North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il has died at age 69.

The mysterious, often erratic leader of the north, which has maintained a perpetual state of still war with the south, was believed to be in ill health for a number of years, though accurate reports are all but impossible to obtain in the closed state. He was believed to also have suffered a stroke in 2008. He was also believed to suffer from heart disease and diabetes.

Kim Jong Il took power after his father, Kim Il Sung, died in 1994. The third generation of rulers, Kim Jong Un, will likely take power in the wake of his father’s death.

South Korea’s military went on alert as soon as the news broke, as tensions have been high between the countries for years.

Seoul at night (Media credit/lroderick7 via Flickr)

The fact that most yishipdae weren’t afforded the opportunity to socialize with the opposite sex until they reach college creates a feeding frenzy of sorts within the nightlife scene in Seoul. From a startlingly early age, these young men and women have been disciplined to study, study, study. Failure is simply not an option in South Korean life. In fact, some students spend 6 months or longer with no outside contact, just to prepare for the college entrance exams. To them, getting into the right school is their ticket into the social hierarchy of South Korea and is at the same time a predictor of the success and achievement they will experience for the rest of their lives. With all this “stressure” as some folks call it, it seems there wouldn’t be much time to play for the yishipdae.

While cutting loose isn’t socially acceptable in public in South Korea, there are plenty of places where young people can express themselves behind closed doors. There are all different kinds of “bangs,” or rooms where people can enjoy anything from a few bottles of Soju, the national drink (similar to the Japanese drink, Sake) to a night of karaoke or even pop into one of the taboo “love rooms” where people can use their credit card to check into an hourly hotel-style room and escape the prying eyes of their parents or the outside world in general. If you’re feeling frisky, Sinchon-dong is a neighborhood built around the major universities of Hongik, Ewha Women’s and Yonsei. Hongik is like the Harvard of South Korea. If you graduate with a degree from here, you’re set for life. With the highest density of clothing and accessory stores in Seoul, as well as a bustling night life scene, Sinchon-dong is the hot spot for the yishipdae of modern day Seoul.

The yishipdae are strikingly similar to the 20-somethings of America. They are fiercely independent, have a fascination with pop culture that is unrivaled (just look up K-pop in google), and absolutely love to make eating and drinking their biggest social endeavor. After a night out at any one of the beer halls, bars or nightclubs in Sinchon-dong, the yishipdae flood the streets and hit up late night “pochangmachas,” street vendors famous for their use (some say overuse) of charcoal in homemade half-barrel grills. At night, the air in Seoul is filled with the tantalizing scent of street meat and sweet potatoes, as well as the sounds of a new youth culture, less concerned with the conservative traditions of their parents generation and more concerned with forging their own identity and lifestyle, however similar it may be to our own here in America.

President Barack Obama gave the following address in Washington today regarding a new US-Korean free trade agreement:

THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. Today I want to speak briefly about two issues that matter most to me and matter most to the American people — creating jobs and economic growth on which our country’s prosperity depends.

Yesterday’s job report showed that despite 11 consecutive months of private sector job growth, despite creating more than 1 million private sector jobs this year, it’s not enough. We have to do more to accelerate the economic recovery and create jobs for the millions of Americans who are still looking for work.

And essential to that effort is opening new markets around the world to products that are “Made in America.” Because we don’t simply want to be an economy that consumes other countries’ goods. We want to be building and exporting the goods that create jobs here in America and that keeps the United States competitive in the 21st century.

That’s why today I am very pleased that the United States and South Korea have reached agreement on a landmark trade deal between our two countries. I’m joined this morning by my outstanding U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador Ron Kirk, as well as Michael Froman, who was one of our lead negotiators. As you’ll remember, we did not finalize this agreement on my recent visit to South Korea. And I didn’t agree to it then for a very simple reason: The deal wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t good enough for the American economy, and it wasn’t good enough for American workers.

As I said in Seoul, I’m not interested in signing trade agreements for the sake of signing trade agreements. I’m interested in agreements that increase jobs and exports for the American people and that also help our partners grow their economies. So I told Ron and our team to take the time to get this right and get the best deal for America. And that is what they have done. The agreement we’re announcing today includes several important improvements and achieves what I believe trade deals must do — it’s a win-win for both our countries.

This deal is a win for American workers. For our farmers and ranchers, it will increase exports of American agricultural products. From aerospace to electronics, it will increase our manufacturing exports to Korea, which already support some 200,000 American jobs and many small businesses. In particular, manufacturers of American cars and trucks will have much more access to the Korean market, we’ll encourage the development of electric cars and green technology in the United States, and we’ll continue to ensure a level playing field for American automakers here at home.

In short, the tariff reductions in this agreement alone are expected to boost annual exports of American goods by up to $11 billion. And all told, this agreement — including the opening of the Korean services market — will support at least 70,000 American jobs. It will contribute significantly to achieving my goal of doubling U.S. exports over the next five years. In fact, it’s estimated that today’s deal alone will increase American economic output by more than our last nine free trade agreements combined.

This deal is also a win for our ally and friend South Korea. They will gain greater access to our markets and make American products more affordable for Korean households and
businesses — resulting in more choices for Korean consumers and more jobs for Americans.

I would add that today is also a win for the strong alliance between the United States and South Korea, which for decades has ensured that the security that has maintained stability on the peninsula continues. And it’s also allowed South Korea its extraordinary rise from poverty to prosperity. At a time in which there are increasing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, following the North’s unprovoked attack on the South Korean people, today we are showing that the defense alliance and partnership of the United States and South Korea is stronger than ever.

I’m especially pleased that this agreement includes groundbreaking protections for workers’ rights and for the environment. In this sense, it’s an example of the kind of fair trade agreement that I will continue to work for as President, in Asia and around the world.

This agreement also shows that the United States of America is determined to lead and compete in our global economy. We’re going to stand up for American companies and American workers, who are among the most productive and innovative in the world. And we’re going to compete aggressively for the jobs and markets of the 21st century.

Reaching this agreement was not easy. But I want to give special thanks to my partner, South Korean President Lee, for his commitment to a successful outcome. And, again, I want to thank Ron and Mike for their outstanding work, and their entire team for their tireless efforts. They were up late a lot of nights over the last several months.

We’re going to continue to work with our Korean partners to fully implement this agreement and build on our progress in other areas, such as ensuring full access for U.S. beef to the Korean market.

And I look forward to working with Congress and leaders in both parties to approve this pact. Because if there’s one thing Democrats and Republicans should be able to agree on, it should be creating jobs and opportunity for our people.

Which brings me to the other issue I want to address. Earlier today, the Senate voted on two provisions to extend tax cuts for the middle class. And I’ll admit, I am very disappointed that the Senate did not pass legislation that had already passed the House of Representatives to make middle-class tax cuts permanent. Those provisions should have passed. I continue to believe that it makes no sense to hold tax cuts for the middle class hostage to permanent tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans — especially when those high-income tax cuts would cost an additional $700 billion that we don’t have and would add to our deficit.

But with so much at stake, today’s votes cannot be the end of the discussion. It is absolutely essential — to our hardworking middle-class families and to our economy — to make sure that their taxes don’t go up on January 1st.

I’ve spoken with the Democratic leadership in Congress, and I look forward to speaking with the Republican leadership as well. And my message to them is going to be the same: We need to redouble our efforts to resolve this impasse — in the next few days — to give the American people the peace of mind that their taxes will not go up on January 1st. It will require some compromise, but I’m confident that we can get it done. And the American people should expect no less.

As we work our way through this issue, we must not forget that last week some 2 million Americans who have lost their jobs also saw their unemployment insurance expire — right in the middle of the holiday season. And that’s not how we should do business here in America. I believe it is simply wrong to even consider giving permanent tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans while denying relief to so many Americans who desperately need it and have lost their jobs through no fault of their own.

So we are going to continue to work on this issue through the weekend, into early next week. And I’m going to be rolling up my sleeves, with the leaders of both parties in Congress. We need to get this resolved, and I’m confident we can do it.

Thank you very much, everybody.

So it continues. North Korea prolonged its apparent mission to alienate itself from the entire world by testing another short-range missile off its east coast Friday, the sixth launch in just a few days. Also, vehicular activity was seen at a long-range ballistic missile site north of Pyongyang, which could suggest an impending test, CNN reports.

On Thursday, the U.S. and South Korea elevated surveillance levels to their second-highest, just as they did when North Korea conducted their first underground nuclear test in 2006. The U.S. says it currently has no plans to bolster its forces in South Korea from the present tally of 28,000.

South Korean officials say the alert system, known as “Defcon” was not elevated after Friday’s firing. They did however say they would strengthen certain task forces that monitor the North’s activity.

“Additional intelligence assets, including personnel, will be deployed while reconnaissance operations over North Korea will increase,” said South Korean defense spokesman Won Tae-jae, according to the Yonhap News Agency.

Activity was also seen at the Yongbyon nuclear facility, according to South Korean officials. Troubling since in 2008, North Korea stated it had enough weapons-grade plutonium for seven atomic bombs, CNN reports.

As military along the South-North Korean border continue to sweat, North Korea has warned the world of “self-defense” measures if the UN Security Council decides to impose sanctions on the impoverished country.

“If the UN Security Council provokes us, our additional self-defense measures will be inevitable,” the foreign ministry said in a statement, the BBC reports.

In a response to increased tensions between the South and North, their bordering peninsula in the Yellow sea has seen the withdrawal of Chinese fishing boats. The boats normally operate near the Northern Limit Line (NLL), a UN-declared border line in the sea that the North refuses to recognize as the limit of their land ownership, and were seen leaving the area this week. Nearly 280 boats fish near the NLL for crab each year, and this year, that number has dropped to about 140, reports the BBC.

There promises to be more developments in the near future, so stick with Blast for ongoing coverage and check out the Terra blog for some analysis.

North Korea says it has trashed the truce that ended the Korean War more than 50 years ago, citing South Korea’s involvement with the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) as the main reason, BBC reports.

The PSI is a U.S.-led initiative that searches ships thought to be carrying suspicious goods in an effort to prevent the transfer and trafficking of weapons of mass destruction. South Korea joined the initiative as a response to North Korea’s underground nuclear test, and says it will, in an effort to protect its own safety, partner with the more than 90 countries already participating.

North Korea says the South’s actions are essentially a “declaration of war” (stupid, right?). “Any hostile act against our peaceful vessels, including search and seizure, will be considered an unpardonable infringement on our sovereignty,” said the government in a statement released to the state-run news agency, KCNA.

“We will immediately respond with a powerful military strike.”

It makes sense for the South to participate in the PSI, especially at this time, and especially after reports that steam was seen emanating from the North’s main nuclear facility in Yongbyon, about 60 miles from Pyongyang. The steam confirms North Korea is making good on a threat; to reopen the major plant and start manufacturing weapons-grade plutonium. And I’ll bet it’s not to power a time-traveling DeLorean.

The scrapping of the truce however is particularly worrisome for two main reasons. First, North and South Korea have, for the last 50 years, been at each other’s throats, but even though their border is the most heavily armed in the world, they’ve been peaceful. There have been no major attacks. Negating the deal after 50 years of tense relations and the introduction of a leader in the South that Kim Jong-Il truly hates could result in an explosion of conflict and a barrage of bullets and bombs along the heavily armed border.

Second, the recent nuclear and missile test and North Korea’s assurance that they are developing technology to weaponize their nuclear arsenal make them a respectable (in the worst sense of the word) and formidable opponent. The country cares more about its reputation of power than its own people, evidenced by the high level of poverty in the nation. This hampers the widely accepted notion that the North is just doing all this to emit some sort of ray of strength before the health of Jong-Il deteriorates so much that he must appoint one of his sons.

The government recognizes the seriousness of trashing a half-century old truce, and they wouldn’t have done it just to prove they could and would wipe the South off the map if one of their vessels is so much as approached by PSI forces.

North Korea is a bully. It’s pretty simple. It’ll dish out a lot of heat and provoke as many people as it can, but when you try to calm it down or help it in anyway other than the way in which it believes it should be helped, it just gets angry and smacks you in the face.

The nuclear test was a slap in the face to the international community and the UN. For days, diplomats have been trying to come up with ways to heal their wounds behind closed doors. Sanctions may be placed, actions will be condemned.

But as long as Jong-Il is Commander-in-Chief, his country’s actions will continue to confuse everyone to the breaking point.

Maybe just because he likes the attention. Or maybe because he really does hate everyone and everything that opposes him.

North Korea has fired more missiles just hours after the UN unanimously condemned yesterday’s underground nuclear test and the testing of three short-range missiles, the BBC reports.

The two short-range missiles, one ground-to-air and one ground-to-ship, were fired off east coast bases, south of Kilju, where yesterday’s nuclear test took place.

International diplomats are currently drafting a series of sanctions to be placed on North Korea, a country whose public is already quite poor.

North Korea again cited continued “hostile policy” from the U.S. as the reason for testing their nuclear arsenal.

“Our army and people are fully ready for battle… against any reckless US attempt for a pre-emptive attack,” said a piece by KCNA, the government’s official news outlet.

North Korea has also stated that South Korea’s recent decision to join the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), a U.S. led initiative of more than 90 nations to intercept ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction, constitutes an act and declaration of war, another possible cause for the missile test.

Late Monday, President Obama spoke with leaders in both Japan and South Korea to assure them the U.S. is committed to protecting north-east Asia and Asia-Pacific from any threats by North Korea.

CBC reports UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is urging North Korea to engage in talks with its Pacific neighbors and the U.S. if it wishes to remain part of the international community.

“The only viable option at this time for North Korea to remain as a responsible member of the international community is to return to the dialogue table,” Ban told reporters at a Helsinki news conference.

Stick with Blast for developments.

North Korea, one of the pillars of Bush’s “axis of evil”, conducted an underground test of a nuclear bomb last night about 50 miles northwest of the northern city of Kilju. According to predictions by Russian officials, the bomb generated a blast of between 10 and 20 kilotons, which places it in the range of “Little Boy” and “Fat Man”; the two atomic bombs that ravaged the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

North Korea is part of the Pacific-Asia region, which is also occupied by China, South Korea and Japan. China is the only other nuclear power in the region; however it is a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which attempts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons around the world. China’s stance on nuclear weaponry has been fairly steady, though the proximity of this nuclear test could spur China to ensure its own nuclear arsenal is operational.

South Korea has been at odds with North Korea since the early 1950s, and the two are technically still at war even though an armistice was signed more than 55 years ago. Their border is the most heavily armed in the world, and the introduction of President Lee-Myung Bak has served to reignite hostility between the two countries. Bak has publicly called for the nuclear disarmament of North Korea, a demand that has angered Kim Jong-Il. But he’s always pretty angry.

The last regional neighbor is Japan, the only country to have ever been subjected to a nuclear attack and a steadfast supporter of all treaties and attempts to de-nuclearize unstable states. According to Al-Jazeera, “analysts fear that if Japan felt pressured into developing nuclear weapons, it would trigger an arms race‚ across the region.” Personally, after the atrocities faced by their people in 1945, I really don’t see any way in which Japan would seriously consider developing a nuclear arsenal.

North Korea hasn’t always been so defiant. It actually ratified the NPT in 1985, but withdrew from the treaty in 2003 after being accused by the U.S. of operating an illegal uranium weapons program, claims that were later said to be misinformed. Since then North Korea has been the subject of the six-party talks, a series of diplomatic sessions between China, the U.S., Japan, Russia, South Korea and North Korea to try and peacefully resolve all security concerns that stemmed from its withdrawal from the NPT.

Three years after the first six-party talks and just one year after admitting it had nuclear weapons, in 2006, North Korea launched seven missiles into the Sea of Japan and conducted an underground test of a nuclear device, citing “hostile U.S. policy” as the main cause. Following the two events, the UN Security Council unanimously agreed to impose economic and diplomatic sanctions on North Korea as a punishment for its defiance.

Soon after, in 2007, talks resumed and North Korea agreed to shut down its nuclear weapons facilities in exchange for fuel oil and the stabilization of international relations between the U.S. and Japan. The sanctions were periodically lifted by the U.S. and other countries as North Korea met certain requirements.

However, in April 2009, North Korea decided to pull out of six-party talks indefinitely after the UN Security Council criticized and labeled what North Korea claimed to be a failed satellite launch as a long-range missile test. The country then banned all international nuclear inspectors and vowed to continue enhancing its nuclear arsenal and technology, something, it seems by the magnitude of yesterday’s blast, it had been doing all along.

North Korea also tested ballistic missiles yesterday, which has incited some panic among civilians who see it as an indication of an impending nuclear attack. However according to several experts North Korea cannot launch a nuclear attack because it has not weaponized its nuclear arsenal.

So while this is a particularly troubling event, let’s see what comes of the UN meeting and what steps the international body will take to ensure this stops now. Hopefully it is, as many are predicting, just a method of compensation by Jong-Il. His health is rumored to be declining so quickly after last year’s stroke that he is already thinking about his replacement.

The favorite? Why, his youngest son, of course.

UPDATE: UN Security Council releases statement unanimously condemning North Korea’s actions. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon “‘strongly deplores’ the latest test as a ‘clear and grave’ violation of past resolutions,” CBC reports.

Stick with Blast for developments.

North Korea says it has “weaponized” more than 30 kilograms of plutonium after declaring an “all-out confrontational posture” on South Korea, according to IHT.

According to nuclear experts, 30 kilograms of plutonium is enough to make four or five bombs.

When North Korea declared its plutonium hoard to the U.S. last year, they refused to say how the plutonium was “weaponized” but did say that it was meant for use in missile warheads. After declaring, North Korea declined to allow inspection of said plutonium or any of its nuclear units.

If North Korea’s claims are true, it would make the U.S.’s job a lot harder. However, North Korean officials say they have devised a new set of negotiations they plan to put into play after President-elect Barack Obama steps into the Oval Office.

They did however say resuming diplomatic ties with the U.S. is not as important as‚ remaining‚ a nuclear power.‚ 

“We can live without normalizing ties with the United States, but we cannot live without a nuclear deterrent,” said a spokesman for North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, IHT reports.

This is dangerous, but I’m doubtful anything will really happen between the two countries, especially not during the first few months of Obama’s administration. Nothing will happen on a nuclear scale, obviously, they aren’t that nuts.‚ 

Plus, NK are big talkers when it comes to this kind of stuff.