From English language version of the (subscription only) Kyodo News:

North Korea has criticized South Korean President Lee Myung Bak for obstructing what Pyongyang says ”highest military contact” with the United States.

”It is again traitor Lee that is obstructing by hook or by crook the DPRK-U.S. highest military contact which the former has [...]

North Korea’s new leadership has set some lofty New Year’s resolutions:

North Korea on Sunday vowed an “all-out drive” toward economic prosperity, setting a vision for a nation with fewer food shortages, a stronger military and a people who defend their new supreme leader with their lives.

“The whole Party, the entire army and [...]

As has been noticed elsewhere, while your host was chewing up asphalt hither and yon, North Korea’s Kim Jong Il has gone to his reward – I doubt he’ll be so “ronery” in hell – leaving his twenty-something third son, Kim Jong Eun as a successor:

Until late last year, the younger Kim had [...]

North and South Korea recently held mid-level military talks focused on family unifications at the Peace Village on the 32nd Parallel in an attempt to get something non-kinetic moving between the divided peninsula’s governments.

Didn’t go so well:

Reuters quoted a unification ministry official in Seoul as saying that the talks had collapsed and [...]

The New York Times reports on life within the Hermit Kingdom:

A six-day visit to Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, that ended last Tuesday offered carefully monitored glimpses of a land where reality and fantasy are routinely conflated. While there were no obvious signs of impending collapse or political intrigue swirling around the fate of [...]

The New York Times lauds North Korea’s “restraint” in responding to recent South Korean live fire drills near the border:

A day after North Korea backed off threats of violent retaliation for South Korean artillery drills, analysts and policy makers in Seoul said Tuesday that the North’s unexpected restraint might signal, at least for [...]

The Center for International Policy’s Selig Harrison has a solution to the problem of North Korean bellicosity – force our South Korean allies to make concessions on issues not in play:

The Northern Limit Line was so named because it was meant to impose a limit on any potential South Korean encroachment into North [...]

Not crazy, says Bush-era diplomat Victor Cha – just calculating:

(It) is possible to be both rational and belligerent. In North Korea’s case, belligerence is part of a calculated effort to win concessions of food, fuel and political recognition – an effort that has repeatedly paid off. A study I recently directed at the [...]