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Seoul, South Korea (AHN) – The cyber crime division of South Korea’s National Police Agency arrested 22 people for falsely spreading text messages and online messages that South Korea had attacked North Korea and for misrepresenting that they are from Soth Korea’s military reserve force and have been called in to respond.

Recently, police are investigating an online community called “Cyber headquarters for People’s Defense” who posted on the country’s number one portal site, Naver, for praising the surprise North Korean artillery attack on the border island of Yeonpyeong last November 24.

South Korea’s National Security Law punishes anyone who praises or sympathizes with the North Korean Communist State.

Previous news reports have shown that skirmishes between the two Koreas are usually accompanied by tsimilar text and online misinformation. The more recent being after the North Korean downing of a South Korean warship last March where South Korea’s main government website was attacked by hackers traced to China who used 120 China-based Internet servers to deny the government website distributed service.

At the time, South Korea’s Major General Bae Deuk-Shik, chief of the Defence Security Command, said the North has an army unit of elite hackers who are able to steal the identities of South Korean Internet users.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Commodities prices for precious metals, oil and agricultural raw materials took the hardest fall in 18 months on news that China might take steps to avert inflation. Prices of commodities futures fell by up to 3.8 percent on news that China’s central bank might increase interest rates. The step is to prevent further inflation there after consumer prices rose by 4.4 percent in October.

Precious metals had been at near record highs before plunging. Gold dropped 2.7 percent to $1,365.50 an ounce on Friday while silver plunged 5.3 percent to $25.94 an ounce and copper fell 2.8 percent to $3.91 an ounce.

Refined sugar in London dove down by a record 12 percent while corn and soybeans on the Chicago market plunged by the exchange limit.

Oil prices also took a dip. Prices for crude oil for December delivery fell 3.4 percent to $84.81 a barrel at midday on the New York Mercantile Exchange while futures in New York dropped by as much as $3.29 on Friday.

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Shanghai, China (AHN) – An online letter by 23 prominent and retired Communist Party elders and veterans has called on China’s parliament to lift its restrictions on free speech, calling its present policy of state censorship and repression scandalous and embarrassing.

The letter’s signatories are led by Li Rui, former secretary to Mao Zedong and Hu Jiwei, former head of the People’s Daily, a major party organ, plus a group of former top officials involved in print and television journalism, publishing and cinema. Most are known reformers and some, including Li and Hu, have gone public before with calls for reform.

The online letter, which was immediately brought down by Chinese authorities, was made after detained human rights activist Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Price this month. His wife, Liu Xia, recently criticized the Communist Party by writing on her online Twitter account, “I strongly protest against the government for my illegal house arrest,” and calling her situation “very hard to take.”

The letter blamed “invisible black hands” in the Central Propaganda Department and demanded to know, “what right does it have to rob the people of our nation of their right to know what the premier has said?”

The letter demanded eight changes designed to help the Chinese citizenry express themselves in public. The demands were:

• Dismantle the system where media organizations are all tied to higher authorities
• Respect journalists and accept their social status
• Revoke the ban on cross-province supervision by public opinion
• Abolish the cyber-police; control Web administrators’ ability to delete/post items at will
• Confirm the citizens’ right to know about crimes and mistakes committed by ruling party
• Launch pilot projects to support citizen-owned media organizations
• Allow media and publications from Hong Kong and Macau to be openly distributed
• Change the mission of propaganda authorities from preventing the leak of information to facilitating its accurate and timely spread.

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Beijing, Beijing, China (AHN) – Though over 400 people claim to have sighted an elusive ape-like creature covered all over with red, gray or black hair, lurking in the mountainous region of Shennongjia Nature Reserve, Heibei China, it has never been found despite three expeditions launched since the 1980s. However, a new, inspired expedition is calling on for volunteers worldwide to join.

“Unlike expeditions three decades ago, the better technological support will help us get closer to solving the mystery,” said Wang Wang Shancai, a 75-year-old expert with the Hubei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, who is also the vice president of the Hubei Wild Man Research Association — organizer of the expedition.

Wang continued to elaborate that, “We are now working together with the China Three Gorges University to develop long-time energy-supply devices to support cameras that will be installed in the ape man’s possible habitat.”

Unlike past high-profile expeditions, the new search would also be more localized with teams focusing their search in certain caves located in the Shennongjia mountains believed to be the habitat of the ape-like creature who may not be living alone.

Past expeditions have only brought back hairs supposedly from the creature, which when analyzed were neither of human or any known animal species. If found, this “missing link” would help scientists learn how primates evolved from ape to human.

The worldwide recruitment call for the expedition invites all male and female 25 to 40 year olds who have basic knowledge of biology, know how to handle a camera, loves the outdoors and must be devoted as hard work would be involved.

Unfortunately, no specific timetable has yet been set for the expedition as the association is still negotiating for funding which will cost at least 10 million yuan ($1.5 million), according to Wang.

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Beijing, China (AHN) – On the day that the cash-strapped, deficit-burdened United States laid off more than 1,200 NASA space workers cash-rich, debt-free China launched its second unmanned lunar probe.

Friday’s launch came on the same day that Chinese people marked the 61st anniversary of the founding of the communist government People’s Republic of China.

Chang’e-2 is expected to reach the Moon in about five days, where it will collect data for future missions and test key technologies. Chang’e-2 will circle 9 miles above the planet taking photographs of the Moon’s surface in order to identify potential landing sites.

China’s first lunar launch was in 2007.

Only the United States, Russia and China have managed to send humans into space independently. China did so in 2003.

China marked another milestone recently when it overtook Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy behind the U.S.

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