By CHOE SANG-HUN SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea, one of the world's most impenetrable nations, is facing a new threat: networks of its own citizens feeding information about life there to South Korea and its Western allies. The networks are the creation of a handful of North Korean defectors and South Korean human rights activists using cellphones to pierce North Korea's near-total news blackout. To build the networks, recruiters slip into China to woo the few North Koreans allowed to travel there, provide cellphones to smuggle across the border, then post informers' phoned and texted reports on Web sites. read on

• Attack followed threat of "unprecedented nuclear strikes"

• NK angered that US and Seoul were preparing for instability

    Above, Ulsan class Frigate

There are heightened fears that North Korea wants to provoke a military confrontation with South Korea after an explosion - probably from a torpedo - ripped a hole in the bottom of a military ship which has sunk.

The incident occurred amid reports of serious internal unrest in North Korea and reports of starvation among parts of the population. Tensions between the two Koreas have peaked since a new government in Seoul revoked the 'Sunshine Policy' towards the North, saying it was a form of appeasement.

The South Korean navy has fired shots at unidentified ships in the direction of North Korea as it investigates whether the vessel in its fleet was struck by a torpedo Friday.

The ship -- reported to have 104 crew on board -- began sinking off the coast of South Korean-controlled Baengnyeong Island close to North Korea around 10:45 p.m. (1345 GMT, 9:45 a.m. EDT), an official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.

No, not the grinning totalitarian (below) who has just executed his top economic adviser

 By Eldo Kim

Walking through the busy streets of metropolitan Seoul, Lee seems no different than the hundreds of Koreans around her. But she has finally escaped the clutches of Kim Jong-il's police state, where it is reported that a senior economic official has been executed for bungling a currency reform last year.

Stopping by a cafe, she purchases a cup of coffee and hurries out to the subway station. Following the everyday actions of millions of fellow urbanites, there is nothing unusual about her.

But there is something that sets her apart. Lee is a North Korean refugee and  a student at People for Successful Corean Reunification, or Pscore.

    Did UN envoy soft-pedal human rights, hoping to bag diplomatic breakthrough?

Kim Jong Il has just had a huge birthday bash, complete with: fireworks, (they make good rockets),  synchronized swimming, public pledges of loyalty, dancing, and of course the Kimjongilia flower show. 

This year there was a flurry of interest in dishes made of snapping turtle. See the Korean News agency's acccount below. 

But there has been a disturbing report about the latest visit by the UN's top official Lynne Pascoe to the Hermit Kingdom, where the issue of Pyongyang's gross violations of human rights and its total suppression of civil society and the media appear not to have been raised.

see here

Pyongyang, February 13 (KCNA)
-- Okryu Restaurant in Pyongyang has begun serving dishes made of
snapping turtle on the occasion of the birthday of leader Kim Jong Il,
February 16.