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North Korea Announces Plans To Dismantle Nuclear Test Site (npr.org)
The Associated Press is reporting North Korea has announced plans to dismantle its nuclear test site between May 23 and 25. The dismantling will occur before President Trump is scheduled to meet with Kim Jong-un in Singapore on June 12. NPR reports: Reuters reports that Punggye-ri nuclear test site has been the location of all of North Korea's six known nuclear tests. At the site, there's a system of tunnels under the mountain Mount Mantap. Journalists from the United States, South Korea, China, Russia and Britain will be invited to watch a special ceremony in which all of the tunnels at the testing ground will be destroyed and observation and research facilities and guard units will be taken down. The North Korean government will provide journalists with a charter flight from Beijing to Wosnan, North Korea. From there, a train will take them to the test site in the northeast part of the country.
The AP also reports that at a ruling party meeting last month, North Korea announced the plan to close the nuclear testing ground, along with a commitment to suspend all tests of nuclear devices and ICBMs. At that same meeting, however, North Korea said it has been performing a kind of nuclear test classified as "subcritical." The "subcritical" experiments give scientists an opportunity to test weapons without causing an actual nuclear chain reaction and explosion.
The AP also reports that at a ruling party meeting last month, North Korea announced the plan to close the nuclear testing ground, along with a commitment to suspend all tests of nuclear devices and ICBMs. At that same meeting, however, North Korea said it has been performing a kind of nuclear test classified as "subcritical." The "subcritical" experiments give scientists an opportunity to test weapons without causing an actual nuclear chain reaction and explosion.
Can you get a Nobel prize while serving concurrent life terms for treason in Leavenworth?
As it happens, you can get a Nobel peace prize while in prison. Most recently Liu Xiaobo was awarded the prize while jailed.
The Nobel committee apparently doesn't use "laws of other countries" as a criterion. Why would they?
Also as it happens, treason is specifically defined in the constitution. Nothing that Trump has been accused of comes under that definition.
Also also, I was reading about some of the trial transcripts from Mueller's indictments, and he'll be lucky if he doesn't get slapped by the court. The Manafort case in particular had the judge asking how Mueller's investigation can extend to actions that happened ten years before the election... and the prosecution being evasive and rude to the judge... causing the judge to demand prosecution submit the full, redacted indictment recommendation.
And in the Flynn case, the judge ordered prosecution to turn over any exculpatory evidence they have. This is unusual for a case where a guilty plea has been entered. The polite interpretation is that the judge feels Flynn might not have entered the plea because he was guilty, but because he couldn't afford a defense. The bad interpretation is that the judge might be looking into whether Flynn's plea was coerced. (Heard somewhere that prosecutors told Flynn that after they were done prosecuting him, they'd go after his wife and kids.)
And remember those 13 Russian nationals that were indicted? Turns out, it was 13 Russian nationals and four corporate entities. And one of the entities actually showed up in court to contest the charges. The indictments were widely viewed as a PR stunt, and that Mueller never expected anyone to contest them. He wasn't expecting to actually have to go to court, he's unprepared, and prosecutors tried to postpone the trial, saying "the plaintiffs were never served notice". Plaintiffs responded with "we're here voluntarily to answer charges and intend to enter a plea of "not guilty", let's have a trial!". Judge agreed, and now Mueller is scrambling to find evidence to support a bogus indictment.
Also, I heard that the IG report got postponed (last Wednesday) by "a couple of weeks" because they found new evidence about the Clinton E-mail investigation.
So overall, wait about 4 weeks or so and get back to me on whether Trump will be in jail, or whether we have a dozen high-level politicians indicted on corruption charges.
No, he's not suggesting that. He's suggesting that this test site was already getting pretty defunct, so as a PR stunt NK is inviting everyone to watch while they blow up the old test site.
The only thing this site is good for now is to give Kim Jong-un a diplomatic trump card.
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2143171/north-koreas-nuclear-test-site-has-collapsed-and-may-be-why-kim-jong-un
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/958444/North-Korea-nuclear-missile-nuke-bomb-Punggye-ri-test-site
You make it sound like he's walked a red carpet from the cradle straight into power, and his biography doesn't read quite like that:
In 1963, when Xi was age 10, his father was purged from the Party and sent to work in a factory in Luoyang, Henan. In May 1966, Xi's secondary education was cut short by the Cultural Revolution, when all secondary classes were halted for students to criticise and fight their teachers. The Xi family home was ransacked by student militants and one of Xi's sisters, Xi Heping, was killed. Later, his own mother was forced to publicly denounce him as Xi was paraded before a crowd as an enemy of the revolution. Xi was aged 15 when his father was imprisoned in 1968 during the Cultural Revolution; Xi would not see his father again until 1972. Without the protection of his father, Xi was sent to work in Liangjiahe Village, Wen'anyi Town, Yanchuan County, Yan'an, Shaanxi, in 1969 in Mao Zedong's Down to the Countryside Movement. After a few months, unable to stand rural life, he ran away to Beijing. He was arrested during a crackdown on deserters from the countryside and sent to a work camp to dig ditches.
So... he might have been born a "princeling", but that did not guarantee him an easy ride into the Politburo. (Did you know that his first nine applications to join the CPC were rejected?)
Third, he's a dictator. Dictators are fairly one-dimensional, unimaginative types who have very little to add to the sum of humanity's achievements. They don't do their countries any good and very rarely leave any good legacy behind.
I think you're mischaracterising his desire for stability--which appears to be both genuine and well-founded--as "lack of imagination" and ignoring both his background and its historical context. The Chinese experience of the past 120 years or so has been nothing like the American one.
XI is a very smart guy, and he's got balls. Do not underestimate him.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
One of the driving forces of the Chinese government is to avoid another person like Mao. They were the ones who saw firsthand how bad the Cultural Revolution actually was. When they talk about stability, there is some reality behind it.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."