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Taken at a glance, the 18 month-long sojourn that was U.S.-North Korea nuclear diplomacy looks dead in the water.

U.S. envoy Stephen Biegun’s three-day trip to South Korea came and went without any visible progress in getting the talks moving again. The rhetoric between the two countries is beginning to have a 2017 ‘fire and fury’ flavor to it. Pyongyang’s threats are getting more animated.

Predictions of another North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile test by Christmas are percolating in the Korea