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from the what-a-difference-a-few-weeks-make dept.
Two bits of news from Asia, widely covered elsewhere. However, are we beginning to see a peace dividend as a result of the thawing in relationships between North and South Korea?
American prisoners held in North Korea on their way home after Pompeo visit, Trump says
"Three American prisoners held in North Korea have been released and are en route to the U.S. after a surprise diplomatic mission by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, President Trump announced Wednesday. " foxnews.com/politics/2018/05/09/american-prisoners-held-in-north-korea-on-their-way-home-after-pompeo-visit-trump-says.html
[Ed Note: They should be back in the US by now although I have not seen any direct reporting of this at the time of editing this story. Anyway, welcome back guys!]
Update: North Korea summit: Trump greets freed US detainees
China, Japan, South Korea open three-way summit
"China, South Korea and Japan have begun their first trilateral summit in more than two years.
[...] They are expected to take up the recent flurry of developments on the Korean peninsula. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met Moon on April 27 and Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this week.
Abe said he hopes North Korea will give up its nuclear weapons in a complete and irreversible way.
Li said China is willing to work with Japan and South Korea to maintain regional stability.
The three-way summit is supposed to happen annually, but hasn't been held since November 2015 because of tense relations between Japan and China." foxnews.com/world/2018/05/08/latest-china-japan-south-korea-open-three-way-summit.html
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Thursday May 10 2018, @01:57PM (9 children)
Trump is a liar [bloomberg.com], and so is Rocket Man.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/991843153953964033 [twitter.com]
This is not the first time North Korea has released hostages. They sent Otto Warmbier [wikipedia.org] back to Trump in a coma. Bill Clinton got Euna Lee and Laura Ling released intact back in 2009. Kim may just be sacrificing a couple of pawns in order to stall longer and make the peace talks look genuine.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @02:13PM (4 children)
From the Bloomberg link -- Trump tweeted:
> As everybody is aware, the past Administration has long been asking for three hostages to be released from a North Korean Labor camp, but to no avail. Stay tuned!
8:53 PM - May 2, 2018
Bloomberg > The problem? “Of the three prisoners only one, Kim Dong-cheol, a South Korean-born American pastor, was detained during the previous Obama administration.” The other two were detained last spring when Donald Trump was in the White House.
Trump lies all the time. This one strikes me as unusually insidious, however. To begin with, there’s something concrete and specific about it. It’s one thing to say that the economy sprung to life after Trump took office, even if statistics say that there’s not much change since the late Barack Obama years; one can certainly make a case for it, even if it requires a little cherry-picking of the right indicators. It’s a little different and worse to say that Obama failed to win the release of “three hostages” when two of them weren’t detained until he left office.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @04:32PM
B-b-b-but! He should have done more to get them released! Alex Jones said so!
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday May 10 2018, @06:22PM (2 children)
Not to mention the fact that Obama got 2 hostages released in 2009 and took a bunch of crap from the right over it because he was "negotiating with terrorists." [mcclatchydc.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by cmdrklarg on Thursday May 10 2018, @09:27PM (1 child)
Obama could have walked on water, cured the sick, and turned water into wine and would still have taken crap from the right.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @10:33PM
Jesus did all of this. And the right could care about the poor as Jesus would. The right are so far from Christ it isn't funny. They cloak this with a feeble anti abortion push. But many fetuses naturally abort and shows God doesn't worry about fetuses. No verse in the bible does either.
So if Barak did all of that and is half black (insert a southern ladies gasp here) oh the horror.
To bad Barak wasnt change and did none of those. Including giving a rats ass about the poor.
We won't do Christ justice til the narrative changes and the poor are seen as possible to save. All of them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @02:33PM (2 children)
A room with one person and a mirror contains 2 lairs.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:40PM (1 child)
What is in the other lair, a lion perhaps?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @04:21PM
Never trust a lair. Never.
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday May 10 2018, @06:18PM
Bill Clinton got Euna Lee and Laura Ling released intact back in 2009
"Despite decades of bipartisan U.S. rhetoric about not negotiating with terrorists for the release of hostages, it seems that the Obama administration not only chose to negotiate, but to send a former president to do so,"
"The reporters' arrest, show trial and subsequent imprisonment (twelve years hard labor) was hostage taking, essentially an act of state terrorism,"
"So the Clinton trip is a significant propaganda victory for North Korea, whether or not he carried an official message from President Obama.”
--Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton, who doesn't seem to mind propaganda victories anymore