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North Korea and South Korea


Cartmann99

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When I was in Hawaii, the tsunami sirens were tested- and I nearly shat myself in fear, thinking it was a missile (this was a month or so after the false alarm). I don't trust Trump not to mess up this summit, and so I just hope Un doesn't read Twitter (He does have a Steam account though- that gaming company noted there is ONE account in NK).

That said, I have always wanted to visit North Korea, and would have gone already if not for the expense and the health issues having to be in China to fly in (air pollution affects me a lot worse than others), would cause for me. My wife thinks I'm crazy, but the odds of being detained if you aren't proselytizing or a journalist are something like three people, ever, out of 20,000 visitors per year.

I also know a former law school classmate who speaks Korean (Korean wife), has served on the ROK/US side of the DMZ, and had also wanted to visit NK before all of Trump's BS. If we ever have the chance to go if politics change, we would go together for safety. Though it does make me sad to think that his wife will never know the other half of her own country. It's not allowed for South Koreans to go. I also know about the money issues, but I think engagement with such an isolated people to show we aren't "imperialist bastards" is valuable, and tourism is only a drop in the bucket. There's much more valuable revenue streams than that. 

For me, going wouldn't be about fun, nor would I expect fun. It's really more about the history and going somewhere that won't stand forever- a new and rare experience. 

I actually grew up with a family and social group culture (sort of a microcosm, I guess?) where my parents and family friends (like relatives by this point) would often tell travel stories that weren't just off the beaten path, but strange and maybe even dangerous. A lot of my bedtime and campfire stories were people recounting sailing and racing trips on the oceans and Lake Superior. You know, the waves were this big/there was a huge storm/I saw sharks, but I'm still here! My dad's tag line is that "as long as you survive, it's an adventure." I've been used to rough trips and blithely ignoring travel warnings in that regard.

Also, some of my favorite travel stories were about my parents' trips to East Germany around 1986ish. Just...the sense of having a completely unique experience and the thrill of having bits of history (parents smuggled out small items for use as visual aids for my mom's classes). Not fun for them, but certainly impactful. You might say the same about stories of the (then-illegal) trips to Cuba I would hear from my parents' saltwater sailing friends, and from my German professors who also visited the east.

I guess I just want my own adventure and unique trip, and think of North Korea because I have read and heard so much about former communist regimes. With increased globalization, it's so hard to think of a really unique or untouched place to go- but if anyone knows of other good really unusual destinations, I guess I would be all ears.

(Sorry for the wall o'text and to necro this thread!)

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11 hours ago, lawlifelgbt said:

When I was in Hawaii, the tsunami sirens were tested- and I nearly shat myself in fear, thinking it was a missile (this was a month or so after the false alarm). I don't trust Trump not to mess up this summit, and so I just hope Un doesn't read Twitter (He does have a Steam account though- that gaming company noted there is ONE account in NK).

That said, I have always wanted to visit North Korea, and would have gone already if not for the expense and the health issues having to be in China to fly in (air pollution affects me a lot worse than others), would cause for me. My wife thinks I'm crazy, but the odds of being detained if you aren't proselytizing or a journalist are something like three people, ever, out of 20,000 visitors per year.

I also know a former law school classmate who speaks Korean (Korean wife), has served on the ROK/US side of the DMZ, and had also wanted to visit NK before all of Trump's BS. If we ever have the chance to go if politics change, we would go together for safety. Though it does make me sad to think that his wife will never know the other half of her own country. It's not allowed for South Koreans to go. I also know about the money issues, but I think engagement with such an isolated people to show we aren't "imperialist bastards" is valuable, and tourism is only a drop in the bucket. There's much more valuable revenue streams than that. 

For me, going wouldn't be about fun, nor would I expect fun. It's really more about the history and going somewhere that won't stand forever- a new and rare experience. 

I actually grew up with a family and social group culture (sort of a microcosm, I guess?) where my parents and family friends (like relatives by this point) would often tell travel stories that weren't just off the beaten path, but strange and maybe even dangerous. A lot of my bedtime and campfire stories were people recounting sailing and racing trips on the oceans and Lake Superior. You know, the waves were this big/there was a huge storm/I saw sharks, but I'm still here! My dad's tag line is that "as long as you survive, it's an adventure." I've been used to rough trips and blithely ignoring travel warnings in that regard.

Also, some of my favorite travel stories were about my parents' trips to East Germany around 1986ish. Just...the sense of having a completely unique experience and the thrill of having bits of history (parents smuggled out small items for use as visual aids for my mom's classes). Not fun for them, but certainly impactful. You might say the same about stories of the (then-illegal) trips to Cuba I would hear from my parents' saltwater sailing friends, and from my German professors who also visited the east.

I guess I just want my own adventure and unique trip, and think of North Korea because I have read and heard so much about former communist regimes. With increased globalization, it's so hard to think of a really unique or untouched place to go- but if anyone knows of other good really unusual destinations, I guess I would be all ears.

(Sorry for the wall o'text and to necro this thread!)

First off, let me say that I can understand your interest in visiting places that are unique and adventurous, and that what I am going to say is not an attempt to diminish that desire or to condemn it in any way.

Although I get why going to North Korea would be an audacious adventure that not many other people will do, and that this is a great part of the attraction for you, there is a side to going there that you may not fully realize. Because by visiting there, you will in a sense be validating the regime. 

And although you may want to, you will not be able to engage freely with the general public, to show them that a fear of outsiders is baseless. These people have been indoctrinated their whole lives. They are being told what to think, what to feel and how to act. An outsider coming to visit them for a couple of days (or maybe even hours) will not suddenly change that. They will simply fear you, and they'll be highly suspicious of you. Anything you say or do will be viewed through a lens coloured by that suspicion.

Foreign visits are highly regulated. You will not get to pick and choose what you see or do there. That will be dictated by the regime. You will be taken to statues of Kim il Sung and other political monuments, and you will be expected to bow for them. Foreigners showing obeisance to their totalitarian leader will be used as propaganda by the regime.

Personally, I would not want to spend money in that country, as tourism will not benefit the people. It only serves to line the pockets of the regime, or at the very least give them fodder for their propaganda. But that's me. YMMV.

All that said, I'm not advocating for you not to go. By all means, visit the place if you feel the need for such an adventure. It will educate you, and in turn, you can educate others back home. That in and of itself is quite valuable. 

----

After typing up this post, I found this article detailing the pros and cons of visiting North Korea, which I found quite enlightening: Should You Go to North Korea While You Still Can?

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@fraurosena Thank you for the thoughtful and nuanced reply! I have read a great deal about NK and seen many travel videos. I know they're tightly controlled. But, one sometimes sees through the cracks, you know? That's where my interest lies. For instance, a woman teaching in Pyongyang had a trip with guides sidetracked due to flooded roads, and thus saw the actual conditions of your average laborer there, and is now raising awareness about those abuses of the regime. (Read "Without You, There is No Us," for her full account).

Incidentally, one can refuse to bow to the statues. A U.K. diplomat explained how he and colleagues did- just claim back or neck pain, so you can't. No EU ambassadors bow.

But, I can see why you're personally against visiting there. Maybe I should think of another place, at least while Trump is in office. Not Cuba, that's done, or Egypt, since my grandparents went during the Arab Spring. I enjoyed this old Canadian show, "Departures" where three guys went to remote less traveled places and filmed their trips. They went to Mongolia, to Nunavut, the Cook Islands, Greenland, and also to a research base on the Antarctic Peninsula, among others. If I really want danger, maybe a polar trip or going to Central Asia (huge open spaces, being thousands of miles from anything, camping, riding, falconry) is a less controversial choice.

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24 minutes ago, lawlifelgbt said:

@fraurosena Thank you for the thoughtful and nuanced reply! I have read a great deal about NK and seen many travel videos. I know they're tightly controlled. But, one sometimes sees through the cracks, you know? That's where my interest lies. For instance, a woman teaching in Pyongyang had a trip with guides sidetracked due to flooded roads, and thus saw the actual conditions of your average laborer there, and is now raising awareness about those abuses of the regime. (Read "Without You, There is No Us," for her full account).

Incidentally, one can refuse to bow to the statues. A U.K. diplomat explained how he and colleagues did- just claim back or neck pain, so you can't. No EU ambassadors bow.

But, I can see why you're personally against visiting there. Maybe I should think of another place, at least while Trump is in office. Not Cuba, that's done, or Egypt, since my grandparents went during the Arab Spring. I enjoyed this old Canadian show, "Departures" where three guys went to remote less traveled places and filmed their trips. They went to Mongolia, to Nunavut, the Cook Islands, Greenland, and also to a research base on the Antarctic Peninsula, among others. If I really want danger, maybe a polar trip or going to Central Asia (huge open spaces, being thousands of miles from anything, camping, riding, falconry) is a less controversial choice.

Why not China? I know you said that the air pollution there is troublesome for you, but China is an incredibly large country, and wildly beautiful too. You needn't stick to the big cities at all and in so doing you could avoid the smog. Years ago, I was in China on a short study trip, and although their regime is nothing like NK, it is a dictatorship and you can see rather confronting things happen while you're there. When we went to visit the Forbidden City, a young man was being detained by the police near the entrance. He was standing ramrod straight with his arms held tightly to his sides as the police were angrily shouting at him and he was visibly trembling. The look of abject fear in his eyes as we walked by is something i will never forget. But other Chinese people were simply walking along and going about their business as if nothing unusual was happening (and for them it probably wasn't).

On the other hand, we also visited the hutongs (sp?), the poorest districts in Shanghai and Beijing, and I was surprised at how happy the people living there were. Yes, they were dirt poor and living in absolute squalor. But they weren't walking around in misery and dejection, as I had always (naively) pictured such poor people doing. Instead, they were laughing, and playing and conversing, just like everybody else. At the time, that was quite the eye-opener for naive little old me.

As I said, outside of the big cities the country is wild and beautiful and vast. (I was sorry that my trip didn't extend to those places, as they interest me far more than cities do). Maybe planning a trip off the beaten track in China could appeal to you, as you could get thousands of miles from anything, like you want. The people living in those places haven't had much contact with 'western culture' as much as those in the cities, so you would get a much better feel for their way of living.

Plus, that wall that they have there? Very much worth the visit, even though it's nothing like the presidunce's yuge bigly one on the border with Mexico... :pb_wink:

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Sort of stealing Trump's thunder there

But have no fear, he is taking the credit. 

 

 

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"CIA Director Pompeo met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over Easter weekend"

Spoiler

CIA Director Mike Pompeo made a top-secret visit to North Korea over Easter weekend as an envoy for President Trump to meet with that country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, according to two people with direct knowledge of the trip.

The extraordinary meeting between one of Trump’s most trusted emissaries and the authoritarian head of a rogue state was part of an effort to lay the groundwork for direct talks between Trump and Kim about North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, according to the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the highly classified nature of the talks.

The clandestine mission, which has not previously been reported, came soon after Pompeo was nominated to be secretary of state.

“I’m optimistic that the United States government can set the conditions for that appropriately so that the president and the North Korean leader can have that conversation [that] will set us down the course of achieving a diplomatic outcome that America so desperately — America and the world so desperately need,” Pompeo told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week during his confirmation hearing.

Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday, Trump appeared to allude to the extraordinary face-to-face meeting between Kim and Pompeo when he said the United States has had direct talks with North Korea “at very high levels.” The president didn’t elaborate.

Trump said that he would sit down with Kim probably in early June, if not sooner.

Pompeo has taken the lead on the administration’s negotiations with Pyongyang. His meeting with Kim marks the highest-level contact between the two countries since 2000, when then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met with Kim Jong Il, the current leader’s late father, to discuss strategic issues. Then-Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. visited the country in 2014 to secure the release of two American captives and met with a lower-level intelligence official.

The CIA declined to comment. The White House declined to comment as well, saying it would not discuss the CIA director’s travels. The North Korean government also declined to comment.

About a week after Pompeo’s trip to North Korea, U.S. officials said that officials there had directly confirmed that Kim was willing to negotiate about potential denuclearization, according to administration officials, a sign that both sides had opened a new communications channel ahead of the summit meeting and that the administration believed North Korea was serious about holding a summit.

“We have had direct talks at very high levels, extremely high levels with North Korea,” Trump said Tuesday during a bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla.

The United States has no diplomatic relations with North Korea, but U.S. diplomats have visited and Washington has used several quiet channels to communicate with Pyongyang.

Trump also said he has given his “blessing” to planned discussions between South Korea and North Korea about bringing a formal end to the Korean War, as fast-moving diplomatic developments surrounding nuclear-armed North Korea came into view.

Opening a two-day summit with Abe, Trump took some credit for the rapid developments related to North Korea, whose nuclear and ballistic missile tests his administration has considered the gravest national security threat to the United States.

Trump said that South Korean officials have “been very generous that without us, and without me in particular, I guess, they wouldn’t be discussing anything and the Olympics would have been a failure.” Seoul used the Winter Games, held in PyeongChang in February, as a vehicle to reopen diplomatic talks with Pyongyang.

North Korea sent athletes and a high-level delegation to the event in a major sign of warming relations with South Korea, a U.S. ally. That has led to a flurry of high-stakes diplomacy in East Asia, in which Trump has seized a leading role.

“There’s a great chance to solve a world problem,” Trump said. “This is not a problem for the United States. This is not a problem for Japan or any other country. This is a problem for the world.”

Hostilities in the Korean War, which involved the United States, ended 65 years ago, but a peace treaty was never signed. A top South Korean official was quoted Tuesday as saying that a formal end to hostilities was on the agenda for the summit between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in next week in the demilitarized zone between the countries.

“They do have my blessing to discuss the end of the war,” Trump said.

Yet such a deal would be complicated and would require direct U.S. participation and agreement. The United States signed the armistice agreement on South Korea’s behalf, and any peace treaty would have to be between the United States and North Korea.

A big part of the reason a peace treaty has never been signed is because Pyongyang has long insisted that if one was attained, U.S. troops would no longer be required in South Korea, a demand the United States has rejected.

Trump’s planned session with Kim, the dynastic leader Trump has mocked as “Little Rocket Man,” comes after the two traded insults and threats last year. Trump vowed to “totally destroy” North Korea if it menaced the United States or its allies, and Kim called Trump senile.

On Tuesday, Trump said the summit with Kim was likely to happen by early June if all goes well. He added a caveat: “It’s possible things won’t go well and we won’t have the meetings, and we’ll just continue to go on this very strong path we have taken.”

Trump later said that five locations are under consideration to host the summit and that a decision would come soon. None of the locations was in the United States, Trump said later, in response to a question from a reporter. Administration officials are said to be looking at potential sites in Asia outside the Korean Peninsula, including Southeast Asia, and in Europe.

Abe appeared delighted with the progress he made with Trump, including a pledge from the U.S. president to raise with Kim the issue of the unresolved cases of at least 13 Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s — an important domestic issue for Abe.

Trump met with several families of the abductees during a visit to Tokyo in November, and the president was outraged by the death last summer of Otto Warmbier, an American college student who died shortly after being released in a coma from 17 months in captivity in the North. Three Americans remain in captivity, and U.S. officials suggested their release is likely to be part of talks with Pyongyang.

“This reflects your deep understanding for how Japan cares about this abduction issue. I am very grateful for your commitment,” said Abe, who also pressed Trump to maintain “maximum pressure” on Pyongyang.

Trump and Abe entered their summit hoping to repair a relationship that has been strained by Trump’s decision to meet with Kim, which has alarmed Tokyo, and his move to enact steel and aluminum tariffs without granting Japan a waiver.

In a sign that the two leaders were aiming to re-create their early chemistry, Trump said the two would sneak out for a round of golf on Wednesday ahead of additional meetings. The president referred, as he has before, to Mar-a-Lago as the “winter White House.”

Trump aides acknowledged that they are probing the possibility of the United States reentering the 11-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership but emphasized that such a move is premature.

Larry Kudlow, Trump’s chief economic adviser, played down a rift with Japan on trade and said the administration’s tariffs were aimed at punishing China, which he accused of “acting like a Third World economy.” Kudlow declared that a global coalition stands behind the Trump administration’s strategy.

“This trade coalition of the willing that I’ve been talking about, that others have been talking about, is really aimed at China,” he said. “China is a First World economy behaving like a Third World economy. And with respect to technology and other matters, they have to start playing by the rules.”

The United States does not need the TPP to confront Chinese bad behavior, Kudlow said. He touted a strong U.S. economy as leverage for American ideas on trade around the world and said Trump’s tougher stance on Chinese trade has won wide international backing.

“The rest of the world is with us. The president hasn’t consciously sought this, but it’s happening, and it’s a good thing,” Kudlow said. “So I hope China reads that carefully and responds positively.”

China on Tuesday announced temporary anti-dumping measures targeting U.S. sorghum, potentially hitting growers in states such as Kansas and Texas that Trump won in the 2016 election.

The move discouraging imports of U.S. sorghum widens the brewing trade war between Beijing and Washington. On Monday, the United States banned U.S. firms from selling parts to Chinese phone maker ZTE for seven years, as the world’s two largest economies continue to exchange threats of tariffs worth billions of dollars.

But Trump sought to balance his aides’ criticism of Beijing with praise for Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom Trump has pressed to enact economic sanctions on North Korea.

“He’s been incredibly generous,” Trump said. “President Xi has been very strong on the border, much stronger than anyone thought they would be. I’d like them to be stronger on the border, but he’s been at a level nobody ever expected. The goods coming into North Korea have been cut down very substantially.”

I'm guessing the TT didn't know that Pompeo was going to Pyongyang until after he returned. Otherwise, there would have been a dozen badly-composed tweets about it.

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20 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Was Ivanka too busy?

 

She needed the week off. Committing treason is so very hard.

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The article:

Amid Trump’s diplomatic thaw, Otto Warmbier’s parents sue North Korea for having ‘brutally tortured and murdered’ their son

Quote

The family of Otto Warmbier filed an extraordinary lawsuit against North Korea in federal court Thursday alleging that the 22-year-old college student was “brutally tortured and murdered” by Kim Jong Un’s “criminal” regime during 17 months in captivity.

The 22-page complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, details in blunt language how the University of Virginia student, a former homecoming king and soccer standout from Cincinnati, was “brutally” abused after being detained on a tour in Pyongyang. He arrived home in a coma after being released last June, dying days later.

The action aims to hold Kim’s regime legally accountable for their son’s death, but the timing also raises significant geopolitical implications, coming weeks before an expected meeting between President Trump and the North Korean leader in late May or early June. It also comes a day before a high-stakes inter-Korea summit between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, which is widely viewed as a crucial prelude to the potential denuclearization talks between Trump and Kim.

Trump has raised Warmbier’s death repeatedly in public statements and made his case a cornerstone of his administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign on Pyongyang, which the president has credited for bringing Kim to the negotiating table. Trump has pledged to raise human rights in his talks with Kim, but some South Korean officials fear that doing so publicly could complicate the sensitive diplomatic efforts underway.

In a statement, Fred Warmbier said his son was “taken hostage, kept as a prisoner for political purposes, used as a pawn and singled out for exceptionally harsh and brutal treatment by Kim Jong Un. Kim and his regime have portrayed themselves as innocent, while they intentionally destroyed our son’s life. This lawsuit is another step in holding North Korea accountable for its barbaric treatment of Otto and our family.”

The Warmbier family is represented by McGuireWoods, and a lead attorney in the case, Richard Cullen, also represents Vice President Pence, who has spoken out against the North’s treatment of Warmbier and its record of human rights abuses. Fred Warmbier accompanied Pence as part of the U.S. delegation to the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, in February.

The White House and Pence’s office are supportive of the lawsuit but did not have a role in drafting it, according to a person close to both sides.

Trump “spoke clearly about the pain that all Americans felt when we lost Otto Warmbier. That feeling of loss has not changed,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. “Although this is a private legal action to which the United States government is not a party, Americans remain committed to honoring Otto’s memory, and we will not forget the suffering of his parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier.”

Trump has eviscerated the North for its treatment of Warmbier, raising his death last fall during speeches at the United Nations in New York and to South Korea’s National Assembly in Seoul. But more recently, Trump, who last year belittled Kim as “Little Rocket Man,” has tamped down his bellicose rhetoric in a bid to ease tensions ahead of the summit.

“He really has been very open and, I think, very honorable from everything we’re seeing,” Trump told reporters of Kim on Tuesday, during a meeting at the White House with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Critics have warned that Trump, who is eager for a deal on one of his top foreign policy priorities, risks giving up too much to Kim, who announced last week he was freezing nuclear weapons testing and closing down one nuclear site. White House aides said they remain skeptical of Kim’s motives, suggesting he is taking easily reversible steps for public relations value, but Trump has been more enthusiastic about the “progress” that is taking place.

Asked about his praise of Kim during a news conference Tuesday, Trump defended his North Korea strategy, professing that “a lot is happening right now, and I think it’s going to be very positive.”

Trump emphasized the economic sanctions his administration has levied on Pyongyang and said that his goal remains “denuclearization” of North Korea.

“A lot of concessions have already been made,” he said, referring to Pyongyang. “We have made no concessions, despite some of the media saying that I’ve made concessions. I don’t — I haven’t even discussed a concession other than the fact that meeting is a great thing.”

In a phone interview with “Fox & Friends” Thursday, Trump again expressed bewilderment that critics have accused him of giving up too much. “I’ve never given up anything,” he said. “People have to understand the news is so unfair.”

The Kim family has run the country as a totalitarian state since the Korean War armistice in 1953, leaving much of the nation’s 25 million people without sufficient food and electricity. The regime has killed suspected political opponents and is thought to have orchestrated the assassination Kim’s half brother, Kim Jong Nam, at a Malaysian airport last year.

The Trump administration placed the North on the state sponsors of terror list in November, opening the door for the Warmbiers’ lawsuit.

Three Americans remain in captivity in North Korea, and Trump has said his administration is working to secure their release. CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday as secretary of state, traveled to Pyongyang over Easter weekend and met with Kim, and he reportedly raised the issue of detainees with North Korean officials.

But Trump has not called their release a precondition of his summit with Kim.

In their lawsuit, Fred and Cynthia Warmbier said their son traveled to the North in December 2015 as part of a program run by Young Pioneer Tours, “a China-based operator that catered to Westerners.”

Otto, according to the complaint, “believed this was an opportunity to understand how people lived in one of the only closed societies in the world.” But when the group attempted to depart after five days, Otto was detained at the Pyongyang airport “without explanation.” Four days later, the North conducted a successful test of a nuclear hydrogen bomb.

Warmbier was used as leverage in the rogue nation’s geopolitical disagreements with the United States, according to the lawsuit.

The legal filing states that North Korean officials forced Warmbier to make a false statement in which he confessed to invented accusations that he was operating as a spy connected to the CIA. He was released 17 ½ months later in a deep coma, blind, deaf, with a wound on his foot and damage to his teeth, the lawsuit states.

When his parents met him at the Cincinnati airport, Warmbier “had a shaved head, a feeding tube coming out of his nose, was jerking violently and howling, and was completely unresponsive to any of their efforts to comfort him.” North Korean officials disavowed responsibility, asserting that Warmbier had contracted botulism.

The lawsuit asks for a monetary award to be determined by the court for punitive damages related to Warmbier’s mistreatment and death, and the emotional suffering of his family. The money could come from a fund, created by Congress in 2015 and administered by the Justice Department, to compensate victims of state-sponsored terrorism.

Victor Cha, who served as a high-ranking Asia policy official in the George W. Bush administration, said Thursday that the Trump administration should not shy away from raising human rights issues during its negotiations with North Korea.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in South Florida last week, pressed the president to raise with Kim the 13 unresolved cases of Japanese citizens who were abducted by North Korean operatives in the 1970s and 1980s. Numerous South Koreans also have been abducted.

“We can never have a normal relationship with North Korea unless the human rights issues are addressed,” said Cha, now a Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “We can’t sweep this under the rug.”

 

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So, how long will it take for the presidunce to take credit?

 

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19 hours ago, fraurosena said:

The lawsuit asks for a monetary award to be determined by the court for punitive damages related to Warmbier’s mistreatment and death, and the emotional suffering of his family. The money could come from a fund, created by Congress in 2015 and administered by the Justice Department, to compensate victims of state-sponsored terrorism.

So, the Warmbiers are suing another country, presumably in a US court which has no actual ability to impose anything on said other country, and any damages awarded would come from money funded by the US. Yeah, okay. I can see no way in which the said other country isn't sitting there, thumbing their noses and laughing their asses off. It's not like N. Korea has even a reputation to lose in the deal.

I feel for the Warmbiers. I can't even imagine how it would feel to lose your child in that way (let alone any way) and can certainly see their desire for retribution. This does nothing though. It certainly doesn't hurt N. Korea, but it possibly will hurt any chance of the remaining US captives being released.

Three Americans remain in captivity in North Korea, and Trump has said his administration is working to secure their release. CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday as secretary of state, traveled to Pyongyang over Easter weekend and met with Kim, and he reportedly raised the issue of detainees with North Korean officials.

I can see N. Korea refusing outright just out of spite.

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I thought we still didn't have a diplomat in N.Korea so really what will get accomplished? Ditto to feeling horrible for them to losing their son but in a regime like N.Korea I really don't think much will result.

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So Trumpy is taking a while lotta credit for the concessions KJU has made but it turns out that the real reason KJU has said they will stop the nuclear tests may be because last time  they blew up the testing site https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/04/26/this-could-be-the-real-reason-why-north-korea-stopped-its-nuclear-missile-tests/#4282f05664c2

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Although I truly wish for a peaceful resolution for the Korea’s, a tiny part of me is glad the current US efforts are possibly going to fail. I just don’t want the presidunce to be able to boast and gloat about it and how he is the one that should get all the credit.

If and when peace comes to the Korean peninsula, I’d like it to be because the Korea’s themselves brought it about.

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:jawdrop: I'm soooooo surprised. Not. 

L'histoire se répète, and all that. North Korea has been through this exact same rodeo before, y'all.

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2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

:jawdrop: I'm soooooo surprised. Not. 

L'histoire se répète, and all that. North Korea has been through this exact same rodeo before, y'all.

Dumpy will blame Obama. Or Hillary. Or both.

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1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Dumpy will blame Obama. Or Hillary. Or both.

I have a feeling Kim never planed to meet with Trump.  He is just fucking with him, and Trump fell for it.

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9 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

NOBODY likes John Bolton 

 

Too subtle for tRump's limited understanding. But I guess his aides can reduce it to a single bullet point: fuck you and Bolton we won't end up like Libya and Iraq.

The "fat rocket man" sounds more reasonable than the dotard. Quite the humiliation for the America that won't be made great by SCROTUS.

Edited by laPapessaGiovanna
Damn autocorrect
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I'm not happy with all of this. Politics aside, I'd quite like to meet my Korean cousins. A quarter of my family is in North Korea, a quarter is in South Korea, and half of it is in Germany. To me, this isn't about world politics. I just want to meet my family. That's it.

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5 minutes ago, Howl said:

 

But... but my friends at Fox News never told me that Kim Jong Un was bigly untrustworthy. My bestie, Sean Hannity never said anything about that. They said I'd get the Nobel Peace Prize for working with him. Obama had one- I want my Nobel Peace Prize!

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