North Korea’s state newspaper accused the United States of “hatching a criminal plot to unleash a war against the DPRK” while “having a dialogue with a smile on its face” following a report on South Korean radio that American forces in Japan were running drills aimed at invading Pyongyang, CNN reports.
The Department of Justice announced Thursday it had filed a criminal complaint in June of this year against a North Korean and a North Korean entity for hacking Sony Pictures in 2014, digitally stealing millions of dollars from the bank of Bangladesh, the WannaCry malware attack in 2017 and other attacks. Why it matters: Until now, North Korea had been the only country of the four major non-U.S. cyber powers that had not seen U.S. indictments, behind Iran, China and Russia.
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 10h Kim Jong Un of North Korea proclaims “unwavering faith in President Trump.” Thank you to Chairman Kim. We will get it done together!
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/world/asia/kim-jong-un-donald-trump-denuclearize.html Kim Jong-un Says He Wants Denuclearization in Trump’s Current Term
https://www.mediaite.com/online/tru...n-after-watching-fox-news-we-like-each-other/ Trump Lauds North Korea’s Kim Jong Un After Watching Fox News: We ‘Like Each Other!’ Taking to Twitter to celebrate, Trump quoted a Fox News statement that North Korea passed on showing the missiles this year to demonstrate to him “its commitment to denuclearize,” something which has been highly suspect at best. “This is a big and very positive statement from North Korea,” he claimed. “Thank you To Chairman Kim. We will both prove everyone wrong! There is nothing like good dialogue from two people that like each other! Much better than before I took office.”
NBC News: “The newest intelligence shows Kim’s regime has escalated efforts to conceal its nuclear activity, according to three senior U.S. officials. During the three months since the historic Singapore summit and Trump’s proclamation that North Korea intends to denuclearize, North Korea has built structures to obscure the entrance to at least one warhead storage facility.” “The U.S. has also observed North Korean workers moving warheads out of the facility, the officials said, though they would not speculate on where the warheads went.”
“North Korea is moving ahead with its ballistic missile program at 16 hidden bases that have been identified in new commercial satellite images, a network long known to American intelligence agencies but left undiscussed as President Trump claims to have neutralized the North’s nuclear threat,” the New York Times reports. “The satellite images suggest that the North has been engaged in a great deception: It has offered to dismantle a major launching site — a step it began, then halted — while continuing to make improvements at more than a dozen others that would bolster launches of conventional and nuclear warheads.” Said Trump, just last week: “We are in no rush. The sanctions are on. The missiles have stopped. The rockets have stopped. The hostages are home.”