International

* N.Korea's leader Kim gives US until year-end to change policy * Kim says US came to Hanoi with absolutely impracticable agenda * N.Korea can continue inter-Korean relations or return to past - Kim  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the breakdown in talks with the United States has raised the risks of reviving tensions, and he is only interested in meeting President Donald Trump again if the United States comes with the right attitude, state media KCNA said on Saturday. Kim said that he will wait "till the end of this year" for the United States to decide to be more flexible, according to KCNA. "It is essential for the US to quit its current calculation method and approach us with a new one," Kim said in a speech to the Supreme People's Assembly on Friday, KCNA said. Trump and Kim have met twice, in Hanoi in February and Singapore in June, building goodwill but failing to agree on a deal to lift sanctions in exchange for North Korea abandoning its nuclear and missile programs. Trump said on Thursday he is open to meeting Kim again, but in his speech on Friday, the North Korean leader said the outcome in Hanoi led him to question the strategy he embraced last year of international engagement and talks with the United States. The Hanoi summit "aroused a strong question if we were right in taking the steps with strategic decision and bold resolution, and evoked vigilance as to the US' true willingness to improve its relations with the DPRK," Kim said, using the initials of North Korea's full name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. In Hanoi, the United States came "to the talks only racking its brain to find ways that are absolutely impracticable" and did "not really ready itself to sit with us face-to-face and settle the problem," Kim said. "If it (the United States) keeps thinking that way, it will never be able to move the DPRK even a knuckle, nor gain any interests no matter how many times it may sit for talks with the DPRK," he said. "We will wait for a bold decision from the US with patience till the end of this year but I think it will definitely be difficult to get such a good opportunity as the previous summit," Kim added. Kim's comments signal he won't cling to talks with the United States forever, said Kim Dong-yup of Kyungnam University's Institute for Far Eastern Studies in South Korea. "That probably indicates that the North is triggering plans to diversify its diplomatic relations with other countries," he said. Kim said that his personal relationship with Trump is still good, but that he had no interest in a third summit if it were a repeat of Hanoi. At a meeting with South Korean President Moon in Washington on Thursday, Trump expressed a willingness for a third summit with Kim but said Washington would leave sanctions in place on Pyongyang. Kim said the United States "is further escalating the hostility to us with each passing day despite its suggestion for settling the issue through dialogue". The current US policy of sanctions and pressure is "as foolish and dangerous an act as trying to put out fire with oil," he added. Still, Kim said he would not hesitate to sign an agreement if it takes into account both countries' considerations. The United States had continued to provoke North Korea by testing an anti-ballistic missile system and conducting military drills with South Korea despite Trump's announcement that large-scale exercises would end, he said. Last month, a senior North Korean official warned that Kim might rethink a moratorium on missile launches and nuclear tests in place since 2017 unless Washington makes concessions such as easing sanctions. South Korea's Blue House said in a statement that officials would "do what we can in order to maintain the current momentum for dialogue and help negotiations between the US and North Korea resume at an early date". Kim complained that Washington is coercing South Korea into abiding by sanctions and not pushing forward with inter-Korea projects. North Korea has a choice "to keep maintaining the atmosphere of improving the North-South ties or to go back to the past when the ties plunged into a catastrophe with the danger of a war increasing," he said. North Korea's state media on Saturday issued a commentary criticizing South Korea's purchase of fighter jets including two recently delivered F-35A jets from the United States, calling it a "serious provocative act" that could intensify tensions on the Korean peninsula. "Bringing in weapons of war is an obvious threat. South Korea needs to behave itself better, and think about how such an imprudent act could lead to catastrophic outcomes," said the commentary. Still, North Korea is committed to better North-South relations and peaceful unification, Kim said. "I make it clear once again that it is my unwavering determination to turn the North-South ties into those of durable and lasting reconciliation and cooperation by holding hands with the south Korean authorities and to write a new history of the nation, peaceful and co-prosperous," he said. 

* Cho died in US hospital after chronic illness - airline * Shares rise sharply on announcement * Holding co shares up over takeover battle expectations - analyst * Cho family plagued by scandal after "nut rage" incident * Only son expected to take over - analysts Korean Air patriarch, chairman and CEO Cho Yang-ho died of a chronic illness on Monday just weeks after shareholders ended his 27-year tenure on the board of the country's biggest carrier due to perceived leadership failings. Shares of the family-controlled airline and Hanjin Kal , the holding company for parent Hanjin Group, jumped on news of the death, as investors push for better governance under new management or a younger generation of the Cho family. The death also raised the possibility of a bidding war over the 70-year-old patriarch's stake in the holding firm, said Um Kyung-a, an analyst from Shinyoung Securities. "Of course, his family will try to inherit his shares, but that can take time and money ... So that opens a window for expectations about a takeover battle," Um said. Cho holds a 17.8 percent stake in Hanjin Kal that controls the airline conglomerate. Cho, his relatives and the family's academic foundations own a total 29 percent of the holding firm. Cho's only son, company President Cho Won-tae, is widely seen as his likely successor. A South Korean activist fund is the second-biggest shareholder of Hanjin Kal after the Cho family and recently boosted its stake to 13.5 percent, vowing to take a role in management to fix poor governance blamed on Cho and his family. Korean Air has been plagued by scandals involving founding family members in recent years, culminating in the indictment of Cho in 2018 on charges of embezzlement and breach of trust. Cho denied the charges. The troubles began after Cho's eldest daughter, Heather Cho, made headlines in 2014 when she lost her temper over the way she had been served nuts in first class and ordered the Korean Air plane to return to its gate at a New York airport. The "nut rage" incident severely tarnished the carrier's image and generated derisive international headlines for months. Subsequent scandals involving Cho's daughters only deepened concerns around the family's leadership. Shareholders forced Cho off the board in a landmark vote on March 27, making him the first founding family member of any South Korean corporate giant to be ousted in such a manner. The vote added fresh momentum to growing shareholder activism in Asia's fourth-biggest economy, long dominated by family-run business empires accused of ignoring minority investors. Korean Air shares rose as much as 8.2 percent on Monday after the announcement of Cho's death, their biggest percentage gain since Nov. 14 last year. Hanjin Kal gained as much as 24.4 percent to a more than two-month high, while the broader market was flat. Before his family's high-handedness became an object of public ridicule, Cho was regarded as a paragon of South Korean business acumen. After taking control of the company from his father, Cho gained a reputation for daring and smarts as he built the airline into one of Asia's biggest, operating 166 aircraft with international flights to 111 cities in 43 countries. During the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, he saw an opportunity to expand and bought 27 Boeing planes. A few years later, as the global airline industry reeled from the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome crisis, he placed a massive order for Airbus' A380 planes in 2003. He died from a chronic ailment in a Los Angeles hospital early on Monday Korean time, the airline said without providing further details. A company official said Cho had surgery for lung disease a while ago and his condition had worsened over the past two years. Even so, his condition was not publicly known and his death came as a surprise to the South Korean public. Only last year he had carried the torch for the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. His name was the most-searched keyword on South Korea's top internet portal on Monday. Korean Air in a statement paid tribute to his enthusiasm and work ethic, but conceded that "not everything went well", a reference to the shareholders' vote to unseat him from the board. 

A shadowy dissident group allegedly behind last month’s raid on North Korea’s embassy in Madrid promised “bigger things ahead” yesterday, but said they would temporarily suspend operations because of intense media scrutiny.  The Cheollima Civil Defense (CCD) group emerged from the shadows this week to claim responsibility for a commando-style raid on Pyongyang’s embassy to highlight illicit activities rampant in North Korea’s foreign missions.  On Wednesday a Spanish court named Adrian Hong Chang, a Mexican national, as being the leader of the group which burst into the diplomatic mission and roughed up employees before fleeing with documents and computers.  “We are a group of defectors who have come together with compatriots around the world,” the CCD said in a statement posted on its website. Various preparations to “shake the Kim Jong-un regime by the root” were underway, it added, but had been hampered by a spike in media interest.  “The activities of the members have been temporarily suspended,” it said, adding: “The media should refrain from sticking their nose in the nature of our group and our members. We have bigger things ahead of us.”  The statement did not offer any clues about where the group was located, but said it was not collaborating with defectors in South Korea due to “strict security reasons”.  Yesterday’s statement was the first time the CCD had offered information on its membership since its emergence in 2017, when it posted an online video of the son of the North Korean leader’s assassinated brother, saying it had guaranteed his safety.  Analysts said the current media exposure could be both good and bad for the group’s future activities.  “They can receive international support from anti-Pyongyang forces so it has created an atmosphere for them to do more open, public campaigning,” said An Chan-il, a defector-turned-researcher in Seoul.  But Shin Beom-cheol, a researcher at the Asan Institute of Policy Studies, said the group now faced possible reprisals from Pyongyang.  “If they set up an office in Southeast Asia or the US, it could in turn face an attack from North Korea,” he said. Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector and activist based in Seoul who claims knowledge of CCD, told AFP most of its members were defectors settled in the US as American citizens.  Kim Han-sol, the son of Kim’s assassinated brother, was one of its key members and believed to be living in the US under the protection of the FBI, he added. Its alleged leader Hong Chang, who goes by the name Adrian Hong in the United States, was a well-educated longtime human rights activist, said Park.  In December 2006 he was arrested together with two other people in China as they tried to help six North Koreans escape, but was released 10 days later. “He is very decisive and driven, always putting ideas into practice,” said Park. Hong Chang later set up a consultancy firm called Pegasus Strategies LLC, describing it as “an initiative that uses cutting-edge technology to penetrate closed societies and empower people in those nations”.  Its name suggests a link between Hong Chang and the CCD as Cheollima is a powerful stallion in east Asian folklore – a direct parallel to Pegasus in Greek mythology.  Last month the group declared itself a government-in-exile for the North called “Free Joseon”, using an old name for Korea.  In the past, the group has said it responded to requests for protection from “compatriots” and thanked countries including the Netherlands, China and the United States for their help. It has also said it was “not seeking anything in return” and that it has “already given help” to North Koreans.

A shadowy group seeking to overthrow North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been thrust into the international spotlight after a Spanish court investigating a break-in at North Korea’s embassy in Madrid named apparent members as suspects.  Cheollima Civil Defense, also known as Free Joseon, first went public in 2017, when it said it was protecting the family of Kim Jong-un’s half brother Kim Jong-nam, who was murdered in a Malaysian airport. Spanish authorities unsealed court documents yesterday accusing at least 10 individuals of storming into the embassy, restraining and beating some staff members and holding them hostage for hours before fleeing with stolen computers and hard drives. Such an action would be one of the most militant operations ever carried out by activists opposed to North Korea’s government. “Parties seeking to ‘out’ those in Madrid have painted a target on the backs of those seeking only to protect others,” Cheollima Civil Defense said in a website post, apparently acknowledging for the first time its involvement in the raid. “They have chosen to side with Pyongyang’s criminal, totalitarian rulers over their victims.” It disputed police allegations that weapons or violence were used in the break-in. Lee Wolosky, an American attorney who represents Free Joseon, said in a statement that the Spanish court “purported to reach conclusions without any input from representatives” of the group. “There are a number of statements attributed to the judge in media reports that do not accurately reflect what happened in Madrid,” he continued, without elaborating.  “It was, in any event, highly irresponsible to disclose publicly the names of people who are working in opposition to a brutal regime that routinely and summarily executes its enemies.” Of the 10 suspects, the documents listed the names and birth dates of seven, including citizens of Mexico, the United States, and South Korea. All but one are under 30 years old.  The identification of at least some of the individuals in the group may have undermined their cause and perhaps endangered their lives, analysts and activists said.  “It was too risky,” said one South Korean human rights activist who previously worked with one of the suspects. “Now that their identities are known, they won’t be able to carry out activities as before.” The Mexican national named by Spanish authorities as one of the embassy raid’s leaders, Adrian Hong, is a longtime activist who helped found the refugee aid organisation Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), and later led an organisation preparing for an “imminent, dramatic change” in the country, analysts said.  Spanish court documents said Hong played a leading role in the break-in, and that after fleeing to the United States he contacted the FBI to offer information that had been stolen. Hong could not be reached for immediate comment. Hong was among several LiNK activists who were arrested and deported from China in late 2006 as they were trying to help a party of North Korean refugees escape. In a statement, LiNK said Hong had not been involved in any way with the group for more than 10 years and LiNK had no information on his current activities. Hong told a newspaper in 2011 that the Arab Spring uprisings then unfolding were “a dress rehearsal for North Korea”. Kang Cheol-hwan, a defector and founder of the North Korea Strategy Centre in Seoul, said Hong went so far as to travel to Libya to research the aftermath of Muammar Gaddafi’s ouster. Cheollima Civil Defense takes its name from a winged horse commonly featured in East Asian mythology.  Free Joseon, meanwhile, references the last Korean dynasty, and a name that North Korea still often uses to refer to itself. On its website, the group used soaring language to declare itself the “a provisional government” of Free Joseon as “the sole legitimate representative of the Korean people of the north.” Lingering questions  The website also began to sell “post-liberation blockchain visas” that can be bought with cryptocurrency, and on March 11 it claimed responsibility for defacing the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur. North Korea has not publicly commented on the Madrid break-in, nor filed a complaint with Spanish police.  The group’s brazen actions led some to speculate that there could be serious dissent against Kim Jong-un taking shape. But other analysts were more sceptical, and say there are lingering questions over possible ties to foreign intelligence agencies. “I’m still inclined to believe there was some professional involvement, because taking over a foreign mission is not an easy operation,” said Korea Risk Group director Andrei Lankov.  “They took computers and hard disks, but if you don’t have highly specialised capabilities for breaking the codes, it’s probably not going to be useful to anyone but major intelligence agencies.” Cheollima Civil Defense said on Tuesday that no governments were involved or were aware of the embassy operation beforehand.  It said it had shared “certain information of enormous potential value” with the FBI at the agency’s request, but that agreements of confidentiality “appear to have been broken”. The US State department said on Tuesday the US government was not involved in the raid.

A shadowy group committed to overthrowing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un claimed responsibility Wednesday for a raid on the reclusive nation's embassy in Madrid last month, saying it shared "information of enormous potential value" with the FBI. The incident had been shrouded in mystery, but a dissident organisation known as the Cheollima Civil Defense (CCD) said Wednesday it had orchestrated the raid to end illicit activities rampant in North Korea's foreign missions. The claim comes after a Spanish court named Adrian Hong Chang, of Mexican nationality, as being the leader of the group -- the first official account of the incident, which came days before the summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Hanoi. Previous media reports said a group of men burst into the diplomatic mission and roughed up employees before making off with documents and computers. According to investigating judge Jose de la Mata, two of the assailants took the embassy's commercial attache to an underground room and urged him to defect, which he refused. CCD denied using any violence, saying in a statement on its website: "We were invited into the embassy, and contrary to reports, no one was gagged or beaten. "Out of respect for the host nation of Spain, no weapons were used. All occupants in the embassy were treated with dignity and necessary caution." The group -- which offers to assist people attempting to defect from North Korea -- emerged in 2017 when it posted an online video of the son of the North Korean leader's assassinated brother, saying it had guaranteed his safety. Last month the group declared itself a government-in-exile for the North called "Free Joseon", using an old name for Korea. It said the raid had no links to the Hanoi summit -- which ended abruptly with no agreement -- and that no other governments were involved until after the event. "The organization shared certain information of enormous potential value with the FBI in the United States, under mutually agreed terms of confidentiality," the statement added. Speculation over the identity and motive of the assailants had swirled in the media, with Spanish daily El Pais suggesting links to the CIA. According to an El Pais report, Spain had asked for clarification from the CIA but the US spy agency denied any involvement.  Spanish authorities said the response was "not very convincing," adding that the CIA acted "in probable co-operation" with South Korean intelligence services. Seoul's unification ministry, which handles inter-Korean relations, declined to comment.  Little is known about CCD and it is unclear who is behind the organisation -- although some have speculated it has links to South Korea's spy agency.  It is named after a mythical winged horse. In the past, the group has said it responded to urgent requests for protection from "compatriots" and has thanked countries including the Netherlands, China and the United States for their help.

North Korea has returned its staff to an inter-Korean liaison office, Seoul said Monday, just days after unilaterally withdrawing from the joint facility. The office in the Northern city of Kaesong was opened in September as the two Koreas knitted closer ties, but the North pulled its staff out last week amid a deadlock in talks between Washington and Pyongyang. The unification ministry said some of the North Korean staff were back at work on Monday saying they had come to cover their "shift as usual". "Thus, the South and the North held consultations at the liaison office this morning and will continue to operate the office as usual," the ministry said in a statement. It said the North did not offer details on why they had returned or pulled out in the first place.  Experts had suggested that the withdrawal was Pyongyang's attempt of pressuring Seoul to exert more influence on the US in the current diplomacy. Their return follows US President Donald Trump's abrupt tweet at the weekend saying he had "ordered" the withdrawal of additional sanctions -- without identifying the measures -- against Pyongyang by the US Treasury. South Korean President Moon Jae-in was instrumental in brokering the talks process between the nuclear-armed, sanctions-hit North and the US, Seoul's key security ally. Moon has long backed engagement with the North to bring it to the negotiating table, and has been dangling the carrot of inter-Korean development projects, among them an industrial zone also in Kaesong and cross-border tourism for Southerners. But the failure by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump to reach agreement in Hanoi last month on walking back Pyongyang's nuclear programme in exchange for relaxation of the measures against it has raised questions over the future of the process. Both sides expressed willingness to talk further after the Vietnam summit, but it has since emerged that Washington presented Kim with a wider definition of what it regards as denuclearisation. A senior Pyongyang diplomat recently told reporters that the North was considering suspending nuclear talks with the US while last week Washington unveiled a new set of sanctions targeting two Chinese companies accused of helping Pyongyang. The liaison office opened three months after Kim signed a vague pledge at his first summit with Trump in Singapore to work towards "denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula", and shortly before Moon went to Pyongyang for his third summit with Kim last year. When it opened, Seoul's unification ministry said the office would become a "round-the-clock consultation and communication channel" for advancing inter-Korean relations, improving ties between the US and the North, and easing military tensions.

The United States should seek the gradual denuclearisation of North Korea because an "all-or-nothing" strategy will not help break an impasse in talks, a special adviser to South Korea's president said on Tuesday. US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held their second summit last month on US demands that North Korea dismantle its nuclear programme in exchange for security guarantees and the lifting of sanctions. But the talks in Vietnam broke down without agreement, although the two leaders parted on good terms. Moon Chung in, a special national security adviser to South Korea's President Moon Jae-in, said both sides were to blame for the breakdown, but the United States appeared to have suddenly toughened its stand and called for North Korea's complete denuclearisation despite earlier suggestions it might agree to a phased approach. "The United States made excessive demands on North Korea to reach a big deal, whereas Chairman Kim was overconfident that he could persuade Trump to get what he wants for closing down the Yongbyon main nuclear complex," Moon Chung-in said. Moon pointed to a speech by US nuclear envoy Stephen Biegun at Stanford University, in which he vowed to pursue parallel commitments and a "roadmap of negotiations and declarations". But in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, the US side back-pedalled and called for a comprehensive deal, Moon said. "After Biegun's Stanford speech, I had a strong impression that they're being realistic, but at the summit, they actually took an all-or-nothing position," Moon said. He said the North would have got a deal if it had addressed US concerns by making a commitment to abandon its uranium enrichment programme at other facilities, not just at its main facility of Yongbyon. Biegun told a conference in Washington on Monday that "diplomacy was still very much alive" although the United States was closely watching activity at a North Korean rocket site and did not know if it might be planning a new launch. A US think-tank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, last week reported activity at North Korea's Sohae rocket launch site, with satellite images showing possible preparations for a launch. Moon said it would be a "mistake" if North Korea pressed ahead with a launch, after promising Trump it would halt such activity. Biegun also rejected the incremental approach sought by North Korea, saying easing sanctions for partial steps would amount to subsidising North Korea's weapons programme. The collapse of the Hanoi summit was a blow to President Moon, who has promoted engagement with old rival North Korea and held three summits last year with its leader, Kim. The South Korean president had hoped that a deal would bring an easing of US sanctions and that would clear the way for a resumption of inter-Korean economic projects, including a factory park and tourism zone. The adviser Moon said South Korea could play a role as a facilitator between the United State and North Korea, more than a role of mediator. 

North Koreans went to the polls yesterday for an election in which there could be only one winner.  Leader Kim Jong-un’s ruling Workers’ Party has an iron grip on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as the isolated, nuclear-armed country is officially known.  Every five years it holds an election for the rubber stamp legislature, known as the Supreme People’s Assembly. The exercise has all the trappings of votes elsewhere, from electoral rolls to sealed ballot boxes to scrutineers for the count. But in keeping with one of Pyongyang’s most enduring slogans —  “Single-minded unity” — there is only one approved name on each of the red voting slips. With portraits of the leader’s father Kim Jong-il and grandfather Kim Il-sung looking down on every ballot box, voters lined up to drop their slips inside. There is a pencil in the panelled voting booths for anyone who might wish to register dissent by crossing out a candidate’s name. But no one does.  By 6pm, the official KCNA news agency reported, all electors in all constituencies had voted, “except for those abroad or working in oceans”.  Turnout in 2014 was 99.97% and the vote was 100% in favour of the named candidates, a result unmatched anywhere else in the world.  “Our society is one in which the people are gathered around the respected Supreme Leader with a single mind,” election official Ko Kyong-hak told AFP outside a polling station at the 3.26 Pyongyang Cable Factory.  Participation in the election was a citizen’s obligation, he said, “and there are no people who reject a candidate”.  An editorial in the Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece of the ruling party, reinforced the message.   Voters “should cast approval ballots with their loyalty to the party and the leader, absolute support to the DPRK government and the will to share their destiny with socialism to the last”, it said.  With a total absence of electoral competition, analysts say the election is held largely as a political rite to enable the authorities to claim a mandate from the people.  It was the result of “established institutional inertia and a need to legitimise the government by simulating democratic procedure”, said Andrei Lankov of Korea Risk Group. Soviet-style Communist states had a long tradition of holding general elections, he said, even if the ruling party ignored its own rules about holding regular congresses – something the North skipped for more than 30 years.  “North Korea is just emulating all other Communist states,” he said.  “The early Communists sincerely believed that they were producing a democracy the world had never seen. So they needed elections and it became a very important part of self-legitimisation.”   The last significant government of a major country to dispense with elections altogether was Nazi Germany, he pointed out.  The North is divided into constituencies for the vote – there were 686 at the last election, when Kim stood in Mount Paektu, a dormant volcano on the border with China revered as the spiritual birthplace of the Korean people.  He received a 100% turnout and 100% in favour according to KCNA.  Some of the seats are allocated to two minor parties, the Korean Social Democratic Party and the Chondoist Chongdu Party, which has its roots in a 20th century Korean religious movement.   They are both in a formal alliance with the ruling party and analysts and diplomats say they exist largely on paper, with only small central offices maintained for propaganda purposes.  Even so, participation in the poll, like other obligatory rituals in the North, does reinforce loyalty to the government and social unity, Lankov said, “because humans love symbolism”. It is a marked contrast to the vibrant multi-party democracy on the other side of the Demilitarized Zone dividing the peninsula, where president Park Geun-hye was ousted in 2017 after mass street protests over a corruption scandal.  For North Koreans who defect, the South’s electoral system was “definitely novel”, said Sokeel Park, of campaign group Liberty In North Korea.   “The idea that you get to cast your vote and either be on the winning side or the losing side and you don’t know what that’s going to be until the results come in – that’s a big thing.”  Yesterday’s voting took place in something of a carnival atmosphere in Pyongyang, children in red neckerchiefs parading in the streets to encourage voters to attend.   Bands played at polling stations, where voters queued up in numerical order according to voter lists displayed for days beforehand, and women in flowing traditional dresses danced after casting their ballots.  Architecture student Kuk Dae Kwon, 18, said he was excited to be taking part for the first time.  Ordinary North Koreans always express total support for the authorities when speaking to foreign media, and Kuk told AFP:  “At this election we consolidate the single-minded unity around the Supreme Leader and also demonstrate the advantages of our socialism to the world.”

North Koreans went to the polls Sunday for an election in which there could be only one winner. Leader Kim Jong Un's ruling Workers' Party has an iron grip on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, as the isolated, nuclear-armed country is officially known. But every five years it holds an election for the rubber stamp legislature, known as the Supreme People's Assembly. And in keeping with one of Pyongyang's most enduring slogans -- "Single-minded unity" -- there is only one approved name on each of the red ballot papers. With portraits of the leader's father Kim Jong Il and grandfather Kim Il Sung looking down on every ballot box, voters lined up to drop their slips inside. There is a pencil in the panelled voting booths for anyone who might wish to register dissent by crossing out a candidate's name. But no one does. Turnout last time was 99.97 percent, according to the official KCNA news agency -- only those who were abroad or "working in oceans" did not take part. And the vote was 100 percent in favour of the named candidates, a result unmatched anywhere else in the world. "Our society is one in which the people are gathered around the respected Supreme Leader with a single mind," election official Ko Kyong Hak told AFP as voters queued at the 3.26 Pyongyang Cable Factory. Participation in the election was a citizen's obligation, he said, "and there are no people who reject a candidate". An editorial in the Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece of the ruling party, reinforced the message. Voters "should cast approval ballots with their loyalty to the party and the leader, absolute support to the DPRK government and the will to share their destiny with socialism to the last", it said. With a total absence of electoral competition, analysts say the election is held largely as a political rite to enable the authorities to claim a mandate from the people. It was the result of "established institutional inertia and a need to legitimise the government by simulating democratic procedure", said Andrei Lankov of Korea Risk Group. Soviet-style Communist states had a long tradition of holding general elections, he said, even if the ruling party ignored its own rules about holding regular congresses -- something the North skipped for more than 30 years. "North Korea is just emulating all other Communist states," he said. "The early Communists sincerely believed that they were producing a democracy the world had never seen. So they needed elections and it became a very important part of self-legitimisation." The last significant government of a major country to dispense with elections altogether was Nazi Germany, he pointed out. The North is divided into constituencies for the vote -- there were 686 at the last election in 2014, when Kim stood in Mount Paektu, a dormant volcano on the border with China revered as the spiritual birthplace of the Korean people. He received a 100 percent turnout and 100 percent in favour according to KCNA. Some of the seats are allocated to two minor parties, the Korean Social Democratic Party and the Chondoist Chongdu Party, which has its roots in a 20th century Korean religious movement. They are both in a formal alliance with the ruling party and analysts and diplomats say they exist largely on paper, with only small central offices maintained for propaganda purposes. Even so, participation in the poll, like other obligatory rituals in the North, does reinforce loyalty to the government and social unity, Lankov said, "because humans love symbolism". It is a marked contrast to the vibrant multi-party democracy on the other side of the Demilitarized Zone dividing the peninsula, where president Park Geun-hye was ousted in 2017 after mass street protests over a corruption scandal. For North Koreans who defect, the South's electoral system was "definitely novel", said Sokeel Park, of campaign group Liberty In North Korea. "The idea that you get to cast your vote and either be on the winning side or the losing side and you don't know what that's going to be until the results come in -- that's a big thing." Sunday's voting took place in something of a carnival atmosphere in Pyongyang, children in red neckerchiefs parading in the streets to encourage voters to attend. Bands played at polling stations, where voters lined up in numerical order according to voter lists displayed for days beforehand, and after casting their ballots women danced wearing flowing traditional dresses. Architecture student Kuk Dae Kwon, 18, said he was excited to be taking part for the first time. Ordinary North Koreans always express total support for the authorities when speaking to foreign media, and Kuk told AFP: "At this election we consolidate the single-minded unity around the Supreme Leader and also demonstrate the advantages of our socialism to the world."

North Korea may be preparing for a missile or space launch, US news outlet NPR has reported, based on satellite image analysis of a key facility near Pyongyang. NPR said the images of Sanumdong, one of the facilities Pyongyang has used to produce inter-continental ballistic missiles and space rockets, were taken days before US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met in Hanoi for their high-stakes summit, which ended in failure. The photos by the firm DigitalGlobe show the presence of cars and trucks at the site on February 22, said NPR -- which has exclusive access to the imagery.  It added that rail cars and cranes can also be seen at a yard. "When you put all that together, that's really what it looks like when the North Koreans are in the process of building a rocket," Jeffrey Lewis, a researcher at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, was quoted as saying by NPR on Friday. The Sanumdong analysis comes days after the specialised website 38 North and the Center for Strategic and International Studies said Pyongyang may have resumed operations at its long-range rocket launch site at Sohae, based on their study of satellite imagery from March 6. The development is likely to further compound Washington's frustration over the lack of progress in its bid to get the North to give up its atomic arsenal, especially after the February 27-28 summit between Trump and Kim collapsed without so much as a joint statement -- let alone an agreement on nuclear disarmament. According to senior US officials, in the week leading up to the Hanoi summit, the North Koreans had demanded the lifting of effectively all UN Security Council economic sanctions imposed on Pyongyang since March 2016. In return, Pyongyang offered only to close part of the Yongbyon complex, a sprawling site covering multiple facilities. The North is also believed to have other uranium enrichment plants. But North Korean foreign minister Ri Yong Ho disputed the US account, saying Pyongyang offered to dismantle all "nuclear production facilities in the Yongbyon area" in exchange for partial sanctions relief. Trump said Friday that his relationship with Kim "remains good", despite the setback in Hanoi. US officials have said Washington believes the "final, fully verified denuclearisation" of North Korea is still possible by the end of Trump's first term. Kim released his first public message since the Hanoi summit on Saturday earlier this week, instructing propaganda officials to conduct "positive information" activities to spur scientific and technological development, according to a Saturday report by North Korean state media outlet KCNA.

North Korea has restored part of a missile launch site it began to dismantle after pledging to do so in a first summit with US President Donald Trump last year, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency and two US think-tanks reported. Yonhap quoted lawmakers briefed by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) as saying that the work was taking place at the Tongchang-ri launch site and involved replacing a roof and a door at the facility. Satellite images seen by 38 North, a Washington-based North Korea project, showed that structures on the launch pad had been rebuilt sometime between Feb 16 and March 2, Jenny Town, managing editor at the project and an analyst at the Stimson Center think tank, told Reuters. The Center for Strategic and International Studies released a report, also citing satellite imagery, that concluded North Korea is “pursuing a rapid rebuilding” at the site. “Activity is evident at the vertical engine test stand and the launch pad’s rail-mounted rocket transfer structure,” the CSIS report said. “Significantly, the environmental shelters on the umbilical tower, which are normally closed, have been opened to show the launch pad.” The news comes days after a second summit on denuclearisation between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un broke down over differences on how far North Korea was willing to limit its nuclear programme and the degree of US willingness to ease sanctions. The summit took place in Hanoi on Feb 27 and 28. Trump told a news conference after an unprecedented first summit with Kim on June 12 in Singapore that the North Korean leader had promised that a major missile engine testing site would be destroyed very soon. Trump did not identify the site, but a US official subsequently told Reuters it was the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground, which is located at Tongchang-ri. Asked to comment, the White House referred to the US State Department, which did not immediately respond. A US government source said the NIS was considered reliable on such issues, but added that the work described did not seem particularly alarming, and certainly not on a scale of resuming missile tests that have been suspended since 2017. Kim Jong-un also pledged at a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in September to close Sohae and allow international experts to observe the dismantling of the missile engine-testing site and a launch pad. Signs that North Korea had begun acting on its pledge to Trump were detected in July, when a Washington think tank said satellite images indicated work had begun at Sohae 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. However, subsequent images indicated North Korea had halted work to dismantle the missile engine test site in the first part of August. The fact that the site had been dormant since August indicates the new activity is “deliberate and purposeful,” the CSIS report said. The breakdown of the summit in Hanoi last week has raised questions about the future of US-North Korea dialogue. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday he was hopeful he would send a delegation to North Korea in the coming weeks but that he had “no commitment yet.” While North Korea’s official media said last week Kim and Trump had decided at the summit to continue talks, its Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui told reporters Kim “might lose his willingness to pursue a deal” and questioned the need to continue. US State Department spokesman Robert Palladino told a news briefing that the United States remains “in regular contact” with North Korea, but he declined to say whether they had been in contact since the summit. Palladino said US Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun, who led pre-summit negotiation efforts, planned to meet his South Korean and Japanese counterparts.  Yonhap also quoted lawmakers briefed by intelligence officials as saying that the five-megawatt reactor at North Korea’s main nuclear site at Yongbyon, which produces weapons-grade plutonium used to build bombs, had not been operational since late last year, concurring with a report from the UN atomic watchdog. Yonhap quoted the sources as saying there had been no sign of reprocessing of plutonium from the reactor and that tunnels at North Korea’s main nuclear test site in Punggye-ri had remained shut down and unattended since their widely publicised destruction in May, which Pyongyang said was proof of its commitment to ending nuclear testing. The fate of the Yongbyon nuclear complex and its possible dismantling was a central issue in the Hanoi summit.

Activity has been detected at a North Korean long-range rocket site, suggesting Pyongyang may be pursuing the ‘rapid rebuilding’ of the facility after the collapse of the Hanoi summit, according to analysis of satellite imagery. Another research website suggested the rebuilding of the site may have started even before last week's meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump. The summit ended abruptly after the pair failed to reach an agreement on walking back Pyongyang's nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. The renewed activity was recorded two days after the talks and may ‘demonstrate resolve in the face of US rejection’ of the North's request for an easing of sanctions, said researchers at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). ‘This facility had been dormant since August 2018, indicating the current activity is deliberate and purposeful,’ it said. Kim had agreed to shutter the Sohae missile-testing site at a summit with the South's President Moon Jae-in in Pyongyang, as part of confidence-building measures, and satellite pictures in August suggested workers were already dismantling an engine test stand at the facility. But CSIS said building activity is now ‘evident’ at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station, from where Pyongyang launched satellites in 2012 and 2016. North Korea was later banned by the UN security council from carrying out the space launches, as some of its technology was similar to that used for intercontinental ballistic missiles. The respected Washington-based 38 North project, another independent research website specialising in North Korea, also reported building work at the Sohae facility, based on commercial satellite imagery. The pictures show a moving structure that had been used to carry launch vehicles to a launch pad on rails has been restored, it said. ‘Two support cranes are observed at the building, the walls have been erected and a new roof added. At the engine test stand, it appears that the engine support structure is being reassembled,’ the 38 North reported. In a briefing to parliamentarians this week, Seoul's spy agency said it had detected signs of work at the site. - 'Timing matters' - But Joel Wit, the director of the 38 North project cautioned that the evidence was not necessarily ‘consistent with preparations for an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) test’. ‘Aside from the fact that (North Korea) has never tested an ICBM from Sohae -- it's a space vehicle launch site -- preparation for any launch would require a wide range of activities not observed in the imagery,’ it said. Ankit Panda of the Federation of American Scientists agreed the imagery does not suggest an imminent sign of an ICBM launch, but it could be a ‘reminder of when times were worse and what stands to be lost if the process collapses.’ According to 38 North, the efforts to rebuild structures at the Sohae facility started sometime between February 16 and March 2 this year, based on what commercial satellite imagery shows. ‘Timing matters. ... the imagery tells a story that this took place amid the Biegun-Kim Hyok Chol working-level talks in the weeks leading up to Hanoi,’ Panda tweeted. ‘Choe Son Hui warned of Kim Jong Un's waning 'will' and Kim Jong Un himself warned the US not to test his 'patience' on Jan 1.’ - No deal in Hanoi - Impoverished and isolated North Korea conducted its first successful nuclear test in 2006 followed by a string of increasingly successful ICBM launches. In 2017, it claimed it had become a nuclear state, capable of fitting a viable nuclear weapon on an ICBM that could reach as far as the United States' eastern seaboard. In response, the UN Security Council later banned the North's main exports -- coal and other mineral resources, fisheries and textile products -- to cut off its access to hard currency. At their groundbreaking first summit in Singapore last year, Kim and Trump produced a vague statement on the ‘denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula’. There were high expectations for Kim and Trump's second meeting in Hanoi, but no agreement was reached. Despite the stalemate, both sides said they were open to further talks. John Bolton, the US national security adviser, however said on Tuesday that the US would look at ‘ramping those sanctions up’ if Pyongyang did not give up its nuclear weapons program.

South Korea President Moon Jae-in yesterday urged the US and North Korea to quickly resume denuclearisation talks after their Hanoi summit last week ended without a deal.  Moon, who has adopted a dovish approach to Pyongyang and brokered the US-North Korea talks process, urged his officials to find out what exactly had gone awry at the high-stakes meeting, and predicted a deal would ultimately be reached.  “We hope that both countries will continue their dialogue and that their leaders meet again quickly to reach an agreement that was held off this time,” Moon said during a security meeting in Seoul. “While I believe the North-US talks will produce an agreement in the end, I ask officials to work hard for the resumption of working-level talks between the US and the North as it is not favourable to have a long absence or stalemate in talks.”  The second meeting between US President Donald Trump and the North’s Kim Jong-un broke up in disarray in the Vietnamese capital, without even a joint statement.  Trump said at a press conference after the summit that the North Koreans had wanted sanctions against Pyongyang “lifted in their entirety”.  According to a senior US official, Pyongyang in return offered only to close down “a portion of the Yongbyon complex”, a sprawling site covering multiple nuclear facilities – and the North is believed to have other uranium enrichment plants.  North Korea rebuffed the claims, saying it had only wanted some measures eased, and that its proposal to close “all the nuclear production facilities” at Yongbyon was its best and final offer. “I ask that we find out the exact gap between the two sides that led to a no-deal at the Hanoi summit and explore ways to narrow down that gap,” Moon said.  The UN atomic watchdog said yesterday there were indications that Yongbyon’s reported centrifuge enrichment facility had been in use as recently as the end of February.  “However, without access, the Agency cannot confirm the nature and purpose of these activities,” said International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano in Vienna.  The IAEA uses methods including satellite imagery to monitor North Korea’s nuclear programme. About 100km north of Pyongyang, Yongbyon is home to the country’s first nuclear reactor, and is the only known source of plutonium for the North’s weapons programme. Yongbyon is not believed to be the North’s only uranium enrichment facility and closing it down would not in and of itself signal an end to the country’s atomic programme.  However, Moon said that if all Yongbyon facilities were “terminated in entirety, it should be considered the North’s denuclearisation has entered an irreversible stage”.

The nuclear reactor that is believed to have supplied much of the plutonium for North Korea's nuclear weapons appears to have been shut down for the past three months, the UN atomic watchdog said on Monday, without suggesting why. The 5-megawatt reactor is part of North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear complex, the possible dismantling of which was a central issue in talks between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam last week. The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency has not had access to North Korea since Pyongyang expelled its inspectors in 2009, and it now monitors the country's nuclear activities mainly through satellite imagery. Some independent analysts, who are also using satellite imagery, believe the ageing reactor is having technical problems. "The agency has not observed any indications of the operation of the 5MW(e) reactor since early December 2018," IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano said in a closed-door speech to his agency's Board of Governors, which is meeting this week. At the radiochemical laboratory that separates plutonium from the reactor's spent fuel, there were no indications of such reprocessing activities, Amano added. But a facility widely believed to be used for uranium enrichment, a process that can also produce weapons-grade material for nuclear bombs, appeared to be running, he said. And building work continued on an experimental light-water reactor. "At the light water reactor, the agency saw indications of ongoing construction work. We also continued to observe indications of the ongoing use of the reported centrifuge enrichment facility," Amano said. The IAEA has repeatedly said it is ready to play a verification role in North Korea once a political agreement is reached on the country's nuclear activities. The United States says it wants a full "denuclearisation" of North Korea, but the Trump-Kim summit's abrupt ending without agreement left the future of their talks uncertain. The reclusive state carried out six nuclear tests between 2006 and 2017, and last year blew up tunnels at its main nuclear test site, which Pyongyang said was proof of its commitment to ending nuclear testing. North Korea did not, however, allow experts to witness the dismantlement of the site and verify what actually happened. Only a small group of international media handpicked by North Korea witnessed the demolition at the Punggye-ri site.

South Korea President Moon Jae-in on Monday urged the US and North Korea to quickly resume denuclearisation talks after their Hanoi summit last week ended without a deal. Moon, who has adopted a dovish approach to Pyongyang and brokered the US-North Korea talks process, urged his officials to find out what exactly had gone awry at the high-stakes meeting, and predicted a deal would ultimately be reached. ‘We hope that both countries will continue their dialogue and that their leaders meet again quickly to reach an agreement that was held off this time,’ Moon said during a security meeting in Seoul. ‘While I believe the North-US talks will produce an agreement in the end, I ask officials to work hard for the resumption of working-level talks between the US and the North as it is not favourable to have a long absence or stalemate in talks.’ The second meeting between US President Donald Trump and the North's Kim Jong Un broke up in disarray Thursday in the Vietnamese capital, without even a joint statement. Trump said at a press conference after the summit that the North Koreans had wanted sanctions against Pyongyang ‘lifted in their entirety’. According to a senior US official, Pyongyang in return offered only to close down ‘a portion of the Yongbyon complex’, a sprawling site covering multiple nuclear facilities -- and the North is believed to have other uranium enrichment plants. North Korea rebuffed the claims, saying it had only wanted some measures eased, and that its proposal to close ‘all the nuclear production facilities’ at Yongbyon was its best and final offer. ‘I ask that we find out the exact gap between the two sides that led to a no-deal at the Hanoi summit and explore ways to narrow down that gap,’ Moon said. About 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of Pyongyang, Yongbyon is home to the country's first nuclear reactor, and is the only known source of plutonium for the North's weapons programme. Yongbyon is not believed to be the North's only uranium enrichment facility and closing it down would not in and of itself signal an end to the country's atomic programme. However, Moon said that if all Yongbyon facilities were ‘terminated in entirety, it should be considered the North's denuclearisation has entered an irreversible stage.’ The Yongbyon site is ‘the foundation of North Korean nuclear facilities’, he added.

Five years ago, their loved ones boarded a plane and vanished. The group of Malaysians meet about once a month - usually at a coffee shop or a home in Kuala Lumpur - to support each other and try to keep missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 in the public eye. Their relatives were among the 239 people onboard the Boeing 777 when it vanished enroute from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014 and became the world's greatest aviation mystery. Scraps of aircraft debris have washed up on the east African coastline, but two underwater searches in the southern Indian Ocean proved fruitless, leaving few clues as to what happened. Starved for information and struggling to resume their lives, the families have come to lean on each other for support, said Jacquita Gonzales, whose husband Patrick Gomes was MH370's inflight supervisor. ‘It goes beyond a group waiting for answers,’ said Gonzales, a 57-year-old kindergarten teacher who often hosts the group at her home on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. ‘It has become a family as well, an extended family,’ she told Reuters. For five years the group has campaigned to keep public attention on MH370 and help each other cope with their grief and try to live normal lives by returning to work, raising children and, in Gonzales' case, battle illness. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2016 for the second time in her life, but it has since gone into remission. ‘When I first had cancer, I had my husband for support,’ she said. ‘This second time, no. But I had a lot of family members around, my friends, my children, and now my MH370 families... so that kept us going.’ In her living room hangs a painting of a blue-and-yellow field - a gift from Calvin Shim, another MH370 next-of-kin, to help her stay calm while recovering from surgery. Shim, a father of two, said the group helped him to adjust to life as a single parent. His wife, Christine Tan, was a member of the MH370 crew. ‘The other families know exactly how each of us feel,’ he said during a meeting at Gonzales' home. ‘Emotionally, that's been a good support and help to us, especially since the plane has not been found,’ he added. ‘WE HAVE NOT SAID GOODBYE’ In early 2017, Malaysia, China and Australia called off a two-year, $144 million search in the southern Indian Ocean after finding no trace of the plane. A second three-month search north of the original target area, led by US exploration firm Ocean Infinity, ended similarly in May 2018. A 495-page report published in July said the Boeing 777 was likely deliberately taken off course but investigators were unable to determine who was responsible. The Malaysian government has said it would consider resuming a search if new evidence came to light. Not knowing what happened in the aircraft's final moments has made closure ‘impossible’, Gonzales said. ‘When friends tell me that their spouses have passed away, I get very jealous because they have closure,’ she said. ‘They've said goodbye. But for us, we've not said goodbye at all.’

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un boarded his train to return to Pyongyang on Saturday, two days after nuclear disarmament talks with US President Donald Trump collapsed in Hanoi. Kim arrived at Dong Dang railway station in Lang Son province at the Chinese border at 12:30pm (0500 GMT) after riding 170 kilometres in a motorcade from Hanoi. The ride home in his armoured train will take around three days. Well-wishers, including students waving North Korean and Vietnamese flags and a ceremonial guard, greeted him at the station along with government officials from Hanoi. Kim arrived by train in Vietnam on Tuesday to attend a two-day summit with Trump to discuss nuclear disarmament on the Korean Peninsula. Talks broke down on Thursday, however, and a celebratory lunch was aborted. Trump afterwards told reporters the North Korean had unacceptably asked for total sanctions relief as a precondition to disarmament. But at a press conference held in Hanoi late Thursday, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho disputed Trump's version of events, saying Kim had only asked for partial relief. Following Trump's departure from Hanoi on Thursday, Kim began an official state visit to Vietnam. He met with President Nguyen Phu Trong at the Presidential Palace on Friday, where the two embraced. Before his departure on Saturday he also visited the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, the founder of modern Vietnam, whose remains still lie in state 50 years after his death.

North Korea yesterday promised further negotiations with the US despite a spectacular failure to strike a nuclear deal at their Hanoi summit, with both sides keeping the door of diplomacy open.   The high-stakes second meeting between the North’s leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump broke up in disarray Thursday, without even a joint statement.  In the aftermath, each sought to blame the other’s intransigence for the deadlock.  Trump insisted Pyongyang wanted all sanctions imposed on it over its banned weapons programmes lifted, and this was a bridge too far.   But in a rare late-night press briefing, the North Korean foreign minister said Pyongyang had only wanted some of the measures eased, and that its proposal to close “all the nuclear production facilities” at its Yongbyon complex was its best and final offer.  Despite the stalemate, the North’s official KCNA news agency reported yesterday that the two leaders had had a “constructive and candid exchange.” Relations between the two countries — on opposite sides of the technically still-unfinished Korean War — had been “characterised by mistrust and antagonism” for decades, it said.  Despite “inevitable hardships and difficulties” on the way to forging a new relationship, KNCA described the Hanoi summit as “successful” and said Kim had promised Trump another encounter. An unusually downcast Trump told reporters on Thursday that he would “rather do it right than do it fast,” adding: “Sometimes you have to walk and this was just one of those times.”  After returning to Washington, the US president tweeted yesterday that his relations with Kim were “very good”.   “We had very substantive negotiations with Kim Jong-un — we know what they want and they know what we must have,” he wrote. The outcome in Hanoi fell far short of the pre-meeting expectations and hopes, after critics said their initial historic meeting in Singapore — which produced only a vague commitment from Kim to work “toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula” — was more style over substance.  According to senior US officials, in the week leading up to the Hanoi summit the North Koreans had demanded the lifting of effectively all the UN Security Council economic sanctions imposed on Pyongyang since March 2016.   Before that date, the measures were largely focused on preventing technology transfers but more recent restrictions apply to several lucrative industries — coal and iron ore, seafood and textiles, among others — in an effort to force concessions from Pyongyang.  “It was basically all the sanctions except for armaments,” a senior US official told reporters. “It tallies up to the tune of many, many billions of dollars.”  In return, Pyongyang was only offering to close “a portion of the Yongbyon complex”, a sprawling site covering multiple different facilities — and the North is believed to have other uranium enrichment plants.   Trump had urged Kim to go “all in” to secure a deal, the official said, adding Washington was willing to do so. “The weapons themselves need to be on the table,” he added, pointing to both Pyongyang’s existing stock of atomic bombs and the ICBMs which can reach the whole of the US mainland. But the process was continuing and Washington was “encouraged by the opportunities ahead of us”, the official said. “There’s still ample opportunity to talk.”   Kim began a two-day official visit to Vietnam yesterday, while in Manila, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters: “We are anxious to get back to the table so we can continue that conversation that will ultimately lead to peace and stability.” Analysts said the failure to reach a deal in Hanoi did not herald the end of negotiations.  “I don’t think it’s a disaster and it doesn’t end the dialogue process,” said Chris Green of the International Crisis Group.  Trump could not afford to do “a quote-unquote ‘bad deal’” in Hanoi, he added. “I think it benefits him to look tough, to string this out.”  But others pointed to a lack of preparation ahead of the meeting, with the two sides unable to bridge the gaps between them in time.   Former US ambassador to South Korea Kathleen Stephens said the impasse “highlighted the importance of working-level talks but simultaneously narrowed the range of options”. Kim put “more emphasis” on sanctions relief than most observers predicted, she said, and mutual liaison offices and an end-of-war statement proved insufficient to persuade him to go further with denuclearisation.  Joel Wit and Jenny Town of the respected Washington-based 38 North project said that while there had been fears beforehand that Trump “was going to give away the store, he did just the opposite, holding out for a better deal”. “The two leaders are heavily invested in the process so hopefully, this failed summit will just be one more chapter in the rollercoaster ride that is the Trump presidency,” they wrote.

The US-North Korea nuclear summit in Hanoi ended abruptly without a deal yesterday, with President Donald Trump saying he had decided to “walk” in the face of Kim Jong-un’s demands to drop sanctions.   The much-anticipated second meeting between the two leaders was supposed to build on their historic first summit in Singapore, but they failed to sign a joint statement as initially scheduled and the talks ended in deadlock.  “Sometimes you have to walk and this was just one of those times,” an unusually downbeat Trump told reporters. “Basically they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety and we couldn’t do that,” Trump said before leaving Vietnam aboard Air Force One to head back to Washington.   But Trump insisted he was “optimistic that the progress we made” before and during the summit left them “in position to have a really good outcome” in the future.  “I’d much rather do it right than do it fast,” he added.  He noted Kim had vowed not to resume nuclear or ballistic missile testing — something he previously identified as a yardstick for success — and reiterated their “close relationship”. “We just like each other ... there’s a warmth that we have and I hope that stays, I think it will,” he said. The outcome in Hanoi fell far short of the pre-meeting expectations and hopes, after critics said their initial historic meeting in Singapore was more style over substance.   The leaders walked away with no set plans for a third meeting, though Trump said he hopes to see Kim again soon.  Ankit Panda, from the Federation of American Scientists, warned on Twitter that the White House’s expectation of further talks “does not have to be a perception shared in North Korea”.  “Kim may have left irate, for all we know. He may have no intention of continuing this,” added Panda.  In the original White House programme, a “Joint Agreement Signing Ceremony” had been scheduled in Hanoi and a working lunch for the leaders. Instead both men left the summit venue without signing anything and Trump moved up his news conference by two hours.   “This is a major failure,” tweeted Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund peace foundation, saying it showed the limit of summitry, with “not enough time or staff” to work out a deal.  Trump flew around the world for the meeting and Kim undertook a mammoth two-and-a-half-day trek through China in his olive green train, travelling 4,000km. Kim will stay on in Vietnam for a state visit, which will include a wreath-laying ceremony at the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, before his expected departure on Saturday.  The US president, who touted his “special relationship” with Kim, frequently dangled the prospect of a brighter economic future for a nuclear-free North Korea, at one point saying there was “AWESOME” potential. From the outset, he had appeared to downplay expectations of an immediate breakthrough in nuclear talks, saying he was in “no rush” to clinch a rapid deal and was content if a pause in missile testing continued.   But Harry Kazianis, Director of Korean Studies at the Centre for the National Interest, said that no agreement was better than a bad one. “The challenge is North Korea’s nuclear weapons are already a reality,” he said. “Getting a deal that does little to nothing to remove that threat would be far worse than a flawed deal.”  In a phone call to South Korean President Moon Jae-in soon after the meeting ended, Trump “expressed regret” at not striking a deal with Kim, the South’s presidential office said. In Singapore Kim and Trump signed a vague document in which Kim pledged to “work toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”.   Progress subsequently stalled, with the two sides disagreeing on what that means, as the North sought relief from sanctions and Washington pressed for concrete steps towards it giving up its weapons.  As in Singapore, the two men put on a show of bonhomie in Vietnam, appearing to share jokes in front of reporters. Looking relaxed but appearing to say little, they indulged in a poolside stroll yesterday around the gardens of the luxury Metropole Hotel.   It was a far cry from the height of missile-testing tensions in 2017 when Trump slammed Kim as “rocket man” and the younger man branded the American president a “mentally deranged US dotard”.  In apparently unprecedented scenes, Kim answered unscripted questions from foreign reporters, saying he would welcome the establishment of a US liaison office in Pyongyang, which would be a step on the way to diplomatic normalisation. Before the summit, there was talk that there could be a political declaration ending the 1950-53 Korean War which finished technically with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.  There were also hopes Kim could pledge to destroy North Korea’s decades-old Yongbyon nuclear complex, which has long been at the heart of Pyongyang’s atomic development but remains shrouded in secrecy.  A patent distraction from the summit was a scandal back home in Washington with Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen calling him a “racist” and a “conman” during a congressional hearing.  “He lied a lot,” the president said simply in response yesterday.

* Pyongyang under sanctions over nuclear, missile programmes * Two crew: Russian tanker broke sanctions on fuel transfers * Tanker's owners have not responded to the allegations * Russia denied previous reports of sanctions violations A Russian tanker violated international trade sanctions by transferring fuel to a North Korean vessel at sea at least four times between October 2017 and May 2018, two crew members who witnessed the transfers said. Such transactions could have helped provide North Korea with an economic lifeline and eased the isolation of the secretive communist state, whose leader, Kim Jong Un, is due to meet US President Donald Trump in Vietnam this week. Primportbunker, the owner of the vessel the crew members said made the transfers, did not respond to requests for comment by telephone. No one answered the door when Reuters visited the building where Primportbunker has its headquarters in the port city of Vladivostok on Russia's Pacific coast. On the four voyages between Oct. 13, 2017, and May 7, 2018, the Tantal tanker gave its destination as the Chinese port of Ningbo when it set sail, according to port documents seen by Reuters and tracking data from financial data company Refinitiv. It then met up in international waters with a North Korean vessel to which it transferred its cargo of fuel, the two crew members who witnessed the transfers said. The two crew said the fuel transfers took place when the Tantal's transponder, which allows the vessel to be tracked at sea, was not operating. Shipping industry experts said this indicates the transponder was deliberately turned off or the Tantal had entered a zone not covered by ship-tracking radar. On each occasion, the transponder started operating again when the Tantal was close to port in Russia, the two crew said. They declined to give their names, citing fear of reprisals. "We got officially registered for Ningbo and went to the 12-mile zone (marking the limits of Russian territorial waters)," one of the crew said, describing four journeys in which he was involved. "We worked at night there with the North Korean tanker Chon Moyng-1," he said. Such transactions violate the international sanctions imposed on North Korea over its nuclear and missiles programme, which include a United Nations ban on nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum exports to Pyongyang. Washington has accused Russia of "cheating" on sanctions and said it has evidence of "consistent and wide-ranging Russian violations". In earlier denials that it has violated sanctions, Russia has said such accusations are not backed up by evidence. Russia's foreign ministry and the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions, did not respond to requests for comment about the Tantal. The independent U.N. panel of experts that monitors implementation of sanctions also did not respond. Russia's Far Eastern Customs Administration said it could not provide information about the Tantal's voyages. The Seaport Administration of Russia's Primorye region, which includes Vladivostok, said it had sought information from the Federal Marine and River Transport Agency in response to Reuters' questions but the agency provided no information. One of the crew members who said he was on board during the transfers said the ship that received the fuel flew the North Korean flag and saw it had the name Chon Myong-1 on its side. The Chon Myong-1 was in March 2018 included on a U.N. list of vessels that have conducted so-called ship-to-ship transfers of fuel in violation of sanctions. Reuters' was unable to obtain comment from North Korea and the owners of the Chon Myong-1. The Tantal concealed its fuel transfers to North Korea by declaring when it returned to port that it had transferred the fuel at sea to a Chinese vessel, the two crew members said. A third crew member said the Tantal had met up on these occasions with a vessel that was not North Korean - the China-registered Hui Tong 27 - and told port authorities on its return to port that it had transferred its cargo of fuel to this ship. But the Refinitiv ship-tracking data showed the Hui Tong 27 was not in the area at these times. The Tantal also gave Ningbo as its destination on three other trips between October 2017 and May 2018, according to port documents and shipping data. The two crew members who spoke to Reuters did not cite any evidence that sanctions were violated on these three voyages. In December 2017, Reuters quoted two senior Western European security sources as saying Russian tankers had supplied fuel to North Korea on at least three occasions in the preceding months by transferring cargoes at sea. The security sources made no mention of the Tantal. A court in Vladivostok introduced bankruptcy proceedings on behalf of the Russian tax service against Primportbunker on Sept. 18 last year, according to a publicly available court order. The first stage of bankruptcy proceedings is still under way -- the company is now under temporary management which is assessing its ability to pay off creditors. If unable to pay, the company's assets will be sold and it will be closed down, according to Russian law. The two crew members who spoke to Reuters said they had not always been paid their wages on time. Denis Vlasov, executive partner in law firm Vladpravo which represented Primportbunker, said Primportbunker had tried to resolve its financial problems including wage arrears, but that Vladpravo stopped working with the company about a year ago. He said he knew nothing about the Tantal's declared trips to Ningbo. Shipping brokers cited customs data as showing that on three of the seven trips from October 2017 to May 2018 the Tantal was carrying fuel from the Komsomolsky refinery in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in Russia's far east. The refinery, which is owned by state oil company Rosneft, did not respond to requests for comment. There was no suggestion Rosneft know of the alleged transfers at sea. Rosneft did not respond to requests for comment. The data quoted the brokers for the same three trips showed the oil products were acquired from the refinery by a small Russian trading firm, Mir Torgovli, based in Vladivostok. Mir Torgovli's buyer was a Chinese firm in Shandong called Worldmax Trading Co. Ltd, according to the data cited by the brokers. Mir Torgovli's chief executive declined to comment. Reuters was unable to reach Worldmax Trading. After completing the last of the seven voyages for which the destination was registered as China, the Tantal has not left Vladivostok port, according to the Refinitiv ship-tracking data. It sits at anchor offshore, shipping industry sources said.