US President Donald Trump on Saturday said he believes North Korea would abide by its pledge to suspend missile tests while he prepares for a summit by May with the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un.
Trump noted in a tweet that North Korea has refrained from such tests since November last year and said Kim “has promised not to do so through our meetings.”
“I believe they will honor that commitment,” he wrote.
The president continued the optimistic tone on Saturday night when he led a rally for the Republican candidate in a special US House of Representatives race in western Pennsylvania.
When he mentioned Kim’s name, the crowd booed, but Trump responded: “No, it’s very positive ... no, after the meeting you may do that, but now we have to be very nice because let’s see what happens, let’s see what happens.”
Trump shocked many inside and outside his administration on Thursday when he told South Korean officials who had just returned from talks in North Korea that he would be willing to accept Kim’s meeting invitation.
Earlier on Saturday, Trump tweeted that China was pleased that he was pursuing a diplomatic solution rather than “going with the ominous alternative” and that Japan is “very enthusiastic” about the agreed-to talks.
Trump has spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe since Thursday’s announcement, and said Xi “appreciates that the US is working to solve the problem diplomatically rather than going with the ominous alternative.”
He also said China “continues to be helpful!”
Trump said in another tweet on Saturday that Abe is “is very enthusiastic about talks with North Korea” and that the two discussed how to narrow the US-Japan trade deficit, adding: “It will all work out!”
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.