World View: North Korea Plays Hardball to Get Sanctions Lifted
Contents: North Korea plays hardball to get sanctions lifted; North Korea – South Korea reunification talks continue
Contents: North Korea plays hardball to get sanctions lifted; North Korea – South Korea reunification talks continue
North Korea has failed to dismantle its key missile site further since August, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported, citing a U.S. website that monitors dictator Kim Jong-un’s regime.
North Korean state media declared on Friday that its economy is “miraculously” overcoming international sanctions, claiming that the world “marvels” now “at [its] unlimited national power and development potential.”
South Korea’s Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told her country’s National Assembly Thursday that the communist regime in North Korea requested to postpone scheduled talks between dictator Kim Jong-un’s top aide Kim Yong-chol and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
The State Department announced on Wednesday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had postponed a scheduled New York meeting with North Korean official Kim Yong-chol and other high-level visitors from Pyongyang.
South Korea’s ambassador to Russia revealed on Monday that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is likely to visit Russia this month amid warming relations between him and President Vladimir Putin.
Cuba’s Miguel Díaz-Canel, who holds the title of “president” but remains subordinate to dictator Raúl Castro, received a hero’s welcome in North Korea on Sunday and Monday, enjoying a theater performance and street parade with dictator Kim Jong-un.
The United States and South Korea are expected to restart small-scale military exercises on Monday, a few days ahead of a meeting this week between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korea’s second-in-command to discuss denuclearization.
Contents: US and South Korea resume some military marine drills, despite North’s objections; Disarmament proceeds along North-South Korea border, opposed by US
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday released a report on “endemic” sexual violence in North Korea. The report was three years in the making, due in part to the exceptional difficulty of obtaining reliable data and testimony from one of history’s most oppressive nations. HRW concluded the abuse of women has “come to be accepted as part of ordinary life” in North Korea and called for international intervention.
The Liberty Korea Party (LKP), the primary opponents of President Moon Jae-in and his Democratic Party of Korea (DP), on Wednesday called for Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon to be fired because he violated South Korea’s constitution by circumventing parliament to promote joint projects with North Korea. The opposition also criticized Cho for getting the upcoming inter-Korea summit approved in a Cabinet meeting without ratification by parliament.
Miguel Díaz-Canel, who holds the title of Cuban president but is subordinate to Communist Party leader Raúl Castro, departed Havana Wednesday for a tour of friendly countries, including, most prominently, Russia and China.
WASHINGTON, DC – Human rights advocates urged American President Donald Trump on Monday to advance human rights in ongoing denuclearization negotiations with North Korea, noting that doing so promotes U.S. national security.
Former slave laborer Hui-Chang Roh said the Trump administration should make human rights a priority in talks with the North Korean regime.
A North Korean soldier reportedly went on a rampage against a police officer after returning from a decade of service to find his family “destitute” and starving despite their loyalty to the communist regime, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Tuesday.
A North Korean delegation arrived in Beijing on Monday to participate in an international military forum amid ongoing Pyongyang-Washington negotiations over the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, state-funded South Korean media reports
China sold North Korea at least $640 million worth of luxury goods in the year 2017 in defiance of international sanctions, a South Korean lawmaker claimed on Monday.
President Donald Trump on Saturday indicated the United States will withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) due to persistent Russian violations. The Russians responded that American withdrawal would unleash “full chaos in the nuclear weapons sphere,” as parliamentary foreign affairs chief Konstantin Kosachev put it.
Dozens of groups representing North Korean defectors in South Korea issued a call Thursday for Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon to step down after banning a journalist from covering a joint Seoul-Pyongyang event because that journalist was born in North Korea.
Leftist South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s top officials claimed on Thursday that Pope Francis was interested in visiting North Korea following a meeting between the head of the Catholic church and the head of state at the Vatican.
The government of leftist South Korean President Moon Jae-in launched a renewed legal campaign against “fake news” on Tuesday, enabling prosecutors to pursue individuals who share statements the government deems “false” on criminal charges.
North Korea’s government news agency published a piece Tuesday condemning the United States yet again for refusing to lift sanctions on the rogue state, calling American officials “stubborn” and arguing that sanctions “are misused as tools for meeting party interests” in America.
The leftist government of South Korea banned Kim Myeong-sung, a journalist for South Korea’s largest newspaper who fled North Korea, from covering North-South talks in the border town of Panmunjom occurring Monday.
Contents: Saudi Arabia tries to recover from Khashoggi disappearance disaster; Negotiations follow the pattern of N. Korea’s 2010 torpedoing of S. Korean warship
Contents: N. Korea’s Kim Jong-un met Pompeo in a new Rolls-Royce Phantom, violating sanctions; Growth of Ebola cases suddenly surges in DR Congo, threatening Uganda, Rwanda
When South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said on Wednesday her government was thinking about lifting some sanctions on North Korea, there were fears even a purely symbolic gesture along those lines could weaken the international coalition allied against North Korea’s nuclear missile program. Right on cue, Chinese state media jumped in and encouraged Seoul to lift unilateral sanctions as quickly as possible in a gesture of fellowship with Pyongyang and defiance toward Washington.
The Wall Street Journal on Friday published a lengthy article about the “new Cold War era with China,” relating a number of tense incidents that explain why so many Trump administration officials are sounding alarms about the Chinese.
Chinese officials announced on Friday that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit China from October 25 – 27, in concert with the 40th anniversary of the “Treaty of Peace and Friendship” signed by the two nations.
North Korea’s state newspaper Rodong Sinmun published a belligerent column Friday accusing the U.S. of “murderous” policies against the Korean people, but ensuring that North Korea would survive up to a century of the sanctions it claims are killing its people.
In a sit-down interview with Hugh Hewitt of “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” National Security Adviser John Bolton discussed the relationship between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. Bolton said the “door’s open” for the two countries to come together
South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon on Thursday contradicted controversial statements made by the foreign minister to parliament the previous day and said there are no plans to lift sanctions against North Korea imposed after the sinking of the South Korean ship Cheonan in 2010.
South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told lawmakers on Wednesday the administration of President Moon Jae-in is considering proposals to lift sanctions against North Korea as a reward for improved relations on the peninsula.
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un reportedly invited Pope Francis to visit Pyongyang, South Korea’s presidential office revealed on Tuesday.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc in Tokyo on Monday and agreed to work together against China’s territorial aggression in the South China Sea.
South Korean and Russian media on Monday teased a visit to Moscow by North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un to meet with President Vladimir Putin.
After meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang on Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and a senior Chinese cabinet official named Yang Jiechi.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters in Seoul on Monday that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has agreed to allow some international inspectors to monitor nuclear sites in the country, though it remains unclear which inspectors and when Pyongyang would allow them in.
Chinese state media heaped praised on North Korea and its leader Kim Jong-un in a column Sunday, declaring that the 35-year-old communist dictator has “deftly dominated” the U.S. while “calling the shots and setting the agenda at every turn.”
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that he and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made unspecified progress Sunday toward an agreement for the North to give up its nuclear weapons, though there was no immediate indication whether Pompeo had managed to arrange a much-anticipated second summit between Kim and President Donald Trump.
North Korea intensified its nuclear activities following the historic meeting between the rogue nation’s dictator Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump in June, the Heritage Foundation’s 2019 Index of U.S. Military Strength noted this week.