North Korea Acts Out. Again.

Apparently kim Jong Il, North Korea’s strange little leader, believes Israel and Iran have been getting too much attention from the Obama Administration of late. Not to be outdone, North Korea has been engaging in nuclear tests in violation of international law and has test-fired five missiles thus far this week. More worrisome, is N. Korea’s insistence on playing ‘chicken’ with threatening South Korea:

TOKYO, May 27 — North Korea announced Wednesday that it is no longer bound by the 1953 armistice that halted the Korean War, the latest and most profound diplomatic aftershock from the country’s latest nuclear test two days earlier.

North Korea also warned that it would respond “with a powerful military strike” should its ships be stopped by international forces trying to stop the export of missiles and weapons of mass destruction.

The twin declarations, delivered by the country’s state news agency, followed South Korea’s announcement Tuesday that it would join the navies that will stop and inspect suspicious ships at sea. North Korea has repeatedly said that such participation would be a “declaration of war.”

[snip]

In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke Tuesday to her Russian counterpart as part of an effort to seek a united response with “consequences” for North Korea. But U.S. officials also stressed that they are still eager for North Korea to return to multilateral disarmament talks and are not ready to declare the multi-year effort to end North Korea’s nuclear program a failure.

“We feel the door does still remain open, that we’re ready to engage,” said State Department spokesman Ian Kelly. He described the Obama administration’s effort now as trying to “bring international pressure to bear to get them to reverse their course.”

Apparently, the State Dept. is urging Russia and China to play a larger role in reigning in North Korea’s erstwhile dictator. It would seem that while China and North Korea have a lot in common (communist regimes which stifle dissent and rule with an iron fist), China realizes that in addition to having to essentially subsidize North Korea’s economy on a constant basis, having such a loose cannon at the reigns of a nuclear arsenal is more trouble than it’s worth, communist or not.