With what's going on in the world, there's going to be a certain amount of filtering of world news. The media concerns will sensationalize to build ratings but facts and data will be patterned to maximize disinformation.

I have several SW radios, but by far the best is my Worldstar Multi-Band receiver, roughly the size of a small briefcase, which puts my handheld Sony to shame in terms of reception clarity and signal lock despite having a slightly more narrow band of frequencies. I also have a cheap little Bell & Howell thats easy to throw around and fits in a jacket pocket.

Even in this internet connected, e-mail linked, GPS mapped world, the SW still is indispensable at times like this.

It certainly would help if one speaks fluent Chinese, Japanese and Russian.

South Korea & Japan are in the most peril. But eventually if NK manages to stow something onboard a freighter or gets hold of a nuclear submarine, in lieu of their diesel units, all nations coastlines are eventually imperiled. Bush will naturally try to gear the sanctions to total restrictions on any transport technology which could be used to transport a nuclear weapon.

Coastal California, New York and Japanese property just went down in value a few notches.

;-)