US President Donald Trump has renewed sanctions on North Korea, citing an “extraordinary threat” from its nuclear weapons – just 10 days after saying there was no risk from Pyongyang.
The move came as the US and South Korea cancelled two more training exercises.
The Pentagon said the goal was to support diplomatic negotiations.
It follows the decision earlier this week to suspend a major joint military exercise between the US and South Korea that had been planned for August.
President Trump promised to end the annual “war games” between the allies in an unexpected concession at his summit with Mr. Kim, calling them “provocative” and “expensive.”
The US has had a “national emergency” in place with regard to North Korea since 2008.
Since then, presidents have routinely renewed that status – and the anti-Pyongyang sanctions that go with it.
President Trump extended the national emergency on Friday due to “the existence and risk of proliferation of weapons-usable fissile material on the Korean Peninsula and the actions and policies of the Government of North Korea.”
These “continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” he said in a notice to Congress.
Democrats say the latest White House language contradicts the president’s earlier boasts about the success of the Singapore summit.
In another tweet on 13 June, he said Americans could “sleep well tonight!”
“The report of President Trump’s own administration completely undercuts his statements over the last few weeks,” said the Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer.
“We have to treat these negotiations far more seriously than just as a photo op,” he added. “Saying the North Korea problem is solved doesn’t make it so.”
At the historic meeting in Singapore, the first between a sitting US president and a leader of North Korea, Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim signed a statement in which the US offered “security guarantees” to North Korea, and the North pledged to “work towards complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” – without defining what that meant.
Brexit: Campaigners to demand new vote in London march
Anti-Brexit campaigners who want the public to have the final say on the UK’s departure will take to the streets later to argue it is “not a done deal.”
The London march comes on the two year anniversary of the 2016 vote to leave.
People’s Vote, which wants a referendum on any exit deal, said people must make their “voices heard” about the damage of leaving next year without agreement.
But Brexiteer cabinet minister Liam Fox said Theresa May was “not bluffing” when she said this could happen.
The international trade secretary told the BBC it was in the interests of both sides to have a deal but it was “essential” the EU understood that the UK would walk away if the terms offered were not good enough.
Meanwhile in the UK Sun, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson warned the prime minister not to allow “bog roll Brexit” that is “soft, yielding and seemingly infinitely long” – calling for a “full British Brexit” instead.
Brexit Secretary David Davis told the Daily Express the prime minister was going to get a “good deal” from Brussels and Brexit was going to be “fantastic.”
The UK voted to leave the EU by a margin of 51.9% to 48.1% in a referendum held on 23 June 2016.
As it stands, the UK is due to leave on 29 March 2019, 46 years after it first joined the European Economic Community, the forerunner to the EU.
But the People’s Vote campaign says this should only happen if the withdrawal deal negotiated by Mrs. May and the other 27 EU members is approved in another public vote.
Saturday’s demo, which will begin in Pall Mall and culminate outside the Houses of Parliament, is part of a “summer of action” by campaign groups designed to increase pressure on Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn.
Both the prime minister and Labour leader have rejected calls for another public vote, saying the will of the people expressed in the 2016 ballot is clear, although many Labour MPs now want another referendum.
Speakers at the event, which organisers say is expected to be the biggest anti-Brexit march to date, will include actor Sir Tony Robinson and Gina Miller, who fought a successful legal battle last year to ensure the UK could not trigger talks on leaving without the approval of Parliament.
Trump hosts victims of undocumented migrants amid family separations row
US President Donald Trump has hosted the relatives of victims killed by illegal immigrants amid outrage over the separation of migrant families.
“Your loved ones have not died in vain,” he told the group of so-called Angel Families at the White House.
Mr. Trump has faced global condemnation for the US immigration policy that has seen more than 2,000 migrant children stripped from their families.
He bowed to public pressure and reversed the policy earlier this week.
The president signed an executive order on Wednesday to stop undocumented immigrant children being detained separately from their parents after they have illegally entered the country.
But the administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy of criminally prosecuting anyone who crosses the border illegally remains in place.
“These are the American citizens permanently separated from their loved ones,” Mr. Trump said on Friday, before introducing family members of victims.
“I cannot imagine it being any worse, but we promise to act with strength and resolve.
“We’ll not rest until our border is secure, our citizens are safe and we end this immigration crisis once and for all,” the president added.
Laura Wilkerson, whose son was killed in 2010 by an undocumented immigrant, told audience members: “None of our kids had a minute to say goodbye. We weren’t lucky enough to be separated for five days or 10 days.
“We were separated permanently.”
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UN: Rule of law ‘virtually absent’ in Venezuela
Security forces in Venezuela have carried out hundreds of unjustified killings without any apparent consequences, the United Nations has said in a new report, drawing a rejection from government officials in Caracas.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Friday that Venezuelan officers accused of questionable killings appear to be evading any charges.
It called on the government to bring perpetrators to justice and said it was sending its report to the International Criminal Court (ICC), whose prosecutor opened a preliminary investigation in February.
“The rule of law is virtually absent in Venezuela,” Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said in the report.
“The impunity must end.”
The government of President Nicolas Maduro rejected the report as “grotesque media farce,” which omits information officials in Caracas provided to investigators.
The findings are part of an international push against the country led by officials in the United States, the ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement.
“Venezuela reiterates its unrelenting commitment to human rights set out in Venezuela’s Constitution and international treaties,” the statement added.
The UN report cited “credible, shocking” accounts of extrajudicial killings of young men during crime-fighting operations in poor neighbourhoods conducted without arrest warrants.
It said security forces would tamper with the scene so that there appeared to have been an exchange of fire.
Ethiopian armed opposition group Ginbot 7 suspends attacks
Ethiopian opposition group, Ginbot 7, has said that it will cease armed attacks in the country following reforms announced by the new government.
In a statement released on Friday on their Facebook page and confirmed by Ethiopian state media, Ginbot 7 said it would call off assaults in order to support the agenda of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who took office in April.
“Our forces have received strict orders to refrain from any sort of armed resistance,” the statement said.
It added the decision “takes into full consideration our preparedness and determination to foil any attempt to derail the current change process by anti-change elements within EPRDF,” referring to Abiy’s ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front.
Since being sworn in, Abiy has made major changes in the country including releasing jailed dissidents and moving to liberalise the economy.
Ginbot 7, formed after a disputed election in 2005 and named after the date in the Ethiopian calendar when the ballot took place, has claimed numerous deadly attacks in the past.
The authorities previously alleged association with the group as justification to imprison dissidents.
Last month, Ethiopia released from prison top Ginbot 7 officials, including Andargachew Tsige who was found guilty of violent attacks and sentenced in absentia in 2009 over his role in the opposition group.
Tsige was arrested during a stopover at a Yemen airport in June 2014 and taken to Ethiopia.
Prosecutors also dropped charges against the group’s leader Berhanu Nega, who is based outside Ethiopia and had in 2009 received a death sentence in absentia over an assassination plot.
