Loose change for December 14, 2009

 Economic news 

• Samsung Electronics says it will spend $416 million to expand an LDC production facility.
• CNN talks about the threats posed by cyber crime this year, including attacks on South Korea.
• The Korea Times talks about the obstacles foreign CEOs see to doing business in South Korea.
• Coffee is 112 times more expensive than it was in 1965. 

 North Korea news and stuff 

•  The Voice of America says the seizure of the North Korean arms shipment in Thailand show the strength of the sanctions regime against Pyongyang. The Wall Street Journal has a piece on the same topic.
• Yonhap says the seizure reflects a two-tier US strategy: shake hands with the right and be ready to slap down with the left (my descript)
• John Glionna of the Los Angeles Times writes up his take on the North Korean arms shipment intercepted in Thailand. 
• Were the weapons on their way to Ukraine?
• The WHO says that all confirmed cases of H1N1 "swine flu" in North Korea have been cured. The fatalities, however, are still dead. 
• North Korea's Rodong Shinmun denounces Seoul's idea of offering money or goods in exchange for South Koreans held in the DPRK against their will.

 Other Korea-related stuff 

• Seoul National University is trying to attract more foreign students.
• Seoul City Hall has bought up sixty-one residential homes near Yonsei and Koryŏ (Korea) Universities to lease rooms to less affluent students thirty to fifty percent less than alternative accommodation. 
• We're getting closer to South Korea giving "visa-free entry" to Russian citizens. Oh, joy. Maybe the authorities really do believe it's GIs and E2s committing all the crime. 
• The Korea Times complains that the "Korea discount" is greatest in celebrities and hi-tech. It's lowest in kimchi. 
• CNBC has a write-up on the three-day Snow Jam in Seoul. Man, I wish I'd been there to see all that (the Snow Jam, not the CNBC guy doing the write-up).
• Kang Shin-who (just how the hell is that name supposed to be pronounced?) has a write-up on elementary school teachers in Seoul being expected to receive writing training. Amazingly the article mentions nothing about NSETs having AIDS.
• The Ministry for Gender Equality (how neo-Orwellian a name can you possibly make?) will introduce a gender equality index consisting of twenty-seven indicators. We need an index of indexes for this hub of indexes (for that matter, we could use an index for hubs as well).

 Miscellany 

• There's an interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal focusing on Taiwan's Hong Kong-born and US-educated President Ma Ying-jeoou, who has a vision of "making peace with China through trade, defense, and democracy."
• A Volvo heavy construction equipment plant in North Carolina will be closing, putting 228 people out of their jobs, with the work they're doing being shipped to Pennsylvania, Sweden, and South Korea.