Yeah, yeah, fine. So, how is the weather?

"We will neither treat Japan as a party to the talks nor deal with it even if it impudently appears in the conference room, lost to shame,"

a spokesman for the North Korean Foreign Ministry told propaganda organ Korean Central News Agency (KCNA; amusingly, this bunch of collaborators is based in Japan).

Seems Japan didn't get around to sending over any tribute aid shipments prior to this round of the Six-Party Negotiations. Seems North Korea has not done much of anything on the Abductions issue since that line of negotiation reopened in June. Seems that might not have exactly engendered warm feelings on "our" part here in Japan.

Speaking of warm...

Reports said high temperatures were around -6 C (19 F) in Pyongyang this week.

Long time until spring comes, too.

Sure might be nice to have a couple shiploads of fuel show up in North Korea.

Of course, there's not much reason for Japan to send over those ships, now is there?