Grim's Hall

Worse news from Pyongyang:

So North Korea is now reprocessing its fuel rods. These talks we're going to have with them in China will be very interested. Sure, if you're Kim Jong Il, you'd want to be negotiating from behind a growing stockpile of nukes, too. That's the strongest possible position for North Korea.

However, these talks have been "brokered," to use the Washington Post's word, by the People's Republic of China. This bad-faith move by the DPRK is a cause of considerable embarrassment to the PRC. There is nothing the Chinese hate more than being humiliated in public. In the long run, therefore, this could be a good sign--China may now feel it has to take a hard line with the DPRK to save face.