This weekend four North Korean ships will arrive in the South to pick up rice. All part of the ongoing process where the North is rejecting food aid from the World Food Program (WFP), in favor of food aid from the South, and probably China.
North Korea’s preference for South Korean and Chinese food aid is [...]

Korea Herald: ‘Nuclear facilities, capacities in North Korea.’ Some useful information, but starts off on the wrong foot:
‘Now that North Korea has agreed to dismantle whatever nuclear programs it has, focus is now shifting onto what kind of nuclear facilities and activities it operates…”

Japan Times: ‘Toward a nuclear Japan?’ Probably a moot point – as [...]

From YONHAP, ‘Pakistani premier denies contact with N. Korea on nuclear weapons’:
Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Thursday dismissed speculation that his country provided North Korea with nuclear materials to help it develop nuclear weapons. “We have had no contact whatsoever, directly or indirectly, with North Korea or any such [nuclear] issues,” Aziz said [...]

On the agenda:
The next thing North Korea needs to do is to tell the international community where its nuclear arms facilities are, the U.S. chief negotiator in six-party denuclearization talks Christopher Hill said Wednesday. Hill also told reporters there could be trouble ahead if North Korea in the next round of talks refuses to admit [...]

From a travel FAQ on the Official DPRK website:
19. Is North Korea ‘reforming’ its economy and moving towards capitalism?
While the comparison between the DPRK and ‘China in the 1980s’ is frequently evoked by many so-called ‘experts’ these days, it is completely incorrect and misleading. The DPRK remains a planned socialist economy and has no intention [...]

From the Korea Times, ‘US Uranium Exported to Korea Missing:’
The U.S. Department of Commerce recently reported… that the country exported 68.693 tons of natural uranium fluoride to Korea last July for $24 million, or $349 per ton.
However, the Korean government flatly rebuffed any possibility of the deal as the state-sponsored Korea Hydro and Nuclear [...]

From the 27 September KCNA:
What is most essential is, therefore, for the U.S. to provide light water reactors to the DPRK as early as possible as evidence proving the former’s substantial recognition of the latter’s nuclear activity for a peaceful purpose.
Note that sequence is not the issue in the latest statement, just receiving LWR is [...]

Nothing personal, I am sure. According to Rand:
China lacks the ability to enforce export controls on technologies used to produce weapons of mass destruction, undermining its claims to be a responsible global power…
Read the full article, ‘China not enforcing WMD export controls: RAND’

Taking into consideration the 19 September agreement, the conflicting U.S.-DPRK positions, the history (PDF) of the issue, particularly lessons from the 1994 Agreed Framework, and what can be gleaned from recent news (NK backing down?), a picture is emerging of what an actual agreement might look like (hint: package deal). All hypothetical of course, but [...]

I will refer to this post whenever discussing the likelihood of a North Korea deal through the Six-Party Talks so that I don’t have to repeat the same information in multiple posts.
Simply put, I do not believe that the situation with North Korea will change while Kim Jong-il is the leader of the DPRK.
Agreements [...]