Free Republic

Iran, China, and Russia will hold in the coming weeks their first-ever joint war drills, which leaders say are meant to send a "message to the world" about increased military cooperation between the rogue countries. The commander of Iran's navy, Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, said Wednesday that the Islamic Republic will team up with Moscow and Beijing within the next month to hold the mass war drills. "The joint wargame between Iran, Russia, and China, which will hopefully be conducted next month, carries the same message to the world, that these three countries have reached a meaningful strategic point in...

<p>Multiple forms of socialism, from hard Stalinism to European redistribution, continue to fail.</p> <p>Russia and China are still struggling with the legacy of genocidal communism. Eastern Europe still suffers after decades of Soviet-imposed socialist chaos.</p> <p>Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea and Venezuela are unfree, poor and failed states. Baathism -- a synonym for pan-Arabic socialism -- ruined the postwar Middle East.</p>

Japan and South Korea's "Japan-Korea Military Intelligence Protection Agreement" (GSOMIA) will lapse next Saturday (23rd), Japan-Korea Foreign Ministry will hold a director-level consultation on Friday, and the Japanese side asks whether South Korea is Renewed GSOMIA to make a "wise correspondence." According to comprehensive foreign media reports, South Korea announced in August that it will not renew GSOMIA, which allows for the exchange of military intelligence between Japan and South Korea. Today, the Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Miyazaki Saki, and the South Asian Foreign Minister of the South Korean Foreign Ministry,...

Sen. John McCain cautioned Tuesday that President Donald Trump should not threaten North Korea if he was not prepared to act. "I take exception to the president's comments, because you got to be sure you can do what you say you're going to do," the Arizona Republican told "The Mac & Gaydos Show" on KTAR-FM in Phoenix. President Trump told reporters in New Jersey that further threats from Pyongyang would be "met with fire and fury like the world has never seen." "North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States," Trump said. "They will be met...

“North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in April said he would give the U.S. until the end of the year to become more flexible on nuclear talks. Since then, he's launched 12 missiles to back up that warning, including a launch on Thursday. So far, though, there is no evidence the U.S. is changing its stance, meaning the situation could soon get much more volatile, as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports from Seoul”...(sound file at link)

Following Uganda’s independence in 1962, the landlocked Central African country has suffered from multiple civil wars and guerrilla movements. One of those brought Idi Amin, a tyrannical dictator, into power in 1971. During his presidency, Uganda first developed relations with North Korea. The relations between the two countries have strengthened during the Ugandan presidencies succeeding Amin until today. The first high-level cooperation between Uganda and North Korea was recorded in April of 1972 when a high-level military delegation representing the Idi Amin government partook in military celebrations in Pyongyang. During this visit, three agreements were reached between Uganda and North...

Authorities in North Korea are conducting a crackdown on illegal cellphone use after confidential information was reportedly leaked about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s recent activities, local officials and traders told RFA’s Korean Service. Illegal cellphones are believed to have been used to disseminate what were apparently sensitive details about Kim’s itinerary during his visits to Baekdu mountain and the Samjiyeon tourist zone earlier this month. An official from Ryanggang province told RFA’s Korean Service Monday that once the leak occurred, authorities moved very quickly to find its source. “The State Security Department’s censorship teams were dispatched to every...

North Korean laborers have started fighting over and stealing each other’s excrement in an attempt to meet an impossible quota collection in time to prepare fertilizer for next year’s farming season, a report revealed this week...The quota, ordered by dictator Kim Jong-un in his New Year’s address, ordered that each household should meet a quota amounting to 100 kilograms (220 pounds) per able-bodied citizen. According to local sources, the quota was intentionally unattainable because its true goal was to force citizens to pay fines and bribes for their failure to meet the necessary targets.

President Donald Trump is one of the most controversial world leaders in modern times, igniting the ire of America’s staunchest allies. Whether it’s the proposed Muslim ban, the US border wall and immigration, or his praise of authoritarian leaders, Trump is deft at inciting deep divisions among the public. In 2018, political scientist Daniel Drezner summarized this consensus in The Washington Post: “The world hates President Trump.” Data from the Pew Research Center illustrates Drezner’s thinking. For the residents of US allies, their confidence in the US president dropped substantially from the last year of Obama’s presidency to the beginning...

By Yi Whan-woo, Kim Yoo-chul As nuclear negotiations between North Korea and the United States remain in a stalemate after no "substantial outcome" from their recent encounter in Sweden, the lack of visible progress in the denuclearization dialogue is raising concerns that the North is "buying time" for its military and nuclear advancement. During an Asan Institute for Policy Studies security forum held in Seoul, Tuesday, Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the Washington-based RAND Corporation, claimed that despite North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's promise to end his nuclear program, Pyongyang has not taken any meaningful measures toward this....

WASHINGTON: Ousted National Security Advisor John Bolton said Kim Jong Un “will never give up” nuclear weapons voluntarily — an implicit warning to his former boss. Bolton was restating a consensus view of the Intelligence Community, one that runs counter to President Trump’s faith that the North Korean dynast can be wheedled and cajoled. Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies today, Bolton attracted a forest of TV cameras hoping for some fireworks. They probably thought they were getting something hot when Bolton made his comment about North Korea but, as Breaking D readers know, the Intelligence Community’s...

Rescuers made contact Monday with four crew members stuck inside a South Korea-owned cargo ship that overturned and caught fire near a major port in Georgia over the weekend, said the U.S. Coast Guard, adding that officials are working to free the quartet from the massive vessel, The Golden Ray, a 656-foot vehicle carrier, listed "heavily" and then rolled over on its side early Sunday in St. Simons Sound near Brunswick, Ga., according to the Coast Guard. Rescuers drilled a hole overnight through the ship's hull and made contact with the four crew members, who had been listed as missing....

The largest solar panel production facility of its kind in the Western Hemisphere is continuing to add staff at its $157 million factory in Dalton, Georgia, which began production six months ago. The Korean solar panel maker Hanwha Q CELLS is conducting a hiring fair Thursday in Dalton, Georgia, as it adds another 50 jobs at its 200,000-square-foot plant in the Carbondale Business Park in Dalton. The plant already employs 600 workers and is expects to reach full production — and to conduct a ceremonial ribbon cutting — in the next month. "Our first products shipped from the factory this...

Pesident Donald Trump said on Monday that Iran and North Korea have "tremendous potential" he hoped to help them achieve should they reach deals with the United States. Trump made the remarks Monday at the G7 summit in the French city of Biarritz, where he was joined by fellow leaders from Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif too arrived in the city for separate consultations with France that were apparently welcomed by Trump. "I'm looking to have a really good Iran, really strong, we're not looking for...

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday the United States has a really good relationship with North Korea and that the country's leader, Kim Jong-un, has been "pretty straight" with him. "Kim Jong-un has been ... pretty straight with me," Trump told reporters at the White House after North Korea fired what appeared to be two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast, according to the South Korean military. (Reuters) Earlier North Korea fired two suspected short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast Saturday in the seventh weapons launch in a month, South Korea's military said, a...

Diplomatic Rift Between Japan, South Korea Makes U.S. Intel Gathering Harder By: Ben Werner August 22, 2019 5:30 PM The South Korean government’s intent to end an intelligence-sharing agreement with Japan is more than a slight toward its neighbor, but a blow to U.S. efforts at monitoring North Korean activities and countering Chinese influence, experts say. South Korea announced Thursday it doesn’t plan to renew the General Security of Military Information Agree (GSOMIA) with Japan and the U.S., the latest escalation in a brewing diplomatic spat between Seoul and Tokyo. The announcement from South Korea’s Moon Jae-in administration follows moves...

In a move likely to have implications for Japan, U.S. President Donald Trump claimed Wednesday that discussions have begun with South Korea to get the Asian ally to pay more for the cost of maintaining U.S. troops there. “South Korea has agreed to pay substantially more money to the United States in order to defend itself from North Korea,” Trump wrote in a Twitter post, saying that Seoul had paid the U.S. “very little” over the “past many decades.” “Talks have begun to further increase payments to the United States,” he wrote. “South Korea is a very wealthy nation that...

BERKELEY HEIGHTS, N.J. (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that North Korea's Kim Jong Un wants to meet once again to "start negotiations" after joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises end. He also said Kim apologized for the flurry of recent short-range missile tests that has rattled U.S. allies in the region. Trump is tweeting more details from the "beautiful" three-page letter he told reporters on Friday that he'd received from Kim. Trump, who is on vacation at his golf club in New Jersey, said Kim spent much of his letter complaining about "the ridiculous and expensive exercises," which North...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said this week's missile launches were an "adequate warning" against the joint military exercise between South Korea and the United States that kicked off earlier this week, state media reported Wednesday. On Tuesday, North Korea fired two projectiles believed to be short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea, the fourth such launch in less than two weeks. They flew about 450 kilometers across the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). "Two tactical guided missiles launched at the operational airfield in the western area of the country flew...

President Trump has left his mark on North Korea. Literally. In June, North Korea released a set of stamps commemorating the one-year anniversary of the Singapore summit, when Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in an attempt to de-escalate tensions between the two countries, as well as to nudge North Korea toward the process of denuclearization. The stamps, which were originally reported by Kyodo News, are reportedly on sale in Pyongyang and show things like Trump and Kim shaking hands or the two leaders signing a joint agreement after the meeting. The stamps were apparently a hit,...