Since my friend is about to go to Korea and give the finger to Kim Jung Il across the 38th parallel, I figured I'd dig up some Korea news. Instapundit has this:

The food and fuel situation up north is pretty grim, and it's making the security forces up there nervous. Lots more North Koreans are openly expressing a "I don't give a damn" attitude. Just like Eastern Europe in 1989. The current food crises is a result of foreign donors refusing to contribute food for North Korea because the government has not allowed foreigners to observe where the donated food goes. Other witnesses have consistently reported that the donated food goes to the armed forces and is not sent to areas where there has been unrest, or where the government suspects there might be unrest (because a number of locals have fled to China or Russia.) Currently, some twelve percent of North Korea's population, that was getting food aid, has been cut off. New supplies will not arrive for several months.

And there's also this:

North Korea could be producing nuclear weapons at the rate of eight to 13 a year in the next year or two, the International Institute of Strategic Studies predicted yesterday.
The US claims that North Korea is engaged in a covert programme to build nuclear weapons, and has entered into elaborate diplomacy with the Pyongyang government. North Korea boasts that it has nuclear weapons, but no one outside knows whether it is telling the truth.

The IISS said the window for US diplomacy may be shorter than the US believes, and that if North Korea establishes a sizeable arsenal, it may be less willing to negotiate.

John Chipman, director of the London-based IISS, said that lots of caveats had to be attached to assessments of North Korea's activities as it was an even more secretive state than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. An IISS assessment of Iraq's weapons programme in 1992 proved wrong in several key areas.

Have fun Vin, don't buy any "Fido on a stick" on the streets of Seoul. Being that Vinny is an Army guy, I've decided to type this as slow as possible so he can keep up.