The White House reportedly received a letter from North Korea’s Kim Jong Un inviting President Trump to visit Pyongyang, which could be the first overture before the potential fourth official visit.

The White House and the State Department did not immediately respond to Reuters to confirm the report in South Korea’s Joongang Ilbo newspaper. The letter reportedly pre-dated the country’s last short-range launch from a week ago.

The recent White House shakeup could have had implications in these discussions.

North Korea said Wednesday leader Kim Jong Un observed the test-launch of a super-large multiple rocket launcher, the latest in a series of weapons tests performed amid stalled diplomacy over the North's nuclear program.

Tuesday's rocket launcher test was made hours after North Korea said it was willing to resume nuclear negotiations with the United States in late September. While offering talks, North Korea still warned its dealings with the U.S. may end if Washington fails to come to the negotiating table without new acceptable proposals.

Some experts said North Korea aims to wrest concessions from the United States once their diplomacy resumes.

Just a few short hours after North Korea said it was willing to resume denuclearization talks with the United States in late September, South Korea's Yonhap news reports that North Korea fired unidentified projectiles toward the eastern sea twice, citing South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The projectiles were launched from the western province of South Pyongan, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"Our military is monitoring the situation in case of additional launches and maintaining a readiness posture," they said in a statement carried by Yonhap.

North Korea has turned to renewal energy workarounds to offset international sanctions on fossil fuels and faulty hydroelectric power.

North Korea has conducted a round of long range rocket tests designed to kick down the door and destroy ballistic missile defenses protecting South Korea. The new rockets fly under U.S. high altitude missile defense weapons, paving the way for further missile strikes. The missiles are proof that, far from disarming, the country with an economy smaller than Hawaii’s is prepared to do what it takes to keep South Korea—and the wider world—in fear of its missiles.

President Donald Trump said Saturday that negotiations with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un could begin soon and that the leader issued a “small apology” for testing short-range missiles.

“In a letter to me sent by Kim Jong Un, he stated, very nicely, that he would like to meet and start negotiations as soon as the joint U.S./South Korea joint exercise are over. It was a long letter, much of it complaining about the ridiculous and expensive exercises,” Trump wrote Saturday on Twitter.

There will be no direct talks with South Korea if it continues to stage joint military exercises with the US, a senior North Korean diplomat has said. The warning comes just as Pyongyang test-fired two short-range missiles.

South Korea must know that “Inter-Korean contact itself will be difficult” unless “they put an end” to the ongoing joint military drill with the US, Kwon Jon-gun, director-general for American affairs at the Foreign Ministry, said on Sunday.

President Donald Trump has reacted to four North Korean missile tests in less than two weeks with little more than a shrug. Instead, he appears to be turning his frustrations about the peninsula on South Korea.

Trump chided Seoul on Twitter Wednesday for paying "virtually nothing" for US protection, while two administration officials said that behind closed doors, the President is fuming that South Korea is not doing more to contain Pyongyang's increased aggression.

North Korea said Wednesday leader Kim Jong Un supervised a live-fire demonstration of newly developed, short-range ballistic missiles intended to send a warning to the United States and South Korea over their joint military exercises.

The official Korean Central News Agency said two missiles launched from a western airfield flew across the country and over the area surrounding the capital, Pyongyang, before accurately hitting an island target off its eastern coast.

North Korea on Tuesday continued to ramp up its weapons demonstrations by firing unidentified projectiles twice into the sea while lashing out at the United States and South Korea for continuing their joint military exercises the North says could derail fragile nuclear diplomacy.

North Korea was a no-show at a key regional security conference last week, dashing U.S. hopes for a sideline meeting aimed at restarting nuclear talks.

Instead, the communist state sent a fiery message with a series of missile tests that showed its determination to expand its arsenal amid the diplomatic deadlock.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un likely has several reasons for the show of force, including an effort to increase his negotiating power and to protest U.S.-South Korean military exercises, which are expected to begin Monday.

Japan’s cabinet voted to remove South Korea from its 'whitelist' of preferred trading partners, accusing Seoul of failing to adequately protect dual use materials, while alluding to other influences.

Seoul claims that Tokyo’s move responds to recent court decisions awarding damages to South Korean forced laborers of colonial Japanese corporations. Civil leaders calling for a boycott of Japanese goods and visits rallied outside the Japanese embassy Friday. South Korean President Moon Jae-in addressed the nation in a live televised broadcast.

The South Korean president called for Japan to reverse policy and for talks, also threatening to place restrictions on trade with Japan, and withdraw from an intelligence sharing agreement.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at a conference in Bangkok that American negotiators were ready to meet with North Korean counterparts.

According to US intelligence reports, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has launched a projectile that appears to be similar to those launched in previous weeks. It's unclear how many were launched, but US officials confirmed they pose no threat to North America.

Friday's test was preceded by tests on Wednesday and the previous Thursday, each of which saw two short-range ballistic missiles fired eastward from South Hamgyong Province on the country's easy coast into the Sea of Japan.

The South Korean military detained a North Korean soldier who crossed the heavily fortified demilitarised zone that separates the two countries, according to the South’s joint chiefs of staff (JSC).

The soldier expressed his intention to defect to South Korea, the JSC said on Thursday.

The unidentified active-duty soldier was first detected by thermal imaging equipment moving south near the Imjin river late on Wednesday and South Korean troops took him into custody just before midnight.

Also on Wednesday the South Korean military recovered a body near the DMZ suspected to be that of a North Korean civilian, a spokesman for South Korea’s defence ministry said.

Clad in military-type pants and a belt, the body was found in the Imjin river and appeared to have been dead for at least two weeks, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

North Korea conducted a fresh short-range missile tests on Wednesday, its second such launch in less than a week as Pyongyang tries to exert pressure on Washington and Seoul before major military exercises commence and nuclear talks resume.

Two short-range ballistic missiles of an unknown type were fired from a site close to the eastern city of Wonsan, where such tests are often conducted.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the projectiles flew around 155 miles at a maximum altitude of 19 miles before landing off the country's east coast, The Associated Press reported.

North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast Wednesday, South Korea's Joint Chief of Staff (JCS) said in a statement, the second such launch in less than a week.

The missiles were launched from the Wonsan-Kalma area just after 5 a.m. local time and 5:27 a.m. (4:27 p.m. ET) on Wednesday, and traveled an estimated distance of 250 kilometers (155 miles) and height of 30 kilometers (18 miles), according to South Korean officials.

A US official also confirmed the missile launches to CNN, adding that they had posed no threat to the US or its allies, and fell into the sea.

Just as Lighthizer and his band of merry trade-deals-men prepare to head to China for face-to-face talks, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reports that North Korea has fired an unidentified projectile.

South Korea's joint chiefs of staff have confirmed the unidentified projectile's firing from the Wonsan region of North Korea. The launch took place “early morning” today, according to the statement.

Bloomberg reports that South Korean military are monitoring movement and preparing for additional launches.

As a reminder, at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan in June, Xi urged US President Donald Trump to show "flexibility" and act in a "timely" fashion to ease sanctions on North Korea, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said earlier this month.

Xi's request reflected Beijing's desire to boost economic engagements with Pyongyang, analysts said.

Developing...

North Korea has released pictures of a new submarine that it could potentially use to launch nuclear weapons. If that’s the case, the country may have gained a very dangerous, stealthy ability to threaten the US and its allies — all in defiance of President Donald Trump.

Pyongyang released three images on Monday night showing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un standing in front of a massive submarine inside a shipyard. Experts say it’s large enough that it could carry missiles equipped with nuclear bombs, allowing Kim to order nuclear strikes from unknown underwater locations.

The Republic of Korea's Air Force fired warning shots after Russian military aircraft allegedly violated the country's airspace twice on Tuesday, Yonhap news agency reports, citing officers from the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
South Korean F-15K and KF-16 fighter jets were scrambled after two Chinese and three Russian aircraft approached the ROK air defense identification zone (KADIZ) over the Sea of Japan on Tuesday morning, the JCS said.

While the Chinese only entered KADIZ, one of the Russian aircraft allegedly flew too close to the islets of Dokdo and actually breached the S. Korean airspace twice for about three minutes, forcing the South Korean forces to fire “warning shots.”

The Russian Defense Ministry accused South Korean pilots of acting “unprofessionally” while dangerously crossing the path of Russian bombers, which were on a routine mission over “international waters.”

Two Russian Air Force Tu-95MS bombers were flying over the Sea of Japan when they encountered a pair of South Korean F-15 and F-16 fighter jets. The respective planes “performed unprofessional maneuvers while crossing the course of the bombers, thus putting their safety at risk,” the Russian MoD said in a statement. The fighters also did not attempt to communicate with the Russian crews.

Earlier in the day, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff committee claimed their jets were scrambled to intercept the intruding Russian aircraft which violated South Korean airspace twice. Moscow insists the encounter took place over 25km from the isles of Dokdo (known as Takeshima in Japan), and that they recorded no violation of aerial borders by Russian planes.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected a large newly built submarine, state news agency KCNA reported on Tuesday, potentially signalling continued development of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) programme.

Kim inspected the operational and tactical data and combat weapon systems of the new submarine which was built under “his special attention” and will be operational in the waters off the east coast, KCNA said.

KCNA said the submarine’s operational deployment was near.

Huawei worked with the North Korean government to build and maintain a commercial wireless network, The Washington Post reported based on people familiar with the situation and internal documents.

The documents show that Huawei partnered with Chinese state-owned firm Panda International Information Technology on several projects over eight years, according to the Post, though it is unclear what role Huawei played. The Post said it obtained work orders, contracts and spreadsheets from people who believed they would be of public interest, including a former Huawei employee.

A report published Friday by the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), an organization funded by the government of South Korea, showed that North Korea’s trade volume was cut in half during 2018, evidently as a result of sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council.
The KOTRA report showed North Korea’s trade volume falling to $2.84 billion in 2018, a 48.8 percent decline from the previous year. Exports fell by a dizzying 86.3 percent, imports declined 31.2 percent, and the North Korean trade deficit rose by 17.5 percent.

The Korea Times cited the specific U.N. Security Council resolutions that appeared to deflate North Korea’s trade volume so sharply, saying:

North Korea on Tuesday suggested it might call off its 20-month suspension of nuclear and missile tests because of summertime U.S.-South Korean military drills that the North calls preparation for an eventual invasion.

The statement by the North’s Foreign Ministry comes during a general deadlock in nuclear talks, but after an extraordinary meeting of the U.S. and North Korean leaders at the Korean border that raised hopes that negotiations would soon resume.

The comments ramp up pressure on the United States ahead of any new talks.

Much discussion has occurred about a possible freeze of North Korea’s strategic weapons programs. Is it part of the Trump administration’s strategy in the hopefully soon-to-be-resumed talks with Pyongyang, or not? Is there a debate about it within the administration, or not? Is it a good idea, or not? Unnamed sources in the administration say “yes” to some or all of these questions; national security adviser John Bolton emphatically says “no” to all of them.

But, as it turns out, a freeze of North Korea’s nuclear and long-range missile programs could be a good thing — for two reasons. First, it would build trust that could lead to subsequent deals resulting in cuts and permanent limits to North Korea’s weapons programs. It is difficult to overstate the trust gap that currently exists between the two countries, making a single, one-step agreement that resolves the nuclear issue an impossibility.

North Korea slammed South Korea over its ongoing deployment of high-tech U.S. fighter jets, warning Thursday that it will respond by developing and testing unspecified special weapons of its own to "destroy" the aircraft.

The statement, which also urged South Korea to abandon its "preposterous illusions" for improved ties, comes as Seoul has expressed hopes that a recent summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will help revive dialogue between the Koreas.

Under its biggest-ever weapons purchase, South Korea is to buy 40 F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin by 2021. The first two arrived in March and two others are to be delivered in coming weeks, according to Seoul officials.

North Korea slammed South Korea over its ongoing deployment of high-tech U.S. fighter jets, warning Thursday that it will respond by developing and testing unspecified special weapons of its own to "destroy" the aircraft.

The son of the highest-profile South Korean to defect to North Korea has arrived in the North to permanently resettle, North Korean state media said. If confirmed, it would be an unusual case of a South Korean defecting to the impoverished, authoritarian North.

The state-run Uriminzokkiri website reported that Choe In-guk, about 72, arrived in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, on Saturday to dedicate the rest of his life to Korean unification at the guidance of leader Kim Jong Un. The website published photos and a video showing a bespectacled Choe in a beret reading his arrival statement at Pyongyang’s airport.

North Korea accused an Australian student of engaging in “spying acts” that led to his expulsion after nine days in detention, the country’s state media said Saturday.

The claim carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency was the first comment by North Korea on the student, Alek Sigley, who had been pursuing a master’s degree at Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang since 2018.

The statement appears to send a warning to the small cadre of foreigners in North Korea to stay away from independent social media posts and from having links to websites covering affairs in the North.

North Korea said on Saturday that Alek Sigley, the Australian student whom it deported this past week, had been a spy who admitted to “systematically” collecting information about the isolated country, with a state news agency reporting that he had been “caught red-handed.”

Mr. Sigley, 29, a graduate student in Korean literature at Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang, was freed in North Korea on Thursday and deported on the same day. Until now, neither Mr. Sigley nor the North’s government had publicly explained why he had been detained.

On Saturday, North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency, using the initials for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, said Mr. Sigley was caught on Tuesday while “committing anti-D.P.R.K. incitement through the internet.”

Democrats running for President slammed President Trump’s Sunday visit to North Korea, claiming it was an ill-conceived waste of American bargaining power, according to The Hill‘s Alex Bolton.

After becoming the first US president to set foot on North Korean soil, Trump met with leader Kim Jong Un in a surprise negotiation session that lasted just under an hour on the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone – a meeting which will improve future communication just one week after Trump sent Kim a "friendly" letter (probably telling him he’d swing by after the G20).

President Donald Trump sent North Korean leader Kim Jong Un an "excellent" letter, the North's state-run news agency reported Sunday, quoting Kim as saying he would "seriously contemplate it."

The White House declined to confirm that Trump had sent a letter to Kim.

It comes as nuclear talks between the U.S. and North Korea broke down after the failed summit between Kim and Trump in February in Vietnam.

Chinese President Xi Jinping travels to North Korea to meet leader Kim Jong Un this week looking to strengthen their sometimes shaky bond at a time when both are locked in dispute with the United States — Xi over trade and Kim over nuclear weapons.

Here’s a look at what both Xi and Kim may be trying to achieve with the first visit to Pyongyang of a Chinese leader in 14 years.

Chinese and North Korean state media announced on Monday that Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping will visit North Korea this week to meet with dictator Kim Jong-un. It will be Xi’s first visit to North Korea and the first time China’s leader has made such a trip since Xi’s predecessor Hu Jintao visited Pyongyang in 2005.

China’s CCTV said Xi will arrive in North Korea on Thursday, June 20, and depart on Friday, June 21. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) confirmed the visit, but published no further details.

A spokesman for the Chinese Communist Party said Xi accepted a personal invitation from Kim to visit, possibly issued when the two met in Beijing in January.

“I hope that this visit will contribute to the early resumption of talks on the complete denuclearisation of and the establishment of permanent peace on the Korean peninsula,” a spokeswoman for South Korean President Moon Jae-in said upon learning of Xi’s trip.

Sen. Lindsey Graham has suggested President Trump "put military force on the table" by invading Venezuela (and possibly Cuba) in order to scare North Korea and Iran into doing what they're told. What could possibly go wrong?

"Give Cuba an ultimatum – without Cuba, Maduro doesn’t last one day – tell Cuba to get out of Venezuela. Do what Reagan did in Grenada – put military force on the table!" Graham told a Fox News host, going from zero to invasion in ten seconds flat in response to a question about how Trump should handle his foreign conflicts.

"We need points on the board," the South Carolina senator insisted. "Start with your own backyard… Fix Venezuela and everybody else will know you’re serious." North Korea and Iran, he implied, would fall right into line after Venezuela was put in its place.

The U.S. is accusing North Korea of breaching U.N. sanctions on the import of refined petroleum via illegal ship-to-ship transfers -- a move that marks a contrast to the warmer rhetoric directed at the North Korean regime coming from the White House.

A Security Council diplomat told reporters late Wednesday that the U.S., along with 25 other countries, had complained to the U.N. Security Council sanctions committee monitoring the country’s compliance with sanctions slapped on the country in 2017.

The United States and more than two dozen other countries are asking all nations to immediately halt valuable fuel shipments to North Korea.

A report submitted to the United Nations Security Council Sanctions Committee on North Korea accuses Pyongyang of violating a UN-set UN set cap on fuel imports by conducting dozens of ship-to-ship transfers at sea, which break international sanctions. The details in the report were described to CNN and others by a UN Security Council diplomat with knowledge of the findings.

The US complaint about North Korean smuggling came a day after President Donald Trump said he got another 'beautiful letter' from North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un. The White House is interested in a third summit between the two leaders.

SOURCE: ZEROHEDGE

The half brother of North Korea's Kim Jong Un - who was assassinated in Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia in February 2017, when two women smeared his face with the nerve agent VX - was an informant for the Central Intelligence Agency and met with agency operatives on several occasions, Wall Street Journal reports, citing a person who knew about the matter.

Kim Jong Nam was once considered to be the heir to late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il but he fell out of favor with his father in 2001 after he was caught trying to enter Japan on a false passport, and was arrested at Tokyo airport, apparently en route to Disneyland. Kim Jong Nam had been critical of Kim Jong Un, reportedly saying in 2012 that he “won’t last long” because of his youth and inexperience. The two brothers have different mothers, Bloomberg reports.

North Korea has condemned a recent Pentagon report for describing it as a “rogue state,” calling it a “hostile” act that makes clear the United States’ ultimate goal is the overthrow of the regime, and warning of “countermeasures.”

In a statement released via the Korean Central News Agency, the Stalinist regime’s foreign ministry said history has shown that while the U.S. talks about dialogue, behind the scenes it prepares for war against its “dialogue partner.”

The public enthusiasm for the trade war by elites within the Trump Administration cabinet, including Rothschild banking agent Wilber Ross, Council On Foreign Relations member Robert E. Lighthizer, Goldman Sachs member Steve Mnuchin, and Bilderberg attendee Mike Pompeo showcases a desire based on globalization to perpetuate an escalation in tensions.

Whether or not you agree with the rationalizations behind the trade war, the point is, the only people who will ultimately benefit from it are those striving for globalization.

The corporate media’s editorial standards for reporting on Official Enemies of the US government, especially North Korea, are as low as ever. Blatantly false stories are regularly circulated by leading news outlets without any kind of accountability.

In the latest example of fake news disseminated without any hint of skepticism by America’s top journalists, virtually every major media outlet reported that a senior North Korean official named Kim Yong-chol was supposedly forced into a “labor camp,” as part of a larger deadly “purge.”

Two days later, that same official turned up alive at a public art performance, seated next to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he still believes North Korea "would like to make a deal" and left the door open for a third summit with Kim Jong Un despite a new warning from Pyongyang urging the US to change the course of its negotiations "before it is too late."

"I think they would like to make a deal and we would like to make a deal," Trump told reporters during his visit to Ireland, adding that he looks forward to seeing Kim "at the appropriate time."

The US President also appeared to once again downplay the significance of North Korea's most recent short-range ballistic missile test despite his national security adviser and acting defense secretary saying that last month's launches violated UN resolutions.

Officials say US must come up with a new approach 'before it is too late'

With no progress being made in talks between the US in North Korea since the failed Hanoi Summit, North Korea is warning that deals reached at last year’s summit could also be at risk if the US doesn’t start coming up with a new effort to resume talks.

The statement cautions that the US must abandon its demands for unilateral North Korean disarmament “before it is too late,” and that if the US continues to test North Korean patience, the joint Singapore declaration would end up a “mere blank sheet of paper.”

North Korea has been calling for a new US approach for months, but so far the signs are that there will be no change.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has insisted that the US will hold North Korea to commitments to unilaterally disarm.

Kim Yong-chol, a former North Korean spymaster and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s counterpart in recent diplomatic contacts between the North and the United States, resurfaced in public this week, undermining a South Korean newspaper’s report that he was banished to forced labor in a re-education camp.

The conservative Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s largest daily newspaper, reported on Friday that Mr. Kim had been sent to a re-education camp as part of a political purge of senior North Korean officials held responsible for the breakdown of the second summit meeting held in February between the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and President Trump.

But some analysts in South Korea quickly questioned the report, saying that it was unlikely for Kim Yong-chol to have been banished because he was still being cited in the North Korean news media in the weeks after the summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, and had retained his vice chairmanship in the ruling Workers’ Party.

A senior North Korean official who had been reported as purged over the failed nuclear summit with Washington was shown in state media enjoying a concert alongside leader Kim Jong Un.

North Korean publications on Monday showed Kim Yong Chol sitting near a clapping Kim Jong Un and other top officials during a musical performance by the wives of Korean People's Army officers.

Kim Yong Chol had been North Korea's top nuclear negotiator and met with President Donald Trump at the White House while setting up Trump's two summits with Kim Jong Un.

South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo last week cited an unnamed source to report that Kim Yong Chol was sentenced to hard labor following the collapse of the second summit in February.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that the US is looking into reports that North Korea executed a top official after President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un's summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, earlier this year.

South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported that Kim Hyok Chol, North Korea's special envoy to the US, was executed after Kim Jong Un and Trump were unable to reach an agreement at their second summit in February.

"We've seen the reporting ... we're doing our best to check it out," Pompeo said during a joint press conference with the German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas in Berlin.

SOURCE: RT
Following a slew of reports that North Korea had executed a senior envoy who participated in the Hanoi peace summit with US President Donald Trump, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said he’s ‘checking it out.’
“We've seen the reporting to which you are referring,” Pompeo told a news conference in Berlin Friday, answering a question about reports in South Korean media that nuclear envoy Kim Hyok Choi had been executed by Kim Jong Un’s regime.

“We’re doing our best to check it out. I don't have anything else to add to that today.”

South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo daily reported Thursday on the execution of Choi and four other high-level officials, following the breakdown in negotiations at the Hanoi peace summit in February of this year.

For its part, North Korea has yet to comment on the allegations, though the secretive state has used executions to cover up public failures in the past.

North Korea executed its nuclear envoy to the United States as part of a purge of officials who steered negotiations for a failed summit between leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump, a South Korean newspaper said on Friday.

The apparent chaos at the top of America's foreign policy apparatus came into sharp focus again on Wednesday, as the State Department undermined President Donald Trump’s controversial defense of recent North Korean weapons tests.

The two short-range missile tests conducted earlier this month come amid stalled negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang on sanctions relief and denuclearization on the Korean peninsula. Combined with the seizure of a North Korean tanker suspected of violating international sanctions on the secretive state, these developments have undermined improving relations between the two historic adversaries.

North Korea on Monday called U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton a “war monger” and “defective human product” after he called the North’s recent tests of short-range missiles a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The statement by an unnamed North Korean foreign ministry spokesman came as President Donald Trump continued his visit to Japan for meetings with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in which the nuclear standoff with North Korea was expected to be high on the agenda.

Bolton told reporters in Tokyo on Saturday that there was “no doubt” that North Korea’s recent launches violated U.N. resolutions, and that sanctions against the North must be kept in place. Trump later downplayed the missile tests, tweeting, “North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me.”

The past week of off-again, on-again support from Google to Huawei concerning Android, combined with the potential killer blow of Arm joining the party to shun Huawei, should be regarded as a warning shot to what sort of impact a proper trade war between the United States and China could have on the tech sector.

Despite the bluster and rhetoric out of the Oval Office, the simple fact is that the supply chains between the nations are far too intertwined for either country to avoid high amounts of pain as they get untangled.

Whatever device you are reading this on, there's a fair chance it was assembled in the Middle Kingdom, using componentry and intellectual property from the US.

President Trump on Monday denied that North Korea had fired any ballistic missiles or violated the United Nations Security Council resolutions, taking the word of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over the assessments of his own national security adviser and his Japanese host. He praised the murderous dictator as a “very smart man.”

He also again sided with Kim over former vice president Joe Biden, after his Democratic rival was branded a “fool of low I.Q.” by North Korea’s state media for calling the North Korean leader a dictator and a tyrant.

At a joint news conference with Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, Trump gave cover to Kim as he directly contradicted his national security adviser, John Bolton, as well as Abe, by arguing that Pyongyang had not launched ballistic missiles this month or violated U.N. Security Council resolutions.

SOURCE: ZEROHEDGE
North Korea on Monday called US National Security Adviser John Bolton a "war monger" and "defective human product" after he claimed that Pyongyang's recent short-range missile tests were a violation of UN Security Council resolutions, according to CBS News, citing an unnamed North Korean foreign ministry spokesman.

The comments come amid President Trump's visit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, during which the North Korean nuclear discussions are likely to be high on the agenda.

North Korea tested short-range ballistic missiles on May 4 and 9, ending a pause in launches that began in late 2017. The tests have been seen as a way for North Korea to pressure Washington to soften its stance on easing sanctions against it without actually causing negotiations to collapse. -CBS News

President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday he doesn't view North Korea's short range missile tests as disturbing, a view deeply at odds with his Japanese hosts and in conflict with statements made a day earlier by his national security adviser.

"North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me," Trump wrote on Twitter.
This is a major blow ahead of his meetings with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which are set to begin in a few hours.

U.S. national security adviser John Bolton has called a series of short-range missile tests by North Korea a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and says sanctions must be kept in place.

Bolton said Saturday in Tokyo that the U.S. position on the North's denuclearization is consistent and that a repeated pattern of failures to rid North Korea of nuclear weapons should be stopped.

His comment comes a day after North Korea's official media said nuclear negotiations with Washington won't resume unless the U.S. abandons what Pyongyang describes as unilateral disarmament demands.

North Korea said Friday that nuclear negotiations with the United States will never resume unless the Trump administration moves away from what Pyongyang described as unilateral demands for disarmament.

The statement by an unnamed North Korean foreign ministry spokesman published in state media was the country's latest expression of displeasure over the stalled negotiations. It follows two separate launches of short-range missiles earlier this month that were apparently aimed at pressuring Washington and Seoul.

Talks between Washington and Pyongyang have been at a standstill since February, when a meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump broke down over what the Americans described as excessive North Korean demands for sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear capabilities.

North Korea just signaled its immense disdain for a top American leader. And no, it’s not President Donald Trump.

In a Tuesday statement, the state-run Korean Central News Agency published a scathing article targeting top Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden. While it contains bombastic language, the piece also includes pointed, insulting remarks about the former vice president and references the controversy over how he has interacted with women.

The reason North Korea is lashing out dates back to Biden’s campaign launch last Saturday, where he rhetorically asked a Philadelphia crowd, “Are we a nation that embraces dictators and tyrants like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un?” That comment referred to Trump’s admiration of autocrats and apparent preference for them over democratic leaders.

North Korea's U.N. ambassador says the Trump administration should consider the possible consequences its seizing of a North Korean cargo ship could have on relations between the two countries and immediately return the vessel.

Kim Song said at a news conference Tuesday that the "heinous act" of seizing the ship was aimed at bringing maximum pressure on North Korea to make it "kneel down."

He said it was "an outright denial of the underlying spirit" of the June 12, 2018, joint statement by President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "that has committed to establish new bilateral relations."

Kim reiterated that he has asked Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to take "urgent measures" to contribute to stability on the Korean peninsula.

If the current war of words between Iran and the United States has strange echoes of 2017, it's because the same US strategy is at work.

The Trump administration is using its North Korea playbook on Iran: Use a "maximum pressure" campaign -- the same nomenclature was used for Tehran and Pyongyang -- to box the adversary into a corner, then try to negotiate. Respond to a threat by escalating your own threat. Then negotiate to alleviate tensions and claim a win.

In North Korea's case, it was US President Donald Trump's now-infamous "fire and fury" ultimatum that kicked off the biggest tensions: "North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen... he has been very threatening beyond a normal state."

South Korea vowed Monday to move quickly on plans to provide $8 million worth of medical and nutritional aid for North Korean children through U.N. agencies while it also considers sending broader food aid to the country, which says it is suffering its worst drought in decades.

Lee Sang-min, spokesman for Seoul's Unification Ministry, said the government will discuss its plans with the World Food Program and the United Nations Children's Fund, through which the aid would be provided, so it reaches North Korean children and pregnant women quickly. South Korea is also trying to build public and political support for providing wider food aid to North Korea, either directly or through the WFP.

North Korea's state media said last week that the country was suffering its worst drought in more than a century amid reported food shortages.

South Korea plans to set up a joint nuclear energy research centre in Saudi Arabia, the South Korean Ministry of Science and Technology said.

The project aims to boost cooperation between the two countries in the field of nuclear energy research and development, Yonhap news agency reported on Tuesday.

The agency noted that the two countries are expected to sign an agreement to establish the centre after administrative procedures have been completed.

North Korea on Tuesday called the U.S. seizure of a North Korean cargo ship involved in banned coal exports a "robbery" and demanded that the vessel be returned immediately.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, carried a statement by an unidentified foreign ministry spokesman who accused the United States of betraying the spirit of a summit agreement last June between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump.

Kim and Trump agreed then to a vague statement calling for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula and improved bilateral ties, but a second meeting between the leaders collapsed in February over mismatched demands in sanctions relief and disarmament.

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said North Korea is unlikely to ever give up all its nuclear weapons, and that President Donald Trump was right to walk away from deal with leader Kim Jong-un in February.

In an interview with CBS that taped on May 10, Gates said North Koreans have come to see some modest nuclear capabilities as “essential to their national survival.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered the military to boost its strike capability a day after he directed a successful long-range strike drill amid stalled nuclear negotiations with the United States.

Kim “stressed the need to further increase the capability of the defense units in the forefront area and on the western front to carry out combat tasks and keep full combat posture to cope with any emergency,” the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Friday.

He noted "genuine peace and security of the country are guaranteed only by the strong physical force capable of defending its sovereignty,” it said, adding Kim "set forth important tasks for further increasing the strike ability."

President Donald Trump's attempt to make a "great deal" with North Korea over its nuclear program appears increasingly in peril as Kim Jong Un has ordered new missile tests and directed his country's military "to cope with any emergency."

"Nobody's happy," Trump said Thursday after North Korea launched short-range missiles for the second time in less than a week. On Friday, Kim told his forces to be on high alert after the U.S. seized a large cargo ship that was attempting to smuggle coal out of North Korea in violation of United Nations Security Council sanctions.

"(Kim) stressed the need to further increase the capability of the defense units in the forefront area and on the western front to carry out combat tasks and keep full combat posture," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), a state media outlet that rarely quotes Pyongyang's leader directly, reported. KCNA said Kim "set forth important tasks for further increasing the strike ability" of North Korea's weapon systems.

North Korea conducted a new weapons test overnight, firing two missiles into the sea between North Korea and Japan, according to reports from the South Korean military. The U.S. military conducted its own missile test just ten minutes later.

It was the second weapons test for North Korea in the past week, following the launch of what are believed to be several short-range missiles on Saturday. The U.S. military’s latest test was also its second in the past week, though the Air Force stresses that the timing is coincidental.

On May 9th, the US seized a North Korean coal carrier ship called the M/V Wise Honest for violating US sanctions on the country, the Justice Department said in a statement.

The civil forfeiture complaint that led to the seizure of the ship was announced by Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman for the Southern District of New York, Assistant Director John Brown of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division and Assistant Director William F. Sweeney Jr. of the FBI’s New York Field Office.

The 17,061-ton bulk carrier ship, one of North Korea’s largest, was used to illicitly ship coal from North Korea and to deliver heavy machinery to the DPRK.

North Korea's newest missile has a striking resemblance to an advanced Russian design, according to experts analyzing images from a test of the weapon on Saturday morning.

The missile, which North Korea describes as a "tactical guided weapon," appears superficially to be nearly identical to Russia's Iskander missile — a highly accurate short-range weapon capable of striking targets more than 150 miles away.

Such a system has the potential to challenge missile defenses in South Korea and further escalate tensions in the region. It also shows that North Korea is developing new weapons systems, even as President Trump expresses optimism about a future deal with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Dozens of North Korean submarines that supposedly disappeared off South Korea's military radar on Monday have now apparently started returning to their bases, according to a military official quoted by Asian news sources on Tuesday.

South Korea said on Sunday that more than 50 of North Korea's submarines, about 70 percent of the country's known fleet, had left their home ports and could not be located, heightening fears that Pyongyang might be poised to attack.

A new satellite image obtained by CNN shows the smoke trail of a Friday rocket launch by North Korea that is likely a short-range missile, according to the group that analyzed the picture.

"The location of the launch, the thick, smoky appearance of the exhaust and the fact that there is only one rocket trail all suggest this was the short-range ballistic missile that North Korea showed in its propaganda," said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute.

The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey provided CNN with two images of the smoke trail.

A US official tells CNN that an early analysis says the launches "appear to have been both MLRS (multiple launch rocket systems) and what is being looked at as a possible short range ballistic missile."

SOURCE: ZERO HEDGE
Analysts have studied a report from North Korea's Korean Central News Agency, which was accompanied by a few images, and determined that the "projectile" fired by North Korea Saturday morning, was, in fact, a short-range ballistic missile.

In addition to images released by KCNA, independent analysts managed to capture images of the launch.

Our friends at @planetlabs got a shot of a North Korean short-range ballistic missile just after launch at 10:54 am local time. @DaveSchmerler found it. pic.twitter.com/aIZ0Dcc1u1

— Jeffrey Lewis (@ArmsControlWonk) May 5, 2019
Lucky shot! Captured by @planetlabs Planetscope satellite at 0154 UTC (1054 local) on Saturday as it overflew Wonsan, North Korea. pic.twitter.com/g5QgVI8hJf

— Martyn Williams (@martyn_williams) May 5, 2019

North Korea fired several short-range projectiles off its east coast on Saturday, in a move likely to raise tensions as denuclearization talks with the United States remain stalled.

The North fired the projectiles between 9:06 a.m. and 9:27 a.m. from near Wonsan, a coastal town east of Pyongyang, the capital, the South Korean military said in a statement. They flew 70 to 200 kilometers before landing in the sea between North Korea and Japan, the statement said.

On Monday night, the Department of Justice issued a “wanted” poster for the leader of Free Joseon, a shadowy group of Korean exiles suspected of leading a violent assault on the North Korean embassy in Madrid on February 22. A suspect, Adrian Hong Chang, “is considered to be armed and dangerous,” says the poster, which includes a color photo of the fugitive and instructs arresting police officers or anyone who knows his whereabouts to contact the US Marshals Service.

The public notification from the DOJ underscores the seriousness of the US government’s efforts to track down two Koreans sought for possible extradition to Spain under a criminal warrant issued in March by Judge José de la Mata of Spain’s high court. The very unusual move has stirred a backlash from US foreign-policy hard-liners on North Korea who say the Trump administration’s manhunt for the suspects amounts to support for that country’s 34-year-old dictator.

North Korea’s vice foreign minister said on Tuesday that the United States will face undesired consequences if it fails to present a new position in denuclearization talks by the end of the year, state media reported.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has set a year-end deadline for the United States to show more flexibility after his second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump failed to produce a deal to end Pyongyang’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.

But Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have brushed aside the deadline, calling for Kim to take action on his pledge to denuclearize after years of pursuing nuclear and rocket programs in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

National security adviser John Bolton insisted Sunday that the U.S. did not pay North Korea $2 million for the medical care of Otto Warmbier, despite a U.S. official signing a document pledging to do so.

Speaking to Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday," Bolton said it "appears" as though North Korea presented then-U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Joseph Yun with a hospital bill for Warmbier, who fell into a coma after he was detained in 2016.

The summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and President Vladimir Putin was significant on various levels and reaffirms the onset of a multipolar world.

Knowing your enemies and understanding your friends is a maxim to live by. At the level of nation states, at a historic moment, defined by Gramsci’s rather overused but nonetheless prescient formulation, “the old is dying and the new cannot be born,” it is more than a rule to live by, it is a prerequisite of survival.

Failing to understand their enemies was central to the grim fate that befell Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi and the countries they led, Iraq and Libya. Thus far, the North Koreans, led by Kim Jong-un, have not allowed themselves to go down the same path.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the U.S. has been acting in “bad faith” since his Hanoi meeting with President Trump over the stalemated issue of North Korean denuclearization.

The North Korean leader told the Korean Central News Agency that, "the situation on the Korean Peninsula and the region is now at a standstill and has reached a critical point," the Straits Times of Singapore reported,

Kim warned that the situation "may return to its original state as the U.S. took a unilateral attitude in bad faith at the recent second DPRK-US summit talks," the Korean Central News Agency added.