China Confidential

North Korea will probably test-fire more missiles and may even explode another atomic device before the end of this year, according to analysts in Japan and Australia.

Having shut down its Yongbyon reactor, which produced weapons-grade plutonium, Pyongyang is escalating demands for money and energy--including, incredibly, a light-water nuclear reactor--and recognition and "security guarantees" from its arch enemy, the United States.

The North shows no sign of actually ending its nuclear program--it is clearly unwilling to come clean regarding suspected uranium enrichment--while continuing to allocate scarce state resources to its long-range missile and biological and chemical warfare programs.

The flawed six-nation nuclear deal with the Hitlerian Stalinist/Kimist regime is at best a triumph of symbolism over substance; at worst, appeasement leading to catastrophe.

It is only a matter of months or years before the North--an ally of nuclar-arming, Islamist Iran--is capable of accurately targeting the US mainland with nuclear-tipped missiles.