The Kim regime knows that Beijing will not do anything that would undermine the stability of their regime and thus why they continue with their provocation strategy:

Trucks rumbled across the Chinese-North Korean border Thursday in a sign that trade was continuing despite Beijing’s anger over the North’s avowed hydrogen bomb test, which could spark economic retaliation and further estrangement between the once-close communist allies.

There were no obvious signs of disruption in the northeastern city of Dandong that sits on the Yalu River directly across from North Korea’s Sinuiju. The twin cities are the conduit through which much of North Korea’s international trade passes.

China condemned Wednesday’s purported test, which sent tremors across parts of northeastern China near the North Korean border and alarmed residents.

“I think it is a threat and sabotage to China and to the world peace for such a country to own nuclear weapons,” Dandong resident Tian Zhibin said in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday.

Analysts say Beijing will likely join other members of the U.N. Security Council in imposing tougher economic sanctions on its communist ally.

Beijing could also introduce unilateral measures such as tighter inspections of the trucks that cross the Yalu carrying mostly consumer goods bound for the North. China-North Korean economic projects could be suspended and Chinese companies and banks discouraged from doing business with North Korea.  [Associated Press]

You can read the rest at the link.

I would think the Kim regime would have expected this to happen, so it will be interesting to see what their response will be.  Would they try and shoot at one of the loudspeakers again in response to further heighten tensions?:

In response to North Korea’s latest nuclear test, South Korea on Thursday announced it would resume cross-border propaganda broadcasts that Pyongyang considers an act of war. Seoul also began talks with Washington that could see the arrival of nuclear-powered U.S. submarines and warplanes to the Korean Peninsula.

From Seoul to Washington, Beijing to the United Nations, world powers are looking at ways to punish Pyongyang for the test of what it called a new and powerful hydrogen bomb.

The loudspeaker broadcasts, which will start Friday, believed to be the birthday of young North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, are certain to infuriate authoritarian Pyongyang because they are meant to raise questions in North Korean minds about the infallibility of the ruling Kim family. South Korea stopped earlier broadcasts after it agreed with Pyongyang in late August on a package of measures aimed at easing animosities that had the rivals threatening war.

Experts, meanwhile, are trying to uncover more details about the detonation that drew worldwide skepticism and condemnation.  [Associated Press]

You can read the rest at the link.

I just can’t believe they actually had to do research to figure this out.  Maybe I should start my own “ROK Drop Institute of Common Sense” and get in on some these research dollars?:

A state-run research agency says the more affluent and intimate married couples are, the more likely it is for them to have a second child.

The Korea Institute of Child Care and Education under the Prime Minister’s Office released the conclusion in a report after analyzing the 2012 Panel Study on Korean Children conducted on around 400 couples with a single child.

According to the analysis, the higher the income of the couple, the more likely they planned to have a second baby.

Other factors raising the likelihood of having a second child were a high level of marital satisfaction on the part of the wife and a good relationship between the spouses. [KBS Global]

You can read more at the link.

Anyone else think KimJongUn is looking more and more like Pillsbury Dough Boy/StayPuft Marshmallow Man? Just saying pic.twitter.com/iE1sBPJBv7

— Bruce Klingner (@BruceKlingner) January 5, 2016

This image, captured from North Korea’s Korean Central Television on Jan. 4, 2016, shows a scene from a North Korean film, “Comrade Kim Goes Flying,” that the broadcaster aired for the first time on the previous day. The romantic comedy, the first North Korean film co-produced with British and Belgian partners in 2012, is a tale of a young woman coal miner who dreams of becoming a trapeze artist. (Yonhap)

You would think this is something that the Japanese government would try and do on the down low sometime in the future because trying to move this statue now would be political suicide for the ROK government:

Amid an ongoing debate about relocating the statue of a young girl that symbolizes the comfort women – women forced to serve as sex slaves for the Imperial Japanese Army – from in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, there are indications that the South Korean government is shifting to a stricter legal stance on the issue.This appears to be motivated by concerns about criticism from the South Korean public, which has been increasing since the governments of South Korea and Japan reached an agreement about the comfort women on Dec. 28, as well as by a string of remarks by Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida that treat the removal of the statue as an established fact.

This is likely to provoke further conflict between the governments of South Korea and Japan.“Let me make this clear: The statue of the young girl was set up by private citizens, and there is nothing that the government can do about it,” South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Cho June-hyuk told domestic reporters and foreign correspondents at the regular press briefing on the afternoon of Jan. 5.  [Hankyoreh]

You can read the rest at the link.

The Korea Herald explains why a hydrogen bomb is such an important advancement by North Korea if they did in fact test one.  It all comes down to the explosive power of an H-bomb compared to a nuclear fission bomb.  Could you imagine what one of these things would do if used against Seoul or Beijing?:

Nuclear weapons are classified into atomic, neutron and hydrogen bombs. Among them, hydrogen bombs, also known as thermonuclear bombs, are known to be the most powerful due to their unique structure that expresses explosive power.

Unlike atomic bombs that derive their energy from nuclear fission — the splitting of atoms — hydrogen bombs obtain their explosive power from both nuclear fission and fusion, the process of forming a heavier nucleus from two lighter ones, such as the nuclei of the hydrogen isotopes tritium or deuterium.

While fission bombs can have as small as 1 kiloton of explosive power — North Korea’s 2013 nuclear test was known to have 6 to 7 kilotons — hydrogen bombs’ explosive power ranges into the hundreds of kilotons.  [The Korea Herald]

You can read the rest at the link.

It is amazing how over the past two decades coffee has become such a staple of Korean culture.  It is good to see that the convenience stores are now also offering quality brewed coffee considering how expensive most of the coffee shops are:

Koreans love their coffee – but they’re loving it in different ways.

The market was once dominated by franchise coffee shops like Starbucks and the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, but more people are heading to convenience stores, especially since they started selling quality coffee at low prices.

Local convenience stores such as CU, GS25 and 7-Eleven are aggressively expanding their offerings of brewed coffee. Korean adults consumed an average of 341 cups of coffee in 2014, up 14.4 percent from the previous year, according to Statistics Korea. To put that into perspective, the average Korean consumed seven bowls of rice a week, 11.8 portions of kimchi – and 12.8 cups of coffee. Coffee has arguably become more important than kimchi.

Industry insiders believe that the coffee market was worth about 6 trillion won ($5.06 billion) last year and that it has been growing 10 percent per year. Convenience stores’ coffee sales accounted for about 40 billion won last year, but that is expected to grow to 100 billion won this year.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see if this was in fact a hydrogen bomb or just more bluster from North Korea.  North Korea claims the nuclear test is directed towards being a deterrent towards the United States, but I think  it is becoming more of a deterrent against the Chinese government which the Kim regime has an increasingly rocky relationship with:

North Korea has carried out its fourth nuclear test, claiming that it succeeded in developing a hydrogen bomb.

Hours after a massive tremor was detected from the northeastern part of North Korea where its nuclear facility is located, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Wednesday officially announced the test.

The state-run media carried the North Korean government’s statement, which said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered a hydrogen bomb test.

While calling the test “completely successful,” the KCNA claimed that its weapons program is a nuclear deterrent against the threats from the United States.  [KBS World Radio]

You can read more at the link.

Kim Jong-un Focuses on Economy, Not Nukes, in New Year's Speech – https://t.co/dNoerJInPT

— Korea Noodles (@Korea_Noodles) January 3, 2016