Handshakes. Macron's good at them, now.

NK is a rare place, it has natural resources ripe for the picking, a large cheap workforce, very little infrastructure, a population who don't have even the most basic things, no way to liquidize its resources (legally) even if they had the equipment to mine them.
and its in a nice handy location, for which ever country can get in there first its a goldmine, I'm sure china would love to get their claws in, america's also spotted an opportunity, don't kid yourself that this is anything other then a money making exercise. Kim is playing china and the usa off against each other for the best deal for him, he'll agree enough to get sanctions lifted then it'll be a goldrush.

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Must be fake news without Kanye on that list.

True, but all previous administrations had preconditions which N. Korea had to adhere to before any meetings. Trump is the only one who did not set preconditions and therefore left the meeting without any well defined results. Now it is down to Pompeo to define clear conditions, he will either be a hero or the fall guy!

If only he would.

True - but OTOH, when the preconditions are too strict, the side that has to cave-in looks like a wimp, if they cave-in. Not a good thing in Asia, and not a good way to start negotiations AFAIK.

<Begin Historical Insert>

In 1945, before the a-bombs were thrown on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there were various careful attempts from the Japanese side to broker some kind of face-saving capitulation. These attempts ultimately failed due to various reasons - but one reason was that the US insisted that the Tenno had to resign - a condition that the Japanese side felt it could not agree upon. History took its course and to or three days after the Nagasaki bomb, Japan capitulated, unconditionally.
The document they signed, however, didn't ask for a resignation of the Tenno.
(Of course, he was stripped of most powers and is now mostly what the Queen is to England - but it's all about face-saving there and the gesture counts for a lot).

</End Historical Insert>

It's true that Trumps predecessors had their reservations and preconditions. But the thing with preconditions is that you have to follow through at some point, as per above. In 1945, the US could be very confident in this regard because they knew they had a very big hammer they could swing.
If you say that you don't accept NK as a sovereign state because you feel only SK is the real thing - then, at some point you have to make it happen. If you don't make it happen, the other side knows that it's just words and you'll never follow through.

Previous adminstrations somehow couldn't swallow their pride on that and so to this day, Switzerland is handling the diplomatic day-to-day business of the US in NK, as they did in Cuba, for similar reasons.

What Trump is really good at is forcing the hands of his opponents (if it's to America's benefit or detriment - we'll know soon enough) by playing an incredibly crazy and dangerous game of chicken and escalating conflicts by (mostly) words and (less so) actions.

The thing with chicken is, you can only win if you can convince your opponent that you are even crazier than him. And while the world was convinced that KYU was a crazy SOB, Trump made sure you were never quite sure he wouldn't press the button first. John Bolton even thought loudly about the perfect legality of an American first strike.

KYU probably fired a few more rockets than he might otherwise have and ignited a couple of more nuclear devices, on top of the Twitter-salvos. This is turn led to more sanctions and China actually turning against him (a bit) for the first time (which previous administrations, which got on with the rest of the world much better) didn't manage either.

But not a single shot was fired at the border (AFAIK).

This probably got him thinking and he realized that it's now or never to put on a pretty face and hammer out a deal with the South.

The truth is also that the US never had a problem working with regimes with questionable human rights track-records. And they still don't, as long as they buy goods and weapons from the US and don't scheme against US economic and foreign policy interests.
And if NK can allow a few Trump hotels (probably a 49%/51% thing) and American mining companies can dig and explore there), everything will be a-okay.


Will be interesting to watch, that's for sure.

Some odd little things to come out of the day.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44453334

Humour from FB.

Ouch, that hurts.

I prefer a nice Humagne rouge, actually.

Exactly there is no difference, Trudeau learned the hard way that being pawed and feted by Trump means diddly squat if you dare to challenge him. Like most narcissistic sociopaths Trump doesn't have friends, but he has figured out the importance of faking friendship and creating an illusion of loyalty to get what he wants.

And it seems to be working perfectly!

Tom

For the hardcore 20% of the country who are taken in by him pretending to be their friends, sure. Ironically, they haven't yet realised that that's not how he operates, despite them constantly feting him for how he operates.

From what I can gather, Kim Jong Un has played Trump like a fiddle.

He is desperate to be taken seriously on the world stage. For North Korea to be seen as a serious country who can mix it with the big boys. He's managed to wangle a very public meeting with the President of the United States and then, not only that, get the President to agree to softening it's stance against North Korea while only offering a vague and unenforceable promise of dismantling it's nuclear testing sites which had already been largely decimated by earthquakes anyway. A promise that was already made and not kept long ago already.

Trump and his base are too stupid to see it but they've been done up like kippers by, basically, a kid playing with his dads toys.

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A federal judge handed AT&T a sweeping victory on Tuesday and approved its $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner, a deal that promises to reshape the media industry.
After a six-week trial, Judge Richard Leon ruled that the government had failed to prove that the deal violates antitrust law, and ripped apart its case in his opinion.

In a blunt statement after the ruling was issued, Time Warner (TWX) pointed the finger at President Trump, implying that he influenced the DOJ's decision to bring the case. Time Warner said the government's lawsuit was baseless, "political in its motivation," and should have never been brought.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/12/medi...ing/index.html

It was rumoured Trump's hatred of CNN drove this case!

What do you guys think?

Will the US ever submit to verifiable and complete de-nuclearisation of the Korean Penninsula?

All US bases, warships and aircraft subject to third party inspectors, possibly involving nationals from N. Korea and/or their (other) enemies.

The refusal of US warships in New Zealand waters since 1984 springs to mind.

I really don’t think it is very likely.

Not really surprised that he dislikes CNN. They do seem quite biased against him. Whenever they have guest commentators on, those critical of him always seem to outnumber those who are neutral or supportive.

I think the main point here is that it was a vertical merge.
It would indeed be very strange, if the Swiss governement for example would try to stop Swisscom from merging with Wingo (it's own creation, which competes the Swisscom-business. LOL).

While I'm fully against horizontal merging of news-companies.

To be honest, I don't like CNN either. And that long before Trump.

Latest news I heard:
The US promised to pay 11 billion US$ to Fifa if they get the next games.
But worse: President Trump threatened to watch closly who votes for the US and who doesn't and will think hard about any further support for the nations who don't!

WTF. What serious politician wildly mixes up subjects?
Not to mention, this is black-mail.

Isn't it a secret ballot? Considering most other things about FIFA are all cloak-and-dagger, I'm surprised...

Why can't Trump put the 11 billion in a brown envelope and get in the queue like everyone else anyway?