Below The Beltway

The last time the North Koreans tried to test launch a Taedong-2 missile, it failed miserably.
It appears that they’ve learned a few things:
TOKYO, April 5 — North Korea launched a long-range missile Sunday morning, defying repeated international warnings, worrying its neighbors and setting up the prospect of increased sanctions.
The launch, from a base on the [...]

Even as it’s people continue to starve, the North Korean government continues to play politics:
WASHINGTON (AP) — North Korea’s decision to reject future U.S. food assistance and kick out five groups distributing American aid in the country could make an already precarious humanitarian situation even worse.
State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Tuesday that the North [...]

North Korea gives Dear Leader another term in the legislature:
SEOUL (AFP) — Leader Kim Jong-Il has been unanimously elected to a seat in North Korea’s parliament following a 100 percent turnout, state media said Monday.
Sunday’s elections for the rubber-stamp Supreme People’s Assembly featured only one pre-approved candidate in each constituency. But analysts are watching them [...]

A look inside the living hell that is Kim Jong Il’s Democratic People’s Republic of Korea:
Under the leadership of Kim Jong Il, the country cannot feed its people. Perennially dependent on food aid, North Korea has become a truculent ward of the wealthy countries it threatens. It is the world’s first nuclear-armed, missile-wielding beggar — [...]

It looks like the lunatics in Pyongyang are up to something again:
SEOUL (AFP) — North Korea said Friday it is scrapping all political and military agreements with South Korea, including one on their sea border.
The statement from the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, a body handling cross-border relations, accused the Seoul government of [...]

A rare glimpse inside a North Korean prison camp:
SEOUL — In Camp No. 14, the North Korean political prison where Shin Dong-hyuk was born and where he says he watched the hanging of his mother, inmates never saw a picture of Kim Jong Il.
“I had no idea who he is,” Shin said, referring to the [...]

Remember Condi Rice’s deal with North Korea ?
Yea, not so much:
North Korea today barred international inspectors from its Yongbyon nuclear reactor complex, dramatically raising the stakes in a standoff with the United States over a proposed inspection scheme for nuclear facilities.
The move came as the Bush administration is engaged in deep debate over whether to [...]