Korean leaders meet in Pyongyang for potentially tough talks

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South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hit the red carpet in Pyongyang. (Reuters)
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his wife Ri Sol Ju greet South Korean President Moon Jae-in and First Lady Kim Jung-sook at Pyongyang Sunan International Airport, North Korea ahead of the third summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in this still frame taken from video September 18, 2018. (REUTERS)
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South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. (Reuters)
Updated 18 September 2018
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Korean leaders meet in Pyongyang for potentially tough talks

  • Moon Jae-in: This summit would be very meaningful if it yielded a resumption of North Korea-US talks
  • North Korea has taken some steps, like dismantling its nuclear and rocket-engine testing sites, but US officials have said it must take more serious disarmament steps before receiving outside concessions

PYONGYANG, North Korea: South Korean President Moon Jae-in began his third summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Tuesday with possibly his hardest mission to date — brokering some kind of compromise to keep North Korea’s talks with Washington from imploding and pushing ahead with his own plans to expand economic cooperation and bring a stable peace to the Korean Peninsula.
Kim gave the South Korean president an exceedingly warm welcome, meeting him and his wife at Pyongyang’s airport — itself a very unusual gesture — then riding into town with Moon in an open limousine through streets lined with crowds of North Koreans, who cheered and waved the flag of their country and a blue-and-white flag that symbolizes Korean unity.
The made-for-television welcome is par for the course for Moon’s summits with Kim.
Hours after his arrival, Moon began an official summit with Kim at the ruling Workers’ Party headquarters. The two were joined by two of their top deputies — spy chief Suh Hoon and presidential security director Chung Eui-yong for Moon, and Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, and senior Workers’ Party official Kim Yong Chol for the North Korean leader, according to Moon’s office.
At the start of their meeting, Kim thanked Moon for brokering a June summit with US President Donald Trump.
“It’s not too much to say that it’s Moon’s efforts that arranged a historic North Korea-US summit. Because of that, the regional political situation has been stabilized and more progress on North Korea-US ties is expected,” Kim said, according to South Korean media pool reports and Moon’s office.




Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong Un take centre stage at a performance. (Reuters)

Moon responded by expressing his own thanks to Kim for making a “bold decision” in a New Year’s speech to open a new era of detente and send a delegation to the South Korean Winter Olympics in February.
Even though tens of thousands of people had witnessed Moon’s drive into the city with their leader, the arrival was not broadcast or even mentioned on the evening and night news on North Korea’s central television network. The North often holds off reporting stories until it has had time to review and edit the video for maximum propaganda impact.
The results of the talks weren’t immediately available. Seoul officials earlier said they would focus on how to achieve denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, decrease military tensions along their border and improve overall ties. The North’s media said the talks would reaffirm their commitment to Korean peace, unity and prosperity.
During a conversation at the Paekhwawon guest house where Moon was to stay, Kim said North Koreans hope diplomacy will yield positive results. “I think it was our people’s wish that we come up with good results as fast as we can,” Kim said, according to the media pool reports.
Moon responded that “Our hearts are fluttering, but at the same we have heavy hearts,” and added, “We have built trust and friendship between us, so I think all will be well.”
The two are to meet again on Wednesday.
More than in their previous encounters, when the mere fact of meeting and resuming a dialogue was seen as a major step forward, Moon is under pressure to leave Thursday with some concrete accomplishments.
One of Moon’s objectives — and one that also interests Kim — was clear from the people he took with him. Traveling on Moon’s government jet was Samsung scion Lee Jae-yong and other business leaders, underscoring Moon’s hopes to expand cross-border business projects. Currently, however, all major joint projects between the Koreas are stalled because of US-led sanctions.
But the nuclear issue was sure to cast a shadow over negotiations on joint projects.
Before leaving Seoul, Moon vowed to push for “irreversible, permanent peace” and for better dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington.

“This summit would be very meaningful if it yielded a resumption of North Korea-US talks,” Moon said Tuesday just before his departure. “It’s very important for South and North Korea to meet frequently, and we are turning to a phase where we can meet anytime we want.”
But as Moon arrived, the North’s main newspaper lobbed a rhetorical volley at Washington that could make Moon’s job all the more delicate, blaming the United States alone for the lack of progress in denuclearization talks.
“The US is totally to blame for the deadlocked DPRK-US negotiations,” the Rodong Sinmun said in an editorial, using the initials of the North’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
It said Washington is “stubbornly insisting” that the North dismantle its nuclear weapons first, an approach “which was rejected in the past DPRK-US dialogues,” while failing to show its will for confidence-building “including the declaration of the end of war which it had already pledged.”
While signaling his willingness to talk with Washington, Kim’s strategy has been to try to elbow the US away from Seoul so that the two Koreas can take the lead in deciding how to bring peace and stability to their peninsula. North Korea maintains that it has developed its nuclear weapons to the point that it can now defend itself against a potential US attack, and can now shift its focus to economic development and improved ties with the South.
Rarely do the North Korean official media even mention the word denuclearization.
Talks between the United States and North Korea have stalled since Kim’s meeting with Trump in Singapore in June.
North Korea has taken some steps, like dismantling its nuclear and rocket-engine testing sites, but US officials have said it must take more serious disarmament steps before receiving outside concessions. Trump has indicated he may be open to holding another summit to resuscitate the talks, however.
For Kim, the timing of this week’s summit is good.
North Korea just completed an elaborate celebration replete with a military parade and huge rallies across the country to mark its 70th anniversary. China, signaling its support for Kim’s recent diplomatic moves, sent its third-highest party official to those festivities. That’s important because China is the North’s biggest economic partner and is an important political counterbalance to the United States.
To keep expectations from getting too high, Moon’s chief of staff, Im Jong-seok, said it’s “difficult to have any optimistic outlook” for progress on denuclearization during the summit. But he said he still expects the summit to produce meaningful agreements.
Some progress along those lines is already underway.
South Korea last week opened a liaison office in the North’s city of Kaesong, near the Demilitarized Zone. Another possible area of agreement could be on a formal statement on ending the Korean War, which was halted in 1953 by what was intended to be a temporary armistice. Military officials have discussed possibly disarming a jointly controlled area at the Koreas’ shared border village, removing front-line guard posts and halting hostile acts along their sea boundary.
Moon is the third South Korean leader to visit North Korea’s capital for summits, but the first since 2007.​


Schools shut as heavy storm approaches India coast

Updated 12 sec ago
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Schools shut as heavy storm approaches India coast

  • Cyclonic storm Fengal is forecast to make landfall in Tamil Nadu state with sustained winds of 70-80 kilometers an hour
  • The forecast urged fishing crews to stay off the water and predicted surging waves of one meter that posed a flood risk

BENGALURU: Schools in India’s south were shut and hundreds of people moved inland to storm shelters ahead of a powerful cyclone storm set to hit the region on Saturday.
Cyclonic storm Fengal is forecast to make landfall in Tamil Nadu state with sustained winds of 70-80 kilometers an hour (43-50 mph) in the afternoon, India’s weather bureau said.
The forecast urged fishing crews to stay off the water and predicted surging waves of one meter (three feet) that posed a flood risk to low-lying coastal areas.
Schools and colleges in numerous districts across Tamil Nadu were shut and at least 471 people had been moved to relief camps, the Economic Times newspaper reported.
Cyclones — the equivalent of hurricanes in the North Atlantic or typhoons in the northwestern Pacific — are a regular and deadly menace in the northern Indian Ocean.
Fengal skirted the coast of Sri Lanka earlier this week, killing at least 12 people including six children.
Scientists have warned that storms are becoming more powerful as the world heats up due to climate change driven by burning fossil fuels.
Warmer ocean surfaces release more water vapor, which provides additional energy for storms, strengthening winds.
A warming atmosphere also allows them to hold more water, boosting heavy rainfall.
But better forecasting and more effective evacuation planning have dramatically reduced death tolls.


Thailand flooding kills nine, displaces thousands

Updated 22 min 19 sec ago
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Thailand flooding kills nine, displaces thousands

  • ‘Very heavy rain’ could continue to affect some areas of the country’s south through next week
  • The government has deployed rescue teams to assist affected residents

BANGKOK: Flooding driven by heavy rains in southern Thailand has killed nine people and displaced more than 13,000, officials said Saturday, as rescue teams using boats and jet skis worked to reach stranded residents.
Local media footage showed residents wading through murky, chest-deep water and cars submerged in flooded streets.
“Flooding across eight provinces in southern Thailand has affected 553,921 households and claimed nine lives, prompting agencies to mobilize urgent assistance,” the country’s disaster agency said on its official Facebook page.
More than 13,000 people had been forced to flee their homes, with temporary shelters set up in schools and temples, it added.
Nampa, a resident of coastal Songkhla province, told state broadcaster Thai PBS she was concerned about the dwindling food supplies.
“We are doing fine now, but I am not sure how long can we stay in this condition,” she said.
Two hospitals in nearby Pattani province suspended operations to prevent floodwaters from damaging medical facilities.
In neighboring north Malaysia, the rains have forced the evacuation of at least 80,000 people to temporary shelters this week, with disaster officials there saying at least four people have been killed.
The Thai Meteorological Department has warned that “very heavy rain” could continue to affect some areas of the country’s south through next week.
The government has deployed rescue teams to assist affected residents and designated 50 million baht ($1.7 million) in flood relief for each province.
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said Friday on social media platform X that the goal was to “restore normalcy as quickly as possible.”
While Thailand experiences annual monsoon rains, scientists say man-made climate change is causing more intense weather patterns that can make destructive floods more likely.
Widespread flooding across the country in 2011 killed more than 500 people and damaged millions of homes.


Stealth destroyer to be home for first hypersonic weapon on a US warship

Updated 30 November 2024
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Stealth destroyer to be home for first hypersonic weapon on a US warship

  • The USS Zumwalt is at a Mississippi shipyard where workers have installed missile tubes that replace twin turrets from a gun system that was never activated

The US Navy is transforming a costly flub into a potent weapon with the first shipborne hypersonic weapon, which is being retrofitted aboard the first of its three stealthy destroyers.
The USS Zumwalt is at a Mississippi shipyard where workers have installed missile tubes that replace twin turrets from a gun system that was never activated because it was too expensive. Once the system is complete, the Zumwalt will provide a platform for conducting fast, precision strikes from greater distances, adding to the usefulness of the warship.
“It was a costly blunder but the Navy could take victory from the jaws of defeat here, and get some utility out of them by making them into a hypersonic platform,” said Bryan Clark, a defense analyst at the Hudson Institute.
The US has had several types of hypersonic weapons in development for the past two decades, but recent tests by both Russia and China have added pressure to the US military to hasten their production.
Hypersonic weapons travel beyond Mach 5, five times the speed of sound, with added maneuverability making them harder to shoot down.
Last year, The Washington Post reported that among the documents leaked by former Massachusetts Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira was a defense department briefing that confirmed China had recently tested an intermediate-range hypersonic weapon called the DF-27. While the Pentagon had previously acknowledged the weapon’s development, it had not recognized its testing.
One of the US programs in development and planned for the Zumwalt is “Conventional Prompt Strike.” It would launch like a ballistic missile and then release a hypersonic glide vehicle that would travel at speeds seven to eight times faster than the speed of sound before hitting the target. The weapon system is being developed jointly by the Navy and Army. Each of the Zumwalt-class destroyers would be equipped with four missile tubes, each with three of the missiles for a total of 12 hypersonic weapons per ship.
In choosing the Zumwalt, the Navy is attempting to add to the usefulness of a $7.5 billion warship that is considered by critics to be an expensive mistake despite serving as a test platform for multiple innovations.
The Zumwalt was envisioned as providing land-attack capability with an Advanced Gun System with rocket-assisted projectiles to open the way for Marines to charge ashore. But the system featuring 155 mm guns hidden in stealthy turrets was canceled because each of the rocket-assisted projectiles cost between $800,000 and $1 million.
Despite the stain on its reputation, the three Zumwalt-class destroyers remain the Navy’s most advanced surface warship in terms of new technologies. Those innovations include electric propulsion, an angular shape to minimize radar signature, an unconventional wave-piercing hull, automated fire and damage control and a composite deckhouse that hides radar and other sensors.
The Zumwalt arrived at the Huntington Ingalls Industries shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, in August 2023 and was removed from the water for the complex work of integrating the new weapon system. It is due to be undocked this week in preparation for the next round of tests and its return to the fleet, shipyard spokeswoman Kimberly Aguillard said.
A US hypersonic weapon was successfully tested over the summer and development of the missiles is continuing. The Navy wants to begin testing the system aboard the Zumwalt in 2027 or 2028, according to the Navy.
The US weapon system will come at a steep price. It would cost nearly $18 billion to buy 300 of the weapons and maintain them over 20 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Critics say there is too little bang for the buck.
“This particular missile costs more than a dozen tanks. All it gets you is a precise non-nuclear explosion, some place far far away. Is it really worth the money? The answer is most of the time the missile costs much more than any target you can destroy with it,” said Loren Thompson, a longtime military analyst in Washington, D.C.
But they provide the capability for Navy vessels to strike an enemy from a distance of thousands of kilometers — outside the range of most enemy weapons — and there is no effective defense against them, said retired Navy Rear Adm. Ray Spicer, CEO of the US Naval Institute, a think tank, and former commander of an aircraft carrier strike force.
Conventional missiles that cost less aren’t much of a bargain if they are unable to reach their targets, Spicer said, adding the US military really has no choice but to pursue them.
“The adversary has them. We never want to be outdone,” he said.
The US is accelerating development because hypersonics have been identified as vital to US national security with “survivable and lethal capabilities,” said James Weber, principal director for hypersonics in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Critical Technologies.
“Fielding new capabilities that are based on hypersonic technologies is a priority for the defense department to sustain and strengthen our integrated deterrence, and to build enduring advantages,” he said.


Trudeau in Florida to meet Trump as tariff threats loom

Updated 30 November 2024
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Trudeau in Florida to meet Trump as tariff threats loom

  • The unannounced meeting came at the end of a week that has seen Canada as well as Mexico scramble to blunt the impact of Trump’s trade threats

Palm Beach: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau traveled to Florida on Friday for a dinner with Donald Trump at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago estate, as the incoming US leader promised tariffs on Canadian imports.
The unannounced meeting came at the end of a week that has seen Canada as well as Mexico scramble to blunt the impact of Trump’s trade threats, which experts have warned could also hit US consumers hard.
A smiling Trudeau was seen exiting a hotel in West Palm Beach before arriving at Mar-a-Lago, making him the latest high-profile guest of Trump, whose impending second term — which starts in January — is already overshadowing the last few months of President Joe Biden’s administration.
Flight trackers had first spotted a jet broadcasting the prime minister’s callsign making its way to the southern US state. A Canadian government source later told AFP that the two leaders were dining together.
Trump caused panic among some of the biggest US trading partners on Monday when he said he would impose tariffs of 25 percent on Mexican and Canadian imports and 10 percent on goods from China.
He accused the countries of not doing enough to halt the “invasion” of the United States by drugs, “in particular fentanyl,” and undocumented migrants.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke with Trump by phone on Wednesday, though the two leaders’ accounts of the conversation differed drastically.
Trump claimed that Mexico’s left-wing president had “agreed to stop migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border.”
Sheinbaum later said she had discussed US-supported anti-migration policies that have long been in place in Mexico.
She said that after that, the talks had no longer revolved around the threat of tariff hikes, downplaying the risk of a trade war.
Billions in trade
Biden warned that same day that Trump’s tariff threats could “screw up” Washington’s relationships with Ottawa and Mexico City.
“I think it’s a counterproductive thing to do,” Biden told reporters.
Trudeau did not respond to questions from the media as he returned to his hotel Friday evening after meeting with Trump.
But for Canada, the stakes of any new tariffs are high.
More than three-quarters of Canadian exports, or Can$592.7 billion ($423 billion), went to the United States last year, and nearly two million Canadian jobs are dependent on trade.
A Canadian government source told AFP that Canada is considering possible retaliatory tariffs against the United States.
Some have suggested Trump’s tariff threat may be bluster, or an opening salvo in future trade negotiations. But Trudeau rejected those views when he spoke with reporters earlier in Prince Edward Island province.
“Donald Trump, when he makes statements like that, he plans on carrying them out,” Trudeau said. “There’s no question about it.”
According to the website Flightradar, the Canadian leader’s plane landed at Palm Beach International Airport late Friday afternoon.
Canadian public broadcaster CBC said that Trudeau’s public safety minister, Dominic LeBlanc, was accompanying him on the trip.


US approves $385 million arms sale for Taiwan

Updated 30 November 2024
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US approves $385 million arms sale for Taiwan

  • United States is bound by law to provide Chinese-claimed Taiwan with the means to defend itself despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties

WASHINGTON. The US State Department has approved the potential sale of spare parts for F-16 jets and radars to Taiwan for an estimated $385 million, the Pentagon said on Friday, a day before Taiwan President Lai Ching-te starts a sensitive Pacific trip.
The United States is bound by law to provide Chinese-claimed Taiwan with the means to defend itself despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties between Washington and Taipei, to the constant anger of Beijing.
Democratically governed Taiwan rejects China’s claims of sovereignty.
China has been stepping up military pressure against Taiwan, including two rounds of war games this year, and security sources have told Reuters that Beijing may hold more to coincide with Lai’s tour of the Pacific, which includes stopovers in Hawaii and Guam, a US territory.
The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said the sale consisted of $320 million in spare parts and support for F-16 fighters and Active Electronically Scanned Array Radars and related equipment.
The State Department also approved the potential sale to Taiwan of improved mobile subscriber equipment and support for an estimated $65 million, the Pentagon said. The principal contractor for the $65 million sale is General Dynamics.
Last month, the United States announced a potential $2 billion arms sale package to Taiwan, including the delivery for the first time to the island of an advanced air defense missile system battle tested in Ukraine.
Lai leaves for Hawaii on Saturday on what is officially a stopover on the way to Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau, three of the 12 countries that still to have formal diplomatic ties with Taipei. He will also stop over in Guam.
Hawaii and Guam are home to major US military bases.
China on Friday urged the United States to exercise “utmost caution” in its relations with Taiwan.
The State Department said it saw no justification for what it called a private, routine and unofficial transit by Lai to be used as a pretext for provocation.