NEW YORK: A top aide to Kim Jong Un will make a rare visit to Washington Friday to hand a letter from the North Korean leader to President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said after reporting “good progress” in talks between the two sides to revive an on-again, off-again nuclear summit.
“I am confident we are moving in the right direction,” Pompeo told reporters at a news conference in New York after meeting Thursday with former North Korean military intelligence chief Kim Yong Chol. “Our two countries face a pivotal moment in our relationship, and it would be nothing short of tragic to let this opportunity go to waste.”
He would not say that the summit is a definite go for Singapore on June 12 and could not say if that decision would be made after Trump reads Kim Jong Un’s letter. However, his comments were the most positive from any US official since Trump abruptly canceled the meeting last week after belligerent statements from the North.
The two countries, eying the first summit between the US and the North after six decades of hostility, have also been holding negotiations in Singapore and the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas.
Early Thursday, Trump told reporters “we are doing very well” with North Korea. He added there may even need to be a second or third summit meeting to reach a deal on North Korean denuclearization but still hedged, saying “maybe we’ll have none.”
Kim Yong Chol is the highest-ranking North Korean official to visit the US in 18 years, and his trip to the White House will be a highly symbolic sign of easing tensions after fears of war escalated amid North Korean nuclear and missile tests last year.
Pompeo, the former CIA chief who has traveled to North Korea and met with Kim Jong Un twice in the past two months, said he believed the country’s leaders are “contemplating a path forward where they can make a strategic shift, one that their country has not been prepared to make before.”
He tweeted from New York: “Good progress today during our meetings” with Kim and his team. Yet he also said at his news conference that difficult work remains including hurdles that may appear to be insurmountable as negotiations progress on the US demand for North Korea’s complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization.
“We will push forward to test the proposition that we can achieve that outcome,” he said.
Pompeo spoke after meeting with Kim Yong Chol for a little more than two hours at the residence of the deputy US ambassador to the United Nations. The talks had been expected to be held in two sessions, one in the morning and one in the early afternoon, and had not been expected to conclude until 1:30 p.m. Instead, the two men wrapped up at 11:25 a.m.
Pompeo said they finished everything they needed to address in the morning session. Immediately afterward, he tweeted that he had had substantive talks on the priorities for the potential summit. Pompeo was accompanied by Andrew Kim, the head of a CIA unit assigned to work on North Korea, and Mark Lambert, the head of the State Department’s Korea desk.
“Our secretary of state is having very good meetings,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews before departing on a trip to Texas. He said of the North Koreans, “I believe they will be coming down to Washington on Friday. A letter being delivered to me from Kim Jong Un. It is very important to them.”
“It is all a process,” he said of arranging the summit. “Hopefully we will have a meeting on the 12th.”
Despite the upbeat messaging in the US, Kim Jong Un, in a meeting with Russia’s foreign minister on Thursday, complained about the US trying to spread its influence in the region, a comment that may complicate the summit plans. “As we move to adjust to the political situation in the face of US hegemonism, I am willing to exchange detailed and in-depth opinions with your leadership and hope to do so moving forward,” Kim told Sergey Lavrov.
North Korea’s flurry of diplomatic activity following an increase in nuclear weapons and missile tests in 2017 suggests that Kim is eager for sanctions relief to build his economy and for the international legitimacy a summit with Trump would provide. But there are lingering doubts on whether he will ever fully relinquish his nuclear arsenal, which he may see as his only guarantee of survival in a region surrounded by enemies.
Trump views a summit as a legacy-defining opportunity to make a nuclear deal, but he has left the world guessing since canceling the meeting last week in an open letter to Kim that complained of the North’s “tremendous anger and open hostility.” North Korea’s conciliatory response to that letter appears to have put the summit back on track.
Kim Yong Chol is the most senior North Korean visitor to the US since Vice Marshal Jo Myong Rok visited Washington in 2000 to meet President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. That was the last time the two sides, which are technically at war, attempted to arrange a leadership summit. It was an effort that ultimately failed as Clinton’s time in office ran out, and relations turned sour again after George W. Bush took office in early 2001 with a tough policy on the North.
Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of the North Korean ruling party’s central committee, was allowed into the US despite being on a US sanctions list, and North Korean officials are not normally allowed to travel outside the New York area.
The North Korean mission at the United Nations did not respond to an email seeking comment Thursday, and phone calls were not answered.
North Koreans to meet Trump, deliver letter from Kim Jong Un
North Koreans to meet Trump, deliver letter from Kim Jong Un
- Kim Yong Chol is the highest-ranking North Korean official to visit the US in 18 years, and his trip to the White House will be a highly symbolic sign of easing tensions after fears of war
- Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of the North Korean ruling party’s central committee, was allowed into the US despite being on a US sanctions list
Harris warns Trump will slash Obamacare; Trump says he never mentioned it
- The 2010 Affordable Care Act provides coverage to roughly 40 million Americans as part of the country’s patchwork of health insurance programs
- A political liability for Democrats when signed into law in 2010, it is now broadly popular
In a brief press conference, Vice President Harris reminded voters that former President Trump had tried unsuccessfully to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, during his 2017-2021 presidency.
“Healthcare for all Americans is on the line in this election,” she told reporters in Madison, Wisconsin, before flying to Arizona and Nevada as both candidates took the campaign to the Southwest.
In response, Trump said he never wanted to get rid of the program. “I never mentioned doing that, never even thought about such a thing,” he posted on his Truth Social platform after she made the remark.
Opinion polls show a historically close contest between Harris and Trump, with the outcome of Tuesday’s US presidential election likely to be decided in seven battleground states.
Reuters/Ipsos polling in October found the race to be sharply divided along gender lines, with Harris leading among women by 12 percentage points and Trump leading among men by seven percentage points.
More than 63 million people have already voted through in-person early voting and mail-in ballots, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab.
With both candidates campaigning in the Southwest on Thursday, they made their pitches to Hispanic voters.
OBAMACARE AGAIN AT ISSUE
Once again a campaign issue, the 2010 Affordable Care Act provides coverage to roughly 40 million Americans as part of the country’s patchwork of health insurance programs. A political liability for Democrats when signed into law in 2010, it is now broadly popular.
In his 2016 campaign, Trump repeatedly vowed to repeal Obamacare and following his election, when the House voted to do just that, he welcomed Republican representatives to the White House for a celebration. But the repeal effort died in the Senate in July 2017 when the late Sen. John McCain cast the deciding vote with a thumbs-down gesture.
Trump has downplayed the issue during this campaign, though on Thursday he reiterated he would as president push insurers to cover the cost of in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments.
When asked about health care in the Sept. 10 televised debate with Harris he repeated his contention that “Obamacare was lousy health care” but acknowledged he has yet to propose a comprehensive alternative, saying he has “concepts of a plan.”
Harris has made abortion rights a cornerstone of her campaign, while Trump has vowed to dramatically scale back immigration.
Firecracker ban defiance makes New Delhi the world’s most polluted city
- The air quality index stood at 348, said Swiss firm IQ Air, taking pollution into the hazardous category
- Local government officials have banned use of firecrackers during Diwali and the winter over the last few years
NEW DELHI: New Delhi topped charts on Friday as the world’s most polluted city after revelers defying a ban on firecrackers to celebrate Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, helped drive air quality to hazardous levels.
Thick smog wreathed the Indian capital, shrouding the presidential palace in the central district and the surrounding gardens popular with joggers and cyclists, after Thursday’s celebrations.
The air quality index stood at 348, said Swiss firm IQ Air, taking pollution into the hazardous category, pushing Delhi to the top of a real-time list as the world’s most polluted city.
Local government officials have banned use of firecrackers during Diwali and the winter over the last few years, in line with Supreme Court directives, but have had difficulty enforcing the measure despite the threat of jail.
Some Hindu groups say the ban interferes with observance of the festival, a position the Delhi government has previously countered by saying the ban aims to save lives.
Friday’s smog also coincided with waste burning on farms in northern India that aggravates air quality at the beginning of winter each year as cold, heavy air traps pollutants from a variety of sources.
Four Thais killed in Israel by rocket strike from Lebanon: Thai FM
- About 30,000 Thai nationals live in Israel
- Thai nationals in Israel have been particularly hard hit since the start of the war with Hamas
Bangkok: Four Thais were killed in northern Israel by rocket fire from Lebanon, Thailand’s foreign minister said Friday.
Maris Sangiampongsa, in a post on social media platform X, said he was “deeply saddened” by the deaths close to the town of Metula on Thursday, adding another Thai citizen was injured.
The head of the regional council in Metula said late Thursday that five people had been killed in the rocket strike from Lebanon, one local farmer and four foreign farm workers.
About 30,000 Thai nationals live in Israel, where salaries are much higher than in the Southeast Asian kingdom.
Thai nationals in Israel have been particularly hard hit since the start of the war with Hamas, with at least 39 killed as a result of the October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.
More than two dozen were believed to have been captured by militants during the attack.
During a brief November truce, 23 Thais were released from captivity.
The Israeli army has said two Thai nationals died in captivity in Gaza in May.
After more than 11 months of cross-border clashes that displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border, the Israeli army intensified air strikes against Hezbollah in mid-September and later launched limited ground operations in southern Lebanon.
Foreign Minister Maris added: “Thailand continues to strongly urge all parties to return to the path of peace, in the name of the innocent civilians gravely impacted by this prolonged and deepening conflict.”
Filipinos brave crowds, flooding for All Saints’ Day cemetery visits
- Hundreds of thousands flock to sprawling graveyards to quietly pray and celebrate the lives of departed relatives
- In the devout Southeast Asian country, the day is a public holiday to allow for travel to far-flung gravesites across the archipelago
MANILA: Devout Filipinos clutching candles and flowers poured into cemeteries across the heavily Catholic Philippines on Friday to pay tribute to loved ones on All Saints’ Day.
Hundreds of thousands flocked to sprawling graveyards in the capital Manila while others waded through floodwaters left by a deadly tropical storm to quietly pray and celebrate the lives of departed relatives.
At Manila North Cemetery, 64-year-old Virginia Flores lit candles in front of her grandmother’s “apartment,” the local term for tombs packed tightly together and stacked meters high.
“This is my way of remembering her life and our shared memories when she was alive, so I visit her every year,” Flores said.
Erlinda Sese, 52, was joined by her sister and grandchildren to offer prayers for their deceased loved ones.
“Even if they are gone, today is a reminder that our love for them will never fade,” Sese said as she gently laid a bouquet of white flowers on a tombstone.
Police Brig. Gen. Arnold Ibay, tasked with handling crowd control in the capital, said he expected almost a million visitors at Manila North Cemetery alone, where people had begun lining up before dawn to enter.
In Pampanga, a low-lying province 80 kilometers north of the capital, AFP reporters on Thursday saw people trudge through murky floodwaters to visit the submerged Masantol municipal cemetery.
The visitors were making the pilgrimage barely a week after Tropical Storm Trami unleashed landslides and flooding that killed at least 150 people and left more than a dozen missing.
“Visiting dead loved ones is very important to Filipinos. This has been our tradition and culture,” 34-year-old Mark Yamat said.
“Even though the cemetery is submerged here, we will continue to visit.”
In the devout Southeast Asian country, the day is a public holiday to allow for travel to far-flung gravesites across the archipelago.
Maria Cayanan, 52, was supposed to light candles in front of her parents’ tombstone in Pampanga, but the floodwaters prevented her from reaching their burial plots.
“We will just light the candles at home,” Cayanan said.
“We have to visit their graves, so they know they are not forgotten.”
TikTok bandits terrorize, transfix Pakistan riverlands
- Police have proposed countering bandits by downgrading mobile phone towers to 2G in the Katcha lands, preventing social media apps from loading
- That has not yet happened and would risk cutting communities off further still
RAHIM YAR KHAN, Pakistan: With a showman’s flair and an outlaw’s moustache, the Pakistani gangster dials the hotline on his own most wanted notice — taunting the authorities who put a bounty on his head.
Staring down the lens in a social media clip, Shahid Lund Baloch challenges the official on the phone and his thousands of viewers: “Do you know my circumstances or my reasons for taking up arms?”
The 28-year-old is hiding out in riverine terrain in central Punjab which has long offered refuge to bandits — using the Internet to enthrall citizens even as he preys on them, police say.
On TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram he fascinates tens of thousands with messages delivered gun-in-hand, romanticizing his rural lifestyle and cultivating a reputation as a champion of the people.
But he is wanted for 28 cases including murder, abduction and attacks on police — with a 10 million rupee ($36,000) price on his head.
“People who are sitting on the outside think he is a hero, but the people here know he is no hero,” said Javed Dhillon, a former lawmaker for Rahim Yar Khan district close to the hideouts of Baloch, and other bandits like him.
“They have been at the receiving end of his cruelty and violence.”
Baloch is said to dwell on a sandy island in the “Katcha lands” — roughly translating as “backwaters” — on the Indus River which skewers Pakistan from top to bottom.
High-standing crops provide cover for ambushes and the region is riven by shifting seasonal waterways that complicate pursuit over crimes ranging from kidnapping to highway robbery and smuggling.
At the intersection of three of Pakistan’s four provinces, gangs with hundreds of members have for decades capitalized on poor coordination between police forces by flitting across jurisdictions.
“The natural features of these lands support the criminals,” said senior police officer Naveed Wahla. “They’ll hide out in a water turbine, move in boats, or through sugarcane crops.”
Sweeping police operations and even an army incursion in 2016 failed to impose law and order. This August, a rocket attack on a police convoy killed 12 officers.
“In the current state of affairs here there is only fear and terror,” said Haq Nawaz, whose adult son was abducted late September for a five million rupee ransom he cannot afford.
“There is no one to look after our wellbeing,” he complains.
But the gangs are increasingly online.
Some use the web to lay “honey-traps” luring kidnap victims by impersonating romantic suitors, business partners and advertising cheap sales of tractors or cars.
Some parade hostages in clips for ransom or exhibit arsenals of heavy weapons in musical TikToks.
Baloch has by far the largest online profile — irking police with a combined 200,000 followers.
Rizwan Gondal, the head police officer of Rahim Yar Khan district, says that his detectives have a dossier proving his “heinous criminal activities.”
“Police have made multiple efforts to capture him however he escapes,” he added.
“He’s a very media savvy guy. Let him say, ‘I am going to surrender before the state to prove that I am innocent’ and let the media cover it.”
In his clips Baloch protests his innocence whilst casting himself as a vigilante in a lawless land, claiming he chose to fight only after family members were slain in tribal clashes.
“We couldn’t get justice from the courts so I decided to pick up arms and started fighting with my enemies,” Baloch said. “They killed our people, we killed theirs.”
But he also plays off the cycle of state neglect which breeds banditry and in turn relegates the destitute farming communities further to society’s fringes.
“The villagers here are not viewed as human but as animals,” Baloch said. “If they gave us schools, electricity, government hospitals and justice, why would anyone even think of taking up arms?”
In comments sections his viewers call him “beloved brother bandit” and a “real hero.” “You have won my heart,” claims another.
“He is popular in the mainstream because he is giving the police authorities a tough time,” said former lawmaker Dhillon.
“People like that he says the things they can’t say out loud against people they can’t speak out against.”
Police have proposed countering bandits by downgrading mobile phone towers to 2G in the Katcha lands, preventing social media apps from loading.
That has not yet happened and would risk cutting communities off further still.
But more low tech solutions have had some success.
An anti-honey trap police cell cautions citizens against the gangs with the help of billboards and loudspeakers at checkpoints entering the area, preventing 531 people from falling prey since last August, according to their data.
Baloch scoffs at police. But one problem plaguing his bid for online stardom has his attention.
Copycat social media accounts pretend to be him and share duplicates of his videos — earning thousands more followers and views than his legitimate accounts.
He feels robbed. “I don’t know what they are trying to achieve,” he complains.
But for police, his Internet hero status is at odds with the toll of his crimes.
“People will idealize Shahid Lund Baloch but when they ultimately get kidnapped by him, then they will realize who Shahid Lund Baloch really is,” said senior officer Wahla.
