has been a growing number of protests about South Korea's plans for importing beef from the US". Many people believe that there is a strong likelihood that people will get Mad Cow if Korea resumes imports. The protests are becoming so violent that in Seoul water cannons were used against protesters, there are claims of significant force being used by police (I can't link to the English language Korean newspapers because it is a mess of stupid Flash so you can't go to a specific article), people are being arrested, and there are charges of police brutality being brought against the riot police in Seoul.

This seems to be going deeper, in that people feel that the president not listening to their concerns is greater than the concern itself, and the president has put his (IMHO, absurd) plan to build a canal across the entire country on hold for the time being, again because of public discontent.

This is another example of the power of propaganda. Although there is no science on their side, every time I speak with someone about it, there is a different reason for why it is so much more dangerous for Koreans to eat US beef, from the idea that the US will send the meat from cows that are over 30 months old (and therefore more likely to transmit the disease, though research doesn't support this theory) to Koreans being more susceptible to the virus (though how they would know this, I have no idea). While at the same time there is a very real outbreak of Avian Flu sweeping through South Korea that no one is talking about or protesting, although there have been instances where humans working with infected birds have contracted the disease.