North Korea threatened to end the “hard-won atmosphere of stability on the Korean Peninsula” on Thursday, in response to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s efforts to enforce economic sanctions against the regime.

“[T]here is no guarantee that the hard-won atmosphere of stability on the Korean Peninsula will continue,” the North Korean foreign ministry warned in a message carried by state-run KCNA.

The rival Koreas plan to hold high-level talks on Monday to prepare for a third summit between their leaders, as Pyongyang called on the United States to reciprocate its “goodwill measures” by easing sanctions and stopping demands that the North denuclearize first.

The plans by the Korean leaders to meet come as Washington and Pyongyang try to follow through on nuclear disarmament vows made at a U.S.-North Korea summit in June between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Satellite images suggest work is continuing to demolish Sohae facilities, but analysts suggest it may want to keep other parts of its arsenal intact for now

North Korean state media called on Monday for the United States to drop sanctions, saying Pyongyang had demonstrated good faith by ending its nuclear weapons testing and handing over the remains of U.S. troops killed in the Korean War.

The statements came just days after a confidential United Nations report concluded North Korea has not stopped its nuclear and missile programs, in breach of U.N. resolutions, and has continued to conduct illegal trades of oil, coal and other commodities.

North Korea and the United States vowed to work to end Pyongyang's weapons programs at a landmark summit in June in Singapore, but have struggled to reach an agreement to accomplish that goal.

According to the United States, the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea) is violating United Nations Security Council (UNSC) restrictions concerning their nuclear testing and missile development programs. These accusations come from a six-month report released last week by the UN which claims Pyongyang is violating restrictions on both of these programs according to new intelligence gathered.

Besides the alleged violations of the UNSC restrictions on the DPRK’s arms development, Korea has also been accused of violating economic sanctions “through a massive increase in illicit ship-to-ship transfers of petroleum products, as well as through transfers of coal at sea during 2018.” The UNSC also claimed that the DPRK was assisting the governments of Syria with weapons as well as attempting to sell arms to the Ansarullah movement (Houthis) in Yemen.

North Korean state media on Monday urged the United States to drop sanctions, as South Korea said it was investigating nine cases of coal shipments that potentially violated U.N. resolutions.

North Korea’s top diplomat accused the United States of failing to live up to President Trump’s agreement with its leader, Kim Jong-un, warning on Saturday that the country would not start denuclearizing unless Washington took reciprocal actions.

Speaking at a closed-door session at a regional security forum in Singapore, Ri Yong-ho, North Korea’s foreign minister, said his country had taken a series of actions toward denuclearization, such as halting nuclear and missile tests, demolishing an underground nuclear test site and dismantling a missile engine test site.

But Mr. Ri said that Washington was dragging its feet in taking corresponding measures to build mutual confidence and improve ties with Pyongyang. Such steps, Mr. Ri said, include easing sanctions and declaring an end to the 1950-53 Korean War as a prelude to negotiating a formal peace treaty to replace the armistice that halted the war 65 years ago.

The Treasury Department slapped sanctions on a Russian bank on Friday, accusing it of processing transactions for North Korea in violation of United Nations sanctions.

Agrosoyuz Commercial Bank knowingly facilitated "a significant transaction" on behalf of a person affiliated with North Korea's weapons of mass destruction, the agency said in a statement.

The individual was named as Han Jang Su, the Moscow-based chief representative of North Korea's primary foreign exchange bank, the Foreign Trade Bank.

The statement also detailed a long relationship between the Russian bank and North Korea. The bank held, processed and transferred millions of dollars for North Korea, despite sanctions which are meant to isolate it economically.

“Pyongyang’s enshrinement of the possession of nuclear weapons in its constitution, while repeatedly stating that nuclear weapons are the basis for its survival, suggests that Kim does not intend to negotiate them away at any price,” he continued.

Has that dynamic changed since the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore?

The head of Strategic Command (STRATCOM), Air Force Gen. John Hyten, who would be in charge of launching nuclear strikes on North Korea if it came to that, thinks it may have.

The human remains returned to the U.S. by North Korea last week are "consistent with being Americans," according to an official who saw the contents of the 55 boxes.

It's too early to know how many people are inside the boxes, John E. Byrd, a government scientist who oversees the laboratory examining the remains, told reporters Thursday.

A formal repatriation ceremony took place in South Korea before the boxes were put on a flight to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii. Vice President Pence will take part in an Honorable Carry Ceremony for the remains when they arrive on Wednesday.

From there, the remains will be taken to a laboratory in Hawaii for possible identification, with the goal of matching them with any of the 7,697 U.S. personnel who remain are unaccounted for after the Korean War.

The work will be carried out by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which for years has been collecting DNA samples from families whose relatives never returned home from the Korean War.

Top generals from North and South Korea are to meet Tuesday in the truce village of Panmunjom on various details of how the two nations can reduce military tensions along the demilitarized zone (DMZ). The agreement to ease tensions was reached during a previous summit.

The generals are working on specifics, and that’s likely not to include any hugely unexpected concessions from either side. The number of military guards in Panmunjom may be reduced. Both sides are expected to offer to reduce the number of military posts on their respective sides of the DMZ.

Perhaps the most impactful issue that will be discussed will be the positioning of heavy weapons along the DMZ borders. Both nations are expected to offer to remove some of those heavy weapons, like artillery that threatens to do massive, immediate damage if a war breaks out

The United States and Israel have been threatening Iran for something like twenty years, using the pretext that it was developing a nuclear weapon initially, but also more recently declaring that Tehran has become a threat to the entire Middle East. Both contentions are essentially lies, concocted by an Israel and Saudi Arabia that would prefer to have Iran removed as a possible impediment to their own ambitions. And they would like the United States to do the removing.

What does it take to cast doubts on North Korea’s freeze of their ballistic missile program? Today, the Washington Post showed it takes only a single unnamed US official who claims to be “familiar with the intelligence.”

The report starts by noting satellite photos from a month ago suggest work is underway at North Korea’s Sanumdong research site. This was a site linked to past missiles, so naturally they concluded the factory might be building one or two new ICBMs.

Of course, there is no direct evidence North Korea is doing this. Indeed, North Korea just dismantled a test launching site for liquid-fueled ICBMs days ago. The official cited, however, pointed out that North Korea could conceivably rebuild the destroyed test stands “within months.”

A US military plane made a rare flight into North Korea on Friday to retrieve 55 cases said to contain the remains of US service members missing since the Korean War — a move US officials hailed as a sign of improving relations between the two longtime enemies.

The Air Force C-17 left Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, to fly to the coastal North Korean city of Wonsan to pick up the remains before returning to the base on what was the 65th anniversary of the end of hostilities in the war.

Troops from different UN countries stood as an honor guard at Osan, as white-gloved troops in different uniforms descended the aircraft’s ramp holding the cases, which were wrapped in the UN flag.

When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Pyongyang this month to discuss North Korea’s nuclear program, leader Kim Jong Un was out of town—visiting a potato farm and factory in the country’s impoverished north, according to state media.

Mr. Kim, having declared his nuclear program complete and claimed his place on the world stage next to the U.S. president at a Singapore summit, has begun to lavish attention on the livelihood of his people.

In an abrupt shift following months of visits to military-related sites, Mr. Kim has made a series of publicized trips to remote factories and farms and other symbols of the daily welfare of his people.

65 years after the 1953 armistice that stopped the open fighting of the Korean War, the nations involved still haven’t replaced it with a permanent peace treaty. This means that the Korean War is still technically ongoing, 68 years later. That’s apparently where the US intends for it to stay.

While North and South Korea have discussed deals to end the war, and the US nominally has given its imprimatur to the idea, US officials say that there is little interest in the Trump Administration to actually do this, with some seeing it as undermining their leverage against North Korea on denuclearization.

This would be a complicated matter this time, unlike the decades of previous US resistance to making peace with North Korea. That’s because now, South Korea is also on board for such a deal. In trying to delay such an important milestone, the US may be seen as obstructing diplomacy in general.

North Korea will transfer the remains of an unspecified number of soldiers killed in the Korean War on Friday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

The planned transfer would coincide with the 65th anniversary of the 1953 armistice agreement that ended fighting.

Otto Warmbier may have attempted suicide while he was imprisoned in North Korea, according to a new report published on Wednesday.

The 22-year-old Virginia University scholarship student was also never physically tortured by the North Korean authorities during his captivity in 2016 and 2017, the story claims.

Writing in GQ Magazine, author Doug Bock Clark accuses President Trump of promoting the torture theory to justify his tough stance against Kim Jong-un, before stopping mentioning it after relations warmed prior to the Singapore summit.

Once upon a time, a couple months ago, National-Security Adviser John Bolton predicted how Donald Trump’s summit with Kim Jong Un would go down. The U.S. president would swiftly assess how serious the North Korean leader was about giving up his nuclear weapons. And assuming Kim was serious, U.S. authorities would “very quickly” swoop in, take apart North Korea’s nukes, and ship them off to Tennessee. This week, in a measure of how times have changed, progress from the June 12 summit finally came—and it came in the form of satellites spotting the partial dismantlement of some facilities at a satellite-launch site. “It is a better sign than nothing,” one South Korean official remarked. The Tennessee plan this is not.

That said, the demolition work at the Sohae station—involving a stand for testing engines used in missiles and a building near a launchpad for rocket-powered vehicles that send satellites into space—is still significant.

Washington-based think tank 38 North released a report showing satellite images it says indicate North Korea has begun dismantling key facilities at a site used to develop engines for ballistic missiles.

The report comes amid growing questions about North Korea's willingness to live up to the commitments North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made at a June summit with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Donald Trump lashed out at The Washington Post on Monday for a weekend story claiming he's growing impatient with the plodding pace of North Korean nuclear negotiations.

And he threatened the acclaimed newspaper's owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, with a possible shipping rate hike from the U.S. Postal Service as payback.

The Post reported in a front-page Sunday feature that the president 'has fumed at his aides in private' because he has been forced to accept the diplomatic realpolitik of slow progress with America's demands for a denuclearlized Korean peninsula.

Even as Trump has claimed negotiations are continuing, according to the Post's unnamed sources, Pyongyang has canceled follow-up meetings and cut off some communications with the U.S. as its ties with South Korea and China have improved.

No matter, Trump seemed to be saying on Monday, blaming the Post and threatening its sister company Amazon instead of Kim Jong-un for gumming up the works.

On Sunday Iranian President Hassan Rouhani urged his US counterpart Donald Trump to stop playing with fire, referring to Washington's calls for its allies to completely abandon imports of Iranian oil by early November.

US President Donald Trump warned Tehran on Sunday of consequences "the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered," if the country threatens the United States.

The Iranian president said earlier that a "war with Iran is the mother of all wars," but did not rule out peace between the two countries.

"Today, speaking with US has no meaning except surrender and end of people's achievements. Mr. Trump! We are the people of dignity and guarantor of security of the waterway of the region throughout the history. Don't play with the lion's tail; you will regret it," Rouhani said at a meeting with Iranian diplomats as quoted by the presidential office.

The top U.S. military commander on the Korean peninsula said Saturday that the material needed for North Korea to make nuclear bombs is still intact, even after an historic summit in Singapore aimed at denuclearizing Pyongyang.

North Korea's nuclear "production capability is still intact," Army Gen. Vincent Brooks, the commander of U.S. forces in South Korea, told the Aspen Security Forum via teleconference. “We haven't seen a complete shutdown of production yet. We have not seen a removal of fuel rods."

Brooks comments come a little more than a month after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sat down for the first time with U.S. President Donald Trump to discuss denuclearization. They also echoed a Washington Post report on Sunday, which detailed Trump’s private frustrations with the lack of progress between Washington and Pyongyang since the Singapore meeting.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday there is "no rush" in its negotiations with North Korea over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.

"Russia has agreed to help with North Korea, where relationships with us are very good and the process is moving along. There is no rush, the sanctions remain! Big benefits and exciting future for North Korea at end of process!" Trump tweeted.

The tweet came in a series of early morning messages from the President as he defended his inflammatory news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, earlier in the week.

On Tuesday, while clarifying remarks he made at the news conference, Trump also said there was "no time limit" on North Korea and that sanctions would remain in place.

The U.S. military is expecting to repatriate from North Korea the remains of as many as 55 service members who were killed during the Korean War, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

The repatriations would probably take place next week or the week after, the official said. It would be the first time that remains believed to be those of U.S. troops have been directly returned by North Korean officials in 13 years.

U.S. and North Korean officials met Sunday to discuss the return of remains of American soldiers killed almost seven decades ago during the Korean War, with the talks offering a chance to ease tensions between the two sides as they argue over disarmament issues.

The talks were “productive and cooperative and resulted in firm commitments,” Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said in a statement. Working-level meetings between officials from the two countries will begin Monday to coordinate the next steps, including the transfer of remains already collected and the search for an estimated 5,300 Americans, Pompeo said.

Mike PompeoPhotographer: Andrew Harnik/AFP via Getty Images
The meeting began around 10 a.m. Seoul time at the border village of Panmunjom, and it was unclear how long the talks would last, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported, citing unidentified government and U.S. military officials.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in played down concerns that North Korea is reneging on its pledges to dismantle its nuclear-weapons program, in his first public response to Pyongyang’s statement last week that its will to denuclearize had been shaken.

Mr. Moon, who is visiting Singapore for a summit with Prime Minster Lee Hsien Loong, said the North Korean statement was part of a negotiating process, and he is cautiously optimistic the U.S. and North Korea will iron out a nuclear deal given time, according to his spokesman...

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.