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POTUS tells UK to 'walk away' if EU does not give what it wants in Brexit: Sunday Times
LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said Britain should refuse to pay its 39 billion pound EU divorce bill and “walk away” from Brexit talks if Brussels does not give the UK what it wants.
In an interview with the Sunday Times newspaper ahead of his state visit to Britain starting Monday, Trump said the next British leader should send arch-Brexiteer Nigel Farage to conduct talks with the EU.
Trump said Britain must leave the EU this year.
“They’ve got to get it done,” he said. “They have got to get the deal closed.”
“If they don’t get what they want, I would walk away. If you don’t get a fair deal, you walk away.”
Trump repeated his backing for those candidates to succeed Prime Minister Theresa May who have said Britain must leave on the due date of Oct. 31 with or without a deal.
Those candidates include former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, whom Trump praised in an interview with the Sun newspaper on Friday, along with former Brexit minister Dominic Raab and interior minister Sajid Javid.
Trump also said it was a mistake for the Conservatives not to involve Farage, the Brexit Party leader, in negotiations with Brussels after his success in European Parliament elections last month.
“I like Nigel a lot. He has a lot to offer - he is a very smart person,” Trump said. “They won’t bring him in but think how well they would do if they did. They just haven’t figured that out yet.”
On the Brexit divorce bill, Trump said: “If I were them, I wouldn’t pay 50 billion dollars. That is a tremendous number.”
Trump also said he would have “to know” veteran Socialist Labour opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn before authorizing U.S. intelligence to share its most sensitive secrets with a hard-left government.
He warned British ministers they must be careful not to jeopardize intelligence-sharing by letting Chinese firm Huawei Technologies Co Ltd into Britain’s new 5G mobile phone network.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-britain-trump/trump-tells-uk-to-walk-away-if-eu-does-not-give-what-it-wants-in-brexit-sunday-times-idUSKCN1T23GP?il=0
At Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Japanese defense minister warns that North Korea remains global threat
SINGAPORE - Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya said Saturday that North Korea remains a threat to global security, urging the international community to work closely to achieve denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Iwaya also criticized Pyongyang’s recent firing of short-range ballistic missiles as being in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, while emphasizing that defense authorities should maintain deterrence against North Korea.
“We need to remind ourselves of the undeniable fact that there has been no essential change in North Korea’s nuclear and missile capacities,” Iwaya said in a speech at the Asia Security Summit, known as the Shangri-La Dialogue, in Singapore.
Pyongyang fired projectiles that appeared to be short-range ballistic missiles on May 4 and 9, about two months after U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un failed to strike a deal during their second summit in late February.
In the wake of the collapse of the meeting in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, denuclearization negotiations between the United States and North Korea have been at a standstill, and Pyongyang has resumed provocative actions against Washington.
“The most pressing risk is that the collective resolve of the international community abates” before North Korea takes concrete measures toward complete denuclearization, Iwaya said.
“Now is the time to make a concerted effort” to fully implement U.N. resolutions aimed at thwarting North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile ambition, he added, stressing the importance of “robust deterrence” against Pyongyang.
Iwaya added that Tokyo is eager to have a dialogue with Pyongyang, saying Japan “seeks to normalize its relations with North Korea through a comprehensive resolution of outstanding issues of concern such as abductions.”
Recently, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has expressed willingness to hold a summit with Kim “without conditions” to resolve the long-standing issue of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s.
At the same session on the Korean Peninsula, Stephen Biegun, U.S. special representative for North Korea, also said Washington will continue talks with Pyongyang despite the missile launches.
“President Trump is confident” that Kim will meet the commitments that he made at their first summit in Singapore in June last year, Biegun said. “Through continued negotiations, we can continue to close the gaps that separate our two countries.”
Meanwhile, South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo voiced concern that tensions on the peninsula may be rekindled, depending on future developments of denuclearization talks.
At the Feb. 27-28 summit, Trump and Kim fell short of a deal due to the gap between Washington’s insistence on denuclearization and Pyongyang’s demand for sanctions relief.
Kim has sought the easing of international economic sanctions, claiming that his country has already carried out concrete steps toward denuclearization.
But the U.S. has argued that the relaxing of economic sanctions requires North Korea to scrap all its nuclear facilities and programs.
By provoking the United States, Kim is believed to be trying to gain concessions from Trump, who wants to be able to tout results during his re-election campaign next year, some analysts say.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/01/national/politics-diplomacy/shangri-la-dialogue-singapore-japanese-defense-minister-warns-north-korea-remains-global-threat/
o7 fren
that's why pepe is committing seppuku, he (defense minister) is on the wrong side. He is like Kuroda at the BOJ and want nothing moar than to keep the status quo
still waiting for these….
reader's digest answer is that curriculum has been dumbed down so much that everyone is "special". Taken civics, biology, algebra and made them either non-existent or so watered down. No kids either but worked in edu in late 90's to early 2000's when this shit was coming into the school districts.
It all leads to everyone getting a trophy for trying.