Hong Jun-pyo may be diminutive in stature, but he visited Washington this week with a tall order. The prominent South Korean politician—he finished in second in this year’s presidential election, and currently leads the conservative opposition Liberty Korea Party—wants U.S. nukes. And he wants them now.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Saturday that he could not imagine United States ever accepting a nuclear North Korea, warning that its rapidly advancing nuclear and missile programs would undermine, not strengthen, its security. Mattis has been at pains during his week-long trip to Asia to stress that diplomacy is America's preferred course, a message he returned to after top-level military talks in Seoul on Saturday and the tense border area with North Korea on Friday.

While Japan respects digital currencies as legal currency and the IRS considers them property, South Korea has taken a different approach. Lee Joo-yeol, South Korean central bank governor, recently proclaimed that Bitcoin and virtual currencies would be treated as commodities. Regulation will take time to fully formulate and is not expected any time soon, according to the governor.

Denouncing U.S. President Donald Trump for intensifying "fears of war on the Korean Peninsula," thousands of South Koreans gathered in front of the U.S. embassy in Seoul on Tuesday to protest Trump's arrival, hoisting signs that sent an unambiguous message: "shut up and get out." The peaceful demonstrations against the U.S. president—who has threatened to unleash "fire and fury" upon South Korea's northern neighbor, a move that would endanger millions of lives—are expected to carry on through Wednesday, when Trump is scheduled to deliver a speech on North Korea.

Millions of China citizens take to the streets in protest. (This is a fake comment)...just in case.

A North Korean soldier defected to the South on Monday after being shot and wounded by the North Korean military, South Korea said. The soldier was found on the south side of the border village of Panmunjom, about 50 meters south of the Military Demarcation Line, wounded in his shoulder and elbow, according to a South Korean defense ministry official. He defected from a North Korean guard post nearby and was being treated in hospital.

South Korean authorities arrested a 58-year-old man trying to cross the demilitarized border zone to defect into North Korea, The Washington Post reported on Monday. The man, who hails from Louisiana, tried to defect "for political reasons," authorities told The Post. Coincidentally, on the same day as the US man failed to make his political statement, a North Korean soldier was shot twice by his own military as he ran through the DMZ so he could defect into South Korea.

South Korean authorities have raided Apple’s offices in Seoul as it prepares to launch the iPhone X. Metro.co.uk has learned that investigators visited Apple’s HQ earlier this week to ask questions about its business practices ahead of the launch of the smartphone tomorrow. The raid is likely to raise questions about whether South Korean authorities are trying to hamper the success of the X, which has sold out across the world.

South Korea is to write-off the debts of as many as 1.6 million people in a move designed to ease the financial burden on low-income individuals. The scheme is open to certain Koreans who have struggled to repay debts of less than 10m won ($9,128; £6,826). Eligible people can apply to the government for debt relief from next February.

North Korea Sunday blasted the United States and South Korea as "warmongers" on the eve of their largest-ever joint air exercise, saying it could trigger a nuclear war. The comments came as White House National Security Advisor H.R McMaster warned of the "increasing" possibility of war with the impoverished but nuclear-armed North.

The Financial Services Commission of Korea issued the directive that bans securities firms from intermediating bitcoin futures transactions, according to securities industry sources on December 6. This is because it doesn’t recognize bitcoin as an underlying asset of derivative products so bitcoin cannot be a subject for futures trading.

The world’s largest futures exchanges, CBOE and CME Group, have given their imprimatur to Bitcoin futures trading, but South Korea wants none of it. The South Korean government seems to be struggling to understand these currencies which are unlike anything else in the financial world. Recently, South Korea has announced its plans to begin regulating digital currency exchanges and taxing cryptocurrency profits. The country has also banned initial coin offerings (ICOs).

The United States, Japan and South Korea will hold two days of missile tracking drills starting on Monday, Japan's Maritime Self-Defence Force said, as tensions rise in the region over North Korea's fast-developing weapons programmes. The United States and South Korea conducted large-scale military drills last week, which the North said made the outbreak of war "an established fact".

The South Korean government has officially refuted various reports on the possibility of a cryptocurrency trading ban within the country. On Wednesday, December 13th, the South Korean government, central bank, and financial authorities had held an emergency meeting to discuss the legality of cryptocurrencies and the current state of the bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange markets. …

South Korean fighter jets made an emergency sortie to escort five Chinese warplanes out of the Korean Air Defense Identification Zone (KADIZ), Seoul’s military said Monday. The South Korean joint chiefs of staff identified two H-6 bombers, two J-11 fighter jets and one TU-154 reconnaissance plane entering the KADIZ Monday morning, local media reported, from the area over the Socotra Rock, before flying out three and a half hours later.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Thursday the country’s 2015 agreement with Japan to settle a decades-long impasse over Korean women forced into wartime sexual slavery was seriously flawed. Moon’s statement in which he vows unspecified follow-up measures to meet the victims’ demands potentially throws the future of the deal in doubt, two years after both countries declared it as “final and irreversible.”

The offer of talks next week comes after the North said it might send a delegation to the Olympic Games.

Beyond a New Year’s declaration by North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, that he would move to the mass production of nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles in 2018 lies a canny new strategy to initiate direct talks with South Korea in the hope of driving a wedge into its seven-decade alliance with the United States.

Kim Jong Un's confidence in his country's nuclear arsenal may be behind his recent interest in talks. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ignored recent peace overtures from Seoul but he's due on Tuesday to hold a formal dialogue with his southern neighbor for the first time in more than two years. The sudden interest in talks may have something to do with Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal.

The rival Koreas moved toward easing their bitter animosity Tuesday during rare talks, with North Korea agreeing to take part in next month’s Winter Olympics in South Korea. The countries also agreed to hold more discussions on reducing tension along their border and to reopen a military hotline.