Korean Sota Osa II ?

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Satellite images indicate North Korea has begun dismantling key facilities at a site used to develop engines for ballistic missiles, in a first step toward fulfilling a pledge made to US President Donald Trump at a June summit, reports a Washington-based think tank.

The images from 20 July showed work at the Sohae satellite launching station to dismantle a building used to assemble space-launch vehicles and a nearby rocket engine test stand used to develop liquid-fuel engines for ballistic missiles and space-launch vehicles, the 38 North think tank said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...dismantling-of-missile-test-facilities-report

“Since these facilities are believed to have played an important role in the development of technologies for the North’s intercontinental ballistic missile program, these efforts represent a significant confidence-building measure on the part of North Korea,” it said in a report.

Trump said after his unprecedented June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore Kim had promised that a major missile engine testing site would be destroyed very soon.

Trump did not identify the site, but a U.S. official subsequently told Reuters that it was Sohae.

An official said on Tuesday South Korea’s presidential Blue House was briefed about the site’s dismantlement based on government intelligence but did not elaborate.

According to Yonhap, Nam Gwan-pyo, deputy director of the South’s national security office, said: “It’s better than doing nothing.”

“And it seems like they are going step by step toward denuclearization,” Nam said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-facilities-at-test-site-report-idUSKBN1KD2HW

The US has urged Russia and China to clamp down on repeated breaches of the oil sanctions regime imposed on North Korea, saying America had evidence of at least 89 illegal ship-to-ship oil transfers this year.

Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, was speaking at the UN headquarters in New York on Friday, the day after Russia and China at the UN sanctions committee rejected a US call to step up sanctions saying it needed further evidence of North Korean sanctions evasion.

The Russian and Chinese decision at the UN was the first fissure in the international alliance putting pressure on Pyongyang to act on its commitment to end its efforts to become a nuclear power and effectively delayed further discussions on extra sanctions for as long as six months.

The US claims on the basis of intelligence that North Korea using ship-to-ship transfers in international waters has breached a cap of 500,000 barrels of refined oil a year – imposed by the security council in December. The US had demanded an immediate halt to all further oil transfers. “Strict enforcement of sanctions” was critical to achieving the goal of North Korea’s denuclearisation, Pompeo said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/20/north-korea-mike-pompeo-russia-china-oil-sanctions

 

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The remains of an unknown number of US soldiers killed in the Korean war have been handed over by North Korea, in a move hailed by Donald Trump as a “great moment”.

A US military transport plane flew to an airfield in North Korea’s north-eastern city of Wonsan to bring the remains to Osan air base in the South, the statement said.

A formal repatriation ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday at Osan.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...remains-us-soldiers-killed-in-korean-war-dead

 

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Defense Secretary Jim Mattis met with Pentagon reporters Friday and took many questions on the return of possible war remains from North Korea. He spoke on what it means for military families who have never had closure, and how the U.S. will verify the remains are real.

Q: We’ve been working [for] years and years to get the remains back, what does it mean for you personally?

Mattis: “What it means for us. We have families, that when they got the telegram, have never had closure. They’ve never, you know, gone out and had the body returned. So what we’re seeing here is an opportunity to give those families closure. To make certain that we continue to look for those remaining.”

“By the way, you noticed it was a U.N. blue flag on each of the boxes. Many of the U.N. nations with us also have missing. We don’t know who is in those boxes. As we discover it, they will be returned. They could go to Australia, they have missing. France has missing. The Americans – there’s a whole lot of us. So this is an international effort to bring closure for those families.”

Q: Two years ago, North Korean officials offered to repatriate 200 remains. So, why only 55 caskets?

Mattis: “We can’t go back in and verify what the number they had was. We know what they said. But for us, we’ll simply say this is obviously a gesture of carrying forward what they agreed to in Singapore, and we take it as such. We also look at it as a first step in a restarted process. So we do want to explore additional efforts to bring others home, perhaps have our own teams go in.”

Q: Have the North Koreans provided any evidence that the remains they provided to the U.S. service members, and not, say, North Korean remains?

“The reason those remains aren’t on their way back to the United States right now, is, that they are first going to be reviewed initially there in Korea. and we’ll look for any anomalies where they’re not what we think they might be. And then the forensics will begin when we land them in Hawaii, where the laboratory is. But we have no indications that there is anything amiss. But we don’t know, we can’t confirm it one way or another. That is why we go through all of the forensics.”


Q: You said earlier today there’s a possibility U.S. teams may eventually go into North Korea to look for additional remains?

Mattis: “That would be worked out. It certainly is something we’re interested in exploring with the North Koreans.“

Q: Does that mean that for the forseeable future there will be no joint wargames with South Korea?

Mattis: “No, it’s unrelated to that.”

Q: What’s the next step?

Mattis: “We’ll have to sort it out. Obviously we want to continue this sort of humanitarian effort.”

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/...ins-north-korea-sent-are-real-qa-with-mattis/

 

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In the summer of 2018 a flurry of reports confirmed that North Korea has continued construction of a second ballistic-missile submarine, designated the Sinpo-C by intelligence analysts after the shipyard in eastern North Korea. South Korean representative Kim Hack-yong told the Wall Street Journal that South Korean intelligence officials had reported activity and new materials around the construction site of the submarine. For context, Kim is a member of a conservative party which is skeptical of President Moon Jae-in’s diplomatic outreach to Pyongyang.

The Sinpo-C is estimated to displace more than 2,000 tons and have a beam of 11 meters, making it the largest vessel in the Korean People’s Navy. The KPN operates roughly 70 submarines, technically giving it one of the largest submarine fleets on the planet—but most of the submarines are very small types incapable of sailing far from the Korean Peninsula.

The existence of the new submarine had first been publicized in October 2017 by Ankit Panda of the The Diplomat based on U.S. military intelligence reports passed on by government sources. Then in November the website 38North published detailed satellite photos showing new construction and testing activity at Sinpo, including 7-meter diameter components which may be segments of the pressure hull. Multiple submarine ejections tests were observed earlier that year, including a failed launch in September that reportedly killed one Korean according to Japanese newspaper Asahi Simbun. Then in 2018, a launch tube likely for a new type of Pukkuksong Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) was seen installed on a test facility.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/coming-soon-north-koreas-nukes-could-go-underwater-27106

 

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Pohjois-Korea vaikuttaa rakentavan parhaillaan uusia ohjuksia, kertoo Washington Post (siirryt toiseen palveluun)asiasta perillä oleviin lähteisiinsä vedoten. Samalla tehtaalla tehtiin aiemmin mannertenväliset ballistiset ohjukset, joilla maa teki onnistuneet ohjuskokeet. Ohjusten rakentaminen on osa maan ydinaseohjelmaa.

– Me näemme, että he työskentelevät aivan kuten aiemmin, sanoi nimettömänä pysyttelevä yhdysvaltalainen virkamies.

Lehden tiedot perustuvat yhdysvaltalaiseen salaiseksi luokiteltuun tiedustelutietoon, josta lehdelle ovat kertoneet nimettömät lähteet. Yhdysvaltojen tiedusteluviranomaiset ovat nähneet ohjusten rakentamiseen viittaavaa toimintaa muun muassa tuoreissa satelliittikuvissa.

Pohjois-Korean johtaja Kim Jong-un lupasi kesäkuussa Yhdysvaltojen presidentille Donald Trumpille maansa pyrkivän Korean niemimaan riisumiseen ydinaseista, kirjoittaa STT. Monet analyytikot ja riippumattomat asiantuntijat katsovat kuitenkin, että purkaminen on pitkälti symbolista. Testiasema voidaan helposti rakentaa uudelleen kuukauden sisällä.

Useat yhdysvaltalaiset virkamiehet ja yksityiset analyytikot ovat sanoneet, että Pohjois-Korean aseiden monimutkaisen toiminnan jatkuminen ei ole yllättävää. Kim ei ole antanut julkista lupausta huippukokouksessa pysäyttääkseen työtä eri puolilla maata hajallaan olevien ydinaseiden ja ohjusten suhteen.

https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-10329817

Syksyllä uusi rakettikoe taikka koeräjäytys sitten kun perunat ja muut juurekset on saatu ylös maasta.

 

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North Korea’s top diplomat accused the United States of failing to live up to President Trump’s agreement with its leader, Kim Jong-un, warning on Saturday that the country would not start denuclearizing unless Washington took reciprocal actions.

Speaking at a closed-door session at a regional security forum in Singapore, Ri Yong-ho, North Korea’s foreign minister, said his country had taken a series of actions toward denuclearization, such as halting nuclear and missile tests, demolishing an underground nuclear test site and dismantling a missile engine test site.

But Mr. Ri said that Washington was dragging its feet in taking corresponding measures to build mutual confidence and improve ties with Pyongyang. Such steps, Mr. Ri said, include easing sanctions and declaring an end to the 1950-53 Korean War as a prelude to negotiating a formal peace treaty to replace the armistice that halted the war 65 years ago.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/04/world/asia/north-korea-us-nuclear-deal.html

 

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Dictator Kim Jong-Un wants to create an army of super soldiers who will obey his every command. Genetic scientists have spent billions on a secret cloning programme started by Kim’s grandfather more than 30 years ago.

Now intelligence experts believe the 35-year-old tyrant wants to create perfect copies of both his father Kim Jong-il, grandfather Kim II-Sung, the founder of the modern state, and other family members – which could include himself.

MI6 believes the secretive Communist state has already cloned cats, dogs and horses – and has been experimenting on human embryos for at least 10 years.

Senior spooks working alongside the US intelligence agency the CIA have uncovered information suggesting human cloning has taken place at two secret laboratories.

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/721244/north-korea-cloning-kim-jong-un-world-war-3

Xiltä tuli määräys kloonauksen aloittamiseksi. Minkä Kimi sille voi? Määräys on määräys.

 

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United Nations Security Council Resolution 2397 came into effect in December 2017 and restricts virtually all North Korean exports by building on previous resolutions that had already stifled 90% of the country’s trade.1 North Korean imports also received their strictest limits to date. The latest resolution caps North Korean imports at 500,000 barrels of refined petroleum and 4,000,000 barrels of crude oil per year.2 It is believed North Korea has been importing around 4 million barrels of crude oil (around 500,000 tons) and 4.5 million barrels of refined oil (around 640,000 tons) annually, mostly diesel and gasoline, according to the US Department of State3. While the majority of this trade is believed to originate in China, this report finds that a substantial amount also comes from Russia, which is not declared in the official trade statistics: The report found indications that 622,878 tons of refined oil has been transported to North Korea from Russia between 2015-2017, representing around one third of North Korea’s total refined oil imports during the same period.

Since North Korea’s first nuclear weapons test in 2006, the UN has levied 10 rounds of sanctions, including four in 2017 alone.4 At the same time, the US maintains a comprehensive unilateral ban on all North Korean imports and exports. There are indications that these sanctions are beginning to have an effect on the North Korean economy, particularly as China cracks down on cross border trade.5 But as this report will show, official records do not always reflect the full scope of North Korean dealings. Despite international efforts, at every step, North Korea has found ways to maneuver around the restrictions, aided by a wide network of multinational enablers and middlemen.

North Korea’s trade practices have two goals: to acquire foreign currency and to use that currency to import basic supplies for the regime’s survival, such as petroleum products, as well as luxury goods for elites and components for their nuclear and ballistic missile programs. While virtually all North Korean financial institutions are cut off from the global financial system directly, these entities funnel money through a network of shell companies and foreign accounts in order to pay for the required goods. Often money will pass through several layers of ownership in multiple countries before the final purchase occurs. In order to bring the goods into the country, North Korea relies on both the land borders between China and Russia, as well as maritime transport. At the key points of overland trade, particularly Dandong in China, traffic has fallen significantly and customs measures have improved, although there are still opportunities for illicit cross border trade. Maritime transport has also become increasingly difficult for the regime, as virtually all of the nation’s ships are sanctioned and subject to searches. So to get around these restrictions, North Korea takes advantage of legal and technical loopholes. North Koreans often use “flags of convenience,” by which they conceal the ownership of the vessel by registering the ships in third countries. North Korean ships also disable their Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponders in order to hide their location. They will frequently change vessel names and identification numbers, even painting over or altering the numbers on the ships’ exteriors.6 Recently North Korean ships have been observed transferring oil in open waters via ship-to-ship transfers. These and other practices are commonly used to manipulate the system and acquire the resources that the regime needs to survive.

http://en.asaninst.org/contents/the-rise-of-phantom-traders-russian-oil-exports-to-north-korea/

National security adviser John Bolton said Tuesday that North Korea has not made progress toward denuclearization in a dismal acknowledgment that comes nearly two months after President Trump held a historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore.

“The United States has lived up to the Singapore declaration. It’s just North Korea that has not taken the steps we feel are necessary to denuclearize,” Bolton said in an interview on Fox News Channel on Tuesday morning.

He added the United States will continue to apply pressure until Pyongyang produces results.

“The idea that we’re going to relax the sanctions just on North Korea’s say-so, I think, is something that just isn’t under consideration,” Bolton said. “We’re going to continue to apply maximum pressure to North Korea until they denuclearize, just as we are to Iran.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...6c594024954_story.html?utm_term=.8c9fe9bfd2fb

 

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North Korea

has denounced US calls for international sanctions to be enforced despite Pyongyang’s goodwill moves, saying progress on denuclearisation cannot be expected if Washington follows an “outdated acting script”.

North Korea’s foreign ministry said on Thursday that Pyongyang had stopped nuclear and missile tests, dismantled a nuclear test ground and returned the remains of US soldiers killed in the 1950-53 Korean war. Yet Washington was still insisting on “denuclearisation first” and had “responded to our expectation by inciting international sanctions and pressure”.

“As long as the US denies even the basic decorum for its dialogue partner and clings to the outdated acting script which the previous administrations have all tried and failed, one cannot expect any progress in the implementation of the DPRK-US joint statement including the denuclearisation,” the ministry said.

The statement on the KCNA state news agency said North Korea, which calls itself the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, was still willing to implement a broad agreement made at a landmark 12 June summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-hits-out-at-us-for-call-to-enforce-sanctions

 

[jokuvaan]

https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-10347951

"Kuumuus ja kuivuus ovat tuhoamassa maissi- ja riisisadot Pohjois-Korean pelloille, Kansainvälinen Punainen Risti toteaa raportissaan. "

Kansan kärsimykset jatkuvat.

 

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A bill signed by President Donald Trump on Monday asks the Pentagon to pursue more options for defeating U.S.-bound North Korean missiles by using radar and more missiles to spot and shoot down inbound threats.

The National Defense Authorization Act gives the Pentagon $716 billion, with almost $10 billion going to the Missile Defense Agency to fund the expansion of missile defenses, emphasizing the need to stop any North Korean or Iranian attacks.

The military is already exploring whether the United States can add another layer to defenses to those already in place for intercepting incoming missiles in flight, Keith Englander, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s director for engineering, said at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, last week.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-stopping-north-korean-missiles-idUSKBN1KY298

 

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The South Korean president has called for the creation of road and rail links between his country and North Korea by the end of the year.

Moon Jae-in proposed creating a “Northeast Asian railroad community” between the two Koreas, the United States and four unnamed parties in a speech marking the 73rd anniversary of the end of Japanese colonial rule on the Korean peninsula. The presidential office later said the other partners would include China, Russia, Japan and Mongolia.

However, the proposition is complicated by international sanctions meant to punish the North for its nuclear program.

Moon pointed to the early days of the European Union as a model, where the trade and political bloc began as a steel and coal trading community. He also suggested increased contacts and potential economic cooperation could be a driving force towards denuclearisation.

“Even though a political unification may be a long way from here, establishing peace between the South and the North and freely visiting each other, and forming a joint economic community is true liberation to us,” Moon said according to a translation by Yonhap news.

“This community will lead to an energy bloc and economic bloc in north-east Asia by expanding our economic area to the northern continent and becoming the foundation of co-existence and prosperity in north-east Asia. And this will mark the start to a multilateral security system in north-east Asia.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/15/south-korea-moon-train-rail-road-north-end-of-year

 

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As a reward for its broader foray into diplomacy, North Korea wants a formal and official declared end to the decades-long Korean War that settled into an uneasy truce in 1953. South Korea wants this, too.

But the United States, which first sent military forces to the Korean Peninsula in 1950 and still keeps 28,500 troops there, is not ready to agree to a peace declaration.

No doubt the issue will be high on the agenda when the leaders of the two Koreas hold their third summit meeting next month, in Pyongyang. Both want the end of the war to be declared this year with the United States and, possibly, China. And North Korea insists on securing the declaration before moving forward with denuclearization.

But there is a range of reasons American officials have refused so far to embrace a formal peace declaration. The Trump administration wants North Korea to first halt its nuclear weapons program — a tough line that could create a divergence between the United States and South Korea, its ally.
In turn, analysts said, that gives an opening to North Korea — and maybe China and Russia — to exploit the gap between Washington and Seoul.

“You have South Korea moving so quickly on these projects to push for reconciliation with North Korea, and in Washington you have people pushing for denuclearization before anything else happens,” said Jean H. Lee, director of the Wilson Center’s center for Korean history and public policy. “They have very different end games and very different time frames. It’s very problematic.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/13/world/asia/korea-peace-treaty-trump-us.html

 

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The talks between the United States and North Korea over the North’s denuclearization have ground to a halt. Both sides have moved a little in the last few months and are now pushing for exorbitant concessions based on mild, earlier concessions. The result is a stalemate.

This disconnect was entirely predictable. The North and United States are separated by an ideological and strategic gulf. Most of the expert community argued in the spring that President Donald Trump wildly overrated the likelihood that a North Korean denuclearization and peace were at hand. That skepticism is now vindicated. Any denuclearization of North Korea will almost certainly take much longer than the one- or two-year frameworks thrown around by Trump administration.

On the American side, the Trump administration continues to make unrealistic demands North Korea will never assent to. For months, this was CVID—the complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament of North Korea. The sheer scale of that demand was staggering. North Korea spent over forty years developing these weapons. To give them all up—“complete”—would have been an astonishing concession unparalleled in the history of nuclear diplomacy. Verifiability would have meant an intrusive inspection regime, and irreversibility would have meant the psychical removal of the human capital behind the program—that is, thousands of North Korean nuclear technicians and their families. None of that was ever remotely credible.

Just as astonishingly, the Trump administration did not even bother to suggest a swap or trade for CVID. Team Trump seemed to think that North Korea could simply be bullied into it. Unsurprisingly, the Trump administration has since dropped such fantastical language. But it is now pushing another unrealistic proposal—that North Korea give up sixty to seventy percent of its arsenal. While less heroic than CVID, this is so over-optimistic, that one has to wonder if this proposal is driven by something else, such as the utility of North Korea negotiations as talking point in the upcoming U.S. congressional elections. Once again, Team Trump is showing its lack of seriousness by not even developing a concrete swap offer.

The North Koreans have come back with their own unlikely proposal—a formal peace treaty among the United States, North Korea, South Korea, and China. This apparently is merited by North Korea’s return of the remains of U.S. soldiers missing in action from the Korean War. Like CVID-for-nothing, this is grossly imbalanced. A peace treaty is of great value to the North—for legitimacy purposes, while simultaneously delegitimizing the United States/United Nations presence in the South—but of little value to the allied side. It also illustrates yet again North Korea’s harsh willingness to exploit humanitarian issues for strategic gain, much as it is using upcoming inter-Korean family reunions as a political tool in inter-Korean negotiations.

The great misconception about a peace treaty is that it is about peace in Korea. That is not really the case. It is true that the Korean War has not formally stopped, but the armistice— peace—has held, as have the deterrence and containment of North Korea, for seven decades. “Peace” in Korea does not require this treaty, nor will the treaty bring a meaningful reduction in tension or spur sudden demobilization on both sides. The political divisions between the robust democracy of South Korea and personality cult totalitarianism of North Korea are so large that no legal statement will suddenly do away with that. A cold peace is possible—just as there was between the United States and Soviet Union in the Cold War, but we already have that. A treaty is not necessary for that.

https://nationalinterest.org/featur...e-wildly-unrealistic-demands-each-other-28947

If there must be a peace treaty, then at least the United States must demand something very substantial for it. North Korea’s callous manipulation of America’s humanitarian interests in family reunions and MIA returns is not nearly enough for this.

Historian sivuilta Pohjois Vietnamin pommitukset jatkuivat siihen pisteeseen kunnes he päättivät luovuttaa sotavangit ja tehdä sopimuksen kuolleiden palautuksista. Sitten koko homma lässähti niin pahasti että jenkeillä ei ollut edustusta kolmeenkymmeneen vuoteen Vietnamissa. Kimille ei pitäisi olla iso asia nuo kuolleiden palautukset, paljon isompi asia on ajaa ydinteollisuus alas. Joten kuten on sanottu, en usko että rauhaa tulee niin pitkään kun PKllä on kyky pommittaa Jenkkejä ydinpötköillä. En myöskään usko siihen että kenelläkään on kunnos käsitystä mitä kaikkea Kimin dynastia on vehkeillyt taustalla, mutta syksy on melkein täällä. Oletan että lokakuuhun mennessä tulee uusi ohjuskokeilu.

 

[Mortti]

En myöskään usko siihen että kenelläkään on kunnos käsitystä mitä kaikkea Kimin dynastia on vehkeillyt taustalla, mutta syksy on melkein täällä. Oletan että lokakuuhun mennessä tulee uusi ohjuskokeilu.

Kaippa Putin Kimin kanssa jotain kivaa pientä keksii, varsinkin nyt kun USA:n ja Venäjän välit ovat vähän niin-ja-näin.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1029598337648021504

 

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North Korea is planning a party. Next month, the reclusive country will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the country, officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. And there are signs that the event, which will take place Sept. 9, will be a celebration to watch.

Those observing the preparations for the event have spotted practice for a military parade, while tourist visas to the country have apparently been blocked — sparking speculation about who, exactly, the VIP guests could be. According to one report, a close eye is being kept on the finest details: Ruling-party youth groups have been sent around the country to keep tabs on taboo haircuts, Radio Free Asia reports.

The North Korean state cherishes anniversaries, using them to reinforce the tale of how their small, embattled state fought off bigger foes such as imperial Japan and the United States. It often uses parades on these days to send a message to these foreign rivals. For example, on the 105th anniversary of the birth of the country’s founder, Kim Il Sung, in April last year, North Korea used the day to show off a variety of new intercontinental missiles — an early hint of the technological advances testing would later confirm.

On last year’s anniversary in September, Kim held an event where he celebrated the work of nuclear scientists and engineers who had helped the country test its biggest-ever nuclear bomb just a few days earlier. Earlier in the year, in February, North Korea had used another military parade to display the recently tested Hwasong-14 and Hwasong-15 missiles that could theoretically deliver a nuclear weapon to the continental United States.

This year’s DPRK anniversary event will be different, however. In many ways, the messaging behind it will be more complex.

North Korea was previously happy to menace the United States and other rivals with visions of military might as tensions escalated rapidly. This June, however, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with President Trump in Singapore, where they agreed to work toward peace. Kim has also held several meetings with his South Korean counterpart, President Moon Jae-in, with both sides talking hopefully of greater integration.

The negotiations that started with these meetings have been far from conclusive. In particular, North Korea and the United States seem to be at odds over the issue of denuclearization — with Washington seeking progress on North Korea giving up its nuclear weapons before other issues, such as the long-awaited official end of the Korean War, while Pyongyang clearly views things differently.

As such, although relations are nominally warmer with the United States, a surprise Trump visit to Pyongyang on Sept. 9 looks unlikely. Instead, many are expecting a different guest — Chinese President Xi Jinping — whose presence would send a message to Washington that it isn’t the only game in town.

Either way, Sept. 9 is expected to be a big event. Jeffrey Lewis, a nonproliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey who often uses satellite imagery to keep track of North Korea’s weapons program, pointed to images from Aug. 11 that appeared to show people in Pyongyang preparing their choreography for the day.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...aircuts/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ddd11bded845

North Korea pressed its demand on Friday that the United States agree to declare an end to the 1950-53 Korean War, as South Korea’s leader indicated that the American secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, was preparing for his fourth visit to the North.

Mr. Pompeo, the point man in President Trump’s efforts to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, has been struggling to follow up on the agreement reached between Mr. Trump and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, when they met in Singapore in June in the first summit meeting between their nations.

In Singapore, Mr. Kim committed to work toward the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” But the summit agreement lacked details on how to achieve that goal, and Mr. Pompeo and his team of negotiators has strained since then to win concrete action on this front from their North Korean counterparts.

When he met with representatives of political parties in Seoul on Thursday, President Moon Jae-in of South Korea said that negotiations between the United States and North Korea have recently gained “speed,” with Mr. Pompeo planning to visit North Korea again, according to Yun So-ha, an opposition leader, who briefed reporters on the meeting.

On Thursday, Mr. Pompeo said his team was “continuing to make progress” with the North Koreans, and said he hoped that “we can make a big step here before too long.”

“We’re continuing to engage in conversation with them about a path forward to a brighter future for the North Koreans,” Mr. Pompeo said Thursday during a Cabinet meeting at the White House. He also commended the North for not conducting any nuclear or missile tests since late last year.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/17/world/asia/north-korea-pompeo-visit.html

The latest hitch in negotiations has been over North Korea’s demand that the United States join the two Koreas in declaring an end to the Korean War. The conflict was halted with an armistice that was signed in 1953, but for decades the North has demanded that the United States negotiate a peace treaty to formally end the war.

Recently, it has renewed its push for a political statement in which the two Koreas and the United States — and perhaps, China too — jointly declare an end to the war, as a prelude to complex negotiations for replacing the armistice with a peace treaty.

Mr. Moon supports the proposal, arguing that such a statement will help ease tensions and encourage North Korea to denuclearize. When he met with Mr. Kim in April for their first summit, the two Korean leaders agreed to push for such a declaration this year.

But United States officials fear that North Korea may be seeking such a declaration to undermine the rationale for the United States military presence in South Korea without getting any commitment by Pyongyang to relinquish its nuclear weapons. They insist that North Korea take meaningful steps toward dismantling its nuclear weapons program before Washington makes any such concessions.

But the North has pushed back.

“There is no reason to ignore a declaration to end the war,” said a commentary in the Rodong Sinmun, North Korea’s main state-run newspaper, on Friday. “It is a preliminary and essential process to pave the ground for easing tensions and building permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula.”

 

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They say the games vary from "Grand Theft Auto 5," "FIFA Online" and "Project IGI2" and that "every one of" their friends played them when they (the defectors) were in the reclusive state.

Such popularity comes as North Korea introduces its own computer and video games.

"I played almost all of the most famous South Korean video games in North Korea ... Every one of my friends has played foreign video games," a defector, 14, told Daily NK in Seoul recently.

"All kids learn about the game and play it once it is carried on a USB stick and hits the streets."

The defector said it was uncertain where the games originated, although it is speculated they are being smuggled from China.

Another defector said game lovers could play in a group by connecting their computers via LAN cables.

"Being able to connect a LAN cable and play games means they knew quite a lot about computers," he said.

He added North Korean authorities found it difficult to crack down on the computer game players because they hid the games by changing the names of files and their types.

"The authorities don't actively go after players of foreign computer games, and it's easy to change the filename extension of the document to mp3 .avi .doc .jpg, etc. in order to hide it in plain sight," he said.

"People aren't worried about getting caught playing foreign games because the authorities are focused on cracking down on South Korean movies and dramas."

Meanwhile, a third source said North Korea was producing its own computer and video games.

According to the Sunday Express in the U.K., North Korea introduced a first-person shooting game titled "Hunting Yankee" last year.

It challenges players to shoot American troops and was one of the war-themed video games linked to the North's repeated missile tests last year.

The Express said the North Korean Advanced Technology Research Institute separately developed three games that were available on mobile phones _ "Confrontation War," "Guardian," and "Goguryeo Battlefield."

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2018/08/103_254075.html

 

[ctg]

A new report from the UN's nuclear watchdog expresses "grave concern" that North Korea is continuing to develop its nuclear program, despite the regime's commitment to work towards denuclearization following June's summit in Singapore.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) wrote in the report published Monday that inspectors have not been granted access to key nuclear sites in North Korea, including the research facility at Yongbyon. The agency used satellite imagery and open-source reports to conclude that construction has resumed or continued at several locations in and around the site.

The agency, based in Geneva, said the North's continued nuclear activities constitute "clear violations of relevant UN Security Council resolutions" and "are deeply regrettable."

"The continuation and further development of the DPRK's nuclear programme and related statements by the DPRK are a cause for grave concern," the report said, referring to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name. The agency said inspectors would be able to move quickly to inspect the North's nuclear sites if inspectors are granted access, reiterating comments by the agency's director last year.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iaea-n...continuation-of-north-koreas-nuclear-program/

 

[Mortti]

Taas soudetaan ja huovataan.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1033045273361178624

https://twitter.com/x/status/1033045280143355904

 

[ctg]

Pohjois-Korean valtion sanomalehti syyttää Yhdysvaltoja "rikollisesta juonesta sodan aloittamiseksi Korean demokraattista kansantasavaltaa vastaan" samaan aikana kun se "käy dialogia hymy kasvoillaan".

Pohjois-Korean valtionmedia perusteli väitettään eteläkorealaisella radiouutisella, jonka mukaan Yhdysvaltojen joukot harjoittelisivat Japanissa ja Flippiineillä Pohjois-Korean pääkaupungin Pjongjangin valtaamista.

– Yhdysvallat erehtyy pahasti, jos se kuvittelee voivansa pelotella vanhanaikaisella sotalaivadiplomatialla, jota sen on ollut tapana käyttää kaikkivoipana aseena saavuttaakseen pahat tavoitteensa, lehtitekstissä kirjoitettiin.

Yhdysvaltain Japanissa toimivien joukkojen tiedotuspäällikkö, eversti John Hutcheson ampui alas Pohjois-Korean väitteen hyökkäyksen valmistelusta ja sanoi, että "ei ole tietoinen harjoituksista".

– Yleisesti Yhdysvaltojen koneet ja laivat toimivat Japanissa joka päivä osoittamassa sitoutumistamme liittolaisiin ja kumppaneihimme alueella sekä tukemassa alueellista rauhaa ja turvallisuutta, Hutcheson sanoi CNN:lle.

https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-10373305