According to the Japanese paper, Kim will meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao to discuss aid issues and the North Korean nuclear program. Kim’s last trip abroad took place four years ago when he visited China in January of 2006.

China remains North Korea’s biggest ally and has helped buffer the regime form increasing pressure by the United States, Japan and South Korea to return to the negotiating table over nuclear disarmament talks. In 2008, China accounted for 73 percent of North Korea’s international commerce, according to figures from the Korea Trade- Investment Promotion Agency in Seoul.

Continuing UN sanctions imposed after a second nuclear test last May have now really begun to affect the economy and weaken the North Korean government’s ability to feed its people, especially following a disastrous currency reevaluation last November that triggered rapid inflation and food shortages.

North Korea recently marked Kim’s 68th birthday on February 16, celebrating with mass celebrations and dance shows. While the mood was appropriately jubilant – Kim was described as “the most outstanding political elder and peerlessly brilliant commander of the present era” – the fragile state of the North Korean economy and Kim’s own health issues have heightened anxiety among analysts over the country’s future.

This fragile state has lead most experts to suspect North Korea will return to the six party talks soon. “Kim’s China visit, which is highly likely, heightens the prospects of the disarmament talks resuming,” Park Joon Young, a professor of international relations at Ewha Womans University told Bloomberg News.

SEOUL (Reuters) – A senior Chinese envoy was in North Korea to prod the reclusive state back to stalled nuclear talks while the South sent a team across the border on Monday for talks to restart tourism projects halted due to political wrangling.

The North will also host the U.N.’s top political envoy later this week, with analysts saying this engagement may bode well for the dormant six-way disarmament-for-aid talks and could lead to Pyongyang reducing the security threat it poses to the region.

The destitute North is feeling pressure to return to the nuclear talks, where it can win aid to prop up its broken economy, due to U.N. sanctions imposed after its nuclear test in May 2009 and a botched currency revaluation that sparked inflation and rare civil unrest.

Analysts said there is a chance the North could launch military moves if the talks do not go well. Market players have said this would dampen sentiment and serve as a reminder of the dangers of investing in the troubled peninsula.

Chinese Communist Party international affairs chief Wang Jiarui flew to North Korea at the weekend. Wang met Kim Jong-Il last year, and received a denuclearization pledge from the North Korean leader.

Wang met senior officials other than Kim at the weekend. He is expected to stay four days and have discussions with Kim, the South’s Yonhap news agency quoted diplomatic sources as saying.

China, the destitute North’s biggest benefactor, is seen as having the most influence on the reclusive state. Kim Jong-il told the Chinese premier in October he could return to the nuclear talks if conditions were right.

In a move seen as bettering the mood with the United States, the North’s most important dialogue partner in the nuclear talks that also include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea, Pyongyang at the weekend released a U.S. missionary it had held since late December for illegally entering the country.

North Korea is recent weeks has been reaching out to South Korea, which once was a major aid donor, but also threatening its neighbor and U.S. military ally by firing artillery near its neighbor on the troubled peninsula.

Analysts said the North wants to underscore the threat it poses to North Asia, which is responsible for one-sixth of the global economy, in a ploy to increase its bargaining leverage.

The Koreas were set to begin talks on joint tourism projects in the North run by an affiliate of the South’s Hyundai group.

The tours, suspended for more than a year, once earned the North’s leaders tens of millions of dollars a year and Kim Jong-il has appealed to have them restarted.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who took office two years ago, ended unconditional handouts to the North and linked aid to progress his neighbor makes in reducing the military threat it poses to North Asia.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Somali pirates hijacked a North Korean cargo ship on Wednesday with an unknown number of crew on board, the European Union Naval Force said.

The MV Rim was seized in the Gulf of Aden, outside the internationally recommended transit corridor patrolled by the anti-piracy naval coalition, said Cmdr. Anders Kallin of the EU Naval Force.

The MV Rim has not had any communication with maritime authorities, but Kallin said an American warship, the USS Porter, and a helicopter from American warship USS Farragut confirmed the seizure of the ship to the EU.

The 4,800-ton ship is owned by White Sea Shipping of Libya. It is carrying unknown cargo and the number and nationalities of the crew are not known. The seized ship was heading toward the Somali coast and warships were monitoring the situation, the EU Naval Force said. The MV Rim is the third ship seized by Somali pirates this year. Its crew will join more than 180 sailors being held hostage along the Somali coast.

Most Somalis are impoverished and many have suffered from almost two decades of fighting. The anarchic Horn of Africa nation is the perfect pirate base because the weak U.N.-backed government is too busy fighting an Islamist insurgency to patrol its shores or go after pirates on land.

The multimillion dollar ransoms that pirates command are one of the few remaining ways for Somalis to make money. Experts say the problems will only get worse unless the security situation on land improves.

After declaring a no-sail zone in the area earlier this week, the North fired at least 30 rounds yesterday morning as part of an “annual training drill,” which the South responded to with 100 warning shots of their own.

“We have confirmed North Korea’s firing of several artillery shells, but they did not cross (the maritime border)” said Joint Chief of Staff Park Sung-woo yesterday, according to Yonhap. “We are on high military alert.”

The U.S. Defense Department has deemed North Korea’s actions “provocative” while also asking their South Korean allies to exercise restraint.

“The declaration by North Korea of a no sail zone and the live firing of artillery are provocative actions and as such are not helpful,” said State Department spokesman Phillip Crowley.

“Although this is a bilateral issue between the North and South, we clearly are discouraging any further acts of aggression which would in any way increase the tensions along this historically disputed boundary area,” said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell during a news conference.

Like a petulant child, dealing with North Korea has been frustrating the international community for years as the communist country occasionally shows signs of hope only to baffle optimists and sympathizers with temper tantrums and actions like the one we witnessed today.

“It’s always difficult to interpret the intentions behind North Korean’s actions,” Morrel said. “We, however, have made it very clear that there is a path open to the North Koreans in the framework of the six-party talks to achieve the security and international respect that… at least they say they seek.”

In college, my economics professor told me that the picture at the top of the page was alone worth the price of the book, and I quite agree. Nuclear capability and an army over one million strong is great and all, but if I was a North Korean, I’d gladly trade that all for a chance to rejoin the world in the 21st Century. Hopefully one day they’ll have that choice.

Check out this CNN Video for a visual report on the recent peninsular developments.

The statement has been met with cross words from the North yesterday, claiming that such words constitute a declaration of war.

“Our revolutionary armed forces will regard the scenario for ‘preemptive strike,’ which the South Korean puppet authorities adopted as a ‘state policy,’ as an open declaration of war,” said a spokesman for the armed forces general staff, according to North Korea’s state KCNA news agency.

Citizens are typically placed in the concentration camps without trial for anti-government comments and actions, or for attempting to defect.

The study, based on interviews with 371 North Korean defectors, including 17 former prisoners, describes life within the camps as a constant struggle for survival due to insufficient food, lack of medical assistance, and physical attacks.

Reports of torture, abuse, execution, and sexual harassment are prevalent within the camps.

The report suggests the political prisons are used to create fear, which is one of the most effective tactics used by the totalitarian regime to control its 24 million citizens.

The DPRK has said that diplomacy regarding the country’s nuclear program would be contingent on a peace treaty first being signed and UN sanctions lifted.

Familiar with the political games coming from Pyongyang, the United States has said they would like to see North Korea first rejoin the six-party talks and take steps towards denuclearization before they come to an agreement.

Xinhua reports on the topic.

While there were no casualties and relatively little damage on the South Korean side, a North Korean naval vessel was reportedly in flames as it retreated north.

The exchange lasted roughly two minutes in which the North Korean ship fired up to 50 rounds at the South Korean vessel at a distance of about two nautical miles.

Baek Seung-joo, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said Tuesday’s clash would not have a big impact on inter-Korean relations.

Baek speculates that North Korea caused the incident, but that Pyongyang appears to want to create tensions and use them for domestic political consumption as U.S. President Obama prepares to visit Seoul next week.

The unannounced release led to the doubling of the Imjin River’s water level to over 15 feet.

Whether this was the result of an accident or to provoke the South remains uncertain. Regardless, this will undoubtedly hurt the already strained relations between the two peninsular countries.

The two women were convicted by the Central Court of North Korea for the “grave crime they committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing.” The two were sentenced to “12 years of reform through labor.”

The U.S. State Department was trying to confirm the convictions with Korean Authorities.

“We are deeply concerned by the reported sentencing of the two American citizen journalists by North Korean authorities, and we are engaged through all possible channels to secure their release,” said spokesman Ian Kelley in a statement.

Ling and Lee are reporters for California-based Current TV. They have been held in North Korea since their arrest on March 17.

The State Department called for their immediate release on humanitarian grounds.