Nothing has changed in North Korea's efforts to deny foreign aid to desperately needy citizens

■"North Korea Poses Aid Puzzle: Donated Food Is Going Astray, but Government Resists Oversight," by Gordon Fairclough, Wall Street Journal, 16 September 2005, p. A12.

Where does a great deal of the food donated by foreign governments end up in North Korea? Government and Party rackets sell it for profit. As one North Korean merchant who's since fled to South Korea stated, "They'll do anything to make money."

These are the people we'll negotiated with over WMD? Fat chance, say I.

In this story they say the likely death toll of the preventable famine that Kim oversaw in the late 1990s was probably around 1 million, not the higher figures some cite at 2 to 3 million, but also not the low-ball numbers (low six figures) that other research organizations cite either. Frankly, I don't give a rat's ass about the true number, not when roughly 4 out of all 10 kids in the country are considered malnourished, for no good reason other than-as one aid official puts it-"In North Korea, you have a ruthless government that is holding its own people hostage."

If that's not a politically bankrupt state that the Core should be interested in processing right out of existence, I don't know what one would ever be.

Here's hoping Beijing is listening to DepSecState Bob Zoellick's offer to think about a regional security alliance on the far side of a reunited Korean peninsula.