Kim Yong Chol, a veteran Pyongyang power player and a member of the young autocrat’s inner circle, flew in on an Air China flight from Beijing, becoming the most senior North Korean official to visit the United States in 18 years.

Dialogue between the two sides began with a dinner meeting held in an apartment building near the UN headquarters at 7:00pm (2300 GMT), ahead of further talks Thursday to finalize planning for a June 12 summit designed to end a nuclear standoff that once threatened to plunge Korea back into war.

Pompeo, who arrived at the venue first, was accompanied by Andrew Kim, the head of the Koreas desk at the CIA. Kim Yong Chol arrived minutes later and was also accompanied by an aide.

Neither side spoke to the press ahead of the dinner, but a tweet by Pompeo before the meeting notably described the Trump-Kim meeting as a “potential summit.”

“Looking forward to meeting with Kim Yong Chol in New York to discuss @Potus potential summit with Chairman Kim,” wrote Pompeo. “We are committed to the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

US and North Korean envoys have also been meeting in Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, and an American “pre-advance” team is in Singapore to make logistical arrangements for the rapidly planned meeting.

“So far the readout from these meetings have been positive and we’ll continue to move forward with them,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said, confirming the plan is still for the leaders to meet in Singapore on June 12.

But with 13 days to go, the talks between General Kim and Pompeo, the former CIA chief who pioneered the latest round of face-to-face meetings, appeared to confirm that the process of getting two unpredictable leaders to the table is now on track.

“As the president says, if it happens, we’ll certainly be ready,” Sanders said.

Earlier this month, Trump suddenly but only briefly announced a cancellation of the summit after a North Korea issued a sharp rebuke of what it saw as threatening language for the US side, and the US side warns talks could be postponed if Kim is not serious about disarmament.

But the summit appears increasingly likely to go ahead, amid a flurry of international diplomatic activity.

Moscow said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would travel to North Korea on Thursday to discuss Pyongyang’s nuclear program. Pompeo and Lavrov spoke by telephone for the first time Wednesday, but their offices’ accounts of the call made no mention of Korea.

Pompeo called his South Korean and Singaporean counterparts over the weekend and Japan is also keenly watching summit preparations. Trump will meet its Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Washington on June 7.

On Sunday, US negotiators, headed by Washington’s ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim, began meeting North Korean counterparts in the truce village of Panmunjom that divides the two Koreas.

“They plan to have additional meetings this week,” Sanders said.

Kim Yong Chol is the most senior North Korean on US soil since Vice Marshal Jo Myong Rok met then-president Bill Clinton in 2000.

The general has played a front-seat role during recent rounds of diplomacy aimed at ending the nuclear stalemate on the Korean peninsula.

He sat next to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who is also a White House aide, during February’s closing ceremony for the Winter Olympics in South Korea, an event that was seen as a turning point in the nuclear crisis.

He also accompanied Kim Jong Un on both of his recent trips to China to meet President Xi Jinping, and held talks with Pompeo when he travelled to Pyongyang.

– Yawning gap –

General Kim’s journey to the US caps a frenetic few days of meetings between North Korean and American officials.

An AFP photographer saw Kim Chang Son, Kim Jong Un’s de facto chief of staff, in Singapore Tuesday for preparatory discussions there.

The key task is to settle the agenda. The main stumbling block is likely to be the concept of “denuclearization” — both sides say they want it, but there is a yawning gap between their definitions.

Washington wants North Korea to quickly give up all its nuclear weapons in a verifiable way in return for sanctions and economic relief.

But analysts say North Korea will be unwilling to cede its nuclear deterrent unless it is given security guarantees that the US will not try to topple the regime.

The Court of Appeal allowed Rozita Mohamad Ali, 44 – who made headlines for abusing her maid and was sentenced to eight years’ jail – to be released on RM25,000 bail with two sureties.

A three-man bench chaired by Court of Appeal judge Justice Datuk Ahmadi Asnawi unanimously allowed the application but asked her to surrender her travel documents to the court and required her to report to the nearest police station once every two weeks.

Rozita is appealing the eight-year jail sentence by the Shah Alam High Court, which set aside a good behaviour bond meted out earlier by the Petaling Jaya Sessions Court.

She had pleaded guilty before a Sessions Court judge on March 15 to an amended charge of causing grievous hurt to Suyanti Sutrinso, 21, with a kitchen knife, mop, hanger and umbrella at a house in Mutiara Damansara on June 21, 2016.

She was earlier charged with attempted murder.

The Sessions Court sentenced Rozita to be bound over for five years on a good behaviour bond of RM20,000.

However, following public outcry, the Attorney-General filed for a review of the sentence and the Shah Alam High Court on March 29, increased her sentence to an eight-year jail term.

Suyanti, who is from Medan, was only 19 when the abuse took place.

The case drew public ire after a video of Suyanti lying injured by the side of a drain went viral on social media.

“We have since removed the officer from the front desk,” said Johor Immigration Department director Datuk Rohaizi Bahari.

He said that such behaviour would not be tolerated, but did not specify what form of disciplinary action would be taken against the officer.

Rohaizi added that the incident happened at about 9am Wednesday (May 30) at the immigration office in Wisma Persekutuan.

In the 10-second video, the immigration officer can be seen hitting a foreigner on the head and forcing his hand onto a scanner, while continuously berating him.

The video went viral almost immediately. However, it is unclear why the officer lost his cool and acted in this manner.

Watch video clip : https://www.facebook.com/ranen.bhattacharyya.7/videos/vb.830242590/10156264232457591/?type=2&video_source=user_video_tab

The label “part-time girlfriend” is a euphemism often used by young women in the city who may be studying or have jobs, but who also offer sex on the side.

By using variations of the hashtag #ptgf as shorthand, they connect with men on networks such as Instagram then switch to direct messaging to offer services and arrange to meet.

Instagram says it has made #ptgf and #hkptgf unsearchable, but a host of new alternatives that add Chinese characters or initials to the original tag circumvent the block.

Loneliness, curiosity, family breakdown and financial pressures are key motivators for young women to try it out, according to support workers on the ground.

High-school student Kiki, a pseudonym she chose to protect her identity, started part-time sex work aged 17, saying it was easy to search for men on Instagram by using one of the #ptgf tags.

In this picture taken on April 24, 2018, 24-year-old Nicole, a pseudonym she chose to protect her identity, uses the popular messaging app WeChat on her phone in Hong Kong. Nicole has a full-time office job, but still does after-hours sex work to pay off her college debts as her family cannot afford to help. For Hong Kong’s “part-time girlfriends” social media provides an easy way to connect with clients looking for sex, but campaigners warn that online convenience is tempting girls as young as 13 to put themselves at risk.  // AFP PHOTO

“I had an argument with my sister and was not very happy, so I just wanted to find someone to listen to me,” she told AFP.

“For the first few times I felt quite good… so I kept looking for clients for company.”

She admits she was nervous about meeting strangers, but the financial incentive outweighed her doubts.

“My family is not very wealthy. I was making money for myself and saved it,” she says. Kiki says she charged from HK$300 ($38) for dinner or “touching”, up to HK$1,000 for other sexual services.

After less than a year she gave up because she had started a new relationship.

Now 19, she says she is left with a sense of regret and warns other girls to think carefully before taking the leap.

“A future boyfriend or husband might find it hard to accept,” she says.

“It’s like you have a needle piercing your heart and it’s always there.”

– Blurred boundaries – 

Connecting with clients online often gives young women a false sense of security, says Bowie Lam, executive director of Teen’s Key, a charity that offers support to Hong Kong’s sex workers under the age of 25.

She says the age of “part-time girlfriends” is getting lower and believes that social media is a factor.

“They think they have autonomy and control because they can screen a client online, talk with him, but it makes the boundary more blurred,” Lam says.

These young women often do not see themselves as sex workers because they are not based out of seedy rooms, or the bars and clubs of Hong Kong’s traditional red light districts, she adds.

Sometimes they meet clients without offering sex at first and are taken to theme parks, dinner or even on hikes, but as more money is offered, the path usually leads to paid sex.

Some young women have their first sexual experience as a “part-time girlfriend”, says Lam.

Believing they have become friends with a client can lead them to drop their guard.

“Girls have been treated violently and even raped because they trusted the man wouldn’t harm them,” Lam told AFP.

– Addressing taboos –

Hong Kong police said they have taken action against websites, chat rooms and discussion forums to combat “illegal prostitution activities” in a statement to AFP.

The “act of prostitution” in itself is not illegal in Hong Kong, police say, but soliciting is.

Instagram told AFP it acts to “swiftly remove” content, accounts and hashtags that violate its community guidelines.

A long-term strategy addressing taboos around talking about sex within schools and families in Hong Kong’s conservative society is what is most needed to stop girls putting themselves at risk, says Lam.

Young women often do not see themselves as sex workers because they are not based out of seedy rooms, or the bars and clubs of Hong Kong’s traditional red light districts. // AFP PHOTO

Teen’s Key offers young sex workers a range of support services, ranging from health tests to career advice and help with financial planning.

Lam says they want to help the women reconnect with their dreams and aspirations.

However, even when they are given support by the charity, some feel they cannot leave part-time sex work behind.

As the cost of living in Hong Kong soars, financial pressure is often the main factor.

Nicole, also a pseudonym, aged 24, started at the age of 18 to make money to put herself through college.

She found clients on online forums then communicated directly with them via the popular messaging app WeChat.

She now has a full-time office job, but still does after-hours sex work to pay off her college debts as her family cannot afford to help.

Nicole sees what she is doing as a practical solution but admits it has taken an emotional toll.

She describes sex work as a “dark patch” in her life and says she will feel guilty about it with any future boyfriend.

“I don’t think I’m a pure person, I feel like I’m very dirty. If someone else wanted to do this, I wouldn’t recommend it,” she told AFP.

But she urged people not to judge young women who have made the choices she has.

“Maybe they are in need, or have problems they can’t solve,” she said.

“There isn’t anyone who does this job because they want to.”