The US is hoping to achieve "major" North Korean nuclear disarmament within 2.5 years, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has announced. It comes just one day after President Donald Trump's historic meeting with Kim Jong-un.

Pompeo said he will be playing the lead role when it comes to ensuring progress with Pyongyang, and added that he is confident the US would begin its next engagement with North Korea "in the next week or so."

According to the secretary of state, there were "lots of other places" on which Trump and Kim reached understandings, but were not included in the final Singapore document. Those topics will be revisited when talks resume.

Confusion reigns on Capitol Hill after one senator claimed US Vice President Mike Pence said military exercises in South Korea will continue, contrary to statements made by President Donald Trump in Singapore.

After meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Monday, Trump announced the US will be "stopping the war games" on the Korean peninsula, describing them as expensive and "provocative."

At a lunch with Republican senators on Tuesday, however, Pence said that exercises will continue - according to Senator Cory Gardner (R-Colorado), a frequent critic of Trump.

Norway wants the United States to more than double the number of US Marines currently in the country - and lend them for longer. Oslo said Russia has no reason to object to the plan, but nonetheless expects a reaction from Moscow.

Oslo will ask Washington to station 700 Marines on its territory, starting in 2019, compared with 330 currently. The new troops will be based in the Inner Troms region of the Norwegian Arctic, close to Russian territory, rather than in central Norway. The rotation of the new US forces arriving in Norway will last for a five-year period, compared with the initial six-month mission - which was later extended - of US Marines deployed there in 2017.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Soreide said that the request has "broad support in parliament" but should not be misconstrued as being the first stages of establishing a permanent US base in Norway. Soreide also insisted that the troop build-up was not aimed at Russia - although acknowledged that Moscow was likely to "react" to the plan.

According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the alleged incident took place on February 13, 2017, when Michael Flynn was forced to resign as Donald Trump's national security adviser.

The US president's son-in-law and adviser allegedly used an expletive in a conversation with Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer as the latter visited the White House, Haaretz reported. Dermer reportedly sought to sign secret documents with the sitting president, which would allegedly serve as a sign of the US' commitment not to ask Israel to abandon its purported nuclear arsenal.

The ambassador purportedly wanted to meet privately with Flynn, forcing Trump's advisers to explain that Dermer could not dictate whom he wished to talked to. According to Haaretz, the aides got a feeling that they were "being taken advantage of."

Supreme leader credited with creating conditions for peace as South Korea and Japan voice security concerns

North Korea has hailed Tuesday's summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un as marking the end to hostile relations with the US, with state media depicting the meeting as a diplomatic victory for its leader.

Trump offered his own assessment as he landed back on US soil, tweeting that Pyongyang no longer posed a nuclear threat.

In arguing for a sunset clause to the Nafta trade agreement, this odious man is exposing the corruption of liberal democracy

He gets almost everything wrong. But last weekend Donald Trump got something right. To the horror of the other leaders of the rich world, he defended democracy against its detractors. Perhaps predictably, he has been universally condemned for it.

His crime was to insist that the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) should have a sunset clause. In other words, it should not remain valid indefinitely, but expire after five years, allowing its members either to renegotiate it or to walk away. To howls of execration from the world's media, his insistence has torpedoed efforts to update the treaty.

In Rights of Man, published in 1791, Thomas Paine argued that: "Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies." This is widely accepted - in theory if not in practice - as a basic democratic principle.

Even if the people of the US, Canada and Mexico had explicitly consented to Nafta in 1994, the idea that a decision made then should bind everyone in North America for all time is repulsive. So is the notion, championed by the Canadian and Mexican governments, that any slightly modified version of the deal agreed now should bind all future governments.

Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un have reportedly exchanged mutual state visit invitations during a historic Singapore summit, where the North Korean leader emphasized the need to halt hostile and irritating actions against each other.

"Kim Jong Un invited Trump to visit Pyongyang at a convenient time and Trump invited Kim Jong Un to visit the US," the state KCNA news agency said. "The two top leaders gladly accepted each other's invitation, convinced that it would serve as another important occasion for improved DPRK-US relations."


Both leaders seemed to be pleased with the outcome of their negotiations in Singapore on Tuesday, which resulted in a four-point declaration aimed at achieving long-lasting peace and the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. "Got along great with Kim Jong-un who wants to see wonderful things for his country," Trump tweeted. "As I said earlier today: Anyone can make war, but only the most courageous can make peace!"

A recently declassified document again shows the United States' complicity in the rise of ISIS.

In October 2014, Vice President Joe Biden publicly criticized US allies for backing ISIS. The previous month, General Dempsey had told the Senate Armed Services Committee that America's "Arab allies" were funding the group.

US officials were trying to distance themselves from the ISIS-supporting actions of their allies without harshly condemning them. Biden suggested that their arming of ISIS was unintentional and quickly apologized to them. (Responding to Dempsey, Senator Lindsey Graham actually defended them: "They were trying to beat Assad. I believe they realize the folly of their ways.")

This mild criticism of allies came amid the effort of American officials to sell the decision to start bombing ISIS. By this time, the group was already entrenched in eastern Syria and western Iraq. But there's no evidence that in the months and years prior, the Obama administration had made any attempt to prevent its client states from helping ISIS become a regional power.

The United States itself continued to send arms into Syria despite the certainty that some would end up in the hands of ISIS. "We have good relations with our brothers in the FSA," said ISIS leader Abu Atheer in 2013, referring to the US-backed Free Syrian Army. He said ISIS bought anti-aircraft missiles and anti-tank weapons from the FSA.

A stunning video by investigative journalist Jason Goodman of Crowdsource the Truth reveals that Pakistani IT worker Imran Awan is reportedly answering phones at the office of his attorney, Chris Gowen.

Gowen notably worked for both Bill and Hillary Clinton in various capacities.

Gowen is a founding partner of Gowen, Rhoades, Winograd and Silva law firm, with offices in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, Penn.

His official bio on the firm's web site notes that he "left the Public Defender's office to work for former President William Jefferson Clinton and then-Senator Hillary Clinton. Chris was a fact checker for President Clinton's memoir, 'My Life.'"

"He also served as a traveling aid for President Clinton's national and international trips. Chris finished his tenure with the Clintons by directing the advance operations for then-Senator Hillary Clinton during her 2008 presidential campaign."

Conservative Review - which first reported Gowen's extensive Clinton connections Wednesday - said they also include work for the Clinton Foundation and its Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Health Access Initiative. -Daily Caller

In the video, Goodman can be seen visiting the law offices of Awan's attorney, where he asks to speak with the former House IT staffer. After his request was denied, Goodman asks: "Is Imran here?", to which the employee replies "Uh, he is, why?"

Goodman responds "'Cause it sounds like he's answering your phones," which drew the retort "What's your point?"

"Is he working for you?" asks Goodman, to which the employee whispers back "Go away."

So Rocket Man and The Dotard have met. After last year's epic mud-slinging, US President Donald Trump now says he and Chairman Kim Jong-un of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea have a "special bond". The 'optics' of the summit reflect well on both leaders, who were cordial and without any of the hysterics and tantrums that had 'analysts' forecasting nuclear conflagration just last year.

But that's all ancient history now. The signed document - a declaration, not a 'deal', 'roadmap' or anything more - is brief:

Convinced that the establishment of new U.S.-DPRK relations will contribute to the peace and prosperity of the Korean Peninsula and of the world, and recognizing that mutual confidence building can promote the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un state the following:

1. The United States and the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] commit to establish new U.S.-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.
2. The United States and the DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
3. Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work towards the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.
4. The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.