Loose change for December 12, 2009

 Economic news 

• Detroit's Big Three say Japan's version of "cash for clunkers" is unfair to foreign automakers (which would include Korean vehicles, if they hadn't already exited the market).
• SK Telecom buys a $350 million stake in Hana Financial Group, making it the first South Korean telecom operator in the credit card market.
• Kia Motors plans to raise $300 million for a new factory through a sale of "kimchi bonds," its first such move in two years.
• South Korean steel exports to China increased 33.7% since the beginning of 2009.

 North Korea news and stuff 

•  Don Kirk of the Christian Science Monitor asks whether winter shortages in North Korea will lead to an intensification or increase in human rights abuses. He also suggests that North Korea's return to six-party talks is déjà vu all over again.
• Evangelist Franklin Graham, whose late mother (the wife of Reverend Billy Graham) spent some of her growing up in North Korea, says it is vital for the US to have direct talks with the DPRK. 
• According to the Voice of America, North Korea's KCNA gives an upbeat assessment of talks with US envoy Stephen Bosworth.
• Japan's Justice Ministry says it is unlikely to grant visas to North Korea's women's soccer team for East Asian championships coming in February.
• The North Korean team at the East Asian Games in Hong Kong apparently kept itself quite secluded.
• The Los Angeles Times has a piece on a British filmmaker's criticism of Australia's decision to bar entry to North Korean artists whose work is part of an exhibition in Brisbane.

 Other Korea-related stuff 

• The Chosun Ilbo says South Korea should not be swayed by Taliban threats regarding Seoul's plan to send troops to Afghanistan.
• For the fourth consecutive year, Korean Air was chosen as having the best business class to Asia by readers of Business Traveler magazine. 
• The BBC talks about the new bottled water tapped in from the DMZ.
• Opposition mayoral candidate for Seoul Metropolitan prefecture blasts the international snowboarding competition held in central Seoul.

 Miscellany 

• American women of Korean and Chinese descent have a higher rate of gestational diabetes. 
• Foreign companies in China are "angry" over a new rule requiring that high-tech products be accredited based on "indigenous innovation" (i.e., local intellectual property) before they can be listed in a government procurement catalog. Yeah, that China, the supposedly foreign-friendly one that expats in Korea say overseas investors in Korea are leaving the ROK in droves for. That China.
• The text of President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.