Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 44
TOKYO (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is cautiously turning up the heat after his unsuccessful summit with President Trump in Hanoi two months ago. Returning to military optics for the first time in five months, Kim on Tuesday paid a surprise visit to an Air Force base to inspect fighter combat readiness and followed that up the next day by supervising the test of what the North's official media described ominously but ambiguously — and without any photos or video — as a new type of "tactical guided weapon." The military-related postu...
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — President Donald Trump's message to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been simple and clear: give up your nuclear weapons and a flood of wealth will soon be yours for the taking. But here's a nagging question: Is that really what Kim wants? With Trump and Kim descending on Hanoi for their second summit, there has been a persistent suggestion that Kim will look around at the relative prosperity of his Vietnamese hosts — who are certainly no strangers to U.S. hostility — and think that he, too, should open up his count...
TOKYO (AP) — With their second summit fast approaching, speculation is growing that U.S. President Donald Trump may try to persuade North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to commit to denuclearization by giving him something he wants more than almost anything else: an announcement of peace and an end to the Korean War. Such an announcement could make history. It would be right in line with Trump's opposition to "forever wars." And, coming more than six decades after the fighting essentially ended, it just seems like common sense. But, if not done c...
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea is stepping up a new loyalty campaign as leader Kim Jong Un prepares for his second summit with President Donald Trump. The campaign began last month with the introduction of a song in praise of the nation's flag. A video now being aired on state-run television to promote the song — called "Our National Flag" — shows repeated images of the flag being raised at international sports competitions and being formed by a sea of people holding up colored lengths of cloth at a parade and rally on Kim Il Sung...
TOKYO (AP) — President Donald Trump used his biggest stage of the year to announce a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Trump said in his State of the Union address that he intends to meet Kim on Feb. 27-28 in Vietnam, saying that although much work remains to be done toward peace on the Korean Peninsula, his relationship with Kim is a good one. But is Kim really ready to make a deal? Here's why the stakes will be higher this time around. ___ LOWERING EXPECTATIONS Trump's announcement of the summit's timing and location was e...
TOKYO (AP) — Looking almost banker-like in a business suit and sitting in an upholstered leather armchair, Kim Jong Un gave his annual televised New Year's address on Tuesday. The North Korean leader's big curtain-raiser for 2019 comes after a couple of very tumultuous years. In 2017, his rapid-fire missile tests brought him to the brink with President Donald Trump and 2018 saw his sudden rise on the world stage with hints of detente, summits with China and South Korea and an unprecedented meeting with Trump in Singapore. What's ahead in 2...
WONSAN, North Korea (AP) — For North Korean factory managers, a visit by leader Kim Jong Un is the highest of honors and quite possibly the most stressful event imaginable. The chief engineer at the Songdowon General Foodstuffs Factory had looked forward to the visit for nearly a decade. His factory churns out tons of cookies, crackers, candies and bakery goods, plus dozens of varieties of soft drinks sold around the country. In its showroom, Kwon Yong Chol proudly showed off one of his best-sellers, a nutrient soup made with spirulina, a b...
MOUNT KUMGANG, North Korea (AP) — The two-lane highway south from North Korea's Mount Kumgang into and across the Demilitarized Zone is lined by tall green fences and street lamps that are only turned on for special occasions. Children play on a parallel stretch of railroad that hasn't been in regular use since before they were born. Behind a solitary guard stands a sign saying it's 68 kilometers (40 miles) to Sokcho, a town just across the DMZ in South Korea. At the height of South Korea's policy of engagement with the North, the "Diamond M...
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — The two Korean leaders took to the road for the final day of their summit Thursday, heading to a beautiful volcano considered sacred in the North and used in its propaganda to legitimize the Kims' three generations of rule. Their trip followed a day of wide-ranging agreements they trumpeted as a major step toward peace on the Korean Peninsula. However, their premier accord on the issue most fascinating and worrisome — the North's pursuit of nuclear-tipped missiles that can accurately strike the U.S. mainland — cont...
TOKYO (AP) — As nuclear talks with United States stall, North Korea is preparing to hold a big military parade on the 70th anniversary of the country's founding. Satellite photos indicate troops have been practicing for weeks at a mockup of Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Square. But two big questions remain: Who will attend? And will leader Kim Jong Un use the occasion to thumb his nose at Washington by displaying missiles North Korea claims are capable of striking the American heartland? The parade will kick off a series of extravagant c...
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Doctor O Yong Il swings open a glass door with a bright orange biohazard sign and gestures to the machine he hoped would revolutionize his life's work. It's called the GeneXpert and it's about the size of a household microwave oven. As chief of North Korea's National Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory, Dr. O saw it as a godsend. Tuberculosis is North Korea's biggest public health problem. With this American-made machine, his lab would be able to complete a TB test in just two hours, instead of two months. It took y...
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Koreans are getting a new look at U.S. President Donald Trump. They see him shaking hands with Kim Jong Un at their historic summit in Singapore, and even awkwardly saluting a three-star general. It's a far cry from the "dotard" label their government slapped on him last year. Previously, even on a good day, the best he might get was "Trump." No honorifics. No signs of respect. Now, he's being called "the president of the United States of America." Or "President Donald J. Trump." Even "supreme leader." The p...
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — With all the international attention focused on Singapore and the historic summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Pyongyang must have been buzzing with excitement Sunday, right? Well, it might have been, if anyone there had known what was going on. Instead, it was like the center of the storm. With few sources of information other than the state-run media, gossip and word of mouth, most North Koreans were still largely in the dark about the momentous — and potentially lif...
TOKYO (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un complained of "U.S. hegemonism" to Russia's visiting foreign minister on Thursday, as one of his top lieutenants was in New York trying to pave the way for a summit with President Donald Trump. Kim told Sergey Lavrov that he hopes to boost cooperation with Russia, which has remained largely on the sidelines in recent months as Kim has reached out diplomatically to the United States as well as to South Korea and China. "As we move to adjust to the political situation in the face of U.S. hegemonism, I...
TOKYO (AP) — The U.S.-North Korea summit appears to be back on track, but Pyongyang is showing increased impatience at comments coming out of Washington that what leader Kim Jong Un really wants, even more than his nuclear security blanket, is American-style prosperity. It's a core issue for Kim and a message President Donald Trump shouldn't ignore as they work to nail down their summit next month in Singapore. Kim is as enthusiastic as Trump to see the summit happen as soon as possible, but the claim that his sudden switch to diplomacy over t...
TOKYO (AP) — North Korean media stepped up their rhetorical attacks on South Korea and joint military exercises with the United States, warning Tuesday that a budding detente could be in danger. State media unleashed three strongly worded commentaries slamming Seoul and Washington for the maneuvers and demanding Seoul take action against defectors it claimed were sending anti-North Korea propaganda leaflets across the border. The official media had until recently taken a relatively subdued tone amid the North's diplomatic overtures to its n...
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea announced that it will suspend nuclear tests and intercontinental ballistic missile launches ahead of its summits with Seoul and Washington, but stopped short of suggesting it has any intention of giving up its hard-won nuclear arsenal. The announcement, which sets the table for further negotiations when the summits begin, was made by leader Kim Jong Un at a meeting of the North Korean ruling party's Central Committee on Friday. It was reported by the North's state-run media early Saturday. Kim justified t...
TOKYO (AP) — As the U.S.-North Korea summit looms, President Donald Trump's maximum pressure policy on North Korea may be working — thanks to China. Beijing appears to have gone well beyond U.N. sanctions on its unruly neighbor, reducing its total imports from North Korea in the first two months this year by 78.5 and 86.1 percent in value — a decline that began in late 2017, according to the latest trade data from China. Its exports to the North also dropped by 33 percent to 34 percent both months. The figures suggest that instead of being side...
TOKYO (AP) — Increased activity at a North Korean nuclear site has once again caught the attention of analysts and renewed concerns about the complexities of denuclearization talks as President Donald Trump prepares for a summit with Kim Jong Un in the coming weeks. Satellite imagery taken last month suggests the North has begun preliminary testing of an experimental light water reactor and possibly brought another reactor online at its Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center. Both could be used to produce the fissile materials needed for nuclear b...
TOKYO (AP) — Hopes for the release of three American citizens imprisoned in North Korea got a big boost by the news of a possible summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Freeing the prisoners would be relatively low-hanging fruit and a sign of goodwill by Kim. It would also mark something of a personal success for Trump, who has highlighted the issue since last June, when University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier died days after North Korea turned him over to American authorities. Trump banned Americans f...
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP) — The Koreas share a border, a culture and a language. But 70 years after they were separated, North and South are about as divided as divided gets. With almost any kind of contact blocked or barred or banned by law, the gap between them has grown to the point where they almost seem like strangers in many ways. And while the Pyeongchang Olympics have brought North Korean athletes, musicians, martial artists, singers and cheering squads flooding into the South, tight security means it's still almost impossible f...
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un presided over an extravagant military parade in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Square on Thursday, grabbing the spotlight on the eve of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea to thumb his nose at Washington while making a point of showing off his new-found restraint toward Seoul. The parade itself had been anticipated for weeks. North Korea announced last month that it would hold a big event to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of its military. But instead of b...
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP) — It was a historic moment, and it happened even before the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics had officially begun. As South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his wife greeted VIPs in their dignitary box to watch the opening ceremony, they turned to shake hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's younger sister, who arrived earlier in the day on an unprecedented visit to the South by a member of the North's ruling Kim family. All broke out in broad smiles. Kim's sister, Kim Yo Jong, was at the opening ceremony with Nor...
TOKYO (AP) — North Korea's state-run media say U.S. President Donald Trump's tweet about having a bigger nuclear button than leader Kim Jong Un's is the "spasm of a lunatic." Rodong Sinmun, the ruling party newspaper, lashed out at Trump in a commentary on Tuesday that took issue with the U.S. commander in chief's Jan. 3 tweet that "I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!" A summary of the commentary by North Korea's official news agency described the tweet as "the spasm of a lunat...
TOKYO (AP) — With little time to spare, North and South Korea are preparing to hash out Kim Jong Un's offer to send a delegation to next month's Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. Skeptics are calling the offer, floated by Kim during his annual televised New Year's address, a cynical tactic to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul, while optimists see it as a sign of hope that Kim has decided to dial back his defiance and come in from the cold. The answer probably lies somewhere in between. But why, after a year marked by the test of his c...
