Haiku 061409

at six-thirty
the truck starts idling...
wake-up call

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Recently, we read the following:

Washington Post: “U.N. Imposes Tough New Sanctions on North Korea” by Colum Lynch

“The U.N. Security Council unanimously voted Friday to impose a broad range of additional financial, military and trade sanctions on North Korea in response to its recent nuclear and ballistic missile tests, and called on states for the first time to seize banned North Korean cargo on the high seas….

“The resolution would restrict Pyongyang's access to international grants, financial assistance and low-interest loans. It would also reinvigorate efforts to enforce a range of sanctions imposed on North Korea after its first nuclear test in October 2006….

“The current push for tough sanctions has generated skepticism among some observers, who recall that the Security Council never enforced sanctions on North Korea following its first nuclear test in October 2006.

“In fact, North Korea's overseas trade has grown substantially since then, with trade volumes last year at their highest levels since 1990, when a far more prosperous and less isolated North Korea was heavily subsidized by the Soviet Union, according to an analysis by the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, a government-funded organization in Seoul.

“North Korean exports surged 23 percent last year, compared with the previous year, and imports jumped 33 percent, the agency said. It found that China's share of overseas trade with the North is soaring, up from 33 percent in 2003 to 73 percent last year….”

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And we thought:

….North Korea’s escalating provocation seems another ploy to extract new concessions down the road....