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(UPDATED) Pyongyang scrapped the planned talks during the 2018 Winter Olympics after the US vice president denounced abuses from the 'murderous regime,' US officials say

As part of its exclusive series on Libya during the rule of late leader Moammar al-Gaddafi, Asharq Al-Awsat examines the regime’s ties with local and foreign powers, including its attempts to finance western presidential campaigns, particularly in France, the United States and Ukraine. Witnesses from the former regime said that Tripoli had spent some 50 million euros in 2007 to fund the campaign of French presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy. Lebanese businessman Ziad Takeieddine, who was present at Sarkozy’s meetings with Gaddafi revealed that the “figures were much higher than that.” Tripoli also pumped 5 million dollars in the presidential campaign...

Here is a video clip of Donald Trump expressing his views on North Korea - almost 20 years ago.

All Eyes on North Korea Intelligence agencies are surging resources to focus on the Korean Peninsula. With talk of a “bloody nose” strike against North Korea being debated in Washington, public attention has focused on conventional military preparations for a U.S. attack on Pyongyang. Less noticed, but possibly even more telling, is the surge in recent months of intelligence resources. Senior officials have made no secret of the fact that the administration is ramping up its intelligence capabilities to focus on the Korean Peninsula, but six sources familiar with U.S. planning described a nearly unprecedented scramble inside the agencies responsible...

Vice President Pence said Wednesday that he deliberately ignored North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister last week in order to send “a very clear message” during the Winter Olympics opening ceremonies. Mr. Pence and his wife were photographed standing just a few feet from Kim Yo-jong on Friday amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and the dictatorial regime. Asked during an Axios event in Washington whether he gave any consideration to greeting Ms. Kim, the vice president responded, “I did not.”

It fell to Fox News to remind Americans that while “some observers continue to fawn over Kim Jong-un’s sister and North Korea’s ‘smile diplomacy,’” the brutal dictatorship is still holding three Americans prisoner. Fox News Associate Editor Caleb Parke writes: Concern has only grown for the three Korean-Americans—Kim Hak Song, Kim Dong Chul and Tony Kim—since the death of American college student Otto Warmbier last June after the he spent 17 months locked away in North Korea. And though advocates said they were given some hope during President Trump’s State of the Union address, when the image of a North...

Move over, Oprah Winfrey, the leftist media has found a new heroine to lionize. Her name is Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean "Rocket Man" dictator Kim Jong-un. Kim Yo-jong is her brother’s close adviser and has a lofty title: Deputy Director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Workers' Party. The establishment media has been fawning all over the dictator’s sister ever since she arrived at the Winter Olympics in South Korea. In doing so, they have shamelessly assisted the key purpose of her attendance at the Winter Olympics: to drive a wedge in the U.S.-South Korean...

If President Donald Trump wants to hold a massive parade honoring the military, he should hold it in Pyongyang, not Washington. The boulevards there are well built, long and wide, perfect for a showy and orchestrated military parade, which is why North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un holds so many of them. Massive tanks, assault vehicles and rocket carriers do not tear up the pavement or knock down statues of him, his father or his grandfather, or adjoining buildings in downtown Pyongyang. The people are protected as well. In Kim Jong Un’s parades there are no spectators lined up...

America’s most effective advocate of the principle of an armed populace is now officially the liberal media that usually seeks to do the ruling class’s bidding and strip us Normal Americans of that sacred right. But after the media’s bizarre display of eager tongue-bathing of the semi-human savages who run North Korea, any patriot has got to be thinking, “I best load up, because it’s pretty clear what the establishment’s desired end state is.”The New York Times quivered: “Kim Jong-un’s Sister Turns on the Charm, Taking Pence’s Spotlight.”Reuters tingled: “North Korea judged winner of diplomatic gold at Olympics.”And CNN harassed...

Other than a disturbing demonstration of the American media’s willingness to amplify Stalinist propaganda, was anything of significance achieved regarding the Korean Peninsula crisis in Pyeongchang? Both the American and North Korean official delegations have left the Pyeongchang Olympics, with Vice President Mike Pence telling Washington Post analyst Josh Rogin that he has warned South Korean president Moon Jae-in against the mistakes of the past. The US will participate in direct negotiations with North Korea, Pence says, but the sanctions will remain in place until the Kim regime offers concrete concessions of their own: Vice President Pence, in an...

North Korea Judged Winner of Diplomatic Gold at Olympics! – ReutersI understand the American media’s fawning over North Korea’s cynical Olympic “unification” overtures. They really can’t help themselves – the media’s always been a sucker for a certain “type” and they fall for the same guy time and time again.  So naturally they are willing to overlook Rocketman’s past atrocities, assume that he’s changed his bad-boy ways and is well on his way to winning the Nobel Peace Price. The chemistry was just too much to resist.Still, Fangirling a guy who runs a repressive regime, starves his people to death...

The 2018 Winter Olympics were in full swing and Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and head of their Propaganda and Agitation Department, had bizarrely become a liberal media darling. Despite the fact her job entailed censorship and glorifying public executions, numerous outlets had touted her for “stealing the show,” winning “diplomatic gold,” being the “Ivanka Trump of North Korea,” and hyping the extremely creepy North Korean cheerleading corp. CNN, who has a history of climbing into bed with murderous regimes (Iraq and Saddam Hussein) to stay relevant, was one of the more notable...

The mainstream media’s glorification of totalitarian hellholes won’t strike anyone familiar with 20th century history as new, but this weekend’s coverage of North Korea’s regime at the Olympics would make even former New York Times journalist Walter Duranty blush. As the 2018 Olympics Winter Games began in South Korea, reporters from various networks clapped like seals at North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un’s pathetic attempt at charming journalists into accepting his regime as legitimate, choosing to woo them over with synchronized cheer squads and having his sister Kim Yo Jong leer at Vice President Mike Pence.

Her name is Kim Yo Jong and she’s the belle of the ball at the Winter Olympics in South Korea. She’s young, attractive, confident, and the kid sister of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. You wouldn’t think they were related, as he embodies the physicality of a manatee and she looks ready to anchor the 6 o’clock news. But they are the same person. She is a true believer in the same cruel, oppressive ideology, and she has proven to be a talented soldier for the same cause. Thought by some to be the real brains of the operation,...

North Korea and the United States just made history during the 2018 Winter Olympics — and it was awkward. At the Olympics opening ceremonies in Pyeongchang, South Korea, on Friday, Vice President Mike Pence sat mere feet away from Kim Yo Jong, the sister and trusted adviser of none other than North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. That’s remarkable for a few reasons. First, Kim is the first member of North Korea’s ruling family to enter South Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953. It was already a huge deal that she would attend, as it possibly...

In a stunningly tone deaf report for NBC’s Today show on Wednesday, reporter Keir Simmons touted “a week inside North Korea” and gaining “rare access to the people there,” which included riding bumper cars at an amusement park in Pyongyang and sampling beer at a local bar. Less than a minute of the five-minute long segment focused on North Korea’s atrocious human rights abuses. As he arrived in the authoritarian regime, Simmons observed: “First impressions: Clean, organized, and a lot of people in uniform.” Visiting a military museum in the capital, he declared: “A tour of weapons captured from American...

While only 22 North Korean athletes are competing at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, they can be guaranteed of a rapturous welcome at their events. An astonishing 229 cheerleaders dominated the 280-member delegation that crossed the demilitarised zone dividing the two Koreas at a post north of Seoul on February 7. Previously heralded as North Korea’s “army of beauties”, the women turned heads and made global headlines in their matching travel outfits of fur-trimmed scarlet coats, fur hats and ankle boots. Their retro glam style – think the Duchess of Cambridge’s Christmas Day church outfit crossed with the rigid chic of...

On Wednesday morning, NBC’s Today show and ABC’s Good Morning America recited identical liberal talking points as both broadcasts warned viewers that the U.S. was on the verge of looking like world’s worst “authoritarian regimes” if the Pentagon followed through on President Trump’s desire to hold a military parade in the nation’s capital. “Some unusual marching orders from President Trump to the Pentagon. He wants a massive parade to highlight the country’s military strength,” fretted Today co-host Hoda Kotb. “But as NBC’s Hans Nichols explains, that request is not sitting well with some lawmakers,” she added.

China is reportedly moving missile defense batteries and troops closer to its border with North Korea, a potential sign that Beijing anticipates either a large refugee wave north or a military disturbance triggered by the belligerence of communist dictator Kim Jong-un. The South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo cited Radio Free Asia (RFA) in a report Monday, stating that RFA had compiled evidence that China had “late last year deployed another missile defense battery at an armored division in Helong, west of Longjing in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture.” The “North Korean source in China” speaking to RFA also noted that...

Vice President Mike Pence will work to undermine any North Korean attempt to normalize its regime at the Pyeongchang 2018 Olympic Winter Games in South Korea, according to a report."The vice president will remind the world that everything the North Koreans do at the Olympics is a charade to cover up the fact that they are the most tyrannical and oppressive regime on the planet," one of Pence's aides told Axios of Pence's role as leader of the White House's delegation to the sporting event. "We are seeing unprecedented level of international cooperation on the maximum pressure strategy targeting the...