New York Times' Thom Shanker on world reaction to Communist Korea

Thom Shanker comments on the diplomatic visits by U.S. Secretary of State Rice in northeastern Asia in "News Analysis: A fragile consensus on North Korea" (International Herald Tribune, 22 October 2006.) .... South Korea feels most threatened by the North's nuclear program, but also the most exposed, and a number of opinion leaders in the South are doing all they can to rescue Seoul's policy of engaging, not isolating, the North, redrawing their lines in the sand while North Korea keeps blowing over them. ... Rice acknowledged during her journey that Iran, with its own nuclear ambitions, was watching her efforts. She left one senior advisor in Asia to continue discussions of sanctions, while another spent time at the working-group level to devise specific goals and rules for monitoring and inspecting North Korean cargo. Administration officials say these initial steps forward already may be influencing North Korean decisions to hold off on a second test, and that over time a strict sanctions architecture can be erected to contain the North's nuclear ambitions and prevent the transfer of weapons to another state or terrorists. ... Another interesting webpage: An interactive graphic on the North Korean border with China and Russia accompanies an article by Norimishu Onishi, "Tension, Desperation: The China-North Korean Border," in the New York Times (22 October).