Car wars: Counting the cost of Trump's tariffs
How the world's biggest exporters try to steer away from a damaging trade war with the US.
07 Jul 2018 19:08 GMT Business & Economy, Donald Trump, United States, Europe, China
China is already calling it a full-blown trade war.
Billions of dollars worth of products are affected as US tariffs on selected Chinese products take effect this week. And China has said it's retaliating with its own tariffs on American goods.
But the big driver of an all-out global trade war could be cars.
US President Donald Trump has said cars are key to getting trade concessions. His administration is now considering a 25 percent tariff on foreign cars and car parts in the name of national security.
Europe currently charges a 10 percent tariff on US cars, while the US charges only 2.5 percent on European cars. Trump says that's unfair, but carmakers and dealers around the world point out that the US has a 25 percent tariff on light trucks and SUVs.
We are looking at much deeper implications than we have seen in previous trade wars.
Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, a director of the European Centre for International Political Economy
They are warning that Trump's tariffs would be bad for the car industry and bad for consumers.
Analysts call it a case of car crash economics.
So how will it affect consumers and producers? How important is the car industry? And what can be done to prevent a global trade war?
Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, a director of the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) and a leading author on trade diplomacy and the digital economy, believes the implications for consumers, as well as manufacturers, will be much larger than the ones of aluminium and steel tariffs.
He says "car wars" would not just be felt by consumers in the US, because "some of the SUVs that are made by European brands are made in the US and actually shipped to Europe. So, if you have a 20 percent price hike on imported cars, as well as car components, this will be felt as US-made cars are actually exported back to Europe. We are looking at much deeper implications than we have seen in previous trade wars."
"The big three American manufacturers have also strongly opposed this move - simply because most of the cars nowadays are produced relatively locally. In the case of the US, they are either made in the US or in the NAFTA region," Lee-Makiyama says. "Whereas, if you look at the supply chains, they are extending over the world. So, for example, you can buy a European car, let's say a BMW, and it will be made in the US but still, key components will be arriving from Germany, South Africa, and, sometimes, even China. So it is a very globalised industry."
"For the current administration in the US, the question is: Is the purpose of the new tariffs actually to open up the rest of the world by creating an artificial leverage, or is the purpose to try and force factories to move from Canada, Mexico into the US? ... Or rather protect the domestic production in the US - although US manufacturers don't even want that protection," he says.
Asked about implications on China, Lee-Makiyama explains that the main trade barrier in China is not just tariffs: "Their biggest trade barrier will be the fact that ... foreign manufacturers in China are actually forced into joint ventures, forced marriages with their Chinese competitors who are entitled to half of the profits and 100 percent of the know-how."
Sunday, July 8, 2018
News media paid Melania Trump thousands for use of photos in 'positive stories only' - NBC News
News media paid Melania Trump thousands for use of photos in 'positive stories only'
The first lady earned six figures from an agreement with Getty Images that paid royalties to the Trumps and mandated photos be used in positive coverage.
by Andrew W. Lehren, Emily R. Siegel and Merritt Enright / Jul.03.2018 / 2:18 AM ET
Image: Trump family photoshoot
A screen shot shows how an individual Mahaux photo of the Trump family appears on the Getty Images website.
Since her husband took office Melania Trump has earned six figures from an unusual deal with a photo agency in which major media organizations have indirectly paid the Trump family despite a requirement that the photos be used only in positive coverage.
President Donald Trump's most recent financial disclosure reveals that in 2017 the first lady earned at least $100,000 from Getty Images for the use of any of a series of 187 photos of the first family shot between 2010 and 2016 by Belgian photographer Regine Mahaux.
It's not unheard of for celebrities to earn royalties from photos of themselves, but it's very unusual for the wife of a currently serving elected official. More problematic for the many news organizations that have published or broadcast the images, however, is that Getty's licensing agreement stipulates the pictures can be used in "positive stories only."
According to the revenue statement in President Trump's May financial disclosure, Melania Trump earned between $100,000 and $1,000,000 in photo royalties in 2017 from the Getty deal.
Image: Trump family photoshootA photo of Barron and Melania Trump taken by Regine Mahaux and licensed via Getty Images was used in a 2016 NBC Nightly News segment.
Federal officials are only required to give an income range in their filings, and both Getty and the White House declined requests to provide more precise figures or list the places the images had appeared.
But NBC News found at least a dozen organizations that had paid to use Mahaux's restricted images of the Trumps in 2017, resulting in indirect payment to the first family.
Yahoo News, NBC News, Marie Claire, the Daily Mail, My San Antonio, Houston Chronicle, House Beautiful, and SF Gate, the website for The San Francisco Chronicle, are among those that have featured Mahaux's highly stylized family portraits since Trump took office.
The February 2017 issue of the Russian edition of the fashion magazine Elle included a gilded Mahaux portrait of the first family.
A Mahaux group portrait of Donald, Melania and son Barron Trump was featured on the May page of the White House 2017 calendar that was on sale in the White House gift shop for $14. Bent Publishing, which publishes the calendars, confirmed that it licensed the Mahaux photo for the 2017 calendar. The 2018 calendar now on sale at the gift shop does not include any Mahaux images.
NBC News also found that numerous entities had used the images before President Trump took office, though no income from the Getty deal was itemized in any financial disclosure prior to 2017.
In August 2016, Mahaux's portrait of then-candidate Trump and his wife was featured in the official Republican National Convention guide book that was given to each delegate. Campaign finance records show the money to pay for the guide came from political donations to the Republican National Committee.
The program was produced by Great Lakes Publishing, which said it got the image from a committee involved in arranging the convention. Jeff Larson, a political consultant who ran that committee, said, "We didn't pay any royalties that I know of for that photo."
NBC's Nightly News included the images in a Nightly News segment on Melania Trump that aired July 18, 2016, during the Republican National Convention.
The French edition of Vanity Fair put one of the pictures on the cover of its August 2016 issue.
Fox News used the photos in a variety of news segments in 2016. Greta Van Susteren's show "On the Record" included two portraits of Melania Trump during an interview Van Susteren did with the future first lady. In November 2016, after Trump's upset election win, the first episode of the Fox News show "OBJECTified," hosted by TMZ founder Harvey Levin, depicted the life and rise of Donald Trump. The episode included two of the images taken by Mahaux.
A Fox News Channel spokesperson said in a statement that the Mahaux photos used by Fox "were provided by the Trump campaign and Melania Trump's office, who told us they had full ownership and rights to the photos."
Image: Trump family photoshootA screenshot of a My San Antonio/San Antonio Express article featuring a Regine Mahaux image of Melania Trump. My San Antonio took the story down after an inquiry from NBC News.
An NBC News spokesperson said NBC News did not agree or sign a statement that the image would be used for positive coverage, and was never informed that a portion of the royalties would go to the Trump family.
Several news organizations removed the images from their websites after inquiries by NBC News.
Yahoo took them down and said in a statement: "We were not aware of this specific arrangement with Getty nor was our editorial influenced by it. We have removed the image from Yahoo Lifestyle."
The San Francisco Chronicle deleted the images from its website as well, and said it was looking into how they came to be used.
Trump mocks Warren: 'To the fake Pocahontas, I won't apologize'
Rescuers race to save soccer team trapped in Thailand cave with heavy rain on the way
The photographs were also pulled from the websites for The Houston Chronicle and The San Antonio Express-News following inquiries by NBC News. Hearst Communications Inc. owns the three newspapers and their websites. The images remained on other Hearst websites like those for the magazines House Beautiful and Marie Claire. Representatives for those publications did not return repeated calls and emails.
French Vanity Fair, Russian Elle, and the Daily Mail and Paris Match, which also used the photographs, did not respond to requests for comment.
Image: Trump family photoshootA 2017 calendar featuring Donald, Melania and Barron Trump was offered for sale at the White House gift shop, and included a Regine Mahaux photo. A portion of the gift shop's revenues is donated to rural police departments.
In a standard photo contract, the photographer gets royalties and the photo agency receives fees for each use of an image. Models are not paid royalties.
Paying royalties to the Trumps and limiting the use to only positive stories is unusual for news organizations, according to Akili Ramsess, executive director of the National Press Photographers Association. She said that celebrity wedding or baby photographs are sometimes licensed so part of the fees flows back to the celebrity. Keith Major, another Getty photographer who has also photographed Melania Trump, said he does not share royalties with her.
Getty's licensing agreement does not offer any hint that money is also paid to the Trumps, and the arrangement did not appear to have become public until the income was listed in the president's May financial filing.
However, Getty does make clear in its catalog that the images can only be licensed with permission by Getty or, in some cases, Mahaux, and that the images may be used for "positive stories only."
News organizations likely would not have known about the payments to Melania Trump, but could have been aware of the published stipulation about positive coverage in the catalog.
Indira Lakshmanan, a media ethicist at the Poynter Institute, said, "If I'm a news editor, I would use photos that don't have any restriction attached to them. There's a lesson for editors, for public figures. There are plenty of photos out there that you can use that don't have these restrictions."
Getty Images told NBC News that the details and amounts of payments to the Trumps are covered by confidential agreements. The agency declined to say whether there are separate royalty arrangements with other members of the Trump families, and declined all comment on the deal other than to say that once a photo has been licensed, Getty pays "contracted royalties back to the photographer and/or individual(s) as covered by their confidential agreement."
In a statement, a White House spokesperson said: "President Trump's recent Public Disclosure Report, which included information regarding Mrs. Trump's income and assets, was filed after being certified by the White House Ethics Counsel and the Office of Government Ethics. The report speaks for itself."
When NBC News reached photographer Regine Mahaux by phone, she said "everything is legal" and then asked that any questions be submitted to her by email. NBC repeatedly emailed her questions but did not get a reply.
Mahaux took the photos during sessions in 2010, 2011 and 2016. Most feature some combination of Trump, Melania and son Barron. At least one of the photos, depicting the future first lady floating inside a swan boat on a still lake, and her swinging from a chandelier, combines images into a composite. Getty noted in its online catalog that many of the images of the Trumps have been "retouched," including those that later appeared in various news publications.
Mahaux has worked closely with the Trumps since 2010. Several albums on the Getty website feature her intimate photoshoots with the family in Trump Tower. "I like working with the family's image – it speaks to me. It inspires me," Mahaux told a French news outlet in 2017. Mahaux also took Melania Trump's official White House portrait, which is public and not subject to the licensing arrangement.
Melania's 2017 income from the Mahaux photos is an increase from previous years, based on the president's financial filings. Royalties from Getty Images do not appear in any of the financial statements submitted by Trump in the three prior years. Melania Trump likely earned some money during those years, but the income was below the federal government's threshold required for declaring the income.
Most modern first ladies have launched books and other commercial products during their stints in the White House — and then donated the entire proceeds to charity. Laura Bush donated a book advance to education charities, and Michelle Obama gave the proceeds from her book American Grown to the National Park Foundation.
Among Trump administration spouses, Vice President Mike Pence's wife, Karen, announced that revenues from her children's book would be donated to a children's hospital in Indiana and an anti-sex-trafficking nonprofit. In 2017, Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and wife of senior adviser Jared Kushner, said she would give most of the advance and any future royalties from her book "Women Who Work" to charity.
The White House declined to comment on whether the Trumps have steered any of the proceeds from the Getty deal, which was consummated before Melania Trump became first lady, to a charity. Absent a public announcement, their annual tax returns might provide a hint — but unlike all other modern first families, the Trumps have not released them.
However, some of the proceeds from at least one of Mahaux's pictures of the first lady seem to have made their way to charity through another means. The White House gift shop, which sold the 2017 White House calendar, donates part of its earnings to help rural police departments
The first lady earned six figures from an agreement with Getty Images that paid royalties to the Trumps and mandated photos be used in positive coverage.
by Andrew W. Lehren, Emily R. Siegel and Merritt Enright / Jul.03.2018 / 2:18 AM ET
Image: Trump family photoshoot
A screen shot shows how an individual Mahaux photo of the Trump family appears on the Getty Images website.
Since her husband took office Melania Trump has earned six figures from an unusual deal with a photo agency in which major media organizations have indirectly paid the Trump family despite a requirement that the photos be used only in positive coverage.
President Donald Trump's most recent financial disclosure reveals that in 2017 the first lady earned at least $100,000 from Getty Images for the use of any of a series of 187 photos of the first family shot between 2010 and 2016 by Belgian photographer Regine Mahaux.
It's not unheard of for celebrities to earn royalties from photos of themselves, but it's very unusual for the wife of a currently serving elected official. More problematic for the many news organizations that have published or broadcast the images, however, is that Getty's licensing agreement stipulates the pictures can be used in "positive stories only."
According to the revenue statement in President Trump's May financial disclosure, Melania Trump earned between $100,000 and $1,000,000 in photo royalties in 2017 from the Getty deal.
Image: Trump family photoshootA photo of Barron and Melania Trump taken by Regine Mahaux and licensed via Getty Images was used in a 2016 NBC Nightly News segment.
Federal officials are only required to give an income range in their filings, and both Getty and the White House declined requests to provide more precise figures or list the places the images had appeared.
But NBC News found at least a dozen organizations that had paid to use Mahaux's restricted images of the Trumps in 2017, resulting in indirect payment to the first family.
Yahoo News, NBC News, Marie Claire, the Daily Mail, My San Antonio, Houston Chronicle, House Beautiful, and SF Gate, the website for The San Francisco Chronicle, are among those that have featured Mahaux's highly stylized family portraits since Trump took office.
The February 2017 issue of the Russian edition of the fashion magazine Elle included a gilded Mahaux portrait of the first family.
A Mahaux group portrait of Donald, Melania and son Barron Trump was featured on the May page of the White House 2017 calendar that was on sale in the White House gift shop for $14. Bent Publishing, which publishes the calendars, confirmed that it licensed the Mahaux photo for the 2017 calendar. The 2018 calendar now on sale at the gift shop does not include any Mahaux images.
NBC News also found that numerous entities had used the images before President Trump took office, though no income from the Getty deal was itemized in any financial disclosure prior to 2017.
In August 2016, Mahaux's portrait of then-candidate Trump and his wife was featured in the official Republican National Convention guide book that was given to each delegate. Campaign finance records show the money to pay for the guide came from political donations to the Republican National Committee.
The program was produced by Great Lakes Publishing, which said it got the image from a committee involved in arranging the convention. Jeff Larson, a political consultant who ran that committee, said, "We didn't pay any royalties that I know of for that photo."
NBC's Nightly News included the images in a Nightly News segment on Melania Trump that aired July 18, 2016, during the Republican National Convention.
The French edition of Vanity Fair put one of the pictures on the cover of its August 2016 issue.
Fox News used the photos in a variety of news segments in 2016. Greta Van Susteren's show "On the Record" included two portraits of Melania Trump during an interview Van Susteren did with the future first lady. In November 2016, after Trump's upset election win, the first episode of the Fox News show "OBJECTified," hosted by TMZ founder Harvey Levin, depicted the life and rise of Donald Trump. The episode included two of the images taken by Mahaux.
A Fox News Channel spokesperson said in a statement that the Mahaux photos used by Fox "were provided by the Trump campaign and Melania Trump's office, who told us they had full ownership and rights to the photos."
Image: Trump family photoshootA screenshot of a My San Antonio/San Antonio Express article featuring a Regine Mahaux image of Melania Trump. My San Antonio took the story down after an inquiry from NBC News.
An NBC News spokesperson said NBC News did not agree or sign a statement that the image would be used for positive coverage, and was never informed that a portion of the royalties would go to the Trump family.
Several news organizations removed the images from their websites after inquiries by NBC News.
Yahoo took them down and said in a statement: "We were not aware of this specific arrangement with Getty nor was our editorial influenced by it. We have removed the image from Yahoo Lifestyle."
The San Francisco Chronicle deleted the images from its website as well, and said it was looking into how they came to be used.
Trump mocks Warren: 'To the fake Pocahontas, I won't apologize'
Rescuers race to save soccer team trapped in Thailand cave with heavy rain on the way
The photographs were also pulled from the websites for The Houston Chronicle and The San Antonio Express-News following inquiries by NBC News. Hearst Communications Inc. owns the three newspapers and their websites. The images remained on other Hearst websites like those for the magazines House Beautiful and Marie Claire. Representatives for those publications did not return repeated calls and emails.
French Vanity Fair, Russian Elle, and the Daily Mail and Paris Match, which also used the photographs, did not respond to requests for comment.
Image: Trump family photoshootA 2017 calendar featuring Donald, Melania and Barron Trump was offered for sale at the White House gift shop, and included a Regine Mahaux photo. A portion of the gift shop's revenues is donated to rural police departments.
In a standard photo contract, the photographer gets royalties and the photo agency receives fees for each use of an image. Models are not paid royalties.
Paying royalties to the Trumps and limiting the use to only positive stories is unusual for news organizations, according to Akili Ramsess, executive director of the National Press Photographers Association. She said that celebrity wedding or baby photographs are sometimes licensed so part of the fees flows back to the celebrity. Keith Major, another Getty photographer who has also photographed Melania Trump, said he does not share royalties with her.
Getty's licensing agreement does not offer any hint that money is also paid to the Trumps, and the arrangement did not appear to have become public until the income was listed in the president's May financial filing.
However, Getty does make clear in its catalog that the images can only be licensed with permission by Getty or, in some cases, Mahaux, and that the images may be used for "positive stories only."
News organizations likely would not have known about the payments to Melania Trump, but could have been aware of the published stipulation about positive coverage in the catalog.
Indira Lakshmanan, a media ethicist at the Poynter Institute, said, "If I'm a news editor, I would use photos that don't have any restriction attached to them. There's a lesson for editors, for public figures. There are plenty of photos out there that you can use that don't have these restrictions."
Getty Images told NBC News that the details and amounts of payments to the Trumps are covered by confidential agreements. The agency declined to say whether there are separate royalty arrangements with other members of the Trump families, and declined all comment on the deal other than to say that once a photo has been licensed, Getty pays "contracted royalties back to the photographer and/or individual(s) as covered by their confidential agreement."
In a statement, a White House spokesperson said: "President Trump's recent Public Disclosure Report, which included information regarding Mrs. Trump's income and assets, was filed after being certified by the White House Ethics Counsel and the Office of Government Ethics. The report speaks for itself."
When NBC News reached photographer Regine Mahaux by phone, she said "everything is legal" and then asked that any questions be submitted to her by email. NBC repeatedly emailed her questions but did not get a reply.
Mahaux took the photos during sessions in 2010, 2011 and 2016. Most feature some combination of Trump, Melania and son Barron. At least one of the photos, depicting the future first lady floating inside a swan boat on a still lake, and her swinging from a chandelier, combines images into a composite. Getty noted in its online catalog that many of the images of the Trumps have been "retouched," including those that later appeared in various news publications.
Mahaux has worked closely with the Trumps since 2010. Several albums on the Getty website feature her intimate photoshoots with the family in Trump Tower. "I like working with the family's image – it speaks to me. It inspires me," Mahaux told a French news outlet in 2017. Mahaux also took Melania Trump's official White House portrait, which is public and not subject to the licensing arrangement.
Melania's 2017 income from the Mahaux photos is an increase from previous years, based on the president's financial filings. Royalties from Getty Images do not appear in any of the financial statements submitted by Trump in the three prior years. Melania Trump likely earned some money during those years, but the income was below the federal government's threshold required for declaring the income.
Most modern first ladies have launched books and other commercial products during their stints in the White House — and then donated the entire proceeds to charity. Laura Bush donated a book advance to education charities, and Michelle Obama gave the proceeds from her book American Grown to the National Park Foundation.
Among Trump administration spouses, Vice President Mike Pence's wife, Karen, announced that revenues from her children's book would be donated to a children's hospital in Indiana and an anti-sex-trafficking nonprofit. In 2017, Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and wife of senior adviser Jared Kushner, said she would give most of the advance and any future royalties from her book "Women Who Work" to charity.
The White House declined to comment on whether the Trumps have steered any of the proceeds from the Getty deal, which was consummated before Melania Trump became first lady, to a charity. Absent a public announcement, their annual tax returns might provide a hint — but unlike all other modern first families, the Trumps have not released them.
However, some of the proceeds from at least one of Mahaux's pictures of the first lady seem to have made their way to charity through another means. The White House gift shop, which sold the 2017 White House calendar, donates part of its earnings to help rural police departments
Man claiming to be from the future says he's got footage of Las Vegas in 2120 - yes, really - Independent
July 8, 2018
Man claiming to be from the future says he's got footage of Las Vegas in 2120 - yes, really
Posted 3 days ago by Lowenna Waters in discover
UPVOTE
A well known 'time traveller' who claims to have visited us from the future has now released footage that he claims is Las Vegas in 2120. Yes, really.
The man, who is known as Noah, made headlines around the world earlier this year when he passed lie detector tests when discussing his time-travelling escapades.
This time, Noah's back - and he's posted a video on Apex TV YouTube channel saying that he's just got back from a 'failed mission' and that he wants to 'spread the truth' about the reality of time travel.
In the video, he claims to have made two stops, one in 2060 and one in 2120, which is where he captured the footage as part of a top secret mission.
Near the end of the 16 minute clip, Noah finally pulls out his mobile phone to reveal the footage of the city.
Speaking about the video clip, he says:
These red clouds are global warming.
It is a highly impactful thing in the future, you can see it's everywhere.
I remember it being incredibly hot, but I'm pretty sure they're working on it in the future.
Many YouTube users have pointed out the many flaws with the video, focusing on the amazing coincidence that people seem to use current time mobile phones in the future.
Mehrab Kahn wrote:
Video is from the future but his mobile phone is not from the future!
Another said:
So he recorded the video on his future iPhone from 2030? I would have been much more impressed in the technology in the actual phone. Fake news !
Others just focused on the fact that the video is obviously faked, and that it's most probably CGI:
That is clearly CGI what is wrong with you people?
And some had their priorities sorted, asking about the pressing matters of the day:
Is there Mick Jagger in 2120?
We wish we knew, oh how we wish we knew.
Man claiming to be from the future says he's got footage of Las Vegas in 2120 - yes, really
Posted 3 days ago by Lowenna Waters in discover
UPVOTE
A well known 'time traveller' who claims to have visited us from the future has now released footage that he claims is Las Vegas in 2120. Yes, really.
The man, who is known as Noah, made headlines around the world earlier this year when he passed lie detector tests when discussing his time-travelling escapades.
This time, Noah's back - and he's posted a video on Apex TV YouTube channel saying that he's just got back from a 'failed mission' and that he wants to 'spread the truth' about the reality of time travel.
In the video, he claims to have made two stops, one in 2060 and one in 2120, which is where he captured the footage as part of a top secret mission.
Near the end of the 16 minute clip, Noah finally pulls out his mobile phone to reveal the footage of the city.
Speaking about the video clip, he says:
These red clouds are global warming.
It is a highly impactful thing in the future, you can see it's everywhere.
I remember it being incredibly hot, but I'm pretty sure they're working on it in the future.
Many YouTube users have pointed out the many flaws with the video, focusing on the amazing coincidence that people seem to use current time mobile phones in the future.
Mehrab Kahn wrote:
Video is from the future but his mobile phone is not from the future!
Another said:
So he recorded the video on his future iPhone from 2030? I would have been much more impressed in the technology in the actual phone. Fake news !
Others just focused on the fact that the video is obviously faked, and that it's most probably CGI:
That is clearly CGI what is wrong with you people?
And some had their priorities sorted, asking about the pressing matters of the day:
Is there Mick Jagger in 2120?
We wish we knew, oh how we wish we knew.
North Korea Slams U.S. ‘Gangster-Like’ Demands at Nuclear Talks - Bloomberg
North Korea Slams U.S. ‘Gangster-Like’ Demands at Nuclear Talks
By Nick Wadhams and Anthony Capaccio
July 7, 2018, 8:41 PM GMT+10 Updated on July 8, 2018, 5:21 AM GMT+10
Foreign ministry comments hours after U.S. secretary leaves
Pompeo said two days of negotiations done in ‘good faith’
North Korea slammed the U.S. position on denuclearization during two days of meetings with Mike Pompeo as “gangster-like,” hours after the secretary of state cited “good-faith negotiations” with his counterparts in Pyongyang.
A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman, in a lengthy English-language statement released by the state media outlet Korea Central News Agency, said the U.S. side had created “trouble” by issuing the same kind of proposals that past administrations had sought.
The assessment, so different to one Pompeo had offered reporters earlier, suggested -- as Korea analysts had feared -- that the two sides remain far apart on their goals for talks on denuclearization, and that North Korea’s promises are a facade. That’s despite Pompeo’s past assessments and President Donald Trump’s upbeat remarks after his June meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore.
“It appears Trump took his victory lap a tad too soon,” Bruce Klingner, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst and now an Asia expert at the Heritage Foundation, said in an email. “The diplomatic path remains open, but it will be far bumpier and far longer than the Trump administration had believed and described publicly.”
‘Counter to the Spirit’
In its statement, North Korea said the U.S. side “came up only with its unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearization,” adding that the U.S. call for “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization,” or CVID, ran “counter to the spirit of the Singapore summit.”
Trust between the two sides was now at a “dangerous” stage that could lead the country to falter in its commitment to give up nuclear weapons, according to the statement, which added that North Korea still has faith in Trump.
The statement came a few hours after Pompeo departed Pyongyang following meetings led by Kim Yong Chol, a senior aide to Kim. Pompeo is spending the night in Tokyo, where he’ll brief officials from Japan and South Korea on Sunday before flying to Vietnam.
The secretary was under pressure to deliver a more concrete disarmament plan to flesh out the two leaders’ vague, 1-1/2 page document from the Singapore meeting, which provided no timetable for dismantling North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.
‘Complicated Issues’
Before he left Pyongyang, Pompeo said U.S. negotiators and their North Korean counterparts discussed the idea of a full declaration of North Korean weapons of mass destruction stockpiles, and setting a timeline for giving them up.
“These are complicated issues, but we made progress on almost all of the central issues,’’ Pompeo told reporters on the tarmac, following his third visit to North Korea. “We had productive, good-faith negotiations.”
Pompeo said North Korea, in “many hours of talks’’ at a walled-off guest-house outside downtown Pyongyang, reiterated its commitment to denuclearization. Kim Yong Chol ended Pompeo’s visit on a positive note, telling the top U.S. diplomat just before he boarded his plane, “We will produce an outcome, results.’’
Yet the state media commentary was a setback for Pompeo, who had hoped that he could hand off future negotiations to working groups settled on by the two sides at the latest meeting. After his Asia swing, Pompeo heads for other thorny U.S. foreign-policy events -- the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Brussels starting on July 11, and Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on July 16.
Sleep Deprived?
Despite the secretary’s positive depiction, signs had emerged earlier that things weren’t going as well as hoped. Pompeo didn’t have a meeting with Kim Jong Un, as he had on his two previous trips to North Korea’s capital. And earlier in the day, he had a curiously testy exchange with Kim Yong Chol, who mused that Pompeo may not have slept well the night before because of the important issues they had discussed.
“Director Kim, I slept just fine,” Pompeo responded.
Still, Pompeo could point to no concrete achievement from the talks, aside from an agreement for the two sides to meet again on or around July 12 in Panmunjom, the border village between the two Koreas, to discuss returning the remains of U.S. soldiers from the 1950-1953 Korean War.
Pompeo said North Korea had confirmed it intended to destroy a missile-engine testing facility and the two sides discussed the “modalities’’ of what that would look like. The countries also agreed to create working groups to be overseen by Sung Kim, the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines who’s handled some lower-level discussions.
Decades of Differences
All along, experts had wondered how the U.S. and North Korea would bridge differences that have bedeviled their talks for decades and only seemed exacerbated under Trump. The U.S. has insisted that North Korea give up its nuclear weapons for good before receiving relief from crippling sanctions. North Korea, meanwhile, indicated after Singapore that the two sides had agreed to a synchronized, step-by-step approach.
“Arms control agreements are tough -- they have to be very specific, with real verification provisions,” James Russell, an associate professor in national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, said in an email. “There has to be a symmetry of interests between the negotiating parties,” and there was no such symmetry at the U.S.-North Korea summit, he said.
In its statement calling the U.S. stance “regrettable,” the North Korean Foreign Ministry said the U.S. is unilaterally demanding denuclearization and trying to postpone discussion of declaring an end to the Korean War.
Publicity Seekers
It also derided the “great publicity” made by the U.S. about the “suspension of one or two joint military exercises” with South Korea. Such war games “can be resumed anytime,” versus the U.S. demand for an “irreversible step” by North Korea on its nuclear testing grounds, the statement said.
Pyongyang’s message was “clearly based on its long-standing position” that denuclearization means “global arms control” in which North Korea abandon its arsenal when all other nuclear powers, including the U.S., abandon theirs, said Klingner, the former CIA analyst.
A failure in the talks would amount to an embarrassment for Pompeo, whom Trump has assigned to lead the negotiations and who’s said repeatedly that Kim Jong Un was ready to commit to something no North Korean government had delivered on in decades.
‘Wonderful Paper’
It would be worse for Trump himself. Since the summit, Trump has declared the North Korean nuclear threat over, even though the country’s leaders promised nothing in a joint declaration signed by Kim and Trump that they hadn’t agreed to many times before.
Returning to Washington from Singapore, Trump tweeted that “North Korea was our biggest and most dangerous problem. No longer - sleep well tonight!” At a rally in Montana on July 5, he said that “we signed a wonderful paper saying they’re going to denuclearize their whole thing. It’s going to all happen.”
“Can’t really put lipstick on this pig,” said Victor Cha, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who was a director of Asian affairs at the National Security Council under President George W. Bush. “There was not even a promise of more high-level meetings, only working-level, which had not achieved much anyway.”
Critics and analysts who study North Korea have argued that the country’s commitment to the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,’’ as spelled out in the joint declaration from the Singapore summit, doesn’t go as far as other promises to give up its nuclear weapons that Pyongyang had made -- and reneged upon -- in the past.
Denuclearization Challenges
In recent days, intelligence reports have shown that North Korea is continuing work at a key rocket-engine facility. The U.S. has also stopped using the catchphrase “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization,’’ which it had insisted upon happening before North Korea gets any relief from a crippling sanctions regime, before Pompeo apparently brought it up again during the latest talks.
That change raised suspicion that the U.S. was softening its demands for the country, an argument that State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert had insisted on Friday wasn’t true.
Nauert didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about North Korea’s latest statement. Trump, spending a long weekend at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, was also silent on the developments on Twitter.
Pompeo’s visit was the highest level meeting between U.S. and North Korean officials since Trump and Kim held their unprecedented summit. The next steps are unclear.
“Trump tried to sell this as a quickly achievable deal to denuclearize, and now Pompeo and team are tasked with the impossible task of pushing forward on denuclearization without a shared understanding with Pyongyang,” said Stephen Nagy, a senior associate professor at the International Christian University in Tokyo.
By Nick Wadhams and Anthony Capaccio
July 7, 2018, 8:41 PM GMT+10 Updated on July 8, 2018, 5:21 AM GMT+10
Foreign ministry comments hours after U.S. secretary leaves
Pompeo said two days of negotiations done in ‘good faith’
North Korea slammed the U.S. position on denuclearization during two days of meetings with Mike Pompeo as “gangster-like,” hours after the secretary of state cited “good-faith negotiations” with his counterparts in Pyongyang.
A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman, in a lengthy English-language statement released by the state media outlet Korea Central News Agency, said the U.S. side had created “trouble” by issuing the same kind of proposals that past administrations had sought.
The assessment, so different to one Pompeo had offered reporters earlier, suggested -- as Korea analysts had feared -- that the two sides remain far apart on their goals for talks on denuclearization, and that North Korea’s promises are a facade. That’s despite Pompeo’s past assessments and President Donald Trump’s upbeat remarks after his June meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore.
“It appears Trump took his victory lap a tad too soon,” Bruce Klingner, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst and now an Asia expert at the Heritage Foundation, said in an email. “The diplomatic path remains open, but it will be far bumpier and far longer than the Trump administration had believed and described publicly.”
‘Counter to the Spirit’
In its statement, North Korea said the U.S. side “came up only with its unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearization,” adding that the U.S. call for “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization,” or CVID, ran “counter to the spirit of the Singapore summit.”
Trust between the two sides was now at a “dangerous” stage that could lead the country to falter in its commitment to give up nuclear weapons, according to the statement, which added that North Korea still has faith in Trump.
The statement came a few hours after Pompeo departed Pyongyang following meetings led by Kim Yong Chol, a senior aide to Kim. Pompeo is spending the night in Tokyo, where he’ll brief officials from Japan and South Korea on Sunday before flying to Vietnam.
The secretary was under pressure to deliver a more concrete disarmament plan to flesh out the two leaders’ vague, 1-1/2 page document from the Singapore meeting, which provided no timetable for dismantling North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.
‘Complicated Issues’
Before he left Pyongyang, Pompeo said U.S. negotiators and their North Korean counterparts discussed the idea of a full declaration of North Korean weapons of mass destruction stockpiles, and setting a timeline for giving them up.
“These are complicated issues, but we made progress on almost all of the central issues,’’ Pompeo told reporters on the tarmac, following his third visit to North Korea. “We had productive, good-faith negotiations.”
Pompeo said North Korea, in “many hours of talks’’ at a walled-off guest-house outside downtown Pyongyang, reiterated its commitment to denuclearization. Kim Yong Chol ended Pompeo’s visit on a positive note, telling the top U.S. diplomat just before he boarded his plane, “We will produce an outcome, results.’’
Yet the state media commentary was a setback for Pompeo, who had hoped that he could hand off future negotiations to working groups settled on by the two sides at the latest meeting. After his Asia swing, Pompeo heads for other thorny U.S. foreign-policy events -- the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Brussels starting on July 11, and Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on July 16.
Sleep Deprived?
Despite the secretary’s positive depiction, signs had emerged earlier that things weren’t going as well as hoped. Pompeo didn’t have a meeting with Kim Jong Un, as he had on his two previous trips to North Korea’s capital. And earlier in the day, he had a curiously testy exchange with Kim Yong Chol, who mused that Pompeo may not have slept well the night before because of the important issues they had discussed.
“Director Kim, I slept just fine,” Pompeo responded.
Still, Pompeo could point to no concrete achievement from the talks, aside from an agreement for the two sides to meet again on or around July 12 in Panmunjom, the border village between the two Koreas, to discuss returning the remains of U.S. soldiers from the 1950-1953 Korean War.
Pompeo said North Korea had confirmed it intended to destroy a missile-engine testing facility and the two sides discussed the “modalities’’ of what that would look like. The countries also agreed to create working groups to be overseen by Sung Kim, the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines who’s handled some lower-level discussions.
Decades of Differences
All along, experts had wondered how the U.S. and North Korea would bridge differences that have bedeviled their talks for decades and only seemed exacerbated under Trump. The U.S. has insisted that North Korea give up its nuclear weapons for good before receiving relief from crippling sanctions. North Korea, meanwhile, indicated after Singapore that the two sides had agreed to a synchronized, step-by-step approach.
“Arms control agreements are tough -- they have to be very specific, with real verification provisions,” James Russell, an associate professor in national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, said in an email. “There has to be a symmetry of interests between the negotiating parties,” and there was no such symmetry at the U.S.-North Korea summit, he said.
In its statement calling the U.S. stance “regrettable,” the North Korean Foreign Ministry said the U.S. is unilaterally demanding denuclearization and trying to postpone discussion of declaring an end to the Korean War.
Publicity Seekers
It also derided the “great publicity” made by the U.S. about the “suspension of one or two joint military exercises” with South Korea. Such war games “can be resumed anytime,” versus the U.S. demand for an “irreversible step” by North Korea on its nuclear testing grounds, the statement said.
Pyongyang’s message was “clearly based on its long-standing position” that denuclearization means “global arms control” in which North Korea abandon its arsenal when all other nuclear powers, including the U.S., abandon theirs, said Klingner, the former CIA analyst.
A failure in the talks would amount to an embarrassment for Pompeo, whom Trump has assigned to lead the negotiations and who’s said repeatedly that Kim Jong Un was ready to commit to something no North Korean government had delivered on in decades.
‘Wonderful Paper’
It would be worse for Trump himself. Since the summit, Trump has declared the North Korean nuclear threat over, even though the country’s leaders promised nothing in a joint declaration signed by Kim and Trump that they hadn’t agreed to many times before.
Returning to Washington from Singapore, Trump tweeted that “North Korea was our biggest and most dangerous problem. No longer - sleep well tonight!” At a rally in Montana on July 5, he said that “we signed a wonderful paper saying they’re going to denuclearize their whole thing. It’s going to all happen.”
“Can’t really put lipstick on this pig,” said Victor Cha, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who was a director of Asian affairs at the National Security Council under President George W. Bush. “There was not even a promise of more high-level meetings, only working-level, which had not achieved much anyway.”
Critics and analysts who study North Korea have argued that the country’s commitment to the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,’’ as spelled out in the joint declaration from the Singapore summit, doesn’t go as far as other promises to give up its nuclear weapons that Pyongyang had made -- and reneged upon -- in the past.
Denuclearization Challenges
In recent days, intelligence reports have shown that North Korea is continuing work at a key rocket-engine facility. The U.S. has also stopped using the catchphrase “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization,’’ which it had insisted upon happening before North Korea gets any relief from a crippling sanctions regime, before Pompeo apparently brought it up again during the latest talks.
That change raised suspicion that the U.S. was softening its demands for the country, an argument that State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert had insisted on Friday wasn’t true.
Nauert didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about North Korea’s latest statement. Trump, spending a long weekend at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, was also silent on the developments on Twitter.
Pompeo’s visit was the highest level meeting between U.S. and North Korean officials since Trump and Kim held their unprecedented summit. The next steps are unclear.
“Trump tried to sell this as a quickly achievable deal to denuclearize, and now Pompeo and team are tasked with the impossible task of pushing forward on denuclearization without a shared understanding with Pyongyang,” said Stephen Nagy, a senior associate professor at the International Christian University in Tokyo.
Thailand cave rescue: Mission to save boys under way - BBC News
July 8, 2018
Thailand cave rescue: Mission to save boys under way
The boys, aged between 11 and 16, have been trapped with their coach since 23 June
Rescuers in Thailand have begun a hazardous operation to lead 12 boys and one adult out of a cave where they have been trapped for two weeks.
The group are stranded on a ledge 4km inside the Tham Luang cave but amid fears of rising waters, officials have decided they cannot wait any longer.
Expert divers who have been keeping the group supplied since they were found last week will guide them out.
Officials have called it D-Day, saying the boys are fit and ready to move.
LIVE: Latest updates on the rescue
How risky is the Thai boys rescue?
What is happening at the cave?
A huge volunteer and media operation has built up around the mouth of the cave over the past week.
Media captionThailand cave rescue: Meet the volunteer helpers
But early on Sunday, journalists were told they had to move down the road, sparking speculation that a rescue mission was about to begin.
Narongsak Osottanakorn, who has been leading the operation, then confirmed that 18 divers had gone in to get the boys.
"This is D-Day," he said. "The boys are ready to face any challenges."
He added that the boys had all been assessed by a doctor and were "very fit physically and mentally... They are determined and focused".
The group and their families had all given their agreement that they should be moved as soon as possible, he said.
'I am dying to see him. I miss my son'
Why are they acting now?
Officials had originally thought the group might have to stay where they were until the rainy season ended - that could have meant months underground.
They'd also been exploring whether they could drill down into the cave, as well as scouring the mountainside for another way in.
Image copyrightREUTERS
Image caption
At a church in Chiang Rai, local people spent Sunday morning praying for the trapped boys
But with the rainy season just beginning, it's become clear that the flooding which originally trapped the boys will only get worse in the coming days.
Rescuers have been desperately pumping water out of the cave, and Mr Narongsak said on Sunday that water levels inside were at their lowest levels so far.
"There is no other day that we are more ready than today," said Mr Narongsak. "Otherwise we will lose the opportunity."
How will they bring them out?
Getting to and from where the boys are has been an exhausting 11-hour round trip even for the experienced divers.
The earliest the boys are likely to reach the surface is 21:00 local time (14:00 GMT) on Sunday. One official has said it could take two to three days to get them all out.
They'll have to do a mixture of walking, wading, climbing and diving - all in complete darkness - along guide ropes already in place.
Wearing full-face masks, which are easier for novice divers than traditional respirators, each boy will be accompanied by two divers who will also carry their air supply.
The toughest section is about halfway out - they'll reach section called "T-Junction", which is so tight the divers will have to take off their air tanks to get through.
Eventually they'll reach Chamber 3, the cavern which has been turned into a forward base for the divers. They'll rest there before making the last, easier walk out to the entrance. They're expecting to be taken straight to hospital in Chiang Rai town.
An expert's view on the dangers ahead
In an indication of quite how dangerous the journey will be, a former Thai navy diver died in the caves earlier this week. Saman Gunan was returning from a mission to provide the group with air tanks.
He lost consciousness and could not be revived. His colleagues have said they "will not let the sacrifice of our friend go to waste".
Sense of anticipation
By Helier Cheung, Tham Luang cave
This is the moment that everyone has been waiting for - and that some thought would never begin.
Image copyrightREUTERS
Image caption
At a church in Chiang Rai, local people spent Sunday morning praying for the trapped boys
Earlier on, the mood around the rescue sites had been upbeat once the boys were found alive. Smiling volunteers would hand out snacks, or offer massages, to those on the site.
Now security to the site has been beefed up even more. Several police vans, military officers and ambulances have been entering and exiting the site. There's a solemn sense of anticipation in the air.
Family and friends of the boys will be getting little rest until they learn the outcome of the rescue operation.
Read more from Helier: A community united in hope
Why did they go into the cave?
The boys, all part of the same Wild Boars football team, are aged between 11 and 16 and know the local area well.
Media captionNick Beake has been inside a cave complex in Chiang Rai
It's thought they went in there on 12 June after training as a fun outing, to celebrate one of the boy's birthdays. They took in only basic food.
Letters of love from trapped Thai boys
But it appears they went in too far at the wrong time of year, and unexpectedly got cut off.
Against all odds, they were found by rescue divers early last week, perched on a high ledge in the darkness.
They were hungry and scared but in remarkably good shape given their ordeal.
Since then, they've been kept company by navy divers at all times, and had food, light and medical care sent in.
They even managed to send letters home telling their parents not to worry, but that they were looking forward to coming home.
Thailand cave rescue: Mission to save boys under way
The boys, aged between 11 and 16, have been trapped with their coach since 23 June
Rescuers in Thailand have begun a hazardous operation to lead 12 boys and one adult out of a cave where they have been trapped for two weeks.
The group are stranded on a ledge 4km inside the Tham Luang cave but amid fears of rising waters, officials have decided they cannot wait any longer.
Expert divers who have been keeping the group supplied since they were found last week will guide them out.
Officials have called it D-Day, saying the boys are fit and ready to move.
LIVE: Latest updates on the rescue
How risky is the Thai boys rescue?
What is happening at the cave?
A huge volunteer and media operation has built up around the mouth of the cave over the past week.
Media captionThailand cave rescue: Meet the volunteer helpers
But early on Sunday, journalists were told they had to move down the road, sparking speculation that a rescue mission was about to begin.
Narongsak Osottanakorn, who has been leading the operation, then confirmed that 18 divers had gone in to get the boys.
"This is D-Day," he said. "The boys are ready to face any challenges."
He added that the boys had all been assessed by a doctor and were "very fit physically and mentally... They are determined and focused".
The group and their families had all given their agreement that they should be moved as soon as possible, he said.
'I am dying to see him. I miss my son'
Why are they acting now?
Officials had originally thought the group might have to stay where they were until the rainy season ended - that could have meant months underground.
They'd also been exploring whether they could drill down into the cave, as well as scouring the mountainside for another way in.
Image copyrightREUTERS
Image caption
At a church in Chiang Rai, local people spent Sunday morning praying for the trapped boys
But with the rainy season just beginning, it's become clear that the flooding which originally trapped the boys will only get worse in the coming days.
Rescuers have been desperately pumping water out of the cave, and Mr Narongsak said on Sunday that water levels inside were at their lowest levels so far.
"There is no other day that we are more ready than today," said Mr Narongsak. "Otherwise we will lose the opportunity."
How will they bring them out?
Getting to and from where the boys are has been an exhausting 11-hour round trip even for the experienced divers.
The earliest the boys are likely to reach the surface is 21:00 local time (14:00 GMT) on Sunday. One official has said it could take two to three days to get them all out.
They'll have to do a mixture of walking, wading, climbing and diving - all in complete darkness - along guide ropes already in place.
Wearing full-face masks, which are easier for novice divers than traditional respirators, each boy will be accompanied by two divers who will also carry their air supply.
The toughest section is about halfway out - they'll reach section called "T-Junction", which is so tight the divers will have to take off their air tanks to get through.
Eventually they'll reach Chamber 3, the cavern which has been turned into a forward base for the divers. They'll rest there before making the last, easier walk out to the entrance. They're expecting to be taken straight to hospital in Chiang Rai town.
An expert's view on the dangers ahead
In an indication of quite how dangerous the journey will be, a former Thai navy diver died in the caves earlier this week. Saman Gunan was returning from a mission to provide the group with air tanks.
He lost consciousness and could not be revived. His colleagues have said they "will not let the sacrifice of our friend go to waste".
Sense of anticipation
By Helier Cheung, Tham Luang cave
This is the moment that everyone has been waiting for - and that some thought would never begin.
Image copyrightREUTERS
Image caption
At a church in Chiang Rai, local people spent Sunday morning praying for the trapped boys
Earlier on, the mood around the rescue sites had been upbeat once the boys were found alive. Smiling volunteers would hand out snacks, or offer massages, to those on the site.
Now security to the site has been beefed up even more. Several police vans, military officers and ambulances have been entering and exiting the site. There's a solemn sense of anticipation in the air.
Family and friends of the boys will be getting little rest until they learn the outcome of the rescue operation.
Read more from Helier: A community united in hope
Why did they go into the cave?
The boys, all part of the same Wild Boars football team, are aged between 11 and 16 and know the local area well.
Media captionNick Beake has been inside a cave complex in Chiang Rai
It's thought they went in there on 12 June after training as a fun outing, to celebrate one of the boy's birthdays. They took in only basic food.
Letters of love from trapped Thai boys
But it appears they went in too far at the wrong time of year, and unexpectedly got cut off.
Against all odds, they were found by rescue divers early last week, perched on a high ledge in the darkness.
They were hungry and scared but in remarkably good shape given their ordeal.
Since then, they've been kept company by navy divers at all times, and had food, light and medical care sent in.
They even managed to send letters home telling their parents not to worry, but that they were looking forward to coming home.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
