US intelligence agencies believe that North Korea has in recent months increased its production of fuel for nuclear weapons at multiple secret sites, National Broadcasting Corp (NBC) reported, citing unidentified US officials.
The NBC report quoted US officials who said they believe that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un might try to hide the facilities as he seeks more concessions in nuclear talks with the US.
The intelligence assessment, which had not previously been reported, seemed to counter the sentiments expressed by US President Donald Trump, who tweeted after his June 12 summit with Kim in Singapore that there was no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea, NBC said.
Photo: Reuters / Korean Central News
“Analysts at the CIA and other intelligence agencies don’t see it that way, according to more than a dozen American officials who are familiar with their assessments and spoke on the condition of anonymity,” it reported.
“They see a regime positioning itself to extract every concession it can from the Trump administration, while clinging to nuclear weapons it believes are essential to survival,” it added.
The White House declined to comment on the report.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang Kyung-wha on Friday discussed next steps following the summit.
The Financial Times reported that Pompeo hopes to visit Pyongyang in the second week of this month.
“There was a delay, but I think he has now got the agreement to go,” former US National Security Council director of Asian affairs Victor Cha told the Guardian. “They have to put meat on the bones of the Singapore statement. Pompeo is under pressure to get something before August, when the exercises were going to start.”
The report comes a week after US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis suspended the Ulchi-Freedom Guardian exercises, as well as two other war games with South Korean armed forces that were scheduled to take place over the next three months.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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