Free Republic

A year ago the Left was convinced that President Donald Trump was going to plunge the world into nuclear war in Korea. Today it is upset because he hasn’t done so — or at least has yet to achieve what no other president managed to do, force the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to disgorge its nuclear weapons. Neoconservatives are mad that he is talking with instead of bombing the North’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. And that the president has mooted the possibility of withdrawing U.S. troops from South Korea. It doesn’t seem to matter what he does or doesn’t...

A North Korean diplomat who was until recently acting ambassador to Italy has gone missing after reports he was seeking asylum in the West. The diplomat, Jo Song-gil, disappeared with his wife and children after leaving the embassy without notice in early November, according to Kim Min-ki, a South Korean politician who was briefed by the National Intelligence Service. The Seoul-based JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, citing an unidentified diplomatic source, said Mr Jo, 48, had applied for asylum to an unspecified Western country and was in a "safe place" with his family under the protection of the Italian Government. But a...

North Korea’s claim last week that it had tested an unidentified “ultramodern tactical weapon” highlighted its desire to upgrade its conventional arms and reassure its military even as talks are under way to end its nuclear program, analysts said. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un witnessed the test of a newly developed tactical weapon that could serve as a “steel wall”, state media reported on Friday, without giving details of the weapon. It was Kim’s first observation of a weapons test this year and could complicate already stalled nuclear talks with the United States, although Washington and Seoul downplayed the...

North Korea has ordered its citizens to donate dog hides to the regime as part of celebrations marking the 73rd anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea on October 10. The government collects dog hides ahead of the anniversary each year “to raise funds for the party”, the dissident Daily NK website reported, but this year the authorities have raised the amount of money that families who do not keep dogs are required to pay instead. “Although the party is asking for dog hides, there are not many houses that have the luxury of raising a dog...

North Korea warned the US in a recent letter that talks are "again at stake and may fall apart," adding that it may resume "nuclear and missile activities" if its demands are not met. President Donald Trump unexpectedly canceled what was expected to be Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's fourth trip to Pyongyang last Friday due to insufficient progress on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The decision was preceded by a "belligerent" letter that criticized his administration for failing "to meet (North Korean) expectations in terms of taking a step forward to sign a peace treaty," CNN reported Tuesday,...

US president Donald Trump said on Friday he had cancelled secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s planned trip to North Korea because “we are not making sufficient progress” toward the goal of denuclearising the Korean peninsula. Mr Trump said in a message on Twitter that Mr Pompeo’s visit, which was set for next week, now would likely not take place until after Washington has resolved its trade dispute with China. Mr Trump said China was no longer helping on the North Korea issue. It was a dramatic shift of tone for Mr Trump, who had previously hailed his June summit with...

Recent comments by North Korea’s foreign minister could signal that dictator Kim Jong Un may break his vague pledge to President Trump to dismantle the North’s nuclear weapons and missile programs. Since Kim, his father and grandfather who ruled before him all have a well-documented history of lying about North Korea’s military aims when it suits their interests, it should not come as a shock that Kim is continuing the proud family tradition. If so, Northeast Asia could very well be headed right back to the brink of war, with few options left to avoid what could be a dangerous...

Newly obtained evidence, including satellite photos taken in recent weeks, indicates that work is underway on at least one and possibly two liquid-fueled ICBMs at a large research facility in Sanumdong, on the outskirts of Pyongyang, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe classified intelligence. The findings are the latest to show ongoing activity inside North Korea’s nuclear and missile facilities at a time when the country’s leaders are engaged in arms talks with the United States. The new intelligence does not suggest an expansion of North Korea’s capabilities but shows that work on...

One of three Americans who were freed from North Korea on Thursday asked to be let off the US State Department plane which brought them home as it refuelled in Alaska because he had not seen daylight for 'a very long time', it has been revealed. Kim Dong- chul, Kim Hak-song and Kim Sang-duk, also known as Tony Kim, arrived at Joint Air Base Andrews in Maryland at 2 am on Thursday. They were greeted by President Trump and the first lady on the tarmac. At around 6pm, their plane stopped in Anchorage, Alaska, to refuel where one of the...

Donald Trump has said that Russia is helping North Korea get supplies in violation of international sanctions and that Pyongyang is getting “closer every day” to being able to deliver a long-range missile to the United States. “Russia is not helping us at all with North Korea,” Trump said during an Oval Office interview with Reuters. “What China is helping us with, Russia is denting. In other words, Russia is making up for some of what China is doing.”

Despite the “rise and fall of the unipolar concert,” China and Russia’s balancing strategies have backfired: they are not leading to multipolarity, but are actually reinforcing unipolarity. The reason is that China and Russia’s balancing strategies have focused on regional “revisionism,” which has provoked powerful responses in East Asia and Europe to contain them. Russia’s balancing strategy has to a large extent proven to be counter-productive. Instead of preventing the expansion of NATO through a “divide and conquer” strategy, or driving a diplomatic wedge between the United States and Europe, Russian revisionism has united NATO...Perhaps most illustrative of all, a...

Franklin’s father, Billy, visited the DPRK in 1992 and 1994, and his mother Ruth returned in 1997 after attending high school in Pyongyang in the 1930s. “When I was growing up my mother spoke often about her experiences here, and one of the high points of her life was the opportunity she had to return in 1997,” Franklin said when he landed at Pyongyang airport in 2008. At the conclusion of her six-day visit in 1997, Mrs. Graham summarized her experience as one of the true highlights of her life. “Almost nothing remains from my school days here during the...

Two Chinese Christian pastors who are preparing to evangelize in North Korea say they are ready for whatever trials come, even death. According to ChristianToday.com, the two pastors are aware of the dangers they will face in North Korea, but they maintain committed to sharing the gospel with the North Koreans. North Korea is ranked as the number one worst country for Christian persecution by Open Doors World Watch List. One example of a Christian missionary facing horrendous violence in North Korea is the case of a Korean-Chinese church leader who evangelized in the country for 17 years before his...

Crew on board a Cathay Pacific plane flying over Japan reported a suspected sighting of last week's North Korean missile test, the airline said. The company confirmed to the BBC that crew witnessed "what is suspected to be the re-entry" of the missile into the earth's atmosphere. 'Blew up and fell apart' Described by Pyongyang as its "most powerful" missile, the 29 November launch ended up in Japanese waters but flew higher than any other the North had previously tested. According to the South China Morning Post, Cathay's general manager of operations Mark Hoey told staff in a message that...

Commercial satellite imagery of the Sinpo South Shipyard from November 5 indicates that North Korea is on an aggressive schedule to build and deploy its first operational ballistic missile submarine. The continued movement of parts and components into and out of the parts yards adjacent to the construction halls indicates an ongoing shipbuilding program. The presence of what appear to be sections of a submarine’s pressure hull in the yards suggests construction of a new submarine, possibly the SINPO-C ballistic missile submarine (SSB)[1]—the follow-on to the current SINPO-class experimental ballistic missile submarine (SSBA).[2] A probable launch canister support, or launch...

North Korea will not return to the six party talks unless issues with the US are resolved, a high level North Korean diplomat said Saturday. According to reports citing participants of the Moscow Nonproliferation Conference, North Korean Foreign Ministry’s Director General of North America Affairs Choi Sun-hee said that Pyongyang will not return to six party talks, and that the country will only negotiate with the US. “Suggestions from various countries are welcome, but as the US is the country that is trying to pressure and to bring about the collapse of North Korea, the issue must be resolved with...

North Korea has warned it will not be intimidated by Donald Trump's threats in an "unprecedented" letter sent to other countries. "If Trump thinks that he would bring the DPRK, a nuclear power, to its knees through nuclear war threat, it will be a big miscalculation and an expression of ignorance," the letter said. "Trump threatened to totally destroy the DPRK ... it is an extreme act of threatening to totally destroy the whole world." The document was published by the Sydney Morning Herald and has been verified by Australia's foreign ministry. Foreign minister Julie Bishop described the missive as...

Chinese police asked South Korean citizens near the North Korea-China border to evacuate the area due to risks of an attack and abduction by the North, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday. “We are aware that Chinese authorities have suggested South Korean citizens there evacuate on the possibility of an attack by North Korea,” the ministry here said. ocal media reports said Tuesday that Chinese police warned around 10 South Korean businesspeople, community associates and religious leaders residing near the border to evacuate due to the possibility of abduction by North Korea. They were notified during the Chuseok holiday earlier this...

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said on Wednesday it is "carefully examining" a plan to strike the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam with missiles, just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump told the North that any threat to the United States would be met with "fire and fury". A spokesman for the Korean People's Army, in a statement carried by the North's state-run KCNA news agency, said the strike plan will be "put into practice in a multi-current and consecutive way any moment" once leader Kim Jong Un makes a decision. In another statement citing a different military spokesman, North...

North Korea is considering a plan to fire missiles at Guam, state media said. A spokesman for North Korea's military told KCNA that it would carry out a pre-emptive operation if there were signs of U.S. provocation.....