LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Korea: South Korea
built 658 days ago
Even before the Republic of Korea was formed the first steps to building national army for the new country were underway. One of the first tasks undertaken by American occupation forces when they arrived beginning 8 September 1945 was to train and replace existing Japanese police and security forces. This took the form of a police academy to train policemen and the establishment of police constabulary regiments patterned on the U.S. infantry regiment of that time. The 1st Battalion, 1st Regiment Korean Constabulary was activated 14 January 1946 and began training at a former Japanese Army barrack area northeast of Seoul on the Ch’unch’on Highway. Besides the regiment in Seoul, by April 1946, constabulary regiments had been established at Pusan, Kwangju, Taegu, Iri, Taejon, Ch’ongju, and Ch’unch’on — one regiment for each province in South Korea. However, at the time these were regiments in name only since the total strength of the entire Constabulary in April 1946 was 2000 men but over the next two years were built up to approximately 26,000 men and officers.
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Korea Telecom Directory was founded in 1966 as an entity to offer telephone directory services to the public. In 1997, the South Korean government pushed for privatization of Korea Telecom, the state-run telecom giant, and in the process Korea Telecom Directory was spun off from the parent company. Since then, the company has been implementing a series of improvements and innovative management initiatives in a bid to enhance the corporate culture and serve customers better. In addition, the company has diversified its businesses, making inroads into the online business. South Korea's largest Internet-based telephone directory ISUPERPAGE (http://www.isuperpage.co.kr/) is one of the towering achievements Korea Telecom Directory has made in its latest initiatives. During the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup finals, the company ran a joint World Cup site (http://www.krjpyp.com/) through a joint partnership program.
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On June 25, 1950, North Korea invaded the South leading to the Korean War. The Soviet boycott of the United Nations at the time, and therefore, no veto, allowed the UN to intervene when it became apparent that the superior communist forces would easily take over the entire country. The Soviet Union and China backed North Korea, with the participation of millions of Chinese troops. After huge advances on both sides, the war eventually reached a stalemate. The 1953 armistice, never signed by South Korea, split the peninsula along the demilitarized zone near the original demarcation line. No peace treaty was ever signed and the two countries are still technically at war.[22]
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After the Korean War, the Communist government of North Korea used the region’s rich mineral and power resources as the basis for an ambitious program of industrialization and rehabilitation. With Chinese and Soviet aid, railroads, industrial plants, and power facilities were rebuilt. Farms were collectivized, and industries were nationalized. In a series of multiyear economic development plans, the coal, iron, and steel industries were greatly expanded, new industries were introduced, and the mechanization of agriculture was pushed. By the mid-1990s more than 90% of the economy was socialized and 95% of the country’s manufactured products were made by state-owned enterprises. A serious postwar population loss, resulting from the exodus of several million people to the South, was somewhat offset by the immigration of Chinese colonists and Koreans from Manchuria and Japan.
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Korea was an independent kingdom for much of the past millennium. Following its victory in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, Japan occupied Korea; five years later it formally annexed the entire peninsula. After World War II, a Republic of Korea (ROK) was set up in the southern half of the Korean Peninsula while a Communist-style government was installed in the north (the DPRK). During the Korean War (1950-53), US troops and UN forces fought alongside soldiers from the ROK to defend South Korea from DPRK attacks supported by China and the Soviet Union. An armistice was signed in 1953, splitting the peninsula along a demilitarized zone at about the 38th parallel. Thereafter, South Korea achieved rapid economic growth with per capita income rising to roughly 14 times the level of North Korea.
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In 1945 the country was divided in two at the 38th parallel and in 1948 the communist Democratic People's Republic of North Korea was declared in the north and the pro-USA Republic of Korea was founded in the south. Since that time Buddhism has been completely suppressed in the north. In the south, with the restoration of native rule in 1945, an intense conflict broke out between monks who had taken wives and abandoned many of the normal monastic precepts, and those who had not. These latter insisted upon the full restoration of celibacy and the strict enforcement of traditional Korean rules, and they further insisted that the former group be ejected from monastic properties, which would then be turned over to their control. The latter group, consolidated under the now-dominant Chogye Order, eventually won out after several court battles, legislative victories, and open hostilities. Thus, after a painful transition period, married monks left the monasteries, and monastic life returned to pre-Japanese practices.
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