i still find their belligerence very troubling...
Meanwhile, check this out: (posted on Final Phase yesterday)
"Top Russian Parliamentarian Visits N. Korea After Mystery Blast"
Created: 13.09.2004 16:53 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 16:53 MosNews
A senior Russian official met North Korea’s Kim Jong-il on Monday in the communist leader’s second public encounter with foreigners in as many days after months of privacy.
Sergei Mironov, chairman of Russia’s Federation Council, the upper chamber of parliament, handed Kim a letter from President Vladimir Putin, the North’s official KCNA news agency said.
On Sunday, Kim also met a Chinese delegation for his first reported meeting with foreigners since a secretive trip to China in April. A train explosion in North Korea killed at least 170 people just after Kim returned from that trip.
That meeting was the first reported reception given to visitors by the North Korean leader since he returned from Beijing, a South Korean official told Reuters.
The meeting with top Russian and Chinese officials highlights Kim’s focus on China as his main ally but his desire not to alienate Moscow, a communist-era patron that shares a tiny border with the North.
Kim can go many months without publicly meeting foreigners, although regional diplomats say he does meet the Russian and Chinese ambassadors privately.
www.mosnews.com/news/2004...vkim.shtml
More on North Korea-China (from TB2000 discussion forum). A followup poster remarked that NK is turning out to be China's pit bull. It's beginning to seem that way...
"China throws support behind North Korea amid pressure for nuclear talks"
Agence France-Presse, via Channel News Asia
13 September 2004
BEIJING : Chinese President Hu Jintao has promised to strengthen relations with North Korea as his special envoy returned from Pyongyang amid a flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at securing another round of nuclear talks.
In a message conveyed by envoy Li Changchun to North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Il, Hu said China was willing to work with its neighbour to "strengthen and deepen" friendly cooperative relations, the Xinhua news agency said Monday.
China also wanted to "strengthen coordination and cooperation in regional and international affairs, with both countries understanding and supporting each other, and seek mutual development and mutual benefit to both peoples".
Li, a member of the Chinese Communist Party's powerful nine-strong top committee, returned to Beijing after the four-day "official goodwill visit", Xinhua said.
No details were given on whether any agreement was reached in scheduling another round of six-nation nuclear talks.
The visit was seen as part of last-ditch efforts to persuade Pyongyang to meet the other five parties as scheduled this month for a fourth round of talks aimed at resolving the standoff over the North's nuclear weapons program.
Pyongyang has recently expressed skepticism in the usefulness of the discussions and questioned the Americans' intentions.
It has also hinted the next round of talks, between the two Koreas, Japan, China, Russia and the United States, could be jeopardised by a recent admission by Seoul that South Korean scientists carried out nuclear experiments.
US diplomat James Kelly was holding meetings with Chinese officials in Beijing Monday and would likely get a briefing on Li's visit.
"It's pretty much the same thing, global and bilateral issues, which would include North Korea," a US embassy spokeswoman said regarding the content of discussions.
British foreign office minister Bill Rammell is also in Pyongyang and is expected to return to Britain via Beijing Tuesday.
The nuclear stand-off flared in October 2002 when the United States accused North Korea of operating a nuclear weapons programme based on enriched uranium, violating a 1994 agreement.
Pyongyang has denied running the uranium-based program but has restarted its plutonium program.