If this is just “saber rattling,” it’s getting downright fool-hardy.

North Korea celebrates its 55th birthday on Tuesday with its first major military parade in a decade, and speculation is rife the reclusive communist state may use the occasion to showcase a new missile.[...]

Chosun Ilbo, a leading South Korean newspaper, quoted an unidentified source as saying North Korea had finished developing a new ballistic missile last year. It was not clear whether it was part of its efforts to enhance its nuclear force.

“This missile is expected to be showcased at a parade for the first time on North Korea’s 55th anniversary,” the daily said. “South Korea and the United States are on careful watch.”[...]

Chosun Ilbo said the new missile had a range of 3,000-4,000 km (1,850-2,500 miles), longer than that of the Taepodong-1 missile North Korea fired over Japan in 1998. The North test-fired a much smaller missile the day before South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun’s inauguration last February.

Defense analysts say there is no evidence North Korea has tested a new missile or is about to do so, but they add that it is known to be developing a Taepodong-2 missile with a range long enough to reach the United States.

The newspaper said the new missile differed from the Taepodong-2, but it did not elaborate.

UPDATE 09.09.03: The 55th Anniversary celebration passed without a North Korean nuclear test. Thank goodness.

Still no surprises here:

A defiant North Korea told the United States and four other nations for the first time that it is ready to declare itself a nuclear weapons power and conduct a nuclear test, administration officials said Thursday.

A U.S. official briefed on six-nation talks in Beijing said the North Korean diplomats made the threats first to Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly and other U.S. diplomats on Wednesday, then repeated them before envoys from China, Russia, Japan and South Korea.

“The Chinese were visibly angry and the others were taken aback,” said the official, who asked not to be named. Kelly left the talks two hours before they concluded. There was no word on whether the meetings, which began Wednesday, would continue.

Nope. None at all.

Nope. None at all.

As the second day of talks on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions got underway, the United States ruled out the prospect of holding one-on-one meetings with Pyongyang.

The first day of the six-nation talks aimed at ending the standoff over North Korea’s suspected nuclear weapons program finished with no visible rifts among the participants.

There were also, however, few signs that Pyongyang and Washington made any diplomatic progress to resolve their differences.

Despite yesterday’s news about the discovery of weapons-grade uranium traces in Iran, the IAEA is more concerned about North Korea. Perhaps that’s because Pyongyang’s passed the decade-mark on the UN ignoring the nuclear evidence?

MARK GWOZDECKY, IAEA SPOKESMAN (VIENNA): We’re worried about a number of countries in the world today, but certainly North Korea is a very, very big threat, and we say that because they’ve demonstrated that they have the — they have a quantity of plutonium.

We were the first to indicate, in the early ’90s, that they had not declared to us a certain quantity of plutonium.

That’s a big ingredient for building a nuclear weapon.

Over ten years of ineffective sanctions and diplomatic hand-slapping. UN inspectors that have been kicked out of the country. A belated recognition by the UN that a nut job dictator may be trying to blackmail the world with WMDs he’s failed to declare for years now.

Gosh. Doesn’t that sound familiar?

Nope. No surprises here.

South Korea has said its navy fired warning shots after a North Korean patrol boat crossed a disputed border off the west coast of the divided peninsula, just a day before Beijing talks on the North’s nuclear programme.

It was not immediately clear whether the incursion was accidental or deliberate, but the communist North has in the past raised the stakes before talks or created a pretext to delay or walk out.

The North Korean delegation to the nuclear talks arrived in Beijing around the time news broke of the border incursion.

Conrad has an article indicating that China may be moving to shore up its relationship with the U.S. by coming down on North Korea. That would most definitely be welcome assistance from an unlikely source.

Somehow, I think this plan would have more success if it hadn’t been announced in advance.

Next month, two activists for North Korean refugees plan to gather dozens of volunteers along the heavily fortified border that divides North and South Korea, where they’ll launch an invasion that should easily infiltrate the tank traps, barbed wire, and more than a million combat-ready soldiers. This volunteer corps will unleash hundreds of balloons bearing battery-powered radios, which will drift northward across the demilitarised zone and land in the open countryside… Douglas Shin, a Korean American pastor, and Norbert Vollertsen, a German physician… hope North Koreans will find the radios and tune in to independent news stations…

Made possible by some $8,000 (�5,000) in donations, the low-tech endeavour comes with no guarantees. If the winds change, the balloons could get blown out to sea. Or the radios, made in China, could break once they hit the ground. Worse, if people are caught with the radios, they could end up in a prison camp – or executed…

Each plastic balloon… will carry at least one bubble-wrapped handheld radio that will play Radio Free Asia, Voice of America, a South Korean Christian station, and a secular South Korean government station…

Anyone else hear Nina Hagen singing now?

What better sign that the end is near for the “Dear Leader,” Kim Jong-il, than to have his formerly staunch ally planning for his demise?

In the latest sign that the North Korean nuclear crisis might be on the verge of settlement, Russia has embarked on a joint, 10-day naval exercise with South Korea and Japan. In addition, this Saturday, 30,000 Russian soldiers will carry out a drill simulating a response to a massive flow of North Korean refugees that might take place as a result of a war or a collapse of Kim Jong-il’s regime.

The significance of these events, both reported in Tuesday’s New York Times, is potentially staggering. Russia (which has long been one of North Korea’s chief allies and suppliers) has never taken part in naval exercises with South Korea and Japan (which have long been North Korea’s chief foes). Add to that the border drill—which suggests that Russia is figuring out how to deal with, but not necessarily to prevent, the possibility of Kim’s downfall – and the “Dear Leader” of Pyongyang must be getting a tad nervous.

Since I stole the link from Glenn, I might as well sound like him and reply merely:

Indeed.