World Notes

SOUTH KOREA The Second Time Around

For South Korean Dissident Leader Kim Dae Jung, it was an all too familiar story. Last week, the day before the New Korea Democratic Party, the government's main opposition, was to open a two-day convention, a Seoul police official arrived at Kim's house and told him to "stay at home." "This is totally illegal," protested Kim, who received a 20-year suspended sentence for a 1980 sedition conviction. Last February, in just the same fashion, Kim was put under house arrest for four weeks after his return from more than two years of self-imposed exile in the U.S.

This time Kim was warned by the police that any attempt to visit the convention could mean a prison term of up to three years. The house arrest was lifted hours after the convention ended. Even though Kim is prevented from joining the N.K.D.P., he and fellow Dissident Kim Young Sam together control a majority of party votes. In a defiant gesture aimed at South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan, the N.K.D.P. named both Kims permanent advisers to the party and passed a resolution declaring that it "will do its utmost to eliminate any obstacles" to their membership. AGREEMENTS A Hot Line for Missing Planes

When Korean Air Lines Flight 007 strayed into Soviet air space in 1983, it was out of radar range of both Japanese and U.S. air-traffic controllers. Soviet controllers could have reported the plane's intrusion by sending a message over their teletypewriter system, which was their only means of contacting their Japanese and American counterparts. They did not. Instead, the Soviet military concluded that the plane was on a spying mission and shot it down, killing all 269 people onboard. To prevent the recurrence of such a tragedy and improve air-traffic communications in the North Pacific, diplomats and aviation officials from Japan, the U.S. and the Soviet Union for the past 18 months have been quietly trying to set up a better system. Last week in Tokyo they reached a preliminary agreement to establish a communications hot line, possibly a telephone link, between Anchorage, Tokyo, and Khabarovsk, in the Soviet Far East.

A number of details have to be worked out before the document is signed, including which language will be used over the hot line. But, cautions one Washington aviation official, the proposed communications link will work only if it is used, and there is no guarantee that the Soviets will use it. AFGHANISTAN The Soviets' "Bloody Nose"

The mission began early in July, when small groups of Afghan resistance fighters infiltrated into the hills above the Soviet military air base a few miles outside Kabul. Last week more than a thousand rebel troops swooped down in a daring raid that raged for eight hours. The attack, the heaviest since Soviet troops marched into Afghanistan six years ago, was a response to the increased numbers of soldiers and supplies, including more than 80 powerful Mi-24 helicopter gunships, that have been flowing into the base over the past two months. Said one leader of the guerrillas who are known as the mujahedin: "We were not going to let the Russians get in all these new troops and helicopters without giving them a bloody nose."

A mujahedin spokesman in Pakistan claimed that the attackers blew up ammunition dumps, aviation-fuel tanks, barracks where Soviet flight crews and traffic controllers slept, and water tanks, crucial in drought-stricken Kabul. One Western military analyst observed that the raid showed both that "the iron discipline of the mujahedin has not been broken" and that the CIA weapons pipeline to the rebels is improving. MALAYSIA Where Dadah Means Death

An overhead fan pushed sultry air around the courtroom in Penang as High Court Justice Mohammed Dzaiddin Abdullah, wearing black robes and a white wig, pronounced the death sentence last week on two Australians arrested in November 1983 for possession of 179.5 g, or 6.3 oz., of heroin. Kevin Barlow, 26, and Brian Chambers, 28, are the first Westerners to face Malaysia's gallows under the 1983 Dangerous Drugs Act, which mandates death for possessing more than 15 g of heroin. They join 52 other drug traffickers on death row. Since 1975, when Malaysia passed its first law imposing the death penalty to combat dadah, the Malay word for drugs, 31 people have been hanged. Government officials say there are 80,000 known heroin addicts in the country, although the actual figure is thought to be much higher.

The Australians, who are appealing the sentences, could be spared if their government asks for clemency on humanitarian grounds. Said Dzaiddin unapologetically: "Whether or not the sentence is hard, severe, brutal or repulsive is not the concern of this court." CANADA Navigating Troubled Waters

Harsh Arctic winds and ice-clogged waters can make any journey through the Northwest Passage an arduous one. But it is a frosty disagreement between the U.S. and Canada that has cast the greatest chill over the voyage of the Polar Sea, a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker. The U.S. considers the strait an international route. The Coast Guard says the vessel is simply taking the quickest route home. The Canadians claim that the strait is an internal waterway, and they see the U.S. insistence on entering without permission as an insult to the country's sovereignty. "The Americans are abusing us," declares Jean Chretien, external affairs minister in the opposition Liberal Party's shadow cabinet.

The Progressive Conservative government tried to navigate its way through the controversy as the Polar Sea began its journey last week. While expressing "deep regret" over the U.S. action, the Canadians granted authorization for the trip even though it had not been requested. The Polar Sea voyage, insisted the External Affairs Ministry, "does not compromise in any way the sovereignty of Canada over our northern waters."