I wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2007!
Having just returned from a week at my parents farm in the Midwest for the Christmas holiday, my hope for the new year is that we are able to relocate far away from the rat race of the DC Metro area to someplace with a (much) lower population [...]

Catherine Field presents the classic (and mostly thoughtful) engagement argument in the International Herald Tribune. There isn’t anything original in the piece, but it nicely summarizes the core argument of the pro-engagement crowd:
Some argue that such handouts have not led to any improvement in the lives of North Koreans in the past, and that such [...]

With everything else going on this month, we’ve been late in putting this out there, but perhaps it can help you when you’re back at Borders on the 26th looking to trade in that book of cute kitten pictures that your Aunt Marge got you for some inexplicable reason.
Movies
North Korea: A Day In The Life
Filmed [...]

Kim Jong-Il is personally overseeing a drive to get karaoke machines to all the troops, citing a noticable improvement in morale amongst karaoke-enabled soldiers. No word yet on whether all machines are programmed with “Country Roads”

Below are photos of just a few of the items I recovered from WWII Japanese shipwrecks in the Pacific.

↑ That’s me, about 90’ down, around the mast of a cargo ship.

↑ A sake cup (front and back, from a set) with a poem on one side, and a crossed rake and broom on the other. [...]

Both the U.S. and North Korea have not changed positions much, if any, since September 2005; North Korea insisted on receiving the benefits of disarming before beginning that process, and the U.S. demanded nuclear disarmament and compliance with former agreements before any aid is given or sanctions lifted. The Banco Delta and nuclear test issues [...]

Being Japanese, ‘life’ could be 30-40 more years for this guy: “Prosecutors demanded. . . a life imprisonment for a gangster who allegedly played a leading role in smuggling. . . drugs into Japan from North Korea in 2002. . . [The defendant is] Atsunori Fukushima, 68, a senior member of a gang group affiliated [...]

Rumsfeld and Roh agreed that North Korea is “not a threat,” but still missile defense is apparently too sexy to resist: “South Korea will seek to build an independent missile defense system amid growing security jitters sparked by North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests. . . South Korea will not join the United States and [...]

Yonhap: Talks extended amid signs of breakthrough
Chosun Ilbo: US Offers Compromise Over NK’s Dollar Forgeries
Bloomberg: US, NK Hold `Useful’ Talks, Extend Nuclear Negotiations
Kyodo: US, NK end financial talks, may meet again next month in NY
Reuters: North Korea says U.S. is plotting to harm it
Reuters: N.Korea nuclear talks to continue through Friday
Kyodo: Abe urges [...]

This months talks are running into the same roadblocks that halted negotiations in September 2005 – the timing of CVID and LWR – but with the added bonus of North Korea petulantly demanding a) to be recognized as a nuclear power and, b) that Banco Delta sanctions be dropped. North Korea is once again insisting [...]