Alertnet: "Nepal's Maoists are unhappy with the government's invitation to the United Nations to monitor weapons held by the guerrillas and the army ahead of elections, a rebel leader said on Thursday. The comments came three days after Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala wrote to ask Secretary-General Kofi Annan for U.N. monitoring in the run-up the polls for an assembly to map the nation's political future."
Over at National Review Online, Claudia Rosett offers running commentary on the trial of Tongsun Park, a shadowy influence peddler who is accused of being an unregistered agent of Saddam Hussein during the Oil for Food program's formative years.
"North Korea test-fired a seventh missile Wednesday, intensifying the furor that began when the reclusive regime defied international protests by launching a long-range missile and at least five shorter-range rockets earlier in the day.... The missiles, all of which apparently fell harmlessly into the Sea of Japan, provoked international condemnation, the convening of an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council and calls in Tokyo for economic sanctions against the impoverished communist regime." [More]
UPDATE: Bloggers weigh in...
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"North Korea launched at least six missiles on Wednesday, including a long-range Taepodong-2, a move the United States called provocative and in defiance of the international community.
The United States said it was urgently consulting other U.N. Security Council members after the launches, which came despite repeated warnings from the reclusive Stalinist country's neighbors and from Washington." [Full story]