ATLANTA — North Korea stands accused of sinking a South Korean warship without provocation, killing 46 of its crew.  So just what was Kim Jong Il thinking in what must have been a deliberate move to enrage the South and the international community?

NEW YORK — One of the many theories about North Korea which appears to float on thin air goes something like this: China, the one country with real leverage over crazy Kim and his gulag, loves the status quo. Like that guy in your neighborhood who walks around with a pit bull straining against its leash, the Chinese parade their influence on the Pygmy of Pyongyang, as if to remind the neighborhood that without the strong hand of Beijing, Kim Jong-il’s steroid-fed army of Stalinist zealots would run amok all over East Asia.

TOKYO, Japan — In a decision some here have likened to signing a political suicide note, Japan’s prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, has been forced to apologize to the people of Okinawa after reneging on a promise to relocate a controversial U.S. Marine base off the island. Hatoyama cited mounting tensions on the Korean peninsula as the main factor in his decision to retain a 2006 agreement to shift Futenma, a sprawling airbase located in the crowded city of Ginowan, to a remote location farther north near the town of Nago.