AND NOW FOR THE REAL WORLD - AT 9:02 A.M. ET:  While the mainstream media obsesses over the life story of Judge Sotomayor, there is a mess of grimness going on in the Far East.  Oh, wait.  We're not supposed to say Far East any longer because it's so America-centric.  So, there's a mess of grimness going on in the misunderstood, yet still culturally exciting land of North Korea. 

This is getting very serious:

May 27 (Bloomberg) -- North Korea threatened a military response to South Korean participation in a U.S.-led program to seize weapons of mass destruction, and said it will no longer abide by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.

“The Korean People’s Army will not be bound to the Armistice Agreement any longer,” the official Korean Central News Agency said in a statement today. Any attempt to inspect North Korean vessels will be countered with “prompt and strong military strikes.” South Korea’s military said it will “deal sternly with any provocation” from the North.

South Korean President Lee Myung Bak ordered his government to take “calm” measures on the threats, his office said in a statement today. Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary, Takeo Kawamura, echoed those remarks and called on North Korea to “refrain from taking actions that would elevate tensions in Asia.”

And the Russians are taking the tensions in Korea very seriously indeed:

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is taking security measures as a precaution against the possibility tension over North Korea could escalate into nuclear war, news agencies quoted officials as saying on Wednesday.

Interfax quoted an unnamed security source as saying a stand-off triggered by Pyongyang's nuclear test on Monday could affect the security of Russia's far eastern regions, which border North Korea.

"The need has emerged for an appropriate package of precautionary measures," the source said.

"We are not talking about stepping up military efforts but rather about measures in case a military conflict, perhaps with the use of nuclear weapons, flares up on the Korean Peninsula," he added. The official did not elaborate further.

COMMENT:  We don't widely recognize it here in the United States, but Moscow is very concerned about the stability of Russian lands in the east, which are far from the core and can turn very unstable.

The crisis with North Korea is major.  It has come about in part because of delusions in Washington that anything can be negotiated, and because of a lack of firmness.  The question must be asked:  If we cannot handle North Korea, which can't even feed its own people, how can we possibly expect to handle Iran?  And don't you think the Iranians are thinking the same thing?

May 27, 2009