SEOUL: North Korea has been condemned and sanctioned for its nuclear ambitions, yet has still received food, fuel and other aid from its neighbors and adversaries for decades. How does the small, isolated country keep getting what it wants and needs?
Some put its success down to the extraordinary nuclear blackmail skills of a country whose leaders could be buying food instead of bombs and missiles. Some see the willingness of outsiders to help people in desperate need, regardless of how odious the government the rules them, and others credit the feeling in South Korea that aid could improve ties.
North Korea has had gradual economic growth in recent years and doesn’t appeal for foreign humanitarian assistance as much as it did in the past. Despite multiple rounds of UN sanctions, the nation’s leader Kim Jong Un has defiantly pushed his scientists to manufacture a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the US heartland. It test-launched two intercontinental ballistic missile in the past month, and once Kim perfects such weapons, he may to try to extract bigger concessions from Washington.
An examination of how a country that frustrates and infuriates much of the world manages to get what it wants:
NUKES FOR AID
A relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons has been a major source of the country’s ability to pull in aid and concessions.
Since the North Korean nuclear crisis first started in 1993, Pyongyang has agreed to several now-dormant disarmament-for-aid deals.
One accord was signed with the United States following bilateral talks in Geneva in 1994, while others were struck with several regional powers including Washington during on-and-off multilateral forums that lasted from 2003-2008.
Under those deals, North Korea halted atomic activities or disabled key elements of its weapons programs in return for security guarantees, heavy fuel shipments, power-producing nuclear reactors or other aid. Despite it all, nothing has led to North Korea substantially dismantling its nuclear program.
Washington accused Pyongyang of cheating and covertly continuing its atomic work, while the North often blamed the United States and others for failing to provide aid on time.
SOUTH KOREAN SUNSHINE
Seoul, though the North’s bitter enemy, has also helped its neighbor out regularly.
During the Sunshine Era of inter-Korean detente from 1998-2008, liberals in Seoul espoused a greater reconciliation. This was welcome in North Korea, which had depended on outside handouts to feed many of its 24 million people and revive an economy devastated by a famine that killed hundreds of thousands in the mid-1990s.
South Korea shipped hundreds of thousands of tons of rice and fertilizer to North Korea annually and engaged in cooperation projects that became some of the few legitimate sources of foreign currency for the North. The value of the cash and goods provided to North Korea during that time was $6.8 billion, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry.
Liberals credit their engagement with lowering border animosities and allowing two landmark inter-Korean summit talks and emotional reunions of families separated by war. Critics question whether South Korean aid and investment reached those who needed it most or instead helped finance the North’s weapons programs.
Seoul’s large humanitarian assistance programs and cooperation projects were suspended after conservatives came to power in 2008.
CHINESE SUPPORT
China is widely seen as crucial to US-led efforts to strip North Korea of atomic bombs.
China accounts for about 90 percent of North Korea’s trade, and it sends about 500,000 tons of crude oil to North Korea, mostly for free, every year. China and Russia are also the two biggest hubs for tens of thousands of North Korean workers dispatched abroad — another key source of income for the North.
Critics say Beijing has never fully implemented UN sanctions on the North out of worries about a North Korean collapse that could cause a wave of refugees crossing the border and American troops moving into the North. China is frustrated with North Korea, whose nuclear ambitions put Beijing in an awkward international position, but the Kim government still best serves China’s national interests.
Some believe even a brief suspension of Chinese oil would cause chaos in the North and force Kim to change.
“If China stopped sending fuel shipments for just two to three weeks after the North’s first ICMB launch on July 4, North Korea would not have dared conduct a second firing,” said analyst Cheong Seong-Chang at South Korea’s Sejong Institute.
THE FUTURE
Kim may see his future nuclear arsenal as the ultimate bargaining chip.
North Korea will receive fresh UN sanctions for its ICBM launches. But the country is already heavily sanctioned and won’t likely feel real pain unless China halts its oil shipments or takes other harsh measures.
Kim likely won’t talk with Washington or Seoul until he has a proven ICBM arsenal. His government ignored an offer last month by South Korea’s new liberal President Moon Jae-in to resume talks on easing confrontation and resuming family reunions.
After he gets missiles that give him a credible deterrence against US aggression, Kim may try to ease outside sanctions or wrest security guarantees and other concessions by using a proposed freeze of the North’s future weapons activities — but not already-manufactured nuclear missiles — as a bargaining chip in negotiations.
“North Korea knows it can get bigger rewards when it has a bigger (nuclear) capability,” said Shin Beomchul at the Seoul-based Korea National Diplomatic Academy.
North Korea’s evolving ways to get what it wants and needs
North Korea’s evolving ways to get what it wants and needs
At least 4 dead and 1,300 evacuated after heavy rain in South Korea
- The Interior and Safety Ministry says a collapsed overpass retaining wall in Osan killed one person on Wednesday
- Parts of South Chungcheong province have seen up to 420 millimeters of rain
One person was killed when their car was buried by soil and concrete after a retaining wall of an overpass collapsed in Osan, just south of Seoul, during heavy rain on Wednesday, the Interior and Safety Ministry said.
Three other people were separately found dead Thursday in a submerged car, a stream, and a flooded basement in southern regions. Ministry officials said they were still investigating whether those deaths were directly caused by heavy rain.
The heavy rain has forced the evacuation of 1,382 people from their homes, the ministry said in a statement, adding 46 flights have been canceled.
Parts of southern South Chungcheong province have received up to 420 millimeters (16.5 inches) of rain since Wednesday, according to the ministry.
Russian forces take control of three Ukrainian villages across multiple regions, defense ministry says
- Russian forces are engaged in a slow advance westward and Moscow announces the capture of new villages almost every day
- Moscow controls a little less than 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, a move that Kyiv and most Western countries reject as illegal
MOSCOW: Russian troops have taken control of three villages in three different parts of the frontline running through Ukraine, the Defense Ministry said on Thursday.
Official Ukrainian reports of activity along the 1,000-km (600-mile) front disputed part of the Russian account, particularly concerning a key village in the southeast.
Reuters could not independently verify battlefield reports from either side.
The Russian Defense Ministry report named the three captured settlements as Kamianske in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, Dehtiarne in northeastern Kharkiv region, and Popiv Yar in Donetsk region, the main theater of Russian operations.
Russian forces are engaged in a slow advance westward, mainly through Donetsk region, and Moscow announces the capture of new villages almost every day.
Ukrainian military spokesperson Vladyslav Voloshyn told the liga.net media outlet that holding Kamianske, southeast of the region’s main town of Zaporizhzhia, was important to keep that city safe from attack.
But Kamianske had been all but flattened by long periods of fighting, he said. Ukrainian forces had moved out of it and successfully attacked Russian troops whenever small groups periodically ventured into it.
“The Russians cannot go into the village and hold it,” Voloshyn was quoted as saying. “There is not a single dwelling left intact, not a single wall left standing, nothing to hold, nothing to enable you to take cover.”
There was no acknowledgement from Ukraine that Popiv Yar had changed hands — the village lies northeast of Pokrovsk, for months a focal point of Russian attacks in Donetsk region.
For at least a week, it has remained in the “grey zone” of uncertain control as reported by DeepState, a Ukrainian military blog based on open source accounts of the fighting. There was no news from Ukrainian officials of the situation at Dehtiarne.
On Wednesday, Russia’s military announced the capture of the village of Novohatske, southwest of Pokrovsk. Another Ukrainian military spokesperson, Viktor Trehubov, told public broadcaster Suspilne on Thursday that the village was in Russian hands.
Moscow controls a little less than 20 percent of Ukrainian territory and says it has incorporated four regions — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson into Russia, a move that Kyiv and most Western countries reject as illegal.
In 2014, Russia seized and annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, also a claim widely disputed internationally
Nationwide protests begin against Trump’s immigration crackdown and health care cuts
- Protest actions held Thursday in more than 1,600 locations around the country
- Major protests planned in Atlanta and St. Louis, Oakland in California, and Annapolis in Maryland
CHICAGO: Protests and events against President Donald Trump’s controversial policies that include mass deportations and cuts to Medicaid and other safety nets for poor people have started Thursday at more than 1,600 locations around the country.
The “Good Trouble Lives On” national day of action honors the late congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis. Protests were being held along streets, at court houses and other public spaces. Organizers have called for them to be peaceful.
“We are navigating one of the most terrifying moments in our nation’s history,” Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert said during an online news conference Tuesday. “We are all grappling with a rise of authoritarianism and lawlessness within our administration ... as the rights, freedoms and expectations of our very democracy are being challenged.”
Public Citizen is a nonprofit with a stated mission of taking on corporate power. It is a member of a coalition of groups behind Thursday’s protests.
Major protests were planned in Atlanta and St. Louis, as well as Oakland, California, and Annapolis, Maryland.
Honoring Lewis’ legacy
Lewis first was elected to Congress in 1986. He died in 2020 at the age of 80 following an advanced pancreatic cancer diagnosis.
He was the youngest and last survivor of the Big Six civil rights activists, a group led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. In 1965, a 25-year-old Lewis led some 600 protesters in the Bloody Sunday march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Lewis was beaten by police, suffering a skull fracture.
Within days, King led more marches in the state, and President Lyndon Johnson pressed Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act that later became law.
“Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and redeem the soul of America,” Lewis said in 2020 while commemorating the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
Chicago will be the flagship city for Thursday’s protests as demonstrators are expected to rally downtown in the afternoon.
Betty Magness, executive vice president of the League of Women Voters Chicago and one of the organizers of Chicago’s event, said the rally will also include a candlelight vigil to honor Lewis.
Much of the rest of the rally will have a livelier tone, Magness said, adding “we have a DJ who’s gonna rock us with boots on the ground.”
Protesting Trump’s policies
Pushback against Trump so far in his second term has centered on deportations and immigration enforcement tactics
Earlier this month, protesters engaged in a tense standoff as federal authorities conducted mass arrests at two Southern California marijuana farms. One farmworker died after falling from a greenhouse roof during a chaotic raid.
Those raids followed Trump’s extraordinary deployment of the National Guard outside federal buildings and to protect immigration agents carrying out arrests on Los Angeles. On June 8, thousands of protesters began taking to the streets in Los Angeles.
And organizers of the June 14 “No Kings” demonstrations said millions of people marched in hundreds of events from New York to San Francisco. Demonstrators labeled Trump as a dictator and would-be king for marking his birthday with a military parade.
UK signs treaty on defense, trade and migration with Germany as Europe bolsters security
- Agreement commits both countries to boost investment and strengthen law-enforcement cooperation against people-smuggling gangs
- Treaty builds on defense pact the two nations signed last year committing to closer co-operation against the growing threat from Russia
LONDON: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz signed a landmark treaty on Thursday that pledges to tighten defense ties, as European nations try to protect Ukraine, and themselves, from an aggressive Russia in the face of wavering support from President Donald Trump’s US-focused administration.
Merz said it was “a historic day for German-British relations” as he signed an agreement that also commits the two countries to boost investment and strengthen law-enforcement cooperation against criminal people-smuggling gangs using the English Channel.
“We want to work together more closely, particularly after the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union,” Merz said. “It is overdue for us to conclude such a treaty with each other.”
A partnership with a purpose
The treaty builds on a defense pact the UK and Germany, two of the biggest European supporters of Ukraine, signed last year committing to closer co-operation against the growing threat from Russia.
It includes a promise to “assist one another, including by military means, in case of an armed attack on the other,” though it’s unclear what practical impact that will have, since both countries are NATO members and bound by the alliance’s mutual defense pact.
Starmer said the treaty — signed at London’s V&A Museum, which is named after Queen Victoria and her German husband, Prince Albert — sealed a “partnership with a purpose.”
“We see the scale of the challenges our continent faces today, and we intend to meet them head on,” Starmer said during a joint news confernce at an Airbus defense and space factory north of London.
The UK-Germany treaty follows agreements signed during a state visit last week by President Emmanuel Macron, in which France and Britain pledged to coordinate their nuclear deterrents for the first time.
Germany does not have nuclear weapons. The treaty with Britain says the countries will “maintain a close dialogue on defense issues of mutual interest ... including on nuclear issues.”
The treaty stressed a “shared commitment to the security of the Euro-Atlantic area, and underpinned by enhanced European contributions” — a nod to Trump, who has demanded European NATO members greatly increase military spending. Germany and the UK have both promised to raise defense spending to 3.5 percent of GDP in the coming years.
Merz, making his first trip to the UK since taking office in May, said it was “no coincidence” he traveled to London a week after Macron.
“The E3 – Great Britain, France and Germany — are converging in their positions on foreign policy, on security policy, on migration policy, but also on economic policy issues,” he said.
Weapons for Ukraine
Merz and Starmer discussed ways to boost European support for Ukraine, following Trump’s announcement of a plan to bolster Kyiv’s stockpile by selling American weapons to NATO allies who would in turn send arms to Kyiv.
Merz signaled that those plans are still a work in progress, saying it might take “days, perhaps weeks” before weapons reach Ukraine.
He said that “above all, we need clarity on how weapons systems that are given up from the European side will be replaced by the US”
During the trip the leaders announced that German defense startup Stark, which makes drones for Ukraine, will open a factory in England. They also agreed to jointly produce defense exports such as Boxer armored vehicles and Typhoon jets, and to develop a deep precision strike missile in the next decade.
Starmer also praised Merz for his help curbing the smuggling gangs that brought 37,000 people across the English Channel from France in small boats in 2024, and more than 22,000 so far in 2025. Dozens have died attempting the journey.
Berlin agreed last year to make facilitating the smuggling of migrants to the UK a criminal offense, a move that will give law enforcement more powers to investigate the supply and storage of small boats to be used for the crossings.
Merz committed to adopting the law change by the end of the year, a move Starmer said “is hugely welcome.”
Student exchange trips
Starmer has worked to improve relations with Britain’s neighbors, strained by the UK’s acrimonious departure from the European Union in 2020. He has sought to rebuild ties strained by years of ill-tempered wrangling over Brexit terms, and worked to reduce trade barriers and to strengthen defense cooperation.
But he has ruled out rejoining the 27-nation bloc’s single market or customs union, and has been cool to the idea of a youth mobility agreement with the EU.
Britain and Germany agreed on a more limited arrangement that will make it easier for schoolchildren to go on exchange trips.
“I am glad we were able to reach an agreement so that schoolchildren and students can come to Britain more easily in the future, and the other way round can come to Germany more easily, so that the young generation in particular has an opportunity to get to know both countries better,” Merz said.
5 US immigrants deported to Eswatini in Africa are being held in solitary confinement
- The men , who the US says were convicted of serious crimes and were in the US illegally, are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos
- Eswatini is the latest nation to accept third-country deportees from the US. The others are Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama, and South Sudan
CAPE TOWN, South Africa: Five immigrants deported by the United States to the small southern African nation of Eswatini under the Trump administration’s third-country program are in prison, where they will be held in solitary confinement for an undetermined time, a government spokesperson said.
Thabile Mdluli, the spokesperson, declined to identify the correctional facility or facilities where the five men are, citing security concerns. She said Eswatini planned to ultimately repatriate the five to their home countries with the help of a United Nations agency.
In cell phone messages to The Associated Press on Thursday, Mdluli said it wasn’t clear how long that would take.
The men, who the US says were convicted of serious crimes and were in the US illegally, are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos. Their convictions included murder and child rape, the US Department of Homeland
Security said, describing them as “uniquely barbaric.”
Their deportations were announced by Homeland Security on Tuesday and mark the continuation of President Donald Trump’s plan to send deportees to third countries they have no ties with after it was stalled by a legal challenge in the United States.
Here’s what we know and don’t know about the deportations:
A new country for deportees
Eswatini, a country of 1.2 million people bordering South Africa, is the latest nation to accept third-country deportees from the US. The Trump administration has sent hundreds of Venezuelans and others to Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama, and deported eight men earlier this month to South Sudan, also an African country.
The deportees to South Sudan are citizens of Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and South Sudan. They were held for weeks in a converted shipping container at a US military base in the nearby country of Djibouti until a Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for them to be finally sent to South Sudan. The US also described them as violent criminals.
Eswatini’s government confirmed on Wednesday that the latest five deportees were in its custody after landing on a deportation plane from the US.
Local media reported they are being held at the Matsapha Correctional Complex, outside the country’s administrative capital of Mbabane, which includes Eswatini’s top maximum-security prison.
The men’s fate is unclear
The Eswatini government said the men are “in transit” and will eventually be sent to their home countries. The US and Eswatini governments would work with the UN migration agency to do that, it said.
The UN agency — the International Organization for Migration or IOM — said it was not involved in the operation and has not been approached to assist in the matter but would be willing to help “in line with its humanitarian mandate.”
Eswatini’s statement that the men would be sent home was in contrast to US claims they were sent to Eswatini because their home countries refused to take them back.
It’s unclear how sending the men to Eswatini would make it easier for them to be deported home. There was also no timeframe for that as it depends on several factors, including engagements with the IOM, Mdluli said.
“We are not yet in a position to determine the timelines for the repatriation,” she wrote.
Four of the five countries where the men are from have historically resisted taking back some of their citizens deported from the US, which has been a reoccurring problem for Homeland Security. Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the administration was happy the men were “off of American soil” when she announced their deportations.
Another secretive deal
There have been no details on why Eswatini agreed to take the men and Mdluli, the government spokesperson, said “the terms of the agreement between the US and Eswatini remain classified.”
Eswatini has said it was the result of months of negotiations between the two governments. South Sudan has also given no details of its agreement with the US to take deportees and has declined to say where the eight men sent there are being held.
Some analysts say African nations might be willing to take deportees from the US in return for more favorable relations with the Trump administration, which has cut foreign aid to poor countries and threatened them with trade tariffs.
The Trump administration has also said it’s seeking more deportation deals with other countries.
Rights groups have questioned the countries the US has chosen to deal with, as South Sudan and Eswatini have both been criticized for having repressive governments.
Eswatini is Africa’s only absolute monarchy, meaning the king has power over government and rules by decree. Political parties are banned and pro-democracy protests have been quelled violently in the past.
Several rights groups have criticized Eswatini since pro-democracy protests erupted there in 2021, citing deadly crackdowns by security forces and abusive conditions in prisons, including at the Matsapha Correctional Complex, where pro-democracy activists are held.
