On the eve of a historic summit between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, Pompeo said that preparatory talks were advancing more quickly than expected.

“We will take actions to provide them sufficient certainty that they can be comfortable that denuclearisation is not something that ends badly for them,” Pompeo said. “Just the opposite. That it leads to a brighter and better future for the North Korean people.”//AFP

With the historic summit between the US President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un set for Tuesday, much has been written about the relationship between North Korea, South Korea, China and Japan.

Certainly, a degree of tension exists between Pyongyang and the three aforementioned countries (yes, even with its longtime ally China). But for the rest of Asia, North Korea has never been seen as a threat but a curiosity and in some cases, a valued trading partner.

Thailand

Pyongyang’s fourth largest trade partner, Thailand has a mixed relationship with North Korea. Pressured by the United States to put more pressure on Pyongyang, Thailand’s military government has largely ignored those request and continue to turn a blind eye towards Thai businesses trading with the North.

However, the government also does little to discourage North Korean defectors who try to make their way to Thailand where South Korean charities provide the defectors with papers to re-emigrate to the South.

India

India’s Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh visited North Korea earlier in May in what was seen as an attempt to restart diplomatic relations after a long period of little contact. Singh was the first Indian minister to visit Pyongyang in nearly two decades after India followed the UN and sanctioned the North for its weapons program.

India has long been a North Korean trading partner with bilateral trade between the two countries totalling over $500 million.

Singapore

Singapore, the host of the historic summit, has maintained diplomatic relations with North Korea since the 1970s. Up until 2016, North Korean citizens could travel visa-free to Singapore and both countries maintained a trade relationship until 2017 when Singapore suspended the program because of the North’s nuclear program.

Singaporean businesses have expressed an interest in the north if and when the country should open up.

Malaysia

Diplomatic contact between Malaysia and North Korea were established in the mid-1970s and continued in a friendly manner until 2017. North Korea imported oil, rubber and palm oil from Malaysia while Malaysia received iron and steel products from the North. Both countries were early signees to the Non-Aligned Movement during the cold war.

However, the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, Kim Jong-un’s brother in February 2017, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport put a strain on relations between the two countries with Malaysia recalling their ambassador from Pyongyang.

Pakistan

Diplomatic contact between the two countries were established in the 1970s. Pakistan has an embassy in Pyongyang and North Korea has a mission in Islamabad. During the 1990s, Pakistan bought arms from North Korea after diplomatic tensions with China cut off supplies to long-range missiles.

There are also allegations from the United States that the recent uptick in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program was due to assistance from Pakistani scientists.

The officers, from the Bukit Aman Commercial Crime department, have been at the house since 1pm.

Several boxes have been seen removed from the house and put into a white van which bore no police credentials.

The house is only 200m from Seri Perdana and belongs to the Property management Division of the Prime Minister’s Department.

An online portal described it allegedly as Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s “safe house”.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will shake hands for a photo-op unimaginable only a few months ago.

The nuclear-armed pair have hurled personal insults at each other that would not be out of place in the playground. Here are a few of the more memorable slurs.

– Mentally-deranged dotard –

Kim had people around the world reaching for the dictionary when he called Trump a “mentally deranged US dotard”, saying he would “tame” him with “fire”.

The insult, equivalent to calling Trump an “old lunatic”, was a response to Washington’s threat to “totally destroy” North Korea and came at the height of the war of words between the two foes.

According to online dictionary Merriam Webster, searches for “dotard” were “high as a kite” after the comments hit the headlines.

– ‘Short and fat’ –

It appeared that the 71-year-old Trump took offence not at the allegation of insanity but rather the dig at his age. In response to the “dotard” insult, he took aim at the North Korean leader’s physical dimensions. “Why would Kim Jong Un insult me by calling me ‘old,’ when I would NEVER call him ‘short and fat’?” he tweeted.

In an editorial, the North’s ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said that Trump had “malignantly hurt the dignity of the supreme leadership”, and was “a hideous criminal sentenced to death by the Korean people”.

– ‘Rocket man‘ –

In his debut speech at the United Nations last September, Trump derided Kim as a “rocket man” on a “suicide mission for himself and for his regime”.

Doubling down on his insulting language, he referred to Kim as a “sick puppy” on the heels of an intercontinental ballistic missile test by Pyongyang in November.

Trump had previously referred to the North Korean leader as a “madman with nuclear weapons”.

– ‘Frightened dog’ –

In his “dotard” statement in response to Trump’s UN speech, Kim also said: “A frightened dog barks louder.”

It was not the only time North Korea has adopted canine references to describe Trump’s statements.

After the US president noted his nuclear button was “much bigger and more powerful” than Kim’s – “and it works” – Pyongyang branded the outburst the “bark of a rabid dog”.

– ‘Fire and fury‘ –

Not a personal insult, but one of the most intimidating of Trump’s threats came in August after US media reported Pyongyang had successfully miniaturised a nuclear warhead to fit into a missile.

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” said Trump, his arms folded in defensive and bellicose body language.

“They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

In response Pyongyang said it was considering firing missiles towards the Pacific US territory of Guam.//AFP

Trump, in his presidential state car nicknamed The Beast,  left the Shangri-La Hotel with his delegation at about 11.45am for the working lunch. They arrived at the Istana before noon.

He was accompanied by a convoy of more than 30 vehicles. Journalists and cameramen have been standing by around the hotel and the Istana for Trump since about 10.30am.

Trump’s delegation includes the following:

Stephanie Syptak-Ramnath, Chargé d’affaires of US Embassy in Singapore;  Mr Matthew Pottinger, Senior Director for Asian Affairs of the US National Security Council (NSC); Mrs Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House Press Secretary; Mr John Bolton, US National Security Advisor; Mr Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State; Mr John Kelly, White House Chief of Staff; Mr Stephen Miller, Senior Advisor to the President for Policy; Ms Mira Ricardel, Deputy National Security Advisor; Ms Sarah Tinsley, NSC Senior Director for Strategic Communications; Mr Peter Michael McKinley, US Ambassador to Brazil, and Ms Melissa Brown,  Counsellor for Economic and Political Affairs at US Embassy in Singapore.

The Straits Times understands the lunch is being catered by Gordon Grill at Goodwood Park Hotel. Dishes on the menu include angus beef tenderloin and lobster bisque.

Trump landed at Paya Lebar Air Base just the night before, after attending the G-7 summit in Canada. He retracted his endorsement of the major economic powers’ joint communiqué while on his way to Singapore.

He is expected to have a meet and greet session with US embassy staff after his engagement at the Istana.

Meanwhile, diplomats from the US and North Korea are meeting behind closed doors at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Singapore, in a final-hour bid to narrow their differences ahead of the summit between Mr Trump and Mr Kim Jong Un on Tuesday morning.

Former US Special Representative for North Korea Policy Sung Kim, who has been leading the US in talks with North Korean Vice-Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui in the border truce village of Panmunjom since last month, is said to be continuing the discussions with his counterpart in Singapore.

Top on the agenda is Pyongyang’s complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation. Mr Kim is likely to ask for a security guarantee and the easing of sanctions in return, say analysts. A peace treaty ending the 1950-53 Korean War may also be on the table.

Before sitting down for talks on Tuesday, Mr Trump intends to meet one-on-one with Mr Kim briefly, say media reports, citing sources.

Trump on Saturday said he believes he would know “within the first minute” of meeting Mr Kim if the North Korean leader is serious about surrendering his nuclear arsenal.

Sources say the two men will meet briefly, with just their interpreters but no aides in the room.

Top aides will join them for the formal talks later, and they will most likely include US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, as well as Mr Kim’s sister, Ms Kim Yo Jong, and former spy chief Kim Yong Chol.

The summit is the first between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader, and comes after a year of tension on the Korean Peninsula stoked by Mr Kim’s numerous missile tests and a “maximum pressure” campaign led by the US to curb Pyongyang.

Malaysia, along with 10 other countries, pushed ahead with the TPP in March despite Donald Trump having yanked the United States out of the huge multilateral trade deal.

But Mahathir Mohamad told a gathering in Tokyo he was “not very keen” on the agreement.

“We need TPP renegotiated,” he said in a speech to the “Future of Asia” forum.

“We have to recognise: Just as there are infant industries, there are infant nations, nations which are just beginning to grow,” he said.

“They need to have some privileges, some protection for themselves, because they are not in a position to compete with the great trading nations, the great manufacturing nations of the world.”

Eleven countries circling the Pacific signed a slimmed-down version of the TPP in March, opting to proceed with the deal after it was left for dead when Trump pulled out to pursue his “America First” agenda.

The US president has since sparked fears of a trade war by levying steep tariffs and denouncing unfair trading practices, even rejecting a joint communique at the G7 summit over trade disagreement.

Mahathir, on his first foreign trip since a surprise election victory last month, said countries like Malaysia needed a helping hand in international trade.

“The countries with little capacity to compete must be given due consideration. It is like playing golf… the weakest people get the highest handicaps,” he said.

“In that way competition would be much fairer.”

The signatories to the TPP represent 13.5 percent of the global economy and a market of 500 million people.

The deal was pushed by former US president Barack Obama’s administration in part as a way to counter growing Chinese commercial power.

It cuts tariffs and requires members to comply with a high level of regulatory standards in areas like labour law and environmental protection.

Watchers said Monday it still remains unclear whether the two countries can reach any historic agreement on denuclearization and security guarantee, but the latest external developments from both sides seem to indicate the talks will proceed successfully.

When asked how he feels about the summit after landing in Singapore on Sunday afternoon, US President Donald Trump said, “Very good.

The comment can be dismissed as casual optimism characteristic of the US leader, but the watchers interpreted it as suggesting that the atmosphere in their last-minute negotiations on denuclearization may not be discouraging.

From Pyongyang, the North’s official media Monday carried comparatively detailed reports on leader Kim Jong-un’s visit to Singapore, including his arrival date and plan to hold his first meeting with Trump on Tuesday.

It is very unusual for Pyongyang’s media to give an advance report of Kim’s schedule, particularly during his overseas stay. Kim visited China twice this year, but the North’s media made them public only after he returned to Pyongyang.

The latest disclosure of Kim’s future schedule seems to indicate his confidence about regime security even during his absence in Pyongyang, as well as expectations for the summit outcomes, according to the watchers.

The Monday report from the Korean Central News Agency mentioned the summit agenda, including denuclearization and lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Another Pyongyang report quoting Kim Yong-nam, the nominal head of state, as telling leader Kim to achieve outstanding outcomes from the summit with the US has also drawn attention. The remark indicates considerable expectations in North Korea for a successful summit, while some skeptics do not rule out the possibility that the North may eventually label any summit results a success.

Immigration agents arrested Pablo Villavicencio, 35, at the Fort Hamilton military base in Brooklyn, New York on Friday where he had gone to make a delivery.

He had been to the base several times before, presenting his New York city ID card that carries no mention of his immigration status.

But on June 1 he was he was asked by a military policeman for proof that he was a legal resident of the United States.

When he failed to produce the required documents, the soldier detained him and called Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which established that the father of two girls, aged two and three, had been living illegally in the country since 2010.

Though Villavicencio was supposed to have left the United States, he stayed to work, making him eligible to be deported.

Manhattan judge Alison Nathan on Saturday placed his deportation order on hold until another court hearing scheduled for July 20, and he remains in custody.

The administration of US President Donald Trump has taken a particularly harsh stance against undocumented migrants, including those without criminal records and with deep family ties to the country.

Immigration agents have also started making arrests even in courts which previously held “sanctuary” status.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday said it appeared that the delivery man was a victim of ethnic profiling.

US media report that his wife is a US citizen and he has now filed an application for residency.

A HISTORIC summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was expected to be a success, according to experts, as Kim was likely to offer a vague promise on denuclearisation when they meet in Singapore tomorrow, leaving tough negotiations over implementation for later.

“Kim’s most urgent need is to alleviate the threat of a US preventive military strike and to get at least some of the economic sanctions lifted,” Hawaii-based East West Centre’s senior fellow of research programme Denney Roy told The Nation in an interview via e-mail.

North Korea’s nuclear programme and missile tests over the past few years have brought the secretive communist regime to the brink of a nuclear state, which has given it strong bargaining powers with Washington.

A summit with the US president is critical for the Pyongyang leader to make his regime secure.

“He also wants to gain international prestige, establish a normal relationship with the US where he is treated as an equal, and make progress towards weakening the US-South Korea security cooperation,” Roy said.

Kim likely wants to get North Korea into a position where both Beijing and Washington are competing with each other to gain influence in Pyongyang by granting favours, he said.

While denuclearisation is the ultimate goal to stabilise the Korean Peninsula, President Trump is likely to hold his cards close to his chest.

“I think that very quickly I’ll know whether or not something good is going to happen,” Trump told reporters in Quebec over the weekend.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has met Kim Jong-un twice, said earlier that the reclusive North Korean leader had indicated the regime was prepared to denuclearise. The top US diplomat refrained from talking about the plan, saying the two leaders would discuss the issue during their summit.

An expert on Korean affairs, Roy said the summit could be called a success if there were any commitment on denuclearisation, with the hard bargaining over implementation left for later negotiations.

However the key to the success of the summit also depends on the diplomatic style and negotiating skills of the two leaders. While Trump is unpredictable, Kim is virtually unknown. His first appearance in the diplomatic world was only when he was on camera with his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in at Panmunjom in late April.

“At that time, he managed to not look like a monster, which is not very difficult. We don’t know how he might perform one-on-one with Trump. I would expect he will be well-prepared and wily,” Roy said.

The success or failure of the Singapore summit would have implications for other countries in the region too. China, Japan and South Korea are also stakeholders in the peace and security in the Korean Peninsula. All of them have different interests and agendas in the summit, Roy said. “So a result that is good for the US might not be so good for Japan, a result that is good for China might not be that good for the US, and so on.”

Southeast Asia, which the summit will take place, would also benefit from the historic meeting, Thammasat University political science expert Viboonpong Poonprasit said.

“While this summit would not follow the normal protocol with both leaders making on-the-scene talks, the outcome should be positive or neutral at the least and help guarantee more stability in the concerned regions,” he said. “While Trump looks for denuclearisation of North Korea, Kim would wish for the US to phase out from the Korean Peninsula as well as reduce sanctions,” he said, adding, “Their efforts should at least maintain a peaceful atmosphere.”

Irrespective of the summit outcome, Thailand’s situation would not change as far as abiding with international orders, including economic sanctions regarding North Korea, is concerned, he said.

“Our decreased economic ties with Pyongyang, which is not economically significant, has been to keep the status quo with the international community. I see no need to be eager to change that,” he added.

Trump indicated that Pyongyang would be rewarded with economic assistance if the regime complied with the denuclearisation programme and Washington expected that developed economies in the peninsula would actively participate.

State Secretary Pompeo said economic assistance and North Korea’s denuclearisation are “incredibly linked”.

“For North Korea to have the security assurances it needs, it needs to know that it has an economic – economically viable path forward. It has to know that its people can eat and that they can have the wealth that the North Korean people so richly deserve,” he said. “So, these are very closely linked issues; it’s difficult to separate them out. And so not only Japan, but South Korea, China – I imagine many nations will want to participate in the North Korean economy if we are successful in Singapore,” Pompeo said in an interview with NHK last week.

They were among a group of four people “geocaching” — using their smartphone’s GPS to search for little treasures hidden all over the world — when the rapidly rising water from the storm trapped them in the Czech capital’s underground drainage system on Saturday night.

“A woman was found dead in the Vltava (river) and a man is still missing,” police spokesman Jan Rybansky told AFP. The sewer system drains into the Vltava.

The identity of the 27-year-old victim has not yet been confirmed by the coroner.

The other two members of the group managed to escape and were hospitalised, the police spokesman said, and the search for the missing man resumed on Sunday.