When you’re a hot female spy, you can always rely on good ol’ sex appeal to get the job done - a lesson apparently not lost on 34-year-old Won Jeong-hwa, a North-Korean refugee who turned out to be an enemy agent.

According to prosecutors, Won confessed that she was a trained North Korean spy.

Originally, the suspect fled the North after stealing tons of zinc, which is a capital crime there. Won returned to the North in 1998 after hiding in northeastern China for years and later became a spy for North Korea’s National Security Agency, they said.

Her mission ― based in China ― was to kidnap defectors there for repatriation.

She later pretended to be an ethnic Korean Chinese woman and married a South Korean factory worker before coming to the South in 2001.

After her arrival, she reported herself as a North Korean defector and worked as a lecturer on anti-communism at military camps nationwide.

According to investigators, she maintained romantic relations with three to four officers and even shared an apartment with an Army First Lieutenant Hwang. The 27-year-old Hwang reportedly suspected that his partner was a spy, but ignored the fact and handed her classified military information.

Man, China - you really need to take a breather. What with all your Obsessive Compulsive precautions to ensure a *perfect* Summer Games, and now you’re throwing a temper tantrum because the Koreans get a preemptive look-see at your opening ceremonies? Do you really think anyone who purchased tickets to attend the Games, is participating, or planning on watching from home is gonna skip the full-blown spectacle because of some crappy online clip? Give yourself some credit and relax.

Authorities acted quickly to control the damage. The video — which features floating dancers, thousands of synchronized martial artists, and giant blue whales — was yanked from YouTube by mid-morning on Thursday and entirely blocked in China.

The Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (BOCOG) was furious, saying that the filming was unauthorized.

“We are disappointed and frustrated with the broadcast by SBS,” Beijing Olympics committee spokesman Sun Weide said at a press conference today.

If you’d asked me five minutes ago which Asian country has the highest suicide rate per 10,000 people - between Japan and South Korea, I’d have said Japan…and as usual, I’d have been wrong. Nope, the winner of the Suicide Rate Sweepstakes does in fact go to South Korea. I am called to wonder what the suicide rate in North Korea is like.

Up to 56 percent of suicides were committed by the jobless, with the female suicide rate posting a 19-percent rise between 2003 and 2007, Lim said, citing police statistics.

Suicides now stand as the No. 4 cause of deaths in South Korea. South Korea’s suicide rate has been the highest in the 30-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) since 2005.

An average of 25 out of every 100,000 people kill themselves in South Korea, followed by Hungary (22.6 persons), Japan (20.3 persons) and Belgium (18.4 persons).

“The increasing suicides in Korea have become a pan-national issue which the government must tackle with more strategic plans,” Lim told Yonhap News Agency.

I’ve been a Lost fan since day one, which unless you backlogged your Netflix queue with Lost DVD’s, is pretty much the only way to understand what’s going on. That said, I was saddened when they killed off Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) at the conclusion of season 4 a couple of months back - I mean, Asians typically get the short end of the stick when it comes to leading roles on U.S. television, and the Jin/Sun storyline is one of my favorite subplots of the series.

Thankfully, at a recent press junket, showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse fessed up that Jin will probably show up again at some point during the series last two seasons. Furthermore, Lindelof addressed concerns that the show has been unkind to its’ minority cast members.

Lindelof acknowledged that questions of the depiction of race have come up when characters are killed off (including Harold Perrineau’s own vocal complaints about his character being killed), but added with a laugh, “We did a tally recently, just for fun… and we killed a lot of white people [on Lost]! I can almost guarantee that we will kill more white people this season.”

Yeah, we’re looking at you Matthew Fox…

Wow - you know things are getting touchy when a political spat leads to the removal of Japanese condom ads from Korean subway cars. It’s not as pithy as ‘Freedom Fries’, but it’s definitely up there. Korea and Japan are currently in some sort of Falklands-like squabble over a pair of islands in the Sea of Japan - no word on whether or not the Dharma Initiative was carrying out experiments on either of these islands, but apparently both countries feel they’re important enough to pull condom ads off public transportation in protest.

The mere mention of the territory - known as the Takeshima islands in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea - was enough to inflame nationalists in Seoul, who pelted the Japanese embassy with rotten eggs and tomatoes yesterday.

Seoul Metro, which operates subway trains in the capital, said it had informed Okamoto, the condoms’ maker, of its decision to remove the posters.

“Having condom ads in a public space might not be acceptable for some people. Secondly, there is an anti-Japanese sentiment brewing among citizens over the Dokdo issue,” it said.

I think this might actually be secretly brilliant. Condoms prevent pregnancy. If people don’t know about condoms, they’ll make more babies. More babies = more people you can draft into military service. More Korean soldiers =  Japan has to give up islands. Combine this with Japan’s steadily decreasing birth-rate, and you’ve got a first-rate military strategy on your hands.

I guess you could call this a belated 4th of July post. A body returned to the U.S. by Korean authorites in the 1990’s has been identified as Army Cpl. Steven Lucas of Johnson City, NY.

Army Cpl. Steven Lucas of Johnson City was last seen on Nov. 30, 1950 during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, near Kaljon-ri. The 19-year-old was assigned to the 31st Infantry Regiment’s Heavy Mortar Company.

In the early 1990s, North Korea gave the U.S. 208 boxes believed to contain the remains of from 200 to 400 U.S. servicemen. Documents turned in with one box indicated the remains were exhumed near Kaljon-ri. Lucas’ remains were identified in October.

A sequel to last years’ monsteriffic k-horror flick The Host is due in late 2009 as a joint effort between Korean studio Chungeorahm and China’s Stone Man Films. The sequel will reportedly take place in China (man, that monster gets around!)

Original film, which was seen by more than 12 million people and grossed some $60.6 million, was a monster movie with political undertones.

New pic will have to tread carefully to avoid criticizing the Chinese government. Story will concern a calamity caused when people ignore a monster due to their desire for money.

Sounds positively cool.

Ok - this is a request to you, our readership. A work-related request, believe it or not. A client asked us to reproduce some artwork that was done in a particular lettering style known as hyuk pil, a sort of Korean calligraphic lettering that makes letters out of animal shapes. The lettering, which they obtained at the San Francisco Zoo, is pictured below (click for full-size). They would like another set of lettering (with a different name), but nobody here knows how to do it - and they didn’t get any contact info for the artist that did the lettering. So - do any of you know who does this lettering at the San Franciso Zoo? Post a comment if you have a lead.

CNN published a fine interview with Koran filmmaker Park Chan-wook (Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy). Not a lot of dirt in there, but worth a read nonetheless.

“Personally, I think that my normality and the fact that I grew up in a very average environment made me grow tired of it all, and make movies to escape the monotony,” he told CNN.

Park has said that his early movie education mainly came from watching old Hollywood films. Many influences on his work have come from sources outside of cinema, including Manga comics, one of which was the inspiration for “Old Boy”.

“At first when I heard the story, it was about a person who was thrown into the middle of nowhere, without knowing why he was there or how long he would have to stay. I was attracted by this setting. This, for me, was a significant depiction of the condition of human beings. Aren’t we all born to this earth without a reason? And we also don’t know when we’re going to die…I was attracted to this idea for the movie.”

I’m totally down with cloning. Seriously. I’ve always said that any technology that can make copies of Tyra Banks is okay in my book. And if it can do pets, well then you’re making kids and me happy. Or, better yet, how about a test-tube Tyra Banks pet? How’s that a bad thing?

Disgraced South Korean stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk has set up a bio-technology firm specializing in cloning pet animals, a scientist close to Hwang said Wednesday.

Hwang, whose breakthrough human cloning research was later proved to be faked, recently established a new research firm in Seoul, said Park Se-pill, a Cheju National University professor and well-known stem cell scientist. Park said he spoke with Hwang a few days ago.

“He told me that he needs foreign capital to continue his research, but it’s difficult to get it unless he sets up a new research institute and becomes its head,” Park said.