China Urges Calm for Korea/ Xinhua News/China Daily

China urges Korean Peninsula dialogue .
BEIJING, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- China Thursday urged the two sides on the Korean Peninsula to value people's safety and regional peace, and resume dialogue and negotiation at an early date.

"The situation on the Korean Peninsula remains complicated and sensitive," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a regular press conference.

Jiang called on concerned parties to make the safety of the people on the peninsula and regional peace and stability their top priority.

Jiang's remarks came after the Republic of Korea (ROK) Thursday held a large-scale military drill near its land border with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
"We urge the relevant parties to keep calm, exercise restraint, adopt a responsible attitude, do more to ease the situation, and contribute to peace and stability on the peninsula," Jiang said.
"We hope all the parties could respond to China's proposal and push the Peninsula situation back onto the track of dialogue and negotiation at an early date."
Launched in 2003 and stalled since the end of 2008, the six-party talks on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue involve China, the United States, the DPRK, the ROK, Russia and Japan.
On Nov. 28, China proposed emergency consultations among the heads of delegations to the six-party talks after the ROK and DPRK exchanged fire.

China and North Korea: the Bond is Real and Abiding

DPRK

Opinion: DPRK/North Korea: a New Israel

I think that the DPRK (North Korean) regime is being, as usual, very smart. What they are preparing for is a strong, nuclear, independent self-governing, self-directing state, knowing they can always rely on China, no matter what. In this way the intelligence at work is much the same as that of Israel knowing that whatever they do they will be protected by the USA. The support for Israel within the USA is always constant and significant; and always significantly military.
In China, especially the great North of it, the support for North Korea is equally passionate and China will not do anything that threatens not only the DPRK but also the loyalties of hundreds of millions of Northern Chinese who, through kin blood and trade, are very tightly linked with the DPRK.

As a Northern Han man said to me on a train leaving Shen Yang last year: The DPRK is the most inhuman government in the world, but they are our blood brothers. I wish them well. They have our support. We all have relatives who died fighting in Korea to get rid of the Americans last time. Even Mao's son died at their hands, yet the Americans did not win. No one in their right mind would go to war with North Korea.

He was a retired PLA colonel. His brother was killed by the Americans in Korea. I told him I was trying to learn the thai language. He said 'Don't bother with the small languages. Thailand is not a country, it is a border town. China is Asia.' That night we sang in a karaoke bar. He sang a PLA war-ballad with great sentiment, love and sincerity: "After all the suffering, I would still borrow from the god another 500 years."

DPRK North Korea ready to launch "Sacred War" Xinhua News

PYONGYANG, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) military said on Thursday that the army of the DPRK was fully prepared to launch "a sacred war" based on the nuclear deterrent at any time, the official news agency KCNA.
According to the KCNA, Korean People's Army (KPA) Vice Marshal Kim Yong Chun delivered a report at a national meeting held to mark the 19th anniversary of top leader Kim Jong Il's gaining of the supreme commandership of the KPA at the April 25 House of Culture on Thursday that South Korea's military provocation through holding shelling exercises again indicated its intention of starting "another Korean War" , leading the the Korean Peninsula to a situation that "a war may break out at any moment" .
"If the enemies intrude into the sky, land and seas of the DPRK even by0.001 mm, the KPA will as ever continue dealing more devastating physical blows at them without hesitation. The army and people of the DPRK never make an empty talk" , he said.

The army of the DPRK is getting fully prepared to launch a sacred war of justice "based on the nuclear deterrent" at any time necessary to cope with the enemies' actions deliberately pushing the situation to the brink of a war, he stressed.
At the end, he warned that in case the U.S. and its followers finally ignite an all-out war, the army of the DPRK will "not only wipe out the aggressors but also blow up their bases and thus eradicate the root cause of war and surely accomplish the historic cause of national reunification.

Situation on the peninsula is getting tense after the exchange of artillery fire on Nov. 23 between South Korea and the DPRK, which killed four people. The South Korean military held a live fire artillery drill in waters southwest of Yonphyong Island near the disputed water maritime border again on Dec. 20.

The South Korean Department of Defense declared on Dec. 22 that the three-day drills would be held in waters off the east coast of the Korean peninsula from Dec. 22 and large-scale joint drills involving the South Korean Army and the Air Force from Dec. 23.

Kim Yong Chun is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, vice-chairman of the National Defense Commission of the DPRK and minister of the People's Armed Forces.

$AU /$US Parity

‎60 day cash forecast: the $AU should remain at least on par with the $US for the next 2 months. It may increase and be worth 1.02 or 1.03US but that should be about it.

Bangkok Chinatown

One of the things about Bangkok Chinatown is that it keeps getting more interesting. The coal smoke from the chestnut roasters, the fresh fruit, the vegetables, the remarkable fish and seafood stores, the restaurants spilling out legally into the grid-lock traffic every day, the outstanding varieties of just about everything...and ,for me, how everything that is transported is transported through narrow crowded alleys on beautiful vespa motorscooters from 30 years ago....it's an astounding place and, strangely enough, one of the deeply safe places in South East Asia. Even with Thailand's throes of political and military upheavals that continue because the Great King is old now, no one will cause any trouble in Bangkok Chinatown. Whoever you are, whatever political or social movement you are passionate about, no one in their right mind every causes a big disturbance in a 2 million-people strong sub-city of Chinese merchants just trying to make a living by having a shop. That's just crazy. No matter what your cause, it doesn't belong here. You will be hunted down and dealt with at a completely local level.
The best restaurant in Bangkok Chinatown: The Red Shirt Seafood Restaurant that cranks up on the footpath in the main drag at 5 pm every day, revolution or no revolution. The best seafood, freshest, cheapest, fastest.