Tens of thousands of North Koreans have turned out to pay tribute to their leaders. The most important day in the country’s ritual calendar, 15 April is called the Day of the Sun, the anniversary of the 1912 birth of the country’s founder, Kim Il-sung
Continue reading...Category Archives: Kim Jong Un
Kim Jong-un sets conditions after Trump suggests third summit
- US needs to ‘stop its current way of calculation’
- Trump repeats demand to relinquish nuclear weapons
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is interested in meeting Donald Trump again only if the US comes to talks with the right attitude, state media said on Saturday, after the US president floated the idea.
Related: The art of the no deal: how Trump and Kim misread each other | Julian Borger
Continue reading...Donald Trump floats idea of third North Korea summit despite failed Hanoi talks
US president said he ‘enjoys the summits’ with chairman Kim Jong-un and is hopeful for progress on sanctions and human rights
Donald Trump has said he is considering a potential third nuclear summit with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un.
“We will be discussing that and potential meetings, further meetings with North Korea and Kim Jong-un,” Trump said in the Oval Office at the start of talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
Continue reading...UN calls for food aid for starving North Koreans despite sanctions
Exclusive: western donors urged to ‘put children before politics’ in face of food shortfall
The head of the UN World Food Programme has called for the White House and other western donors to put children’s lives before politics and fund a major injection of aid to North Korea despite the failure of Donald Trump’s summit with Kim Jong-un.
David Beasley, a former Republican governor of South Carolina who backed Trump’s campaign for the US presidency, said he had heard concerns that responding to an appeal from Pyongyang would prop up the Kim regime.
Continue reading...Secretive group seeking to oust Kim Jong-un claim North Korea embassy raid
Cheollima Civil Defence says it carried out daring raid on Madrid building in February
A secretive dissident group seeking to overthrow the regime in North Korea has claimed responsibility for last month’s raid on the country’s embassy in Madrid, as a court in Spain prepared to seek the intruders’ extradition.
Cheollima Civil Defence said in statement posted on its website that the 22 February raid on the embassy was “not an attack” and claimed that its members had been responding to an “urgent situation” inside the embassy. The intruders fled with computers, hard disks and other items after a failed attempt to persuade an embassy official to defect.
Continue reading...Kim Jong-nam murder: suspect Siti Aisyah released after charge dropped
Indonesian woman had been accused of killing estranged brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Malaysia in 2017
The case against Siti Aisyah, one of two women who were charged with the murder of the estranged brother of Kim Jong-un, has been dropped by a court in Malaysia.
She was released from custody after the decision in Kuala Lumpur on Monday morning.
Continue reading...North Koreans go to polls in ‘rubber-stamp’ election
There is one candidate on each ballot for vote held every five years for Supreme People’s Assembly
North Koreans have voted in an election in which there can be only one winner.
Leader Kim Jong-un’s Workers’ party has an iron grip on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea but every five years it holds an election for the rubber-stamp legislature, known as the Supreme People’s Assembly.
Continue reading...North Korea must give up all nuclear weapons before any sanctions relief, says US
US position hardens after Hanoi summit collapse, warning that any launches at missile sites would violate Kim Jong-un’s promise
The US is demanding North Korea destroys all its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons before receiving any sanctions relief, as positions harden on both sides in the aftermath of last week’s failed Hanoi summit.
The US clarified its demands after satellite images showed the North Koreans had completely rebuilt a space launch site they had partially dismantled after the first summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un in June last year.
Continue reading...North Korean film on Kim and Trump glosses over summit’s failure
Documentary about last week’s Hanoi meeting offers benign portrayal of US president
It fell short of Donald Trump’s claim that he and Kim Jong-un had “fallen in love”, but a new North Korean documentary suggests the leaders’ relationship is strong enough to survive last week’s doomed summit in Vietnam.
In keeping with the rest of the regime’s post-talks coverage, the film makes no mention of the summit’s premature end, the countries’ irreconcilable differences over sanctions or their conflicting accounts of why the US president and the North Korean leader parted without an agreement.
Continue reading...North Korea rebuilds part of launch site it promised the US it would dismantle
US national security adviser John Bolton warns US may ramp up sanctions if nuclear weapons program is not scrapped
North Korea has begun rebuilding a rocket launch site that had been partially dismantled as a goodwill gesture after the first summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un in June last year.
Satellite images show the reconstruction work was carried out shortly before their failed second summit in Hanoi last week, and their publication on Tuesday evening contributed to fears that the peace effort was in jeopardy.
Continue reading...Trump blames Cohen testimony for collapse of summit with Kim Jong-un
US president says the timing of the Cohen hearing, while he was at the talks in Vietnam, was ‘a new low’ in politics
US president Donald Trump has blamed that the Democrats’ decision to interview his longtime fixer, lawyer Michael Cohen, on the same day as a meeting with Kim Jong-un for the fact that the North Korea summit ended with no deal.
“For the Democrats to interview in open hearings a convicted liar & fraudster, at the same time as the very important Nuclear Summit with North Korea, is perhaps a new low in American politics and may have contributed to the ‘walk.’” Trump said on Twitter, referring to his decision to walk away from what he previously said was a bad deal with Kim. “Never done when a president is overseas. Shame!”
Continue reading...Kim and Trump finally show their hands after nuclear talks in Hanoi
We now know where North Korea and US stand – and the gaps that still need to be closed
The Hanoi summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un may have broken down abruptly and stalled negotiations for the time being, but it has opened a window into the talks that leaves some hope that a compromise can be reached.
Related: Vietnam summit: North Korea and US offer differing reasons for failure of talks
Continue reading...Trump-Kim nuclear talks in Hanoi break down – video report
The summit between the US president, Donald Trump, and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, in the Vietnamese capital ended abruptly after both men failed to break the deadlock over US sanctions despite their much-vaunted personal relationship
Continue reading...The Guardian view on the US and North Korea: Trump’s vanity diplomacy falls flat | Editorial
The US president boasts of being a deal maker. But his summit with Kim Jong-un in Hanoi has ended in failure and recrimination
Only a year ago, many feared that Donald Trump’s dealings with Kim Jong-un might end with a bang. Then came the Singapore summit. Mr Trump boasted that they “fell in love” and that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat. The bromance did not look sustainable. Now a follow-up in Hanoi has ended in a whimper, collapsing without the heralded signing of at least a limited deal.
North Korea needs an easing of sanctions and wants to pursue economic development; Mr Trump wants a diplomatic triumph with his name emblazoned on it. But these powerful drivers are not enough to bridge the gulf between the sides. While North Korea speaks of denuclearisation on the peninsula, it has no intention of unilateral disarmament – as US intelligence officials note. Gestures such as halting missile tests have some value, in real terms as well as in building the relationship, and disabling the Yongbyon nuclear plant would have more; the question is how much they are worth. Many had feared Mr Trump might pay too highly, as he did in Singapore.
Continue reading...The art of the no deal: how Trump and Kim misread each other | Julian Borger
North Korean despot and US president’s wildly different perceptions exposed in Hanoi
As with many disastrous second dates, the collapse of Donald Trump’s summit with Kim Jong-un was made inevitable by the misreading of each other’s intentions at their first encounter.
Since their initial meeting in Singapore last June, the US president had become fixated on what he saw as a close personal bond with the North Korean dictator half his age. He told his supporters: “We fell in love ... He wrote me beautiful letters.”
Continue reading...Otto Warmbier: Trump says he believes Kim Jong-un was unaware of torture – video
The US president says he takes the North Korean leader's word that he knew nothing about the torture of the college student Otto Warmbier, who died six days after being returned to the US in a state of 'unresponsive wakefulness’.
- Trump: I took Kim at his word over Otto Warmbier's torture
- Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi collapses after negotiations fail
Trump: I took Kim at his word over Otto Warmbier’s torture
President says he believes North Korean leader knew nothing about treatment of US student
Donald Trump has said he took Kim Jong-un “at his word” when he denied any responsibility in the imprisonment and torture of Otto Warmbier that led to the US student’s death in 2017.
“Some really bad things happened to Otto,” Trump said. “But Kim tells me that he didn’t know about it and I will take him at his word.”
Continue reading...Trump on Kim Jong-un talks: ‘Sometimes you have to walk’ – video
The US president, Donald Trump, says it is not a good time to strike a denuclearisation deal after talks with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, break down in Vietnam
- Trump says Kim wanted all sanctions lifted at Vietnam summit – live
- Vietnam summit: US president blames disagreement over sanctions for no deal
Kim Jong-un answers question from foreign journalist for first time – video
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un answers – for what is believed to be the first time – a question from a foreign journalist. Asked if he was positive about reaching a deal with US president Donald Trump over nuclear disarmament, Kim said it was too early to tell whether a deal could be reached. However, he said he had a 'feeling that good results would come out' of the talks and that he was not pessimistic. Trump then asks a nearby photographer to make sure he sends his pictures to Kim
Continue reading...Trump-Kim summit proves to be more of a remake than a sequel
Like most theatrical reboots, the strain in keeping things the same in Vietnam highlighted the small way things changed
Donald Trump vowed that his second meeting with Kim Jong-un would be at least the equal of the first and his Vietnamese hosts tried their utmost to make that happen.
In Hanoi on Wednesday evening, every effort was made in recreating the circumstances and ambience of Singapore, scene last June of the historic first meeting between an incumbent US president and a North Korea leader.
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