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US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has warned that North Korea’s Kim Jong Un had “everything” to lose through hostility towards the United States, after Pyongyang said it had carried out a major new weapons test.
“Kim Jong Un is too smart and has far too much to lose, everything actually, if he acts in a hostile way,” Trump tweeted in response to the unspecified test at the Sohae space launch centre.
The announcement of Saturday’s test came just hours after Trump said he would be “surprised” by any hostile action from the North, emphasising his “very good relationship” with Kim.
Trump and Kim engaged in months of mutual insults and threats of devastation in 2017, sending tensions soaring before a diplomatic rapprochement the following year.
The pair have met three times since June 2018 but with little progress towards denuclearisation. Pyongyang has set Washington a 31 December deadline to make new concessions to kickstart stalled talks.
“North Korea, under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, has tremendous economic potential, but it must denuclearize as promised,” Trump tweeted.
“NATO, China, Russia, Japan, and the entire world is unified on this issue!”
Writing that Kim had “signed a strong Denuclearization Agreement” at their June 2018 summit in Singapore,” Trump warned: “He does not want to void his special relationship with the President of the United States or interfere with the U.S. Presidential Election in November.”
Separately, interviewed on the CBS TV news program Face the Nation, US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien was asked whether North Korea was preparing to restart nuclear tests.
“I hope not. That would be a mistake on the part of North Korea,” O’Brien said.
“Kim Jong Un promised to denuclearise North Korea,” O’Brien said. “And we expect him to live up to the promise he made at the summit in Singapore. And we hope he’ll do so.”
On Saturday, South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in spoke by phone with Trump and agreed to maintain dialogue with Pyongyang.
The 30-minute talk was the first conversation between Trump and the South Korean leader since they met at the UN General Assembly in New York in September.
“The two leaders shared an assessment that the current situation on the Korean peninsula is grave,” said South Korean presidential spokeswoman Ko Min-jung, adding that Trump had requested the call.
‘Very important test’
A spokesperson for North Korea’s Academy of National Defense Science said Saturday’s “very important test” would have an “important effect” on changing the “strategic position” of North Korea, in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.
The statement provided no further details on the test.
A senior US administration official earlier said Washington had seen reports of a test and was “coordinating closely with allies and partners”.
Trump indicated that military action was still possible when he was asked about Pyongyang on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Britain last week.
North Korea fired back that if the United States used military force, it would take “prompt corresponding actions at any level”.
UN diplomats fear that the North will resume long-range nuclear or ballistic tests if progress is not made soon in talks with Washington.
Sohae, on North Korea’s northwest coast, is ostensibly a facility designed for putting satellites into orbit.
But Pyongyang has carried out several rocket launches there that were condemned by the US and others as disguised long-range ballistic missile tests.
Following the Singapore summit, Trump said Kim had agreed to destroy “a major missile engine testing site”, without naming the facility.
Kim then agreed to shutter the Sohae site during a summit last year with Moon in Pyongyang as part of trust-building measures.
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Ah fantastic news. Sure we definitely need another pandemic. I was getting bored of no pandemic news.
@Andy O’B: you do know that they’ve previously reported this type of stuff in the news even before covid? Get over yourself.
@Aidan Walsh: relax there Aido!
@Aidan Walsh: Lighten up there Aidan, it was only a joke. Remember them?
It was bad enough explaining to people how I got Covid…. Having to explain monkey pox will be a nightmare.
@Ronnie Mhelan: why so? Are the people you know all homophobic?
@Alan Peters: Ok Alan
@PrincessLeia: in the early days of the HIV endemic those infected had an average of 7-8 sexual partners a year
@Alan Peters: Maybe you should worry about your own sex-life Alan and not get yourself so heavily invested in what anybody else is doing?
@Alan Peters: seriously, it comes across as creepy and weird.
@PrincessLeia: it comes across like you’re desperate for a fight….
We are so lucky that the FDA approved a jab for monkey pox in September 2019 just before covid hit! What are the chances! You’d swear they knew something like this was gonna happen!
@James Quinn: it’s around since 1958 dude, take off the tin foil hat. It’s not a new thing. Spanner
@James Quinn: Did you actually read that article? Because if you did you would know that this was developed and approved following an outbreak of monkey pox in the US in 2003. The vaccine also includes smallpox which is not part of their vaccination program since 1973 so the general population do not have immunity since it was eradicated and the vaccinationprogram ceased. This vaccine is part of the stockpiling program so its there should they need it. It’s called disease prevention and control. Aren’t we lucky there are clever people that look after these things. By the way they had been saying for a number of years we were due a pandemic it’s part of their job to research and predict these things it’s not a conspiracy just because it’s something you don’t understand.
@Dawn Harvey: and 33 have thumbed up his post already….so many believe the first thing they read here in the comments section. Pity!
@James Quinn: yay, something new to fuel the manufactured outrage of conspiracy theory.
@PrincessLeia: they’ll be positively salivating over this- a perfect opportunity to misrepresent reality and stoke paranoia and fear.
@Rmaybe: Thank God someone has some common sense
@David J Warren: Common sense beings with reading and comprehension.
Oh oh here we go again!
Another poxy story on the journal
Every country is now become endemic. Covid has proved that.
@Dave Barrett: I don’t understand this comment. Endemic is in relation to the infection being constantly maintained at a baseline level in a geographical region. Covid is still prevelant worldwide how has it proven every country is endemic and how can a country be endemic? Chicken pox can be endemic to Ireland but Malaria is not . A country can have many infections and diseases some naturally occurring in the geographical region and some for outside transmission such as travel. The flu has always spread around the world and that is how the vaccine is tweaked each year. So again how can a country be endemic and how has covid proved this.?
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Diversity is our strength
Diversity is our strength
Diversity is our strength
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