The State Department’s point man on North Korea arrived in Beijing on Wednesday on a visit that analysts and diplomats see giving a lift to efforts to resolve a 21-month nuclear standoff. Joseph DeTrani’s trip comes as diplomatic sources in Beijing and Tokyo said Ri Gun, the deputy head of the U.S. affairs section of North Korea’s foreign ministry, would make a rare visit to the United States in August. The gust of high-level diplomacy was fanning hopes for progress in the slow-moving negotiations to end the stalemate over North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs, the subject of multiple rounds of inconclusive talks.Full Story