Confused by North Korea’s sudden hard line? Look to China for answers.

Last week Pyongyang reverted to taunts, calling Mike Pompeo’s trip there “regrettable,” saying America has a “gangster-like mindset” and denying the secretary of state a meeting with Dear Leader, who apparently was obliged to inspect a potato farm instead.

Why? As Sen. Lindsey Graham told “Fox News Sunday,” “I see China’s hands all over this,” adding, “There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s the Chinese pulling the North Koreans back.”

President Trump tweeted Monday his “confidence” that “Kim Jong-un will honor the contract we signed, even more importantly, our handshake.” (No contract, of course, was signed at the end of last month’s Singapore handshaking session.)

It began with great expectations, an eagerly-anticipated meeting with a reclusive leader, and a gift bag that included an Elton John CD.

It ended with a scuttled rendezvous, statements declaring disappointment and stalemate.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's overnight visit to Pyongyang last week failed to demonstrate any progress on denuclearization talks, leading one source with knowledge of the discussions to say the White House felt it went "as badly as it could have gone."

"The North Koreans were just messing around, not serious about moving forward," the source told CNN's Michelle Kosinski, adding that Pompeo had been promised a meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, and so not getting that meeting sent a big message.

"By now it's abundantly clear that this approach is a dead end," said Adam Mount, a senior fellow and director of the Defense Posture Project at the Federation of American Scientists, where he covers US nuclear strategy, deterrence and North Korea.

South Korea has suspended its summertime civil defense drills aimed at preparing against a North Korean attack to keep alive a positive atmosphere for nuclear diplomacy with the North.

Seoul’s decision on Tuesday to “temporarily suspend” the nationwide civilian drills had been anticipated since the United States and South Korea halted their annual military exercises following a summit last month between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Streets in South Korean cities froze at the sound of air-raid sirens every year during the Ulchi drills in August with cars stopping on roads, pedestrians moving into buildings and subway stations, and government workers evacuating from their offices.

President Donald Trump said Monday that he was confident North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would “honor the contract” the two leaders signed last month in Singapore, while suggesting that China was “exerting negative pressure” on the agreement amid its trade fight with the U.S.

A United Nations official on Tuesday called for an investigation into whether 12 North Korean waitresses were brought to South Korea against their will, saying that some had told him they had not known where they were going when they made the journey in 2016.

The 12 women and their manager left Ningbo, China, where they worked at a restaurant run by the North Korean government, in April 2016, arriving in South Korea two days later. The South’s government promptly announced their defection, which was the most sensational in years, involving a large group of people who, as workers abroad, belonged to the North Korean elite.

But the government’s account of the episode was disputed in May by the manager and four of the women. Interviewed by a South Korean news channel, those women said they had been brought to the South against their will, and the manager said he had been pressured into doing so by South Korea’s intelligence agency.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) has accused Beijing of being behind Pyongyang’s condemnation of recent talks with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, while making bizarre threats to North Korea’s leadership.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Graham said: "I see China's hands all over this," adding that there is "no doubt" in his mind that China is "pulling the North Koreans back."

Graham cited the ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing as the possible motivation. "We're in a fight with China."

U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo hit back at a harshly worded North Korean statement which called the United States "gangster-like" and "cancerous" while insisting that Pyongyang would not accept U.S. demands to fully denuclearize before the isolated regime receives sanctions relief.

“The US is fatally mistaken if it went to the extent of regarding that the [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] would be compelled to accept, out of its patience, the demands reflecting its gangster-like mindset,” Pyongyang warned.

Pompeo brushed off North Korea's statement, according to Bloomberg - insisting that Kim Jong Un hasn't backed off a commitment to give up his nuclear weapons.

And it turned out even Pompeo’s modest assessment of the trip’s achievements—which yielded neither public steps toward denuclearization nor remains transfers, but what Pompeo called “productive conversations” on “complicated issues”—may have been too much. No sooner had he left the country than the North was characterizing those same talks as “regrettable” in light of America’s “gangster-like” demand for the North’s unilateral denuclearization.

North Korea has accused the US of using "gangster-like" tactics to push it towards nuclear disarmament after a fresh round of high-level talks.

It branded the US attitude at the meeting as "extremely troubling".

The statement, by an unnamed foreign ministry official, gave a starkly different account from one provided by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just hours before.

He had said progress was made during his two-day visit to Pyongyang.

North Korea has described high-level talks with a US delegation led by secretary of state Mike Pompeo as 'regrettable', as it accused Washington of trying to unilaterally pressure the country into abandoning its nuclear weapons.

Mr Pompeo had claimed the two days of talks with senior North Korean officials – though without leader Kim Jong Un – had resulted in commitments for new discussions on denuclearisation and the repatriation of the remains of American soldiers killed during the Korean War.

Before leaving Pyongyang, he said his conversations with senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol had been 'productive,' conducted 'in good faith' and that 'a great deal of progress' had been made in some areas.

North Korea accused the Trump administration on Saturday of pushing a “unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearization” and called it “deeply regrettable,” hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said his two days of talks in the North Korean capital were “productive.”

Despite the criticism, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, still wanted to build on the “friendly relationship and trust” forged with President Trump during their summit meeting in Singapore on June 12. The ministry said Mr. Kim had written a personal letter to Mr. Trump, reiterating that trust.

South Korea’s ambassador to the United States acknowledges that Kim Jong Un hasn’t yet destroyed a major missile-engine test site, as the North Korean leader supposedly promised Donald Trump in Singapore he would. He says he’s “not in a position to confirm or deny” recent reports that North Korea may in fact be expanding nuclear-weapons facilities, despite promising to “work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.” He concedes that a disclosure of the various elements of the North Korean nuclear program, let alone the nation’s nuclear disarmament, is “yet to come.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo heads to North Korea on Thursday under pressure to produce tangible signs of progress as US intelligence reports cast doubt on Kim Jong Un's intention to dismantle his nuclear and missile programs.

The top US diplomat has offered few details about the state of negotiations following the June summit in Singapore between Kim and President Donald Trump, but knows he must return from his third trip to North Korea in as many months with concrete plans for a path forward, sources tell CNN.

"Pompeo has already been to Pyongyang twice and -- as Singapore made clear -- came away with very little to show on the core US interest of denuclearization," according to John Hannah, senior counselor at Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former senior adviser to Bill Clinton's Secretary of State Warren Christopher.

Just as it was reported that the summit between the United States and North Korea was back on and that Kim Young Chol, the Vice Chairman of North Korea was on his way to New York to meet with officials in preparation for the June 12 summit, the CIA leaked an intelligence assessment concluding that “North Korea does not intend to give up its nuclear weapons any time soon.” The timing of this leak is striking, as it seems to be an effort to undermine negotiations between the two nations and comes just days after ranking members of the Democratic Party and Republican hardliners attacked President Donald Trump over his efforts to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

President Trump said Tuesday that the United States would be at war with North Korea without his efforts and that conversations with the nation’s leaders are “going well” — an assessment at odds with recent reports that North Korea is working to conceal key aspects of its nuclear weapons program.

The president’s comments in a morning tweet followed a report Saturday in The Washington Post that U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that North Korea does not intend to fully surrender its nuclear arms stockpile and instead is considering ways to conceal the number of weapons it has and its secret production facilities.

In his rosy assessment, Trump claimed that “only the Opposition Party” and the news media are presenting a different picture of his efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula in the wake of his June 12 summit with North Korea leader Jim Jong Un.

South Koreans are revolting against the arrival of Muslim refugees, with over half a million signing a petition asserting that Muslim migrants don’t integrate and that they don’t want their country to end up like the UK or Germany.

The controversy began when an influx of nearly 1,000 asylum seekers from Yemen arrived on the South Korean resort island of Jeju. They took advantage of a new visa waiver program that allowed people from 186 countries to visit the island without a tourist visa.

This led to 950 foreign nationals, the majority from Yemen, arriving as tourists under a one month permit but then immediately claiming asylum, a process that can take years while they remain in the country.

In what would be the most accelerated disarmament program in history, the Trump Administration hopes to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, and its ballistic missiles, within a year, John Bolton, the national-security adviser, claimed on “Face the Nation” on Sunday. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is scheduled to make his third trip to Pyongyang this week, to begin the process, which he told Congress needed to be wrapped up by the end of President Trump’s current term—in two and a half years. Even that time frame is ambitiously fast, given the scope of Kim Jong Un’s vast arsenal and growing indications that North Korea hopes to hide at least some of its weaponry. It has multiple secret facilities, as the Washington Post reported over the weekend. U.S. intelligence is tracking the secret underground Kangsong facility, which may be able to produce twice as much enriched uranium as Yongbyon can. Yongbyon is the country’s only declared nuclear-production site.

In a new development that will shock no one, factions within the CIA attempted for the second time in just over a month to undermine President Trump's peace overtures towards North Korea by leaking information calculated to decrease confidence in Kim Jong Un's willingness to earnestly negotiate.

On June 29, 2018, NBC News released a report quoting anonymous CIA officials who claimed that North Korea was increasing nuclear production at "secret sites" without providing any actual evidence for such claims. The report's credibility is further weakened by the fact that it also cited reports from a think tank which has strong connections to the defense industry and other private special interests.

Several Congress people and some officials in the CIA and Trump administration try to throw a spanner into the negotiations with North Korea. They "leak" to NBC News about an intelligence assessment on North Korea's nuclear facilities. The result is a sensationalized piece that includes no surprising facts.

North Korea has increased nuclear production at secret sites, say U.S. officials
"Work is ongoing to deceive us on the number of facilities, the number of weapons, the number of missiles," said one U.S. official.

One of the NBC authors is Ken Dilanian who is well known for his tight cooperation with the CIA.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Sunday expressed concerns about a Washington Post report that found North Korea allegedly does not intend to denuclearize.

“This is a very troubling report, there’s no doubt about it,” Collins said on CNN's “State of the Union.”

“North Korea has a long history of cheating on agreements that it’s made with previous administrations,” Collins said, urging President Trump to remain vigilant on North Korea.

The Post on Saturday night reported that U.S. intelligence officials concluded North Korea is planning to hide its nuclear stockpile and production facilities, contradicting an agreement signed in June by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with Trump that promised the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

North and South Korea reopened a maritime communication channel on Sunday, with vessels from the two countries making radio contact for the first time in a decade, South Korea's Defence Ministry said in a statement.

A North Korean patrol boat responded immediately when the South Korean Navy contacted it via an international radio channel at 9 am Sunday in the western sea, normalizing the maritime communication channel for the first time in 10 years, according to the ministry.

The move showed the two Koreas were "taking practical steps" to uphold agreements made on April 27 when their leaders decided to defuse military tensions in a gradual manner, an official from the ministry said.

White House national security adviser John Bolton said on Sunday he believed the bulk of North Korea’s weapons programs could be dismantled within a year, as the United States and North Korea resumed working-level talks.

Bolton told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Washington has devised a program to dismantle North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction - chemical, biological and nuclear - and ballistic missile programs in a year, if there is full cooperation and disclosure from Pyongyang.

Nearly three weeks since North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un committed to complete denuclearization, multiple signs have emerged of expanding activity at his country's nuclear facilities.

If the reports are true, that would mean Kim has yet to take concrete steps to fulfill the pledge he made at a historic summit with U.S. President Donald Trump on June 12.

On Saturday, U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News that Pyongyang may have recently increased production of fuel for nuclear weapons at multiple secret sites. It's possible that Kim's government may be attempting to hide those pursuits as it seeks more concessions from the Trump administration, the officials continued.

North Korea appears to be finalizing the expansion of a key ballistic missile manufacturing site, according to an analysis of satellite imagery by researchers in the United States.

The images come as leaked reports from US intelligence officials appear to cast doubt on North Korea's willingness abandon its nuclear weapons program, something Washington said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed to when he met US President Donald Trump in Singapore last month.

Hyundai Motor cautioned the U.S. administration that imposing up to 25 percent tariffs on imported vehicles from South Korea would hurt a security alliance between the two countries over North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

The tariffs would hike production costs at Hyundai's U.S. factory by about 10 percent and "jeopardize" its U.S. investment plan, the top South Korean automaker said, echoing sentiments of other global carmakers such as BMW.

The United States in May launched an investigation into whether imported vehicles pose a national security threat and President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to quickly impose tariffs.

The tariffs "would be devastating to Hyundai Motor," Hyundai said in comments to the U.S. Department of Commerce late on Friday, according to a post on a U.S. government website.

President Donald Trump might want to check in with North Korea on that denuclearization thing: US intelligence agencies believe North Korea has been upping production of fuel for nuclear weapons, according to a new report by NBC News.

Even as Pyongyang engaged in diplomatic talks with the US in the lead-up to President Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore earlier this month, North Korea was increasing production of enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, NBC’s Courtney Cube, Ken Dilanian and Carol Lee reported Friday night.

The United States formally ended seven decades of military presence in South Korea's capital Friday with a ceremony to mark the opening of a new headquarters farther from North Korean artillery range.

The command's move to Camp Humphreys, about 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of Seoul, comes amid a fledgling detente on the Korean Peninsula, though the relocation was planned long before that. Most troops have already transferred to the new location, and the U.S. says the remaining ones will move by the end of this year.

The U.S. military had been headquartered in Seoul's central Yongsan neighborhood since American troops first arrived at the end of World War II. The Yongsan Garrison was a symbol of the U.S.-South Korea alliance but its occupation of prime real estate was also a long-running source of friction.

South Korea surprised the world on Wednesday, when a 2-0 victory over Germany in the World Cup eliminated the German national team, who had won the previous event. Unfortunately for the South Koreans, this was still not enough to get them into the knockout round.

That’s bad news for South Korea’s national team, and worst news for the players, who are now facing conscription into the nation’s military, which many South Koreans see as punishment for their poor performance.

The United States will uphold its commitment to Japan’s security while it seeks to implement President Trump’s nuclear deal with North Korea, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday.

A number of top political figures have made clear they aren’t comfortable with the North Korea diplomatic process. Today, the Senate is introducing bipartisan legislation looking to severely limit President Trump’s ability to make a deal.

The bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Cory Gardner (R-CO), would demand Trump present updates to the diplomatic process every 30 days. It would also forbid any sanctions relief without “meaningful and verifiable denuclearization.”

The bill also refers to Kim Jong Un as a “ruthless and cruel despot.” Menendez faulted the deal between Kim and Trump at the Singapore summit as too vague, and proving the need for “Congressional oversight” of the process.

South Koreans so far have responded with overwhelming optimism to Donald Trump’s June 12 summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Buoyed by hopes of rapprochement with their northern neighbor, about 66 percent of South Korean respondents view the summit favorably. Moreover, President Moon Jae-in, who had pressed hard for peace in the months leading up to the summit, now enjoys a 76 percent approval rating and his Democratic Party so thoroughly swept last week’s by-elections that two opposition party leaders have since resigned.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told CNN he would not put a timeline on negotiations with North Korea, but said the Trump administration will regularly assess the regime's seriousness about abandoning its nuclear program as the US moves toward normalizing relations with Pyongyang.

In an exclusive telephone interview with CNN to mark his first two months in office, Pompeo said he wanted to see continued progress toward North Korean denuclearization, a promise leader Kim Jong Un made to President Donald Trump at their June 12 summit in Singapore.
But the top US diplomat, Trump's point man on North Korea, declined to set a deadline by which he wanted to see the Democratic People's Republic of Korea make visible steps toward that goal.

A priority goal of South Korea since a pair of successful summits with North Korea, officials say bilateral discussions are under way on the possible relocation of North Korean long-range artillery systems away from the border.

An estimated 1,000 artillery pieces are stationed along the border with sufficient range to hit the South Korean capital of Seoul. A vastly populated metro area of over 25 million people, it has long been feared that a full-scale artillery strike on the city could kill millions.

Before North Korea developed its nuclear arsenal, this vast collection of artillery was the main deterrent to prevent a US and South Korean attack. With a peace deal under discussion, this would be a huge concession for North Korea to make, reflecting a commitment to a peaceful future.

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has had successful summits with President Trump, South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in, and China’s President Xi Jinping. A visit to Moscow for a presumptive meeting with Putin is also planned, as North Korea pursues diplomatic avenues region-wide.

Japan’s Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has expressed his own interest to meet Kim, but North Korean state media was very dismissive of that idea on Monday. They warned Japan would continue to be “passed over” on diplomacy unless they made substantial changes.

Abe has made remilitarization a major foreign policy priority, and that has not escaped North Korean notice. The state media piece says Japan needs to end large-scale military drills directed at North Korea, as well as ending their general policy of building up their military capabilities.

George Burchett’s review of “Wormwood” gives the back story not often heard of the larger Korean War germ warfare story. The American use of bioweapons in Korea is known and accepted as fact by most Cold War scholars outside the US, but domestically, biological warfare remains one of the deepest kept secrets of the Cold War. That secret, even today 66 years after the fact, still has professional gatekeepers. No sooner had Ignatieff’s review of “Wormwood” appeared in that flagship of American liberal letters than the chief US point man on germ war denial, Milton Leitenberg, issued a response letter titled, “No They Didn’t.” In this letter, Leitenberg claims, “Dulles, Helms, et al. absolutely did not order Frank Olson killed because ‘he knew too much about US biological warfare during the Korean War’ because there was no biological warfare carried out by any agency of the US government during the Korean War, or for that matter by anyone else.”

With U.S. President Donald Trump once more touting his desire to withdraw the 28,500 U.S. troops currently stationed in South Korea, it is perhaps worthwhile briefly examining the last time an American president attempted to remove U.S. forces from the Korean Peninsula. U.S. President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s was ultimately stopped by congressional obstruction, the Pentagon, and the intelligence community, among others, from implementing a troop withdrawal policy he had repeatedly promised during his presidential campaign in 1976. Put otherwise, and to use 21st century Trumpian parlance: the so-called “deep state” stopped Carter from executing his plans.

While the American media is still uncomfortable proclaiming that President Trump achieved anything in Singapore, it appears the Japanese are willing to believe it made a difference.

As Frank Sellers reports at The Duran, in solidarity with the peace making process, the Japanese are willing to suspend certain missile evacuation drills...

In another sign of detente following the summit between leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump, North Korea has decided to skip one of the most symbolic and politically charged events of its calendar: the annual “anti-U.S. imperialism” rally marking the start of the Korean War.

More than six decades after the end of the Korean War, the American military is preparing for the remains of some of its soldiers killed in the conflict to finally return home.

On Saturday, the United States military in South Korea said it had moved 100 wooden coffins and American flags to the border with North Korea to prepare for the repatriation.

North Korea is expected to hand over the remains — believed to belong to some 200 to 250 American servicemen — following President Trump’s historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore on June 12.

During that meeting, Mr. Kim committed to returning the remains of American troops recovered from major Korean War battle sites in his country and said he would make way for the “immediate repatriation of those already identified.”

Donald Trump claimed North Korea was blowing up four of its big missile test sites and has “already started” a process of “total denuclearisation.”

However, officials said there was no evidence to back up the US president’s claims.

On Thursday, Ms Trump told a cabinet meeting in the White House: ”They’ve stopped the sending of missiles, including ballistic missiles. They’re destroying their engine site.

President Trump cited an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security as he acted Friday to maintain long-standing economic restrictions on North Korea, including the freezing of any assets in the United States.

North and South Korea agreed on Friday to allow families who were separated during the Korean War to meet in August -- the first such reunions since 2015.

Each side will choose 100 people to meet at the scenic Mount Kumgang resort in North Korea from August 20 to 26, according to a statement released by the South Korean Unification Ministry.

The hostility toward Donald Trump on the part of both corporate media (except for Fox News) and the Democratic Party establishment is obviously a factor in the negative response to the summit. Trump’s dysfunctional persona, extremist domestic strategy and attacks on the press had already created a hyper-adversarial political atmosphere that surrounds everything Trump says or does.

But media coverage of the Singapore summit shows that something much bigger and more sinister is now in play: a consensus among foreign policy and national security elites and their media allies that Trump’s pursuit of an agreement with Kim on denuclearization threatens to undo seventy years of U.S. military dominance in Northeast Asia.

US President Donald Trump has decided to prolong sanctions, introduced against North Korea's missile and nuclear tests following the December 2017 UN's resolution to strengthen anti-Pyongyang sanctions, restricting fuel imports and other trade. The day before the US president stressed that Pyongyang was taking agreed steps for easing sanctions.

The White House announced that US President Donald Trump decided to prolong anti-North Korea sanctions for one more year as a part of his "maximum pressure" policy toward the country.

In his earlier statement, Trump did not exclude the lifting of sanctions if the DPRK refused to use nuclear weapons, but the official policy of the United States is that sanctions will only be halted after a "full, verifiable and irreversible" denuclearization.

The US has suspended war games as part of Trump’s commitment in Singapore, but his administration can’t be trusted to deliver a comprehensive denuclearization deal with North Korea, says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson

As companies from South Korea to Russia and China again look to cash in on easing tensions with Pyongyang, Samsung’s now defunct businesses in Pyongyang and hundreds of similar failed joint ventures underline North Korea’s status as one of the world’s highest-risk investment destinations.

Yet days before the historic meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore, a conference in Seoul to explore investment opportunities in North Korea drew about 600 attendees.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo knows the importance of rare earth elements, and North Korea has reportedly found one of the world’s biggest deposits 150km from Pyongyang; is this another factor behind the recent thaw with the US?

This may not be about condos on North Korean beaches after all. Arguably, the heart of the matter in the Trump administration’s embrace of Kim Jong-un has everything to do with one of the largest deposits of rare earth elements (REEs) in the world, located only 150 km northwest of Pyongyang and potentially worth billions of US dollars.

All the implements of 21st century technology-driven everyday life rely on the chemical and physical properties of 17 precious elements on the periodic chart also known as REEs.

Currently, China is believed to control over 95% of global production of rare earth metals, with an estimated 55 million tons in deposits. North Korea for its part holds at least 20 million tons.

A key U.S. official involved in denuclearization talks with North Korea is leaving the White House just as the Trump administration prepares to engage in high-stakes negotiations with the isolated regime, the official confirmed to The Washington Post.

The departure of Andrea Hall, the National Security Council’s top staff official on weapons of mass destruction, comes as the Trump administration assembles a negotiating team capable of the intricate task of understanding and negotiating over North Korea’s elaborate array of nuclear weapons production facilities, warheads and missiles to deliver them.

North Korea repatriated the remains of 200 U.S. soldiers missing from the Korean War on Wednesday, according to President Trump, a week after the issue was raised at a landmark summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“We got back our great fallen heroes, the remains sent back today, already 200 got sent back,” Trump told a rally in Duluth, Minnesota Wednesday, according to Reuters.

There was no official confirmation of the return from military sources, but anonymous U.S. officials said the previous day that North Korea was returning a “sizable number” of remains, which would be transported to Hawaii’s Hickam Air Force Base, Reuters reports.

The world waits with bated breath as a “mad king” descends on Singapore, his finger itching to press the launch button and totally destroy his adversaries. Few disagree that a “radical and absolutist” dictator who can “use the power of the state to suppress the opposition while shielding itself from all potential sanction or limitation” should not have access to a possibly world-ending arsenal of nuclear weapons.

“Surrounded by a clique of sycophants who are willing to justify any course he might take,” there is little stopping this impulsive ruler from making a sudden, cataclysmic decision that could forever alter the course of human history. Indeed, “a party organized around a single extreme personality seems like a brittle proposition.” With this “cult of personality” in place, his people will be dragged unwittingly and hopelessly into the nuclear abyss along with him.

The Trump administration is expecting North Korea to return up to 200 sets of remains believed to be US servicemembers who died during the Korean War, according to four administration officials.

Planning is underway to receive the remains from North Korea in the coming days, although the actual transfer date and location have not been finalized, the officials say. They add that the administration is ready to receive the remains as early as this week if the North Koreans decide to move quickly.
President Donald Trump has held up North Korea's agreement to return the remains as one of the successes of his historic June 12 summit with Kim Jong Un in Singapore.

Drills come just days after US President Donald Trump announced the suspension of long-running US joint exercises with South Korea – aimed at deterring North Korea.

The two Koreas agreed on Monday to march together under a unified peninsula flag and form combined teams to compete in the next Asian Games, they said in a joint statement, in the latest sign of a thaw between the old rivals.

The Pentagon said Monday that it had agreed with South Korea to cancel an important military exercise that was scheduled for later this summer, in keeping with President Donald Trump’s pledge to halt war games while talks are under way with North Korea.

Thousands of American and South Korean troops were expected to participate in the exercise, the American portion of which is called Freedom Guardian. Mr. Trump surprised the Pentagon and other administration aides by announcing after his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last week that he wanted to halt major maneuvers between the U.S. and South Korea, calling them expensive and provocative.

North Korean diplomats talking to South Korean officials in the demilitarized border zone between the two countries reportedly offered to remove the North's long-range artillery guns, which have been a dagger pointed at Seoul's throat for decades.

Before North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon, before it even built its first facility to create fissile material, its artillery had established a strong deterrent against South Korea and the US.

North Korea is estimated to have thousands of massive artillery guns hidden in hardened shelters among the hills and mountains of the country's rugged terrain. Artillery batteries located within range of the South Korean capital of Seoul could kill tens of thousands of people every hour if war were to break out.

The United States has filed a list of 47 demands that North Korea should fulfill to achieve total elimination of its nuclear arsenal, other weapons of mass destruction and relevant infrastructure, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono said in an interview aired by national broadcaster NHK on Sunday.

"The supreme leader of North Korea agreed to full denuclearization. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during his visit to Pyongyang that, according to the United States, this notion includes elimination - in the transparent and irreversible form - of the nuclear stockpile and other types of weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological ones, as well as missiles and all relevant infrastructure," he said.

Longtime enemies Washington and North Korea becoming allies flies in the face of US imperial aims to eliminate or co-opt all sovereign independent governments, making them subservient to its interests – the DPRK no exception.

The CIA may play a lead role in undermining improved bilateral relations. Its house organ Washington Post is militantly hostile to Pyongyang.

“No more concessions,” its neocon editors roared. None exist except hollow US promises, surely fading ahead in the mist of day like countless times before.

President Donald Trump attacked Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in a tweet Sunday morning over the New York Democrat's criticisms of the North Korea summit.

"Thank you Chuck, but are you sure you got that right? No more nuclear testing or rockets flying all over the place, blew up launch sites," Trump wrote. "Hostages already back, hero remains coming home & much more!"

It would seem that the manner in which the denuclearization of North Korea must be performed before sanctions may be lifted has been determined by Washington.

The Japanese Foreign Minister, Taro Kono, describes a list of demands which was delivered to Pyongyang by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during his visit.

As to whether these demands have been agreed upon by Kim’s regime isn’t included in the statement.

Security guarantees on Washington’s part have not yet been hammered out, and the precise meaning of Washington’s promise not to attempt to topple the regime is lacking in detail.

In decrying the Singapore summit and Trump’s freeze on U.S. military exercises, liberal pundits are ignoring popular opinion and years of peace activism in South Korea, says Christine Ahn of Women Cross DMZ

Stu Smallwood joins Scott to discuss his article “For Lasting Peace, President Moon Must Lead South Korea Out of America’s Orbit.” Smallwood says that first we have to consider the perspective of the South Koreans and understand how the corruption of the previous South Korean regime led to a political awakening that has affected South Korean popular views toward the North. Smallwood then shares the backstory of President Moon Jae-in and how his unlikely rise as president for peace. Finally Smallwood makes the case that South Korea realistically can continue the peace deal with the North, even in the United States ultimately backs out—and that Moon Jae-in’s political legacy will rest on the decision.

By reaffirming the Panmunjom Declaration, the US President has committed to bringing its military back from South Korea and thus a complete denuclearization of the South as well as the North...

The Trump-Kim geopolitical reality-TV show – surreal for some – offered unparalleled entries to the annals of international diplomacy. It will be tough to upstage the US President pulling an iPad and showing Kim Jong-un the cheesy trailer of a straight-to-video 1980s B-grade action movie – complete with a Sylvester Stallone cameo – casting the two leaders as heroes destined to save the world’s 7 billion people.

Away from the TV, the former “Rocket Man”, now respectfully recast in Trump terminology as “Chairman Kim”, did strike a formidable coup by completely erasing the dreaded acronym CVID – or “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization” – from the final text of the Singapore joint statement.

The media response, from both liberals and conservatives, betrays a cynical disregard for South Korea.

U.S. military forces in South Korea are not subject to negotiations between North Korea and the United States because they are a matter for the U.S.-South Korean alliance, a senior official in South Korea’s presidential office said on Friday.

One can envisage a media campaign being whipped up over the coming months for Trump to resume military exercises on the Korean Peninsula as a way to demonstrate “support for our allies” in the face of “North Korean aggression”.

This, ironically, underscores why Trump and Kim need to work closely together to implement a reciprocal peace deal. If North Korea delivers on its commitment to begin a measurable disarmament process and Trump reciprocates with security guarantees then the entire process can move forward with success.

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in has a crucial role to play too. President Moon is dedicated to a comprehensive peace settlement between the two divided Koreas and the eventual denuclearization of the peninsula. The South Korea leader is well aware that the North needs and deserves security guarantees.

It can be expected therefore that the South Korean leadership will back Trump in his prudent call for dropping the war games.

A classified Israeli Foreign Ministry report suggests that US President Donald Trump and North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un’s meeting in Singapore was little more than a glorified photo opportunity in which the US “retreated from its positions.”

"Regardless of the smiles in the summit, many in Japan, South Korea and the US Congress doubt that North Korea is sincere in its intentions. Our assessment is that regardless of President Trump's statements about quick changes that are expected in North Korean policy, the road the [sic.] real and substantive change, if it ever happens, will be long and slow," the classified report, obtained by Axios' Barak Ravid Thursday afternoon, states.

US President Donald Trump has said drawing down American troops in South Korea was not a part of negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, but stated that he would love to get American military out of the Korean peninsula.

In an interview broadcast on Wednesday, Trump said that a troop drawdown was “never discussed” during the historic summit with Kim in Singapore on Tuesday, apparently trying to calm the nerves of skeptics in America who blame the president of planning to give away too much to Kim in pursuit of a nuclear agreement.

“I am sure he would like that. It was never on the table. We sort of understood that was never on the table,” Trump said.

However, he reiterated his old desire to lower the American military presence in South Korea.

“I would love to get the military out as soon as we can because it costs a lot of money and a lot of money for us,” Trump said.

President Trump declared Wednesday that North Korea is “no longer a nuclear threat” to the United States even though the two sides had yet to forge a concrete disarmament plan and offered incomplete accounts of what they agreed to during this week’s summit meeting in Singapore.

Rejoicing in the glow of a historic encounter, Mr. Trump returned to Washington and portrayed his agreement with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, as a signal achievement that meant that the outcast state was no longer the United States’ most dangerous problem. But the path to disarmament remained no clearer a day after the meeting.

US President Barack Obama has rejected an offer by North Korea to ditch its nuclear tests in exchange for Washington’s suspension of joint annual war games with South Korea.

Obama, who was speaking Sunday at a presser in Hanover with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said, “We don’t take seriously a promise to simply halt until the next time they decide to do a test these kinds of activities.”

“What we’ve said consistently… is that if North Korea shows seriousness in denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, then we’ll be prepared to enter into some serious conversations with them about reducing tensions and our approach to protecting our allies in the region. But that’s not something that happens based on a press release in the wake of a series of provocative behaviors. They’re going to have to do better than that.”

Japan will closely cooperate with the United States and South Korea, as well as China and Russia to solve the issue of North Korean missile and nuclear programs, the country’s Prime Minister Shizno Abe said on Tuesday.

"We will do our best to solve (those issues) in cooperation with the US and South Korea, as well as China and Russia," he said when commenting the results of the meeting between the US and North Korean leaders, Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, in Singapore.

According to Abe, the recent summit has become an important step towards settlement of the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

Experts have been left scratching their heads over one of the most concrete concessions President Trump says he received from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during Tuesday's summit in Singapore.

At a press conference after their meeting, Trump said Kim had agreed to destroy "a major missile engine testing site."

"That was not in your agreement," Trump told reporters. "I got that after we signed the agreement. I said, 'Do me a favor. You've got this missile engine testing site. We know where it is because of the heat.' It's incredible the equipment we have, to be honest with you. I said, 'Can you close it up?' He's going to close it up."

But North Korea has several test facilities scattered across the country. Each site has a different role in the nation's missile program, and some are more valuable than others.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday hailed US President Donald Trump’s summit in Singapore with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un as “historic” and an “important step” in denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, while linking the meeting to the US leader’s “tough stance” on Iran.

“I congratulate US President Donald Trump for the historic summit in Singapore,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “It is an important step in the effort to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.”

“I feel really great,” Mr. Trump said. “It’s gonna be a great discussion and I think tremendous success. I think it’s gonna be really successful and I think we will have a terrific relationship, I have no doubt.”

Mr. Kim said: “It was not easy to get here. There were obstacles but we overcame them to be here.”