Politics
Trump expresses desire to meet North Korea’s Kim once more
US President Donald Trump said Monday that he hopes to meet again with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, possibly later this year, as he held White House talks with South Korea’s new progressive leader, Lee Jae Myung.
Hours before Lee’s first long-planned visit to the White House, Trump took to social media to criticize what he called a “Purge or Revolution” in South Korea, seemingly over raids involving churches.
During a 40-minute Oval Office meeting in which Lee praised Trump, the US President softened his earlier remarks, saying, “I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding” as “there is a rumor going around.”
Trump expressed confidence that he and Lee share similar views on North Korea. He recalled meeting Kim Jong Un three times during his first term and said he knows the North Korean leader “better than anybody, almost, other than his sister.”
“Someday I’ll see him. I look forward to seeing him. He was very good with me,” Trump told reporters, adding that he hopes the meeting can happen this year.
Trump previously remarked that he and Kim “fell in love” during their encounters, which eased tensions but did not result in a lasting agreement.
But Kim has since been emboldened by the war in Ukraine, securing critical support from Russia after sending thousands of North Korean troops to fight.
North Korea has dug in and refused any talk of ending its nuclear weapons program.
Trump Tower’ in Pyongyang
Lee, a former labor rights lawyer who has criticized the US military in the past, immediately flattered his host and said Trump has made the United States “not a keeper of peace, but a maker of peace.”
“I look forward to your meeting with Chairman Kim Jong Un and construction of Trump Tower in North Korea and playing golf” there, Lee told him.
He even cited propaganda from North Korea that denounced South Korea by noting that Pyongyang said the relationship with Trump was better.
Kim “will be waiting for you,” Lee told him.
In a speech after his meeting, Lee warned that North Korea could soon produce 10 to 20 nuclear weapons per year as well as a missile that can hit the United States — despite pressure and sanctions.
“The hard fact is that the number of nuclear weapons that North Korea possesses has increased over the past three to four years,” Lee said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
He highlighted his overtures to the North such as stopping the blaring of anti-Kim messages over loudspeakers on the military frontier.
Lee was elected in June after the impeachment of the more hawkish Yoon Suk Yeol, who was removed from office after briefly imposing martial law.
The raids denounced by Trump likely referred in part to investigations surrounding Yoon’s conservative allies.
Seeking to buy base
Korean Air announced after the talks that it would buy more than 100 aircraft from US manufacturer Boeing, as Trump presses allies hard for business.
Trump, who frequently accuses European allies of freeloading off the United States, made clear he would seek greater compensation by South Korea over the 28,500 US troops in the country.
He suggested the United States could seek to take over base land, an idea likely to enrage Lee’s brethren on the South Korean left.
“We spent a lot of money building a fort, and there was a contribution made by South Korea, but I would like to see if we could get rid of the lease and get ownership of the land where we have a massive military base,” Trump said.
He also spoke bluntly about one of South Korea’s most delicate issues: so-called “comfort women” who were forced into sexual slavery during Japan’s 1910-1945 rule.
The South Korean left has historically been outspoken about Japan’s legacy, although Lee visited Tokyo on his way to Washington, a highly symbolic stop praised by Trump.
Japan had agreed to compensate comfort women but the deal was criticized by survivors who questioned Tokyo’s sincerity.
Indian police this week seized 414 cooking‑gas canisters hidden in a graveyard in Hyderabad city and arrested those involved in trying to sell them on the black market amid shortages due to the Iran war, a government official said on Thursday.
Authorities have stepped up raids to curb hoarding of liquefied petroleum gas canisters after the US-Israeli war against Iran disrupted shipping, causing supply shortages. India, the world’s No 2 LPG importer, meets about 60% of its demand through overseas purchases, mostly from the Middle East.
“Just yesterday, around 2,600 raids were carried out and about 700 cylinders were seized,” Sujata Sharma, a senior official in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, told a regular briefing on the Middle East crisis.
“In addition, around 400 cylinders were recently found at one location inside a graveyard in Hyderabad. Ten people have been detained there, and the distributor involved has been suspended,” she said.
Police said the accused had been selling both commercial and domestic canisters from the graveyard at nearly three times the current market price. A commercial canister that costs about 2,100 Indian rupees ($22) had been sold for as much as 6,000 rupees.
The total value of the seized canisters and some vehicles used by the accused was nearly 2.2 million rupees, police said. Reuters could not immediately contact the accused or their representatives.
“The supply of natural gas to domestic consumers is 100% assured,” Sharma said. “With regard to LPG supply, prices have remained stable despite international volatility, and there has been no increase in the price of domestic LPG cylinders.”
To ease the pressure on LPG supplies, India has been promoting the use of alternatives such as kerosene, coal and biogas, while accelerating the rollout of piped natural gas for households.
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump made fun of the French president and his wife during a private lunch Wednesday, as he lambasted Nato allies for not joining the war against Iran that has roiled the Middle East.
“We didn’t need them, but I asked anyway,” Trump told a private lunch in a video posted briefly on the White House YouTube channel before access was blocked.
“I call up France, Macron — whose wife treats him extremely badly. Still recovering from the right to the jaw,” Trump said.
He was referring to a May 2025 news video that appeared to show Brigitte Macron shoving the French president’s face on a trip to Vietnam, which Macron later rejected as part of a disinformation campaign.
“And I said, ‘Emmanuel, we’d love to have some help in the Gulf even though we’re setting records on knocking out bad people and knocking out ballistic missiles. We’d love to have some help. If you could, could you please send ships immediately,'” Trump continued.
He then mimics a French accent to give Macron’s alleged answer: “‘No no no, we cannot do that, Donald. We can do that after the war is won,'” he said.
“I said, ‘No no, I don’t need after the war is won Emmanuel,'” Trump said.
“So I learned about Nato — Nato won’t be there if we ever have the big one, you know what I mean by the big one,” Trump said, without elaborating.
He also branded Nato a “paper tiger,” the latest salvo by Trump and his top officials against the transatlantic alliance since he returned to the White House last year.
On Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States “is going to have to reexamine” its relationship with Nato once the war against Iran has concluded.
Former Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharazi was seriously wounded in a strike that also claimed the life of his wife, Iranian media reported.
Still an adviser to the government, Kharazi had given an interview to CNN a few weeks ago.
According to the newspapers Shargh, Etemad and Ham Mihan, his home in Tehran was targeted on Wednesday in a US-Israeli strike.
He was badly injured and hospitalised following the attack, the outlets said.
Kharazi had served as foreign minister from 1997 to 2005 under reformist ex-president Mohammad Khatami.
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