Tag: the Summit
Whether this is true or not, I think we can all agree that it’s an amazing achievement by an Australian PM to have almost achieved the remarkable accomplishment of announcing a target for 2050. With the current rate of progress we may actually have one before the year itself!
Who is the tactician? Who is the Liar? Who acts on impulse? (ODT)
Out of 11 United Nations sanctions, North Korea had sought the lifting of five sanctions made in 2016-2017.
By contrast, Trump had told reporters at a press conference earlier in Hanoi that a working lunch and signing ceremony had been cancelled because North Korea wanted sanctions lifted in their entirety.The Korea Centre said the sanctions North Korea had asked to be lifted cover the ban on North Korean exports such as coal, textiles and seafood, which were important sources of foreign currency for the regime.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had said: “We asked him to do more and he was just unprepared to do that.”
Donald Trump admits to being China’s sock puppet happy to achieve what was already on the cards before his first Summit.(ODT)
Donald Trump has said the US will be “happy” if North Korea simply agrees to continue its moratorium on nuclear and missile testing at this week’s summit in Hanoi.
The North Korean’s leader’s moratorium on testing began even before the two leaders’ first summit in Singapore last June, and followed the successful test of a thermonuclear weapon and two launches of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in 2017.
At the Singapore summit, Kim Jong-un agreed to the “denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula” but it soon became clear that the US and North Korea had very different interpretations of what the phrase meant. Since then, the North Korean state has carried out demolition work at a nuclear test site and a missile test facility, but according to US intelligence estimates, has taken no substantial steps towards disarmament.
via US negotiating position in disarray ahead of summit with North Korea | US news | The Guardian
Listening to Trump’s responses about Russian acts of aggression, it was hard to know who was playing the role of the American president. His performance was so nakedly, brazenly pro-Russian, you had to wonder what ranks higher on the Trumpian scale of stupidity: the president’s own intellect or his dim view of ours.
George Orwell conjured up a totalitarian regime where Ignorance Is Strength, but he surely never conceived of this. How can we know that two and two make four, or that the DNC isn’t responsible for its own hacking, or that Vladimir Putin isn’t a bigger American friend than the entire European Union and Nato alliance?
via Trump outdoes Orwell in role as Moscow’s Agent Orange | Richard Wolffe | Opinion | The Guardian
Five countries are currently fighting in Syria. Russia, Iran, the United States, and Turkey have stationed troops. Israel regularly drops bombs and fires missiles.
President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss Syria at their Helsinki summit July 16. The Trump administration is pressuring Russia to reduce the Iranian role in Syria, but will not likely succeed, according to Professor Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.
“Iran is there to stay,” he told me. “Russia is not going to kick Iran out.”
via With 5 Powers fighting in Syria, who will come out on top? Netanyahu, Putin, or Trump?
A successful summit will require Trump to reject this neoconservative doctrine. If Trump can pull this off with Bolton sitting by him, Trump’s critics will look very silly. Do Bolton and the Deep State have a way of baking failure into the summit that will ensure the continuation of Russia’s enemy status, thereby sustaining the enormous budget and power of the US military/security complex? Is Trump a superman who can overcome this powerful vested interest about which President Eisenhower warned Americans in 1961? How much stronger is this complex more than half a century later after being nourished by decades of Cold War and War on Terror?
Assad and no doubt Iran are convinced that negotiations with Washington are a waste of time. Assad has concluded that “the problem with US presidents is that they are hostage to lobbyists. They can tell you what you want to hear, but they do the opposite. That’s the problem, and it’s getting worse and worse. Trump is a stark example. That’s why when talking to the Americans, discussing something with them does not settle anything. There will not be any results. It’s a simple waste of time.”
olddogthoughts 
You must be logged in to post a comment.