I’d tell you what I think of North Korea’s sudden mini-summit …

but Robert Koehler has already told you roughly what I think, so I can save most of the keystrokes. North Korea has had more false rehabilitations than Linsday Lohan, Robert Downey Jr., and the entire membership of Grateful Dead, combined. It would take nothing less than the announcement of a coup d’etat for me to take this at all seriously.

I wonder if Pyongyang’s Southern Wind ploy means that its Hostage ploy with Japan is about to blow up, as predicted. For now, Park Geun Hye continues to resist domestic political pressure to lift sanctions until the North actually does something to deserve that.

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Update: OK, fun’s over. Back to your bunkers:

The defence ministry said the South’s patrol boat had initially fired a warning shot after the North Korean vessel penetrated half a nautical mile inside the South’s territorial waters.

Instead of retreating immediately, the North patrol boat opened fire, so “our side fired back,” a ministry spokesman said, adding that there neither vessel had directly targetted the other and “no damage” was sustained.

The South’s patrol boat fired “around 90” rounds in total.

The incident took place at 9:50 am (0050 GMT) near the South Korean border island of Yeonpyeong, and the North patrol boat retreated to its side of the border 10 minutes later.

“We are now watching North Korean troop movements and tightening vigilance against any additional provocations,” the spokesman said. [AFP]