Google News displayed a boatload of editorials on North Korea this weekend

The Miami Herald urges more US diplomacy

The Washington Post has a round-up of America’s and South Korea’s different approaches

The Midland Reporter-Telegram urges China to be more aggressive (good luck)

You don’t need to know what I think.

Panel: Act before it is too late

NEW YORK – Human rights is not a “dirty word” nor is it a bomb, said a specialist in human rights and humanitarian issues at a panel discussion concerning North Korea Wednesday.

“It has to be seen as a legitimate subject,” stated Roberta Cohen, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Human rights activists, church leaders and individuals concerned with the atrocious human rights situation in the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) sat in on a half-day discussion that tackled urgent issues of food security, religious persecution, refugees and the currently stalled six-party talks.

“All parties need to be ready to take human rights very seriously,” said Chung Eui-yong, member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea, as a panelist on the topic of human rights being addressed in a comprehensive Northeast Asia security regime.

The timely gathering, co-sponsored by Asia Society, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom and Refugees International, came as North Korea’s violations of human rights has become a larger part of the U.S. agenda in recent months.

I particularly like the last quote from Jay Lefkowitz

Nevertheless, “the international community should take action when there is time,” Lefkowitz said, “before ‘Hotel Pyongyang’ comes out.”

Of course, there is already a Hotel Pyongyang, a massive slab of concrete that represents everything that is wrong with the Juche ideology.

Well, at least he makes the trains run on time. Nope, can’t do that either

SEOUL, May 24 (Yonhap) — North Korea on Wednesday called off scheduled test runs of cross-border railways, an official at the Unification Ministry said.

The cancellation came one day before the Koreas were set to test the railways.

The South Korean government expressed deep regrets in a statement read by Vice Unification Minister Shin Un-sang during a press briefing.

Shin said the North’s chief delegate to inter-Korean talks about linking the railways sent a telegram early Wednesday, saying it is calling off the test runs on the eastern and western lines.

“The North Korean side said in a telegram that it is no longer able to conduct the railway tests as scheduled because of the lack of a military agreement to guarantee the safety (of people taking part) in the trial runs and unstable conditions in the South,” Shin told the news briefing.

The North’s delegation to the railway talks is headed by Park Jong-song, director of an external relations bureau at the country’s Railway Ministry, according to the Unification Ministry.

In the statement, the Seoul government criticized the last-minute cancellation, labeling the North’s cited reasons as absurd, or preposterous. “Speaking preposterously about unstable conditions in the South is especially unreasonable.”

Unstable conditions? Talk about projection. If the Unification Minstry cannot even get symbolic gestures such as a railroad link, then why even bother dealing with the North. I hear the rails between China and North Korea are going very well.