Korea

Korean Air's ambition to be one of the world's top 10 airlines is closely linked to an airport that is ranked among the world's best but little known outside Asia. Incheon International Airport, just outside Seoul, serves as the main hub for Korean Air and its archrival Asiana Airlines. Both carriers are hoping to use the airport as an "air bridge" in which travelers from North America would make the connection at Incheon to fly to other cities in Asia.

Do you remember those plexiglass dollhouses that museum shops sold for a while -- brightly colored things that looked like the "Brady Bunch" house as re-imagined by a unicorn? The new Venice restaurant Sunny Spot is a little like that, a bit of Midcentury Modern on an institutional strip of Washington Boulevard in Venice with a flat roof, acres of windows and glowing, color-washed dining rooms that can't quite decide whether they're outside or in. As Beechwood, this space felt slightly generic, a loungy "Playboy After Dark" kind of place centered on its fire pit. As Sunny Spot, it booms with reggae and supports both a serious cocktail crowd and a multitude of lobster-red beer guys fresh from an afternoon on Venice Beach.

'Stories From Korea' What: Los Angeles Master Chorale Where: Walt Disney Concert Hall, downtown L.A. When: 7 p.m. March 6 Tickets: $24 to $114 Information: (213) 972-7282 or http://www.lamc.org

JEJU ISLAND, South Korea -- To the South Korean military, this picturesque island is the perfect place to build a naval base: a strategic location guarding the country's southern flank from possible invasion. To its residents, its small-town feel, harbor and coral reefs make it close to perfect just the way it is. The conflict between the two visions has turned into a South Korean David and Goliath story, with Mayor Kang Dong-kyun of the town of Gangjeong leading the majority of its 1,930 people in fighting the giant.

North Korea test-launched five short-range missiles Monday, reports said, in what analysts said was an attempt to improve its bargaining position ahead of possible talks with the United States. North Korea has recently reached out to the U.S. and South Korea following months of tension over its nuclear and missile tests this year. Leader Kim Jong Il told visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao last week that his government might return to stalled six-nation negotiations on its nuclear program depending on the outcome of direct talks it seeks with the United States.

As tens of thousands gathered here today to mourn the death of former President Kim Dae-jung, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his bid to reconcile relations between North Korea and South Korea, Seoul's conservative government took a page from Kim's diplomatic playbook, meeting face to face with their communist counterparts. In a rare half-hour sit-down, his first since taking office last year, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak discussed growing tensions on the Korean peninsula with a high-level delegation from Pyongyang on hand to pay respects to Kim, who died Tuesday at age 85 after a long bout of pneumonia.

The U.S. and South Korean militaries kicked off large exercises on Sunday to underscore deterrence against North Korea after accusing the reclusive communist state of sinking a warship. Pyongyang warned that the drill had pitched the peninsula onto the brink of war. U.S. naval vessels, including the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington, began the drills by setting off from South Korean ports where they had called last week in a show of force timed with a high-level meeting between the two allies.

Re "North Korea's Biggest Threat Is to Itself," by Tom Plate, Commentary, Dec. 15: What can make North Korea more responsive is sincere engagement, not isolation. After patient talking and further humanitarian aid packages, North Korea has agreed to a site visit of the suspected underground facility. This means that it is not likely nuclear-related. When newly appointed North Korea policy coordinator William Perry visited South Korean President Kim Dae Jung (Dec. 9), Kim showed his willingness to continue food aid to North Korea.

Re "Can Capitalism Survive the IMF?" Commentary, Dec. 19: Chalmers Johnson overlooks the facts that it is the Korean economy that is broken, it is Korea that went to the IMF for assistance, and the lender is the institution that sets the terms. South Korea is broke because the major conglomerates that dominate the economy borrowed excessively to expand recklessly into industries unrelated to their core areas and because these loans were made with no financial analysis by the banks other than the tacit approval of the government, which supported these conglomerates at the expense of small business.

Re the Aug. 23 letter from Jack Stites: I can't agree more that there is no moral need for 30,000 to 50,000 American troops in Korea. The only reason I can see for the presence of U.S. troops is to keep Koreans from uniting into a single country again. I wouldn't want to be sleeping in my neighbor's house every night with gun in hand, no matter [whether] my neighbor's family wants to unite, argue or fight. SUAN-SING LAU Huntington Beach

The nine young women of Girls' Generation sauntered onto the performance stage of "Late Show With David Letterman. " Flanked by a DJ and live drummer, the South Korean pop group wore lacy black mini-dresses and thigh-high leather boots, as if they were hosting a goth cocktail party. It was a rare American network television performance from a South Korean music group. The song they performed on the January show, a slinky bit of minor-key dance-pop called "The Boys," owed an obvious debt to Kelis' catcalling hit "Milkshake.

North Korea is threatening "retaliatory measures" for a decision by the United States to withhold 240,000 metric tons of food promised as part of an agreement announced less than two months ago. Never mind that the cancellation followed Pyongyang's failed launching of a missile designed to put a satellite into space, an operation the U.S. considered a violation of that same agreement, not to mention U.N. Security Council resolutions. The regime's chutzpah and hypocrisy know no bounds.

North Korea has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on its ill-fated rocket program, but when it came time to give its website a facelift, the country decided to go the thrifty route. It turns out that North Korea's revamped website is based on a design template created by a California Web designer that sells on themeforest.com for a mere $15. But just because it was cheap doesn't mean it's not pretty. In fact, we'd say the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)

More than 1.7 million Korean Americans live in the United States, and CJ Entertainment America is seeking to lure a good percentage of them -- as well as the wider art house cinema crowd -- to theaters starting Friday for "My Way," touted as the most expensive South Korean movie of all time. Opening in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto and Vancouver, Canada, "My Way" tells the story of two rival men, one a poor Korean and the other Japanese royalty, who end up fighting together against the Chinese and the Soviets during World War II. But it is hardly a buddy story; Japan occupied the Korean peninsula for much of the first half of the 20th century, and the film is scathing in its portrayal of the Japanese.

Classical music has a long and fruitful history serving as an informal olive branch between hostile countries. Cultural exchanges between the former Soviet Union and the West helped to thaw Cold War tensions as early as the 1950s. Few people today know the diplomatic power of classical music better than Myung-Whun Chung, the South Korean conductor who has embarked on a one-man mission in recent months to reestablish cultural ties with North Korea. Chung, who leads the Seoul Philharmonic, is in a unique position to use the podium as a diplomatic vehicle.

SEOUL - North and South Korea played their own distinctive games of power politics last week. The processes of leadership selection were enacted almost simultaneously, a coincidence that defined them so sharply as to provide a classroom lesson on the differences between the two systems. North Korea got all the publicity, not all of it because of the long-range missile it insisted on firing in the face of warnings to cease and desist. There was also the huge outpouring in Pyongyang for the centennial of the birth of the nation's "Great Leader," Kim Il Sung at which his grandson, Kim Jong Un, made his maiden speech before thousands of wildly cheering soldiers.

Fear that North Korea might be positioning itself to market weapons technology to other developing nations may have been eased by its latest failure - the fourth in 15 years - to build a functioning rocket. But the demonstration that Pyongyang has not mastered and may not be able to afford such a sophisticated weapons program may not be enough to deter it from continuing to try, according to arms control and security analysts. North Korea's neighbors as well as the United States and other world powers are worried that its efforts to launch a rocket mask a program to build a delivery system for a nuclear warhead.

SEOUL — North Korea failed in its much-hyped effort to launch a satellite into space Friday, undercutting its claims to be a "strong and prosperous" nation on the centennial of founder Kim Il Sung's birth. After weeks of boasting by the country, the missile launched at 7:39 a.m. on a sunny, wind-free morning from a base near the west coast city of Sinuiju. U.S. and South Korean intelligence reports say the rocket quickly broke up and splashed into the Yellow Sea. "The missile traveled one to two minutes and broke apart in the air. It broke into 20 separate pieces," Shin Won-shik, a South Korean Defense Ministry official, said at a briefing Friday morning.