Common Sense That I Did Not Expect out of State

But reports that there are direct contacts between the US and the DPRK is an indication of at least a small modicum of sanity in Foggy Bottom:

The Trump administration acknowledged on Saturday for the first time that it was in direct communication with the government of North Korea over its missile and nuclear tests, seeking a possible way forward beyond the escalating threats of a military confrontation from both sides.

“We are probing, so stay tuned,” Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson said, when pressed about how he might begin a conversation with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, that could avert what many government officials fear is a significant chance of open conflict between the two countries.

“We ask, ‘Would you like to talk?’ We have lines of communications to Pyongyang — we’re not in a dark situation, a blackout,” he added. “We have a couple, three channels open to Pyongyang,” a reference to North Korea’s capital.

Considering the fact that the US and the DPRK are the principals in their dispute, direct contacts are a good thing, even if it runs against the standard US regime change consensus among the DC cognoscenti.

When Does the Petition About Obama Start?

In response to a petition by over ¼ million people, the Nobel Prize committee has announced that cannot strip Aung Sang Suu Kyi of the prize for her support of genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar:

The organization that oversees the Nobel Peace Prize said Friday the 1991 prize awarded to Myanmar’s Aung Sang Suu Kyi cannot be revoked.

Olav Njolstad, head of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, said in an email to The Associated Press that neither the will of prize founder Alfred Nobel nor the Nobel Foundation’s rules provide for the possibility of withdrawing the honor from laureates.

“It is not possible to strip a Nobel Peace Prize laureate of his or her award once bestowed,” Njolstad wrote. “None of the prize awarding committees in Stockholm and Oslo has ever considered revoking a prize after it has been awarded.”

An online petition signed by more than 386,000 people on Change.org is calling for Suu Kyi to be stripped of her Peace Prize over the persecution of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority.

Suu Kyi received the award for “her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights” while standing up against military rulers.

………

Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh have reported being ordered to leave Myanmar under the threat of death. They have described large-scale violence allegedly perpetrated by Myanmar troops and Buddhist mobs that included homes being set on fire and bullets sprayed indiscriminately.

Suu Kyi has dismissed the Rohingya crisis as a misinformation campaign.

I'm wondering where the outrage is over a program of targeted assassination by flying robots, including the deaths of thousands of non combatants hasn't generated a f%$#ing petition.

Seriously, the Nobel prize committee is really the gang that cannot shoot straight.

This Ain't Rocket Science ……… It's Just Nuclear Warheads

In January 2016, the DPRK claimed to detonate a hydrogen bomb. At the time, I said that it was likely boosted fission device, which would be a step toward a miniaturized warhead.

Yesterday, anonymous intelligence sources claimed that North Korea had a miniaturized warhead suitable for use on its recently fired missile:

North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, crossing a key threshold on the path to becoming a full-fledged nuclear power, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded in a confidential assessment.

The analysis, completed last month by the Defense Intelligence Agency, comes on the heels of another intelligence assessment that sharply raises the official estimate for the total number of bombs in the communist country’s atomic arsenal. The United States calculated last month that up to 60 nuclear weapons are now controlled by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Some independent experts think the number is much smaller.

The findings are likely to deepen concerns about an evolving North Korean military threat that appears to be advancing far more rapidly than many experts had predicted. U.S. officials concluded last month that Pyongyang is also outpacing expectations in its effort to build an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking the American mainland.

You know, maybe it's the time to engage in direct talks, exchange ambassadors, and END THE F%$#ING KOREAN WAR, which is still technically ongoing.

The US position, complete capitulation as a prelude to negotiations, is not a winning strategy.

Earlier posts are here,.

Stopped Clock, Philippines Edition

Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines Donald Trump is due to be sworn in in a few days.

Today, he told the Catholic Church to STFU about birth control:

The Philippines' tough-guy president-elect is turning his bare-knuckles campaign tactics on a potent adversary: the Roman Catholic Church and its opposition to artificial birth control.

Rodrigo Duterte, who takes office Thursday, is known for never mincing words or shying from a fight. He has threatened, presumably in jest, to chop off the penises of men who resist his proposals for wide-scale vasectomies, according to a report by the Associated Press on Monday. And he is on record as cursing the pope after a papal visit to the Philippines caused massive traffic jams in Manila.

But despite his famously vulgar utterances, Duterte appears to be dead serious about his crusade to lower the birthrate in his impoverished and fast-growing country of 102 million, where the majority-Catholic population has increased by 10 million in six years. The Philippines' birthrate of 2.9 children per family is much lower than in many African countries, where some average more than six children per family, but it is much higher than in Europe and in other Asian countries, including Japan and South Korea, which average 1.4 and 1.2 average births per family, respectively.

"I will reinstall the program of family planning. Three is enough," Duterte said Monday in a speech in Davao City, where he has governed as mayor or vice mayor for 22 years and where he instituted an ambitious policy of birth control and sterilization.

On Sunday, speaking on his weekly TV show from Davao, Duterte accused the church of keeping the public "in total ignorance" about birth control and frightening Catholics into submission. “You tell the children that they will go to hell. You always use that to scare them. But that is not true. Hell is here,” he told the audience, according to the website Politiko. Roman Catholic officials in the Philippines have opposed artificial birth control and advocate only natural family-planning methods.

This guy does appear to be a bit of a nut job, but he's right on this issue.

Gets a Friday Music Post

Epic!

It doesn't get any cooler than playing Hendrix on a gayageum:

Korean artist Luna Lee takes modern songs and gives them a chill twist by playing them on a modified gayageum, an ancient Korean string instrument. On her fundraising page, Lee explains that she modernized the gayageum herself to play contemporary tunes.

We also recommend Luna's versions of "Back in Black," "Stairway to Heaven" and "Creep."

This is awesome.

Oh, Sh%$………

Down in Korea, they are playing a game called stupid human tricks with artillery:

South and North Korea traded artillery fire across their heavily militariZed border on Thursday, in a rare exchange that left no casualties but pushed already elevated cross-border tensions to dangerously high levels.

North Korea followed up with an ultimatum sent via military hotline that gave the South 48 hours to dismantle loudspeakers blasting propaganda messages across the border or face further military action.

The South's defense ministry dismissed the threat and said the broadcasts would continue.

Direct exchanges of fire across the inter-Korean land border are extremely rare, mainly, analysts say, because both sides recognize the risk for a sudden and potentially disastrous escalation between two countries that technically remain at war.

………

In a detailed press briefing later in the day, the South's defense ministry said the nuclear-armed North initially fired a single artillery round over the border shortly before 4:00pm (0700 GMT).

Minutes later it fired several more in the rough direction of one of the South's loudspeaker units, but the shells fell short on the South's side of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) — a four kilometer-wide buffer area straddling the actual frontier line.

The South Korean military retaliated by firing "dozens of rounds of 155mm shells" which the ministry said were also aimed to land in the North's section of the DMZ.

Seriously? You broadcasting propaganda across the border?

Everyone in that peninsula is f%$#ing nuts!

TPP: the Fat Lady Ain't Singing, but She Is Warming Up

At the end of last month, the negotiations that were supposed to put the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) ended without an agreement.

What's more, there wasn't even a date set for a followup summit:

Trade negotiators from the United States and 11 other Pacific nations failed to reach final agreement on Friday, with difficult talks on the largest regional trade agreement ever deadlocking over protections for drug companies and access to agriculture markets on both sides of the Pacific.

Trade ministers, in a joint statement, said late Friday they had made “significant progress” and will return to their home countries to obtain high-level signoffs for a small number of final sticking points on the agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, with bilateral talks reconvening soon.

“There are an enormous number of issues that one works through at these talks, narrowing differences, finding landing zones,” said Michael B. Froman, the United States trade representative. “I am very impressed with the work that has been done. I am gratified by the progress that has been made.”

Still, the breakdown is a setback for the Obama administration, which had promoted the talks here as the final round ahead of an accord that would bind 40 percent of the world’s economy under a new set of rules for commerce.

This is a failure, and a big one.

In a normally unproductive summit, the Japanese would oblique.

When a Japanese diplomat says, "It would be difficult," it should be read "No!" with the explanation point, and when a Japanese diplomat says that, "It would be very difficult, it's the equivalent of "F%$# You White Man."

This time, the Japanese Economy Minister, who is their lead on this deal, just explicitly stated that the US were too wimpy:

Japan has expressed concern about a loss of momentum in talks on a pan-Pacific trade pact after participants failed to agree to meet again this month to try to clinch a deal that would cover 40 percent of the global economy.

Ministers from the 12 nations negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would stretch from Japan to Chile, fell short of a deal at talks last month on the Hawaiian island of Maui, despite early optimism.

Japanese Economy Minister Akira Amari, in a blog circulated on Tuesday, also questioned why the United States appeared to have lacked its usual "stubborn persistence" at those talks, despite a willingness of some countries to stay to try to reach an agreement.

If this were translated into standard American discourse, it would use language that would make George Carlin uncomfortable.

And from Australia, a country whose foreign policy is defined by a desperate need to be "In the Club", the Trade Minister is saying that a deal is unlikely:

Australia’s trade minister, Andrew Robb, has appeared at the National Press Club in Canberra today, where he admitted that concluding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal is looking increasingly unlikely.

According to AAP, Rob said that sugar and dairy access remained key sticking points, along with motor vehicle assess between Mexico, the US, Canada and Japan. He also noted that “the closer we get to a US presidential election, the more prospect (there is) of it falling over”.

There is also the upcoming Canadian elections later this year.

Seeing as how this deal sucks, it's a good thing that it appears to be comatose.

Well, It's a Start

South Korea has indicted Uber CEO Travis Kalanick:

South Korea has indicted the chief executive officer and local subsidiary of Uber Technologies Inc for violating a law governing public transport, becoming the latest jurisdiction to challenge the U.S. taxi service provider.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office issued the indictment against CEO Travis Kalanick and the firm’s Korean unit for violating a law prohibiting individuals or firms without appropriate licenses from providing or facilitating transportation services, an Uber spokeswoman said.

The prosecutors’ office declined to comment.

“Uber Technologies respects the Korean legal system and will provide its full cooperation,” the company said in a statement without detailing the charges brought against it.

Uber, through its apps, charges fees to play matchmaker for passengers and drivers – some registered as taxi drivers. But a lack of regulation for the relatively new business model has brought Uber to the attention of authorities worldwide.

Taiwan and the Chinese mainland city of Chongqing on Monday separately said they were investigating Uber over concerns it and its drivers were not appropriately licensed.

Seeing as how Uber's basic business model is lawlessness with a few legal walls to ensure that people like Kalanick will never face any liability for anything, the idea that he has been personally indicted is a good thing.

Here's hoping that he he actually has to stand trial there.

Korea Hedges its Bets on the F-35

There are still budget issues to be decided by the parliament, but the defense ministry has approved going forward on the KF-X fighter program:

South Korea’s proposed KF-X indigenous fighter program is now closer to being launched than at any time since it was proposed in the late 1990s, following conditional approval for full-scale development from the defense ministry.

The aircraft, which has been pushed by the ministry’s Agency for Defense Development (ADD) and would probably be built by Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI), must still overcome opposition from the finance ministry and some members of parliament.

If the KF-X survives while production of older European and U.S. aircraft winds down, then next decade it may be the only alternative to the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning as a fighter engineered for compatibility with Western weapons and communications. The South Korean program also offers the most immediate sales prospects for Western manufacturers of fighter engines and equipment.

The ministry’s Defense Program Execution Committee, chaired by Defense Minister Han Minkoo, on Sept. 24 approved the basic plan for full-scale development of the KF-X starting in 2015. The committee required that the ministry’s Defense Acquisition Program Agency (DAPA) and the finance ministry agree on the total program cost. DAPA may not issue a request for proposals until it and the finance ministry have that agreement. The agency “cannot be optimistic about the result,” says the Yonhap news agency. The finance ministry habitually opposes costly defense programs or at least seeks delays.

Even if DAPA and the finance ministry agree, full-scale development cannot begin next year without funding authorized by parliament in the government budget due to be settled in December. Members of parliament often take a skeptical view of the defense ministry’s largest ambitions.

DAPA is trying to persuade the finance ministry that the KF-X can be developed for the 8.5 trillion won ($8.1 billion) estimated by an influential think tank, the Korea Institute of Defense Analysis. But the Naeil newspaper reports 8.5 trillion won would pay for an aircraft with only air-to-air capability. Air-to-ground capability would take a further 600 billion won and 4.5 years.

There is also the problem that 20% of the development cost is supposed to be borne by industry, including Lockheed Martin. The U.S. company agreed to support the KF-X technically in return for South Korea last year choosing the F-35A in the F-X Phase 3 fighter competition, but there is no sign that it will invest cash in it—nor should there be, since Lockheed Martin hardly wants to back a future competitor. Indonesia paid 20% of the KF-X pre-development costs and is expected to take the same share of full-scale development.

I think that one of the things that is driving this is that Korea has real doubts as to the affordability and effectiveness of the F-35, and wants to hedge their bets.

I'm also thinking that they are expecting to see a market for a less expensive aircraft built to western standards.

No Virginia, Trade Deals Do Not Require Draconian IP Restrictions

Case in point, Canada and South Korea, who signed a free trade agreement without an all encompassing over-broad IP regime:

Canada and South Korea announced agreement on a comprehensive trade agreement earlier today. The focus is understandably on tariff issues, but the agreement also contains a full chapter on intellectual property (note that the governments have only released summaries of the agreement, not the full text, which is still being drafted). The IP chapter is significant for what it does not include. Unlike many other trade deals - particularly those involving the U.S., European Union, and Australia - the Canada-South Korea deal is content to leave domestic intellectual property rules largely untouched. The approach is to reaffirm the importance of intellectual property and ensure that both countries meet their international obligations, but not to use trade agreements as a backdoor mechanism to increase IP protections.
Yesterday I noted that Canada might be asked to increase the term of copyright protection given that South Korea had agreed to longer copyright terms in its recent agreements with the European Union, Australia, and the U.S. In fact, the U.S. agreement contains extensive additional side letters on Internet provider liability, enforcement, and online piracy.  The Canada - South Korea deal rejects that approach with copyright, trademark, patent, and enforcement rules that are all consistent with current Canadian law (plus the coming border measures provisions in Bill C-8). 
On copyright, the summary states the agreement:

• reflects Canada's regime as updated by the 2012 Copyright Modernization Act, which brought Canada into compliance with the World Intellectual Property Organization's two Internet treaties;


• reiterates existing aspects of Canada's regime, including the protection of technological protection measures (technology designed to protect copyrighted material), protection of rights management information, and special measures against copyright infringers on the Internet (no change to Canada’s notice and notice regime, which defines the responsibility of Internet service providers in respect of copyrighted material on their networks).

The specific reference to notice-and-notice is important since it confirms no takedown requirements nor three-strikes rules. The specific measures against copyright infringers may be interpreted as Canada's enabler provision that targets websites that facilitate infringement. Moreover, the references to reflecting Canada's regime indicates that there is no copyright term extension or other substantive changes.

No copyright erxtensions.  No requirement that the other countries accept evergreening of drugs.

IP sanity.  What a concept.

H/t Slashdot.

Burying the Lede

In an article on Korean fighter purchase plans, there is a lot of discussion about their next fighter purchase:

Boeing's F-15SE Silent Eagle has been selected as the only qualified bidder in South Korea's F-X Phase 3 competition for 60 fighters—but the country's air force is lobbying to overturn the decision in favor of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

A win in South Korea would extend the F-15 production line into the next decade and launch an improved version that could compete for future fighter requirements in the 2020s. That outcome seems likely following the decision of the South Korean purchasing authority, the Defense Acquisition Program Agency (DAPA), to eliminate first the F-35 as too costly and then the Eurofighter Typhoon for a bidding irregularity—although EADS, representing the consortium in the South Korean deal, disputes DAPA's decision.

(emphasis mine)

OK, let's look at this.

The F-15SE has:

• A larger weapons load.
• Greater range.
• Higher speed.
• a 2^nd crew member giving greater flexibility in deploying weapons.
• A 2^nd engine.
• The ability to develop weapons and systems for the platform in Korea.
• The ability to perform depot level maintenance in country.

The F-35 has:

• Some degree of all aspect stealth.

And for giving up all of that, you have to pay more, a lot more for the F-35.

The F-35 simply costs too much.

Me Want!

It appears that a bloke has a bunch of late model Spitfires in Myanmar:

This story is not about JSF, or Rafale or Typhoon or Gripen but about one of the world's legendary planes: the Spitfire, a large number of which – up to 120 – [other reports list it at just 20] were found in almost pristine condition in Burma last February and are now going to be returned to the UK.

Thanks to an English farmer's dogged determination and willingness to spend a considerable amount of his own money, the Griffon-engined Mark XIVs Spitfires have been located and British Prime Minister David Cameron has secured a deal that will allow them to be dug up and shipped back to Britain almost 67 years after they were hidden more than 40-feet below ground.

The aircraft were discovered in February by English farmer David Cundall, 62, who has spent 15 years, travelled 12 times to Burma and spent more than £130,000 in his quest. Using radar imaging technology Cundall found the aircraft buried at a former Royal Air Force base. They had been shipped to Burma and then travelled by train to the RAF base during the war, but were never used because by the end of the war they were nearing obsolescence. Unwilling to leave high-performance, if out-dated, aircraft in a country with an uncertain future, Britain’s South East Asia command decided to bury them. As many as 120 Spitfires, original cost about £12,000, may have been disposed of in this way.

“They were just buried there in transport crates,” Cundall told the Daily Telegraph which published the story today (May 7). “They were waxed, wrapped in greased paper and their joints tarred. They will be in near perfect condition.”

Kim Jong Il Just Made the World a Better Place

By leaving this mortal coil.

No predictions, because any predictions with regard to the DPRK is like the bite of a dog into a stone, it is a stupidity.

The Taiwanese Assesment of Sarah Palin

I'm not sure if it's the same folks as "Apple Daily," who did those animations of a prominent golfer who is on my list of They Who Must Not Be Named which Olberman featured prominently, but the style, as well as the cultural sensibilities, seem to be very similar.

I'm not sure if this means that they Don't understand the United States, or if it means that they Do understand the United States.

If the producers of this video do actually understand us, we are in for a world of hurt as a nation.

South Korean Central Bank Raises Benchmark Rate

It was only by 25 basis points (.25%) to 2.25%, but it was still a bit of a shocker.

My guess is that they are, like too many "very serious people" around the world, concerned about the invisible bond vigilante fairies, and they figure that the US dollar, the currency of their chief customer for their export driven economy, will be strengthening because of the Euro/PIIGS kerfuffle, so they could.

I'm not sure if it makes sense for them, if it does not drive their currency too high, it probably does, if just because it gives their central bank some maneuvering room if the recession goes double dip before hitting the zero bound once again.

Torpedo Parts Found at South Korean Ship Sinking

Just when you think that it cannot get any crazier, salvage crews have found bits of the propeller from the torpedo that sank the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan, and it has been identified as either Russian or Chinese in origin.

So it's pretty much a dead nuts cinch that it was a hostile act by the DPRK.

Expect things to get messy on the Korean peninsula for the next few weeks.

H/t Information Dissemination.

My earlier post on the matter.

Another Earthquake?

Click for full size

---

Opening up like a broken zipper

Taiwan, 6.4 on the Richter scale.

We got a whole lot of unzipping along fault lines.

FWIW, I still don't think that the Mayans were right.

Economics Update

Click for full size

---

H/t Calculated Risk

We have the numbers for the December trade deficit, and it increased by 10.4%, largely on the increases in energy imports. (See graph pr0n)

In the nexus of banking and real estate, home mortgage demand fell last week, despite the fact that rates fell on the 30 year fixed mortgage, and as the Mortgage Bankers Association notes, the fall is in new home purchases, refinancing continues apace:

The Refinance Index increased 1.4 percent from the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 7.0 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 1.1 percent compared with the previous week and was 7.5 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

In international finance, the Bank of Korea kept its benchmark steady 2%, largely in response to surging unemployment in South Korea.

Australia, on the other hand, experienced the largest growth in the workforce in 3 years.

In currency, the dollar was mixed, largely on reports that a deal may be in the offing in the Euro Zone for Greece's debt mess, news of which also drove oil prices slightly higher.

2014 In Your Dreams

Lockheed is saying that it can start delivering F-35s to the South Koreans in 2014.

The ROK is looking to purchase about 60 fighters, and Lockheed-Martin is pushing the JSF very hard, right to the limits of credulity.

I see it as even money whether or not the JSF enters UK service by 2014. For Korea, it is an impossibility.

Update on Saab Bribery Donations in Korea

The allegations are rather different from the run of the mill bribery cases, where someone pays a government official to buy their products.

Instead, it is alleged that Saab paid bribes to get information on Korea's indigenous fighter program, so as better to compete for business.

SAAB is denying this.

The core of the allegations is that the president of the Security Management Institute (SMI), a private research company, was invited to a trade seminar in Sweden, and that SAAB covered his expenses, to the tune of $17,200.

Me, I'm just confused.

Earlier post.