North Korea Dropped Out of Meeting With Pence at Last Minute, US Says
February 21, 2018 by admin
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What they did not disclose then was that they believed both of those conditions had been met for an encounter already scheduled to occur.
“The vice president was ready to take this opportunity to drive home the necessity of North Korea abandoning its illicit ballistic missile and nuclear programs,” Ms. Nauert said on Tuesday.
For much of the past year, the White House has used a combination of increasingly tough economic sanctions and blistering language — including threats of military action — to try to get the North to stop, and even reverse, its missile and nuclear development programs.
United States officials have publicly insisted that they would agree to talks with Pyongyang only if North Korea agreed beforehand to give up its weapons programs, a precondition most observers believed was a nonstarter for the country.
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But in the administration, a fierce debate has raged about whether to drop the preconditions, and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea is known to favor talks. About six months ago, President Trump referred to Mr. Moon’s overtures to the North as “appeasement.” Mr. Trump also dismissed Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson’s suggestions of dialogue with the North as premature or a waste of time.
But it was never clear whether the North itself was interested in talks, preconditions or no. Under President Barack Obama, repeated efforts at opening a back channel to seek dialogue were rebuffed by Pyongyang.
Past American administrations have rewarded North Korea’s decision to begin negotiations by providing food aid and some sanctions relief. But even if there are now no preconditions for talks, the Trump administration still insists that North Korea will not be rewarded for just opening a dialogue.
“We’re not using a carrot to convince them to talk,” Mr. Tillerson said in a recent interview with “60 Minutes.” “We’re using large sticks.”
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The meeting was to occur after Mr. Pence had warned that North Korea was about to face the “toughest and most aggressive” set of United States sanctions yet, though he did not detail what those would be.
Highlighting the difficulty of enforcing those sanctions, Japan on Wednesday said its military had spotted a ship-to-ship transfer of goods at sea that it “strongly suspects” violates existing United Nations sanctions on North Korea.
The transfer happened on Friday, when a Japanese surveillance plane and an escort ship spotted a North Korean-flagged tanker alongside another, smaller ship in the waters between China and Japan, Japan’s foreign ministry said. The smaller ship was of unknown nationality, though photos showed it had Chinese characters that suggested it was an oil ship from China’s Fujian Province. There appeared to be hoses connecting the two vessels.
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Trump Moves to Regulate ‘Bump Stock’ Devices
February 21, 2018 by admin
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In Florida on Tuesday, the Republican-controlled State House rejected an effort to immediately consider a bill to ban large-capacity magazines and the type of assault rifles used in last week’s attack, even as students from Stoneman Douglas High School watched from the gallery.
The party-line vote was on an unusual procedural motion offered by a Democrat, and Republican leaders were critical of the effort to force a vote. They said they would consider other gun control bills before the session ends in March, but none of those measures is expected to go as far as banning assault rifles.
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What Is a Bump Stock and How Does It Work?
“Bump stocks” are attachments that enable semiautomatic rifles to fire faster, almost like machine guns. Twelve of the rifles found in the hotel room of the Las Vegas gunman were fitted with the devices.
At the White House, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the president’s spokeswoman, said the president was determined to find ways to protect Americans, and especially children, from gunmen. Asked about a broader ban on assault weapons, Ms. Sanders said the White House has not “closed the door on any front.”
Despite the day’s developments, there was deep skepticism in Washington that anything would change because of the long history of inaction by state and federal politicians after similar mass shootings. Gun control activists said they were braced for another disappointing battle with lawmakers.
The president, they noted, promised unwavering fealty last year to the National Rifle Association, drawing thunderous applause at its annual convention by declaring, “To the N.R.A., I can proudly say I will never, ever let you down.” The group in turn enthusiastically endorsed Mr. Trump and spent $30 million on his campaign.
Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, who sponsored the latest background check measure with Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said he was unimpressed by Mr. Trump’s openness to it. “Let’s not pretend this is some huge concession on his part,” he said. “If this is all the White House is willing to do to address gun violence, it’s wholly insufficient.”
The background check bill, which seeks to improve the existing database used to prevent gun purchases by criminals and the mentally ill, is a small nod in the direction of gun control that does nothing to close loopholes that allow millions of gun sales without a background check. Last year, N.R.A. officials said they were fine with it.
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It is also unclear whether Mr. Trump’s statement of support for the measure, which included a desire for some “revisions,” might be linked to other legislation that the N.R.A. backs. In the House, a similar background check measure was combined with legislation that would effectively allow people to legally carry concealed weapons in all 50 states.
That legislation is the top priority for the N.R.A., and gun control activists have promised to fight it aggressively.
“That normalizes the carrying of guns on all American streets,” said John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a group that advocates gun control measures. He said joining the two measures would be a “craven” bait-and-switch and “disrespectful for all the families” of the Florida school that suffered through last week’s shooting.
The president’s bump stock announcement surprised the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which did not appear to have been informed of the pending remarks from Mr. Trump. The Justice Department announced a review of the devices in early December. Led by the A.T.F., the review sought to determine whether the bureau — which is responsible for policing firearms — was able to regulate the devices without action from Congress.
Under the Obama administration, the bureau had determined it could not regulate them. Given that prior position, A.T.F. officials had indicated privately in the months after the Las Vegas massacre that any ban of bump stocks would require new legislation.
Bump stocks were not used on the rifle in the shooting last week in Florida, the authorities said.
Mr. Trump’s announcement on Tuesday appeared to short-circuit the agency’s review. The A.T.F. had not yet determined whether it had the authority to ban the devices when Mr. Trump directed Mr. Sessions to draft a regulation doing so.
In a statement, an A.T.F. official said she was “not authorized to comment on pending legislation, legislative proposals or the possibility of executive action.” A Justice Department spokesman said that the department “understands this is a priority for the president.”
The shooting in Florida prompted the White House to highlight the administration’s actions as students from the school included Mr. Trump among the politicians they criticized for failing to keep them safe.
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In an impassioned speech on Saturday, Emma Gonzalez, a senior at the school, assailed the president’s N.R.A. ties and accused him of setting a crass monetary value on the lives of gunshot victims by taking so much money from the gun-rights group.
“If you don’t do anything to prevent this from continuing to occur, that number of gunshot victims will go up and the number that they are worth will go down,” Ms. Gonzalez said on Saturday at a rally for gun control. “And we will be worthless to you.”
With funerals underway for those who died at the Florida high school, Mr. Trump said that he plans to host a “listening session” on Wednesday with high school students and teachers at the White House. He is scheduled to meet on Thursday with state and local officials to discuss school safety.
Ms. Sanders told reporters on Tuesday that the session on Wednesday will include students and parents from the Florida school as well as people affected by school shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado and Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. She did not say whether any of the student activists who have been critical of Mr. Trump were invited to the White House.
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