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Let’s turn to other democracies for inspiring tips on how to keep Question Time proceedings moving in a civilised way. Best to avoid South Korea though, writes Crikey intern Nina Nicoll.

Kim Dae-jung’s passing parallels the remarkable journey that South Korea has travelled since the Second World War.

Former South Korean president Kim Dae-Jung has died, age 83. His commitment to democracy, even when others believed it incompatible with Asian values, was a great legacy not only to his country, but the entire continent, says The Wall Street Journal.

North Korea announced yesterday it will open up its borders with South Korea, allowing more tourism and reunions for families separated by the war… then followed up the conciliatory gesture by threatening a nuclear attack against the country over a military exercise.

It was a fairy tale ending for the two American journalists detained in North Korea, when former President Bill Clinton swooped in to save them. But for the 1000 South Koreans and 20 Japanese being held by the secretive state, there is no such knight in shining armour.

Why Peter Beattie handing the Premier’s reins in Queensland to Anna Bligh should have been a tip-off to just how crook things there have become, South Korean dog meat, and more meaty chunks of news from the mind of Richard Farmer.

South Koreans are the new world leaders in conspicuous consumption, churning through their household savings for new cars, overseas travel and designer clothes. But the culture of “competitive spending” is taking its toll on the country’s economy, with debt rising and growth slowing.

Most of Europe will soon have lower income tax rates than most of America, says an unhappy WSJ. And now the EU is finalising a free trade deal with South Korea, while the US loses ground.

North Korea may boast itself as a “socialist republic”, but a capitalist heart beats strongly within its borders at the Kaesong industrial complex, a manufacturing plant providing dirt cheap production for over 100 South Korean companies.

Government corruption in South Korea is a problem spanning back thousands of years, rooted in Confucianism.

The Prada Transformer, fashion’s latest starchitect-designed metamorphic space, opens in Seoul, South Korea, this month.

For the record: Wilfred Burchett did not report the Korean War but the Armistice Talks to end the war, writes his son George Burchett.

Peter Costello has had plenty of ups and downs as Treasurer since March 1996, but when asked about his toughest single day in the job, he cites Christmas Day 1997 – the day South Korea ran out of foreign reserves.

Data released this week by Thomson Scientific, show that on a per capita basis, Australia and Canada are neck and neck in leading the world in research publication output. Crikey has the figures.