Summit between North Korean leader and Russian president to take place in late April
The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, will visit Russia in late April for his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, Moscow has said.
“Following an invitation from Vladimir Putin ... Kim Jong-un will visit Russia in the second half of April,” said the Kremlin in a statement on its website on Thursday.
Continue reading...Regime’s leader says test of tactical guided weapon would increase the ‘combat power’ of the country
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un oversaw the testing of a new type of tactical guided weapon on Wednesday, state media Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Thursday.
It is North Korea’s first public weapons test since the second US-North Korea summit in Hanoi ended with no agreement in February.
Continue reading...Satellite pictures show railcars at Yongbyon site, raising concern radioactive material is being transported
Week-old satellite images show movement at North Korea’s main nuclear site that could be associated with the reprocessing of radioactive material into bomb fuel, a US thinktank has reported.
Any new reprocessing activity would underscore the failure of a second summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un in Hanoi in late February to make progress toward North Korea’s denuclearisation.
Continue reading...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...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...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...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...In first official comment on February incident, Pyongyang suggests Washington’s possible involvement
North Korea on Sunday described the February raid on its embassy in Madrid by a dissident group as a “grave terrorist attack” and urged an investigation into the perpetrators.
A group of armed men burst into Pyongyang’s Spanish embassy last month and roughed up employees before fleeing with documents and computers.
Continue reading...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...One of 10 people who entered consulate by force in February contacted FBI, high court says
The details of how mysterious intruders raided North Korea’s embassy in Madrid last month, tricked the Spanish police and made off with a stash of stolen intelligence which they offered to the FBI have been laid out by a Spanish judge.
Spanish police were called to the embassy in the middle of the raid, but were warded off by the Mexican citizen Adrian Hong Chang who pretended to be a diplomat, the Spanish newspaper El País reported.
Continue reading...Donald Trump has announced that he is ordering the withdrawal of recently announced North Korea-related sanctions imposed by the US treasury department.
Related: North Korea warns US sanctions could derail plans to denuclearise
Continue reading...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...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...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...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...US president claims it is too early to tell if Kim Jong-un is reconstructing Sohae facility
Donald Trump has said he will be “very disappointed” in the North Korean ruler, Kim Jong-un, if reports about a rocket launch site being rebuilt prove to be true.
Two US thinktanks and South Korea’s Yonhap news agency have reported that work was under way to restore part of the Sohae satellite launching station even as Trump met Kim in Hanoi last week for their second summit.
Continue reading...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...The likely cost of £2.7bn to the taxpayer due to Chris Grayling’s incompetence will ring hollow to the parents of disabled pupils in Leicestershire and across the country, who have been informed that their council can no longer provide transport to special schools and colleges post-16 due to lack of funds. The implications for these families, who already face substantial additional burdens of care due to cuts in respite and other services, may place another group in the foodbank queue.
Kate Warner
Claybrooke Parva, Leicestershire
• If Donald Trump genuinely believes that Kim Jong-un did not know of the brutal treatment of Otto Warmbier which led to his death (Report, 2 March), has he asked Kim to investigate the matter? And if not, why not?
Jeremy Beecham
Labour, House of Lords
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...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...