Kim Jong Il, the mini-Mao of North Korea, is very pleased that his scientists and technicians "with their own wisdom and technology" have successfully developed and fired a three-stage missile.(The Week)(Brief article)

Kim Jong Il, the mini-Mao of North Korea, is very pleased that his scientists and technicians "with their own wisdom and technology" have successfully developed and fired a three-stage missile. And well he might be. The missile flew over Japan and has the potential to deliver a North Korean nuclear bomb to the west coast of the United States. The alarm in Japan and of course South Korea is immense. Already three years ago, confronted by North Korea's underground testing of its nuclear weapon, the United Nations decreed military and financial sanctions on that rogue country. These have not worked. Instead, China and Russia, the two powers protecting North Korea for realpolitik motives of their own, inveigled the United States, Japan, and South Korea into talks that have dragged the whole issue into the ...