SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un warned the United States Monday he has a “nuclear button” on his table but offered an apparent olive branch to South Korea in a New Year message, saying he was prepared for talks and may send a team to the Winter Olympics there.
Kim struck a generally defiant note after a year of rising tensions marked by the North’s multiple missile launches and its sixth and most powerful nuclear test — purportedly of a hydrogen bomb.
“We must mass-produce nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles and speed up their deployment,” he said in his annual televised address to the nation.
He reiterated his claim that his country had achieved its goal of becoming a nuclear state but insisted the expansion of the weapons program was a defensive measure.
“We should always keep readiness to take immediate nuclear counter-attacks against the enemy’s scheme for a nuclear war.”
The North claims it needs nuclear weapons to protect itself from a hostile Washington and has striven to create a warhead capable of targeting the US mainland with an atomic warhead.
US President Donald Trump has responded to each test with his own amplified declarations, threatening to “totally destroy” Pyongyang and taunting Kim, saying he was on “a suicide mission.”
But far from persuading Kim to give up his nuclear drive, analysts say Trump’s tough talk may have prompted the North Korean leader to push through with his dangerous quest.
“(The North) can cope with any kind of nuclear threats from the US and has a strong nuclear deterrence that is able to prevent the US from playing with fire,” Kim said Monday.
“The nuclear button is always on my table. The US must realize this is not blackmail but reality.”
When asked for a response to Kim’s claim that he had a nuclear button on his desk, Trump said “We’ll see, we’ll see,” in comments to reporters during the New Year’s Eve party at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Kim also sugared his speech Monday with a conciliatory tone toward Seoul, indicating for the first time that the North is considering taking part in the South’s Winter Olympics next month.
“(The Olympics) will serve as a good chance to display our Korean people’s grace toward the world and we sincerely hope the Games will be a success,” he said.
The North and the South should “depart from the past, improve relations and take decisive measures to make a breakthrough in efforts to achieve reunification,” he said.
South Korea’s presidential Blue House welcomed the dialogue offer.
“Should the Olympics be staged succesfully, it will contribute to peace not only on the Korean peninsula but in the region and the world as well,” it said in a statement.
Some analysts said Kim may be trying indirectly to lower the temperature with Washington.
At a time when the risk of a US pre-emptive strike is “higher than ever,” Koh Yu-Hwan, political science professor at Dongguk University, said the speech indicated Kim was using the Olympics gesture to “shift from confrontation to peaceful coexistence with the United States.”
“When he said a nuclear launch button is always on his desk, he is hinting it is not necessary for the North to stage nuclear or ICBM tests in the foreseeable future,” Koh told AFP, adding however that Kim also wanted to build “massive nuclear retaliation capabilities.”
Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul said Kim “is extending an olive branch toward the South as the US is expected to keep up with pressure and sanctions on the country throughout this year... as a whole the emphasis is on peace rather than confrontation.”
In December the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed new, US-drafted sanctions against Pyongyang, restricting oil supplies vital for the impoverished state.
The most recent set of sanctions, which the North slammed as an “act of war,” also received the backing of China — the country’s sole major ally and economic lifeline.
Observers say Washington must open talks with the North to defuse tensions but that remains a challenge.
Pyongyang has always said it will only deal with the US from a position of equality as a nuclear state. Washington has long insisted that it will not accept a nuclear-armed North.
Kim vows North will mass-produce nukes but open to talks with Seoul
Kim vows North will mass-produce nukes but open to talks with Seoul
Seven dead in small plane crash in western Mexico
- The aircraft, a Cessna 207, was flying from La Parota in the neighboring state of Michoacan
The aircraft, a Cessna 207, was flying from La Parota in the neighboring state of Michoacan.
Jalisco Civil Protection said via its social media that the crash site was in an area that was difficult to access.
Initial authorities on the scene “reported a preliminary count of seven people dead,” who haven’t been identified yet, according to the agency.
“A fire was extinguished and risk mitigation was carried out to prevent possible additional damage,” it added.
Authorities said they were awaiting the arrival of forensic investigators to remove the bodies and rule out the presence of additional victims.
Canada’s Trudeau losing support within his party: MPs
- Ottawa area MP Chandra Arya: Dozens of Liberal MPs want the prime minister to go
- Trudeau has huddled with advisers to contemplate his future ahead of elections set for October 2025
OTTAWA: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s support within his own party appeared to falter further on Sunday, as former loyalists said growing numbers of Liberal caucus members wanted the premier to resign.
Trudeau has suffered a series of blows in recent days, spurred by the surprise resignation of Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who clashed with her boss over incoming US president Donald Trump’s threats to impose 25 percent tariffs on Canadian imports.
Freeland’s exit, after nearly a decade at Trudeau’s side, marked the first open dissent against the prime minister from within his cabinet and has emboldened critics.
Ottawa area MP Chandra Arya told the public broadcaster CBC on Sunday that dozens of Liberal MPs wanted Trudeau to go.
Arya was interviewed a day after Liberal MPs from the province of Ontario held a meeting that addressed Trudeau’s future.
Multiple outlets, including the CBC and Toronto Star, reported that more than 50 of the 75 Ontario Liberals in parliament declared in Saturday’s meeting that they no longer supported Trudeau.
Asked about those reports, Arya said a “majority of the caucus thinks it is time for the prime minister to step aside.”
Anthony Housefather, a Liberal member of parliament from the province of Quebec, told the CBC on Sunday that “the prime minister needs to go.”
“We’re in an impossible situation if he stays,” Housefather said, arguing the party would be hammered in an election that amounted to a referendum on Trudeau’s leadership.
Trudeau has huddled with advisers to contemplate his future ahead of elections set for October 2025 but expected much sooner. He changed a third of his cabinet on Friday.
Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the small leftist New Democratic Party in parliament, declared Friday that he would join with other opposition parties to topple Trudeau’s minority government early next year.
The NDP had previously opposed a series of non-confidence votes brought by the opposition Conservatives.
A change in the party’s position would almost certainly bring down Trudeau’s government if another non-confidence vote is held.
Trudeau swept to power in 2015 and led the Liberals to two more ballot box victories in 2019 and 2021.
But he now trails his main rival, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, by 20 points in public opinion polls.
Trump names former staffer Katie Miller to Musk-led DOGE panel
- Katie Miller will soon be joining DOGE! She has been a loyal supporter of mine for many years, and will bring her professional experience to Government Efficiency, Trump posts
WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday named Katie Miller, who served in Trump’s first administration and is the wife of his incoming deputy chief of staff, as one of the first members of an advisory board to be led by billionaire allies Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy that aims to drastically slash government spending, federal regulations and the federal workforce.
Miller, wife of Trump’s designated homeland security adviser Stephen Miller, will join Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an informal advisory body that Trump has said will enable his administration to “slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”
“Katie Miller will soon be joining DOGE! She has been a loyal supporter of mine for many years, and will bring her professional experience to Government Efficiency,” Trump posted in a message on his social media platform Truth Social.
Musk and Ramaswamy recently revealed plans to wipe out scores of federal regulations crafted by what they say is an anti-democratic, unaccountable bureaucracy, but have yet to announce members of the DOGE team. Musk has said he wants to slash the number of federal agencies from over 400 to 99.
Katie Miller had served in the first Trump adminstration as deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security and as press secretary for former Vice President Mike Pence.
She is currently a spokesperson for the transition team for Trump’s designated Health and Human Services secretary, Robert Kennedy Jr.
Panama rejects Trump’s threat to take control of Canal
- Trump also complained of China’s growing influence around the canal, a worrying trend for American interests as US businesses depend on the channel to move goods between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
PANAMA CITY: Panama’s president Jose Raul Mulino on Sunday dismissed recent threats made by US President-elect Donald Trump to retake control of the Panama Canal over complaints of “unfair” treatment of American ships.
“Every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent areas belongs to Panama and will continue belonging to Panama,” Mulino said in a video posted to X.
Mulino’s public comments, though never mentioning Trump by name, come a day after the president-elect complained about the canal on his Truth Social platform.
“Our Navy and Commerce have been treated in a very unfair and injudicious way. The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,” he said.
Trump also complained of China’s growing influence around the canal, a worrying trend for American interests as US businesses depend on the channel to move goods between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
“It was solely for Panama to manage, not China, or anyone else,” Trump said. “We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands!“
The Panama Canal, which was completed by the United States in 1914, was returned to the Central American country under a 1977 deal signed by Democratic president Jimmy Carter.
Panama took full control in 1999.
Trump said that if Panama could not ensure “the secure, efficient and reliable operation” of the channel, “then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question.”
Mulino rejected Trump’s claims in his video message, though he also said he hopes to have “a good and respectful relationship” with the incoming administration.
“The canal has no direct or indirect control from China, nor the European Union, nor the United States or any other power,” Mulino said. “As a Panamanian, I reject any manifestation that misrepresents this reality.”
Later on Sunday, Trump responded to Mulino’s dismissal, writing on Truth Social: “We’ll see about that!“
Musk, president? Trump says ‘not happening’
- Trump: “He wasn’t born in this country”
“He’s not gonna be president, that I can tell you,” Trump told a Republican conference in Phoenix, Arizona.
“You know why he can’t be? He wasn’t born in this country,” Trump said of the Tesla and SpaceX boss, who was born in South Africa.
The US Constitution requires that a president be a natural-born US citizen.
Trump was responding to criticism, particularly from the Democratic camp, portraying the tech billionaire and world’s richest person as “President Musk” for the outsized role he is playing in the incoming administration.
As per ceding the presidency to Musk, Trump also assured the crowd: “No, no that’s not happening.”
The influence of Musk, who will serve as Trump’s “efficiency czar,” has become a focus point for Democratic attacks, with questions raised over how an unelected citizen can wield so much power.
And there is even growing anger among Republicans after Musk trashed a government funding proposal this week in a blizzard of posts — many of them wildly inaccurate — to his more than 200 million followers on his social media platform X.
Alongside Trump, Musk ultimately helped pressure Republicans to renege on a funding bill they had painstakingly agreed upon with Democrats, pushing the United States to the brink of budgetary paralysis that would have resulted in a government shutdown just days before Christmas.
Congress ultimately reached an agreement overnight Friday to Saturday, avoiding massive halts to government services.
