I hope they give him at least a good middle name he can fall back on if this doesn’t work out:

Famous StarCraft player Lim Yo-hwan announced he will name his child Marine after the infantry unit in the game’s Terran species.

In an interview with a local news outlet Wednesday, the 36-year-old eSport legend said he couldn’t think of other names aside from the popular unit from the real-time strategic computer video game. His wife, actress Kim Ga-yeon, 44, agreed to the name, he added.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” lang=”en”><p>‘Han Gong-ju’ picked as best film of 2014 by Korean film reporters <a href=”http://t.co/3TBjw7y9u4″>http://t.co/3TBjw7y9u4</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/HanGongJu?src=hash”>#HanGongJu</a> <a href=”http://t.co/gxiBDe0bh6″>pic.twitter.com/gxiBDe0bh6</a></p>&mdash; The Korea Times (@koreatimes) <a href=”https://twitter.com/koreatimes/status/559803858663141376″>January 26, 2015</a></blockquote>
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Models showcase LG Electronics Inc.’s latest G Flex 2 smartphones with curved display at an event in Seoul on Jan. 22, 2015. The G Flex 2, with a Full HD 5.5-inch display, will become LG’s second smartphone that boasts a display curving inward from top to bottom and slightly from right to left, though slightly smaller than its 6-inch predecessor. (Yonhap)

Bloomberg has an article published that looks at the importance of the wife and sister of Kim Jong-un:

One sports a Christian Dior handbag and favors Western clothes. The other carries a notebook and wears dark uniforms. These fashion opposites are the two most influential women in North Korea.

While Kim Jong Un’s wife Ri Sol Ju and younger sister Kim Yo Jong are currently allies in sustaining one of the world’s most reclusive leaders, their overlapping influence makes them potential rivals in a regime where family ties aren’t strong enough to protect against Kim’s penchant for purges.

These women of Pyongyang offer insight to an opaque regime that, while struggling to feed its people, is capable of maintaining 1.2 million men under arms and threatening neighbors with nuclear annihilation. Ri commands a growing following among the wives of North Korean elite while Kim Yo Jong now holds a senior position in the ruling Workers’ Party and serves as an adviser to her brother.

“Uneasiness is inevitable in a relationship like this,” Kang Myong Do, a son-in-law of North Korea’s former Prime Minister, Kang Song San, said by phone. “The wife wouldn’t like it if her husband got too close to his sister; the sister wouldn’t like it if her brother got too close to his wife.”

The sister would try to oust Ri if the first lady_ a “rag-tag commoner” compared to Kim Yo Jong — sought political power beyond the role of burnishing her husband’s public image, said Kang, who now teaches North Korean studies at Kyungmin University near Seoul.

Kim Yo Jong chooses to remain in her brother’s shadow at public events, while Ri locks arms with Kim Jong Un. In a photo released Jan. 21 by the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper, Kim Yo Jong hides behind a pole as she watches the back of her brother speaking to people at a shoe factory.

Still, Kim Yo Jong “has a lot of control over who has access to her brother, what they say to him, what documents they hand over — in short, she is a combination gatekeeper and traffic cop,” said Michael Madden, editor of the North Korea Leadership Watch blog.  [Bloomberg]

You can read more at the link, but for all we know Ri Sol-ju and Kim Yo-jong could be best friends and thus no potential of power struggle between the two. I think it is pretty clear that Ri Sol-ju is there soften Kim’s public image while Kim Yo-jong is a person he trusts who takes care of things behind the scenes.

President Park is continuing the trend of Korean Presidents quickly becoming unpopular with the public after they do not live up to their promises:

President Park Geun-hye’s approval rating has gone down to 30 percent, the lowest since she took office on Feb. 25, 2013, according to a survey released Friday.

The record low rate appears to have been prompted by the fiasco involving the government’s new tax settlement scheme coupled with Park’s no-compromise stance, experts said.

Gallup Korea conducted a poll of 1,001 adults between Tuesday and Thursday, which shows Park’s rating at 30 percent, down from 35 percent the previous week.

Respondents who negatively evaluated Park’s management of state affairs reached 60 percent, up from 55 percent. Among them, 17 percent accused Park of poor communications, while 15 percent cited the possible tax boost amid lingering controversy over the bungled tax policy.

“Last week’s falling popularity could be attributed to her New Year speech that only showed a gap between her perception and public expectations,” Gallop said in its statement. “The continuous decrease this week can be attributable to furious employees over income tax.”

More than 15 million employees are upset over a possibly increased amount of tax payment in their year-end tax filings, despite the government’s explanation that only high-income earners would have to pay more tax.

It was noted that a considerable number of those aged over 50, Park’s main support base, seem to have withdrawn their support.

The results show that only 38 percent of those over 50 still support the daughter of late President Park Chung-hee, while her over-60 supporters was reduced to 53 percent from 62 percent.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but I think this is the backlash from making campaign promises to get elected and then having to deal with reality when in power.  A perfect example of this is the promise not to raise taxes, but the government found a back door way to take people’s money without raising taxes by instead eliminating deductions.

Here is the latest on the North Korean rhetoric front:

North Korea Sunday described US President Barack Obama as a “loser” over his criticism on its regime, accusing him of being obsessed with hostility towards Pyongyang.

The comment from the North’s foreign ministry came after Obama spoke of the eventual collapse of the regime ruling what he called “the most isolated, the most sanctioned, the most cut-off nation on Earth”.

“We will keep on ratcheting the pressure, but part of what’s happening is… the Internet over time is going to be penetrating this country,” Obama said in an interview on YouTube from the White House last week.

“Over time you will see a regime like this collapse,” he said, adding the US was looking for ways to accelerate the flow of information into the country.

A spokesman for the North’s foreign ministry lashed out at the remarks, describing them as “rubbish”.

“The recent wild remarks made by Obama are nothing but a poor grumble of a loser driven into a tight corner in the all-out standoff with the (North),” the spokesman told state news agency KCNA.

“We cannot but be shocked to find that Obama… is so preoccupied with the inveterate repugnancy and hostility toward a sovereign state.”  [AFP]

You can read more at the link.

Obama Says North Korea’s Regime to Collapse Over Time / Sputnik International http://t.co/x8ITw1w0iA #NorthKorea #DPRK

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) January 23, 2015

Girl group Girls’ Day attends the High1 Seoul Music Awards in Seoul on Jan. 22, 2015. (Yonhap)

I don’t smoke, but it seems to me that the business owners are making a good point about the legality of the ban:

Twenty owners of restaurants and bars will ask the Constitutional Court to review the smoking ban imposed on all such establishments.

An online community of smokers, I Love Smoking, said Friday that some of its members who run eateries will file a petition with the court next month as they believe the new law, which bans smoking at all cafes, restaurants and bars, regardless of their size, infringes on their basic rights.

The move came after the restaurant owners saw a sharp decline in sales after the expanded ban on smoking took effect on Jan. 1.

“Sales have dropped more than 30 percent since the law went into effect. It is threatening my livelihood,” Kwon Huck-nam, who runs a restaurant selling grilled beef tripe in Seoul, told The Korea Times.

Like Kwon, many owners of restaurants, especially meat restaurants and bars where many patrons smoke while drinking, have faced similar difficulties due to the regulation.

“Given that cigarettes and alcohol go together in most cases, many customers are leaving their old hangouts because they cannot smoke there any longer,” Kwon said. “In this regard, the regulation is unfair and too harsh for people like us. It infringes on the freedom of business and the right to property.” [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but is it a stretch to imagine someone in the future wanting to ban alcohol in business establishments as well?

Typical North Korean rhetoric and typical US-ROK response:

South Korea’s defense ministry said Thursday that annual joint spring drills with the U.S. will proceed as planned, despite North Korea’s call to cancel them in exchange for its pledge to suspend nuclear testing.

It was unclear how the decision to go ahead with the Foal Eagle field training and Key Resolve command post exercise would affect Seoul’s call for the two Koreas to hold their first summit since 2007.

“These are the annual exercises for the defense of the Republic of Korea,” a Ministry of National Defense spokesman said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity. “Therefore, we need to hold them, and North Korea will need to return quickly to meaningful conversation which could reach real progress in denuclearizing North Korea.”

Washington and Seoul tout the two exercises as defensive in nature, but they routinely draw condemnation and threats from the North.

Approximately 12,700 U.S. troops — about half from outside the peninsula — and more than 200,000 South Korean troops took part in last year’s exercises, as well as a number of U.S. naval and air assets from outside South Korea. Details for this year’s drills, which the MND said will begin in early March, have not been announced.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.