13 February 2007: Animal Farm

In the 1940s George Orwell wrote the book Animal Farm, about communism, as practiced in North Korea. So perhaps that's why animal imagery seems to be such a feature of reports on the six-country nuclear talks.

At an optimistic point U.S. envoy Christopher Hill told reporters "I don't want to count our chickens before they hatch". But as North Korea's demands for huge oil shipments drew shaking heads from other negotiators, Hill grasped for bunnies. "There's no magic in diplomacy," he said. "Whenever you pull a rabbit out of the hat, it's because you've spent a lot of time stuffing that rabbit down into the hat."

SaintFM hopes this story hasn’t let the cat out of the bag, or we’ll end up with egg on our faces.