Free Republic

So funny to watch people who have failed for years, they got NOTHING, telling me how to negotiate with North Korea. But thanks anyway!

Kim Jong-un has boarded a train to Vietnam for his second summit with US president Donald Trump, North Korea state media have confirmed. The North Korean leader was accompanied by Kim Yong-chol, who has been a key negotiator in talks with the US, and by his sister Kim Yo-jong, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported. There was a report of a green and yellow train similar to one used in the past by Kim crossing into the Chinese border city of Dandong via a bridge. Kim’s overseas travel plans are routinely kept secret and it could take more...

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea on Sunday confirmed for the first time that its leader Kim Jong Un will hold a second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, days ahead of the high-stakes nuclear meeting set to take place in Vietnam’s capital of Hanoi. Kim left Pyongyang by train on Saturday afternoon for the Feb. 27-28 summit accompanied by senior North Korean officials, North Korea’s official KCNA news agency said. The delegation with Kim includes top North Korean officials who took part in last year’s expanded summit talks between Kim and Trump in Singapore, including top envoy to the U.S....

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told the U.S. secretary of state he did not want his children to live with the burden of nuclear weapons, a former CIA officer involved in high-level diplomacy over the North’s weapons was quoted as saying on Saturday. Kim made the rare personal comments to Mike Pompeo during a visit to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, in April last year to lay the groundwork for the historic first summit between the North’s leader and U.S. President Donald Trump in June in Singapore, former CIA official Andrew Kim said, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency and...

Good Morning. From the White House backtracking on the planned withdrawal of US troops from Syria. "A small peacekeeping force of about 200 will remain in Syria for a period of time" The direct quote from White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders.... In Israel three political groupings have come together Telem, Israel Resilience ad Yesh Atid to oppose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party. Their united political movement is dubbed "Blue and White", Cacol Lavan in Hebrew...... In the UK this week a new political group forming.... Tomorrow in France Week 15 of the Yellow Vests protests.... Venezuela closing its...

At the top of the Newsdump this morning. President Trump is refusing to report to Congress on the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last October..... Later this month the President's son-in-law Jared Kushner is expected to meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin-Salman on his visit to five Arab countries to lay out financial plans... But media attention will be on another meeting at that time, this one in Hanoi, Vietam between the President and North Korea's ruler Kim Jong-un..... A second rape allegation against Virginia's Lt. Governor, Democrat Justin Fairfax.... The private investigator...

SEOUL (NYTIMES) - A senior American negotiator arrived in North Korea on Wednesday (Feb 6) to sort out crucial details for a nuclear summit meeting in Vietnam between United States President Donald Trump and the North's leader, Kim Jong Un, with only three weeks to go before the talks take place. Mr Stephen Biegun, the Trump administration's special representative for North Korea, arrived in Pyongyang, the North's capital, around the time that Mr Trump announced in his State of the Union address that he and Mr Kim would meet for a second time on Feb 27-28 in Vietnam. Mr Beigun's...

There is video at the link, with President Trump announcing the next meeting with North Korean leader Kim, would be in Vietnam. Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President. :)

North Korea has pledged to destroy all of its nuclear enrichment facilities. That's the word from the US representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun..... "I'll continue to build the wall, and we'll get the wall finished" That's what President Trump told two "New York Times" reporters at the White House.... The US backed Syrian Democratic Forces are talking with Islamic State about the fate of the last ISIS fighters in the Euphrates River Valley in eastern Syria..... In northern Syria's Idlib province the attacks by the HTS jihadist group, formerly Al-Qaeda, have broken the peace guaranteed by Russia and Turkey...

KIM Jong-un has threatened to kill his own citizens if they switch on South Korean tv shows. A source told Radio Free Asia’s Korean service that authorities have launched a crackdown on the illegal activity including a death sentence threat for those found breaking the law. The insider said: “In a recent lecture, they told us they are aware that a growing number of people are able to manipulate the frequencies to watch South Korean TV programmes. “They said that regardless of any individual’s status, those caught in violation could be executed by firing squad. They want to instill fear.”...

On Jan. 17, President Trump tweeted: “No ‘Cave’ on the issue of Border and National Security.” Eight days later, he caved, agreeing to reopen the government for three weeks without getting a penny for his border wall. His right-wing allies are spluttering in rage, but they shouldn’t be surprised. This debacle confirms that Trump is not the “ultimate negotiator” he purports to be. He is, in fact, a lousy negotiator. Now he may be on the verge of concluding the worst deals of the century by pulling U.S. troops out of South Korea and Afghanistan in return for empty promises...

President Moon Jae-in’s government is seeking ways to circumvent international sanctions against North Korea to reopen an inter-Korean industrial park. The Kaesong industrial complex north of the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas was shut down in February 2016 after Pyongyang conducted its fourth nuclear test. The ensuing moves by Seoul officials suggest the Moon administration is seeking to resume the inter-Korean projects, particularly the joint industrial park, as a catalyst for the North’s denuclearization rather than a step to be taken after a significant progress is made. But it would prove practically impossible to bypass sanctions imposed by a...

The timing of this revelation is rather disconcerting, all things considered. NBC News is reporting that a new study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) indicates the North Koreans have a previously undisclosed ballistic missile base hidden away in the mountains. And making matters worse, they think this might be one of as many as twenty such sites the country has never admitted to owning. With a second U.S.- North Korea nuclear summit looming in February, researchers have discovered a secret ballistic missile base in North Korea — one of as many as 20 undisclosed missile...

The White House announced Friday afternoon President Trump plans to hold a second summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. “President Donald J. Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour and half, to discuss denuclearization and a second summit, which will take place near the end of February. The President looks forward to meeting with Chairman Kim at a place to be announced at a later date,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders released in a statement. Trump's first summit with Chairman Kim was held in June 2018 from Singapore. This is a developing story, stay tuned...

A second summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will take place next month, the White House announced Friday. President Trump met with a top North Korean official Friday afternoon in the Oval Office. “President Donald J. Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour and a half, to discuss denuclearization and a second summit, which will take place near the end of February. The President looks forward to meeting with Chairman Kim at a place to be announced at a later date," the White House said in a statement. The face-to-face came after Secretary...

When you have a President of the United States who has a close friend named Vince McMahon, you can expect a good fight show....... A top North Korean official carrying a note from that country's ruler Kim Jong-un has arrived in Washington for a meeting with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo..... Twenty were killed and dozens injured in a car bomb attack in Colombia's capital Bogota Thursday........ Act 50 of the European UnUUnion treaty invoked for Brexit explicitly states that if there is no deal to withdrawal a member nation can leave without one..... "Back to Paris" is the...

Good morning. Today is the last day Republicans control both houses of Congress amidst a failure to pass funding President Trump wants to build a wall on the southern border with Mexico. There is also a partial shutdown involving five federal government departments.... Writing in an opinion piece for the "Washington Post" incoming Republican senator from Utah and former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said this about President Trump among other things: "Trump's words and actions have cause despair throughout the world"...... President Trump tweeted Sunday evening that he looks forward to a meeting with North Korea's ruler Kim Jong-un.......

Turkey and Russia have reached agreement on the next steps, military, humanitarian and otherwise in Syria. But the Turkish government is frustrated with the pace of the US military withdrawal from Syria..... Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a major supporter of jihadist groups opposing the Syrian government......says he's reassured after speaking with President Trump about the withdrawal of US forces from Syria... Russia's FSB security agency says an American citizen has been detained while on a spy mission..... A South Korea newspaper reports a conciliatory message from North Korea's ruler to President Trump.....

Donald Trump wants North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to know that he likes him and will fulfill his wishes, South Korea's President Moon Jae-in has said, a day after meeting the US president at an economic summit in Argentina. Moon, who is hoping to host Kim soon on the first ever trip to Seoul by a North Korean leader as agreed earlier this year, said Trump had asked him to pass on a message. "The message is that President Trump has very favourable views toward Chairman Kim and he likes him," Moon told reporters aboard a flight from Argentina...

President Trump rallying massive crowds in Macon, Georgia and Chattanooga, Tennessee ahead of the mid-term elections. The Republicans are planning a final rally tonight in Cape Girardeau, Missouri with talk show host Rush Limbaugh coming back to his hometown.... A very interesting political development in the UK over the weekend with Friday's revelation by London' top cop of a criminal investigation involving members of the Labor Party.... In Germany politicians in the government parties, the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, are calling for the government's domestic intelligence agency to monitor the anti-mass immigration Alternative for Germany.... In Japan the party...