Word: pyongyang
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...North Korea is expected to test-launch a ballistic missile that could finger the very outer edges of America. Which isn't to say that anyone thinks Pyongyang will blast Anchorage anytime soon, but just testing that kind of missile--and then putting it up for sale on the international arms market--is enough to make huge swaths of the world very nervous. It's a perfect setup for high-priced extortion, and last week diplomats were struggling: Do we let the North Koreans launch, or can we buy them off? On the brink of collapse and with its people...
...diplomats still hope they can scuttle this launch at the negotiating table. They've done it before. Pyongyang agreed to abandon plans to convert nuclear-reactor fuel into nuclear weaponry when the U.S. and Japan agreed to pay for oil imports and build two new reactors. And South Korea's President Kim Dae Jung has embarked on a policy of engagement, offering food and investment from South Korean companies. As thanks, North Korea has sent fishing boats into South Korean waters and provoked a naval clash (Seoul's forces sank one ship), dispatched a suspected spy vessel into Japan...
...North Korea?s primary leverage in dealing with the world," says TIME Tokyo correspondent Tim Larimer. "It?s crippled by famine and the decline of its industrial base, so its military might and reputation for irrationality are its strongest cards in any negotiations." As if to underline the point, Pyongyang warned Tuesday that "the further the United States escalates pressure on us, the stronger our reaction will become to bring unpredictable consequences...
...Since 1994, offers of energy and food assistance by the U.S. and its allies had succeeded in curbing North Korea?s nuclear program and its missile exports, but strong warnings against the latest planned test -- and military maneuvers by its regional enemies -- may goad Pyongyang into pressing the button. "By making so much of it we may have turned this missile firing into a test of North Korean manhood," says TIME Pentagon correspondent Mark Thompson. "Being more discreet may give Pyongyang more of a way out." Which may be why, despite the threats of harsh economic retaliation, Washington is arguing...
...observers believe the withdrawal is both a sign of paranoia among North Korean leaders and a dogged determination to have their own way. "Hard-liners in the North are thought to oppose family reunions because they fear any contact with the outside world," says TIME Tokyo correspondent Tim Larimer. "Pyongyang needs money, food and fertilizer but it doesn?t want strings attached," he adds. "Whenever North Korea has edged to even the mildest form of engagement with the outside world, it has preceded such moves with a show of force." In other words, Pyongyang only wants help from benefactors whose...