Trump’s Daughter, Ivanka And North Korean General To Attend Olympic Closing

US President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka will come face-to-face with a top North Korean general at the Winter Olympics closing ceremony in the South this weekend, it emerged Thursday.

The Pyeongchang Games have become a venue for geopolitics as much as sports as the nuclear-armed North mounts a charm offensive analysts say is intended to loosen the sanctions regime against it and weaken the alliance between Seoul and Washington.

Leader Kim Jong Un dispatched his sister Kim Yo Jong to the opening ceremony — which US Vice President Mike Pence also attended — and during her visit she extended an invitation to South Korean President Moon Jae-in to come to a summit in Pyongyang.

The family connections will be reversed at Sunday’s closing ceremony.

The White House said Donald Trump had asked his eldest daughter — who is also one of his top advisers — to travel to Pyeongchang to lead up a “high level delegation”.

The 36-year-old businesswoman and former model will be joined by press secretary Sarah Sanders and is going in part because “she is something of a winter sports enthusiast”, an official said.

The North will send an eight-member delegation Sunday headed by Kim Yong Chol, a top general who oversees inter-Korean relations for the ruling Workers’ Party, Seoul’s unification ministry said in a statement.

Kim Yong Chol’s presence is a demonstration of how Pyongyang is testing the limits of the multiple different sanctions imposed on it over its banned nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.

The general is blacklisted under Seoul’s unilateral sanctions against the North — meaning he is subject to an assets freeze — although he is not named in the UN Security Council’s measures.

He is believed to have once led the North’s spying agency, the Reconnaissance General Bureau, and to have ordered a deadly torpedo attack on the South’s corvette Cheonan in 2010 that left 46 sailors dead.

Seoul blamed the North for the attack but Pyongyang denied involvement.

South Korea’s defence ministry has also linked him to the shelling of its Yeonpyeong island the same year, which killed four people.

 Moon dinner 

The Games have seen a flurry of cross-border visits and diplomacy on the habitually tense peninsula, where strains were racked up last year as the North conducted a battery of weapons tests and its leader Kim Jong Un exchanged personal insults and threats of war with Trump.

Moon — who did not immediately accept the invitation to go to the North — has been trying to use what Seoul promotes as a “peace Olympics” to defuse tensions and open a door for dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington.

But at the opening ceremony in Pyeongchang, Kim Yo Jong sat just a few seats away from US Vice President Mike Pence, who did not exchange a word with her at any point.

Pence had earlier denounced the North’s “murderous regime”, and according to US officials the North Koreans later cancelled a meeting that had been scheduled for the day after the Games’ opening.

Ivanka Trump is scheduled to have dinner with Moon on Friday, and Yonhap news agency cited the presidential Blue House as saying he was also likely to meet Pyongyang’s delegation during its three-day trip.

But a senior administration official ruled out any possible meeting between Ivanka and officials from North Korea, and a Seoul government source also said such an encounter was unlikely.

Pyongyang has used the Games to try to soften its image in the international community and push for talks with Seoul — which would lessen the possibility of a US military strike, touted as an option by Trump administration officials.

But North-South discussions would have a limited impact on wider tensions, said Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert and a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul.

“The major problem is between North Korea and the United States,” he told AFP. “Therefore, no amount of talks between North and the South… is going to change anything significantly.”

Washington has sought to project resolve in the face of a growing threat from the North — which has tested intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the US mainland and last year carried out its most powerful nuclear blast to date.

The US insists it will persist with its campaign of “maximum pressure and engagement”, and has repeatedly sought to underscore the importance of a troubled alliance with Seoul.

Sen. Whitehouse: Trump is in the back pocket of billionaires

In his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump said, "We have gone forward with a clear vision and a righteous mission -- to make America great again for all Americans."

However, behind the scenes, President Trump is not calling all of the shots. While he golfs and tweets and watches cable news, several disturbingly powerful billionaires are pulling the levers and winning special treatment.

So, who is behind the curtain?

Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor, was brought in as "special adviser" to the President in order to cut regulations. On the campaign trail, the President bragged of his relationship with Icahn, calling him one of "the great businessmen of the world." Icahn, who bought one of Trump's Atlantic City casinos out of bankruptcy and contributed the maximum he legally could to the Trump campaign, said he would slash "crazy regulations" hindering American businesses.

It turned out Icahn had one particular regulation in mind. Skirting conflict of interest rules that apply to formally appointed executive branch officials, he undertook to change the Environmental Protection Agency's "renewable fuel standard" that required oil refiners to blend corn-based ethanol into gasoline. Changing the rule would save one of Icahn's companies, CVR Energy, hundreds of millions of dollars.

Icahn's insider campaign provoked intense scrutiny from Congress, in a steady stream of oversight requests, and from the media, in a steady stream of reporting. Icahn resigned from his role; the EPA put Icahn's proposed rule change on ice, and federal investigators have since opened a probe into his time advising the White House. Icahn calls the concern about his breathtaking conflicts of interest "absurd."

Next, there's Bob Murray, the billionaire coal baron who donated $300,000 to the President's inauguration and $1 million to his leading super PAC, while lobbying the Trump administration for actions favorable to his company. He has also given hundreds of thousands of dollars to political action committees affiliated with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.

Murray has boasted about his "action plan" for President Trump, a four-page wish list of policies to benefit him and his company: subsidizing coal plants over renewable energy, slashing regulations for coal-fired power plants, weakening miner safety standards and appointing friendly nominees in the agencies charged with regulating his mines. Notably, Murray's longtime lobbyist Andrew Wheeler is also lined up for the number-two spot at the EPA, poised to deliver on the plan.

And then there are the most sophisticated puppet masters of all: the billionaire Koch brothers. In July 2015, President Trump tweeted, "I really like the Koch Brothers (members of my [Palm Beach] Club), but I don't want their money or anything else from them. Cannot influence Trump!"

They don't influence Trump -- they man his administration. According to a report by Public Citizen, a progressive advocacy group, 44 administration officials come from Koch-backed organizations or political groups. EPA Administrator Pruitt has been heavily supported by the Kochs (including $3 million spent to boost his confirmation), as has Energy Secretary Perry (including tens of thousands of dollars in donations to his campaigns).

And Vice President Mike Pence has long beenintertwined with the Koch operation, through funding and staff. Among his many ties to the Koch network, Pence's former chief of staff, Marc Short (now White House congressional liaison) is a top Koch operative who also served as president of the Koch's Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce.

They win huge paydays. The Kochs spent $20 million to promote the unpopular Republican tax cuts, and now stand to see their tax bill slashed by as much as $1.4 billion a year. They thanked Speaker Paul Ryan for pushing it through with a $500,000 donation to his political fundraising committee and a promise to spend $20 million more to tout the tax giveaway in upcoming elections. When billionaires spend millions to convince Americans that the tax cuts are good, it might actually be a sign that for most people, they aren't.

The Koch brothers weren't on board with the Trump candidacy at first. But the Kochs, like Icahn and Murray, saw in the Trump administration a golden opportunity, particularly once their man Pence was in place.

On the anniversary of Trump's swearing-in, a group of Democratic Senators released a report on how the President has outsourced his decision-making to billionaires looking to advance their own interests. These billionaires don't care about putting Americans back to work or ending unfair trade deals or "draining the swamp." They care about controlling government, for their own financial benefit, in a way the Founding Fathers would have recognized as corruption.

Nigerian clerk: "I didn't say snake swallowed $100,000"

Controversy is trailing the disappearance of $100,000 from the coffers of Nigeria's examination board.

The exam board alleges that a clerk in Benue State has blamed a snake for swallowing the missing money.

The money was supposed to be remitted to the agency.

Fabian Benjamin, spokesman of the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board, told CNN that a staffer confessed to auditors a snake had "swallowed" the missing money.

"She confessed that she had the money, kept it in a vault in the office but a snake came and swallowed the money," Benjamin told CNN.

"The staff and others in her category that are found culpable have been suspended and will be handed over to appropriate authorities," he added.

View image on Twitter

The clerk, identified as Philomena Chiesche, denied the allegations, claiming the exam board invented the story about the snake.

She also accused the exam board of turning her in to authorities, who she claims still haven't questioned her about the missing funds.

"I did not say any money was swallowed by a snake. Nobody questioned me about that case. I am just a clerk and I serve under directors who are accounting officers. I wonder why they are personalizing the case?" Chieshe told CNN.

The Nigerian Snake@NigeriaSnake

Ever since I swallowed N36million, I have been seeing twitter accounts of wives I don’t have and children I don’t even know.

Please humans, is this how you people also suffer when you become rich and popular?

1:59 PM - Feb 12, 2018

Social media erupted at the incredulous nature of the allegations. A Twitter account has been made for the snake.

Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission tweeted that the agency's national symbol, the eagle, shows no mercy for "money-swallowing snakes."

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Australia is America's closest ally in the Pacific region and a strong trading partner. Relations between our two countries -- even in the midst of President Trump's "America First" agenda -- remain warm and cordial. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been trumpeting his country's "100 years of mateship" with the United States, harkening back to American-Australian comradeship in World War I.

So, as meetings go this week, Trump's Friday get-together with Turnbull should be one of his easiest. But on two issues in particular -- China and trade -- Trump might find his lunch mate from down under a bit of a tough sell.

By all accounts, it would appear both men have moved past the brouhaha last year when Trump complained bitterly to Turnbull about the deal President Obama struck in the waning days of his administration to permit the entry of more than 1,200 South Asian and Rohingya refugees that Australia had been harboring.

In a testy telephone exchange, Trump called it a "disgusting deal" that embarrassed the United States and would cause him political problems at home.

"Where do they come from?" he roared about the refugees. "Are they going to become the Boston bomber in five years? Or two years? Who are these people?"

To its credit, the Trump administration has resettled -- albeit quietly -- some of those refugees.

That little unpleasantness aside, US-Australian relationscontinue apace, reinforced by robust military exchanges, sales and exercises; mutual support to increase pressure on North Korea; cooperation against ISIS in Iraq and against the Taliban in Afghanistan; and, of course, a united front against China's moves to militarize the South China Sea.

On the latter, Turnbull warned last June in a speech at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security conference that a "coercive China would find its neighbors resenting demands they cede their autonomy and strategic space and look to counterweight Beijing's power by bolstering alliances and partnerships between themselves and especially with the United States."

Will US and Australia have another '100 years of mateship'?

By John Kirby, CNN National Security Analyst

Updated 0322 GMT (1122 HKT) February 23, 2018

President Donald Trump listens to Australia Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Manila on November 13, 2017.

CNN national security analyst John Kirby is a retired rear admiral in the US Navy who was a spokesman for both the State and Defense departments in the Obama administration. The views expressed in this commentary are his own.

(CNN)Australia is America's closest ally in the Pacific region and a strong trading partner. Relations between our two countries -- even in the midst of President Trump's "America First" agenda -- remain warm and cordial. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been trumpeting his country's "100 years of mateship" with the United States, harkening back to American-Australian comradeship in World War I.

So, as meetings go this week, Trump's Friday get-together with Turnbull should be one of his easiest. But on two issues in particular -- China and trade -- Trump might find his lunch mate from down under a bit of a tough sell.

By all accounts, it would appear both men have moved past the brouhaha last year when Trump complained bitterly to Turnbull about the deal President Obama struck in the waning days of his administration to permit the entry of more than 1,200 South Asian and Rohingya refugees that Australia had been harboring.

In a testy telephone exchange, Trump called it a "disgusting deal" that embarrassed the United States and would cause him political problems at home.

"Where do they come from?" he roared about the refugees. "Are they going to become the Boston bomber in five years? Or two years? Who are these people?"

Trump's support of India could have unintended consequences

To its credit, the Trump administration has resettled -- albeit quietly -- some of those refugees.

That little unpleasantness aside, US-Australian relationscontinue apace, reinforced by robust military exchanges, sales and exercises; mutual support to increase pressure on North Korea; cooperation against ISIS in Iraq and against the Taliban in Afghanistan; and, of course, a united front against China's moves to militarize the South China Sea.

On the latter, Turnbull warned last June in a speech at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security conference that a "coercive China would find its neighbors resenting demands they cede their autonomy and strategic space and look to counterweight Beijing's power by bolstering alliances and partnerships between themselves and especially with the United States."

China differences

But in the main, Trump should expect to hear a more nuanced approach to China's rise than the one he himself espouses. China is Australia's largest trading partner in both imports and exports. And, according to the Australian government, fully 25% of Australia's manufactured imports come from China and 13% of its exports are thermal coal to China. So, quite literally, Australia can ill afford to mismanage its approach to China's rise as both a military and economic power.

Neither can Trump, though. The US trade deficit with China climbed last year to $375.2 billion, the highest level ever recorded. But while Trump's National Security Strategy labels China "a strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors," Australia's 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper takes a more nuanced view, welcoming "China's greater capacity to share responsibility for supporting regional and global security."

Just last month, after the release of Trump's National Security Strategy, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop went to great pains to distance her government from the American view.

"We do not see Russia or China as posing a military threat to Australia," she told reporters. "We undertake military exercises with China as well as other countries in the region and will continue to do so."

Trade imbalances

Turnbull will, no doubt, be interested in drawing the President out on just how far he is willing to go to adjust the trade imbalance with China. There's genuine concern in many corners that the administration seeks a trade war by imposing high tariffs on goods from China. Trump already slapped tariffs on solar panels -- an industry dominated by China -- and his commerce secretary is weighing options to do the same on steel and aluminum.

President Obama tried a similar tack in 2009, instituting a 35% tariff on Chinese tires after American companies complained about unfair competition. It saved more than a thousand US jobs in that industry but, according to a study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, dramatically raised the price of tires, costing Americans more than $1 billion, or roughly the equivalent of 3,700 retail jobs lost.

And we can expect the Chinese to retaliate with damaging tariffs of their own. They did it in 2009 (by imposing penalties on US shipments of chicken parts), and they will do it again. Of the pending Commerce Department decisions on steel and aluminum, Wang Hejun, China's chief of the Trade Remedy and Investigation Bureau, made clear that "if the final decision impacts China's interests, China will certainly take necessary measures to protect its own rights."

To be sure, the trade imbalance with China needs to be rectified, but it is difficult to see how anyone in the region, including Australia, stands to gain from a trade war between these two economic superpowers.

That's why it is highly probable the prime minister will want to revisit Trump's decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In the wake of that decision, the TPP was reborn as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and now includes Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

Without the powerhouse that is the US economy, this new multilateral arrangement, while important, will remain hobbled in its ability to act as an effective counterweight to China.

For his part, Trump should stand firm by his concerns over China's intentions in the region, concerns that are reflected in his decision to name Adm. Harry Harris, the current commander of the US Pacific Command and a China critic, to serve as ambassador to Australia.

He should reiterate the assessment of his national security team that the militaristic manner in which China is rising today threatens regional stability and warrants a return to the development of robust deterrent and conventional US military capabilities.

North Korea figures prominently here as well, given the accelerated pace at which the Kim Jong Un regime continues to develop its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and the anemic nature with which China uses its considerable influence on the regime.

Under President Obama, the US military shifted a considerable amount of resources into the Pacific region to specifically address these threats, including a contingent of Marines in Australia. Those were sound decisions then and are even more sound today. And Trump has ably reinforced them.

Of course, Australians do not need to be reminded of the increased threat. They live it every day. They know they benefit greatly from a robust American military presence nearby (though, in the wake of Trump's continued assault on the intelligence community and the dysfunction in his White House over security clearances, one could forgive the Aussies for a smattering of wariness over the depth of their intelligence sharing with the United States).

In any event, Trump should make no apologies for the more hawkish tone his administration has been taking, particularly against China.

On trade, one hopes Turnbull can persuade Trump to become more dovish -- to enter the CPTPP and to more carefully consider the dangers and damage a trade war with China might bring.

Trump told reporters at the World Economic Forum last month that he would be willing to reconsider TPP "if we were able to make a substantially better deal." But it's not clear what constitutes a better deal in Trump's mind. Perhaps Turnbull can extract some of that context from our chief executive.

The meeting on Friday should be one of Trump's easiest. But that doesn't make it any less important for our alliance with Australia, our shared economies or the safety and stability of the Asia-Pacific region.

US State spokesperson on Syria: 'I don't know what some of you expect us to do'

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert struggled to describe specific steps the State Department and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are taking to end the violence in Syria at the agency's briefing on Thursday, exclaiming, "I don't know what some of you expect us to do," while arguing that the administration is "fully engaged."

Horrific reports have emerged of civilians dying under the Syrian regime's siege of the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta. At the United Nations, calls for a 30-day ceasefire to allow for evacuations and the delivery of humanitarian supplies have been stymied by Russian objections.

But pressed on whether easing the violence is part of the US mission and what Tillerson is doing to address the bloodshed, the State Department provided few details, pointing instead to statements the agency and White House have released and mentioning conversations with other governments.

"We have a full range of options before us and ahead of us that we can use," Nauert said. "It is not my position, not my role, to be able to say what we will do. Some of those can be defined by other agencies that I can't speak to."

"We are fully engaged," she said.

The Syrian civil war, which began almost seven years ago, is a seemingly intractable regional morass that has only become more dangerous as global powers have been drawn into the conflict and are increasingly at risk of clashing.

Iran, Turkey, Russia, the US, the militant group Hezbollah and Persian Gulf nations are among the entities on the ground, either with their own forces or through proxies. Efforts to de-escalate the war or spare civilians have consistently fizzled.

When pressed for specifics about what the Trump administration was doing or could do, Nauert expressed frustration.

"I don't know what some of you expect us to do," she said. "Our best tool, what we do out of this building is an attempt to do diplomacy. An attempt to shine a spotlight on things that are taking place around the world. That's what I'm doing. ... We will continue to do that. We will continue to take action at the UN Security Council."

Nauert said the US will also "continue to have our people there on the ground, frankly. We have Americans who are there who are assisting Syrians in trying to get back to a normal life. I don't know what more you expect us to do."

The US has "had conversations with the Russian government and reached out to the Russian government to implore them to stop enabling the Syrian regime to do what it's doing to its own people," she said. "Is Russia listening? I'm not sure that they are."

She said the US would "very much like to see" the 30-day UN ceasefire come to pass. "We put out a statement a couple days ago in which we called for that ceasefire," she said. "We will continue to call for that and to put pressure on that."

The UN Security Council will meet at 11 a.m. Friday to vote on the resolution calling for a temporary ceasefire.

Nauert also made clear that the US holds Moscow accountable for the escalating violence and she called for a return to the internationally backed Geneva peace talks.

"Russia bears a unique responsibility for what is taking place there. Without Russia backing Syria, the devastation and the deaths would certainly not be occurring," Nauert said. She pointed to Russia's provision of weapons and materiel to President Bashar al-Assad's regime. "More than 400 or so civilians have been horrifically killed by the Syrian regime," she said. "And as we all know, they are backed by not only Russia, but also Iran."

Nauert also said the ongoing siege, barrel bombings and starvation highlight the failure of the Astana peace negotiation process, in which Russia, Turkey and Iran -- all parties to the conflict -- are guarantors.

Nauert pointed out that under the Astana plan, Eastern Ghouta is one of several "de-escalation" zones.

"So much for that de-escalation zone," Nauert said. "They have starved people there. They have prevented humanitarian aid from getting in. We have seen innocent civilians killed. We've seen barrel bombs. We've seen this devastation and destruction. That is certainly no de-escalation zone."

The US and its allies want Russia instead to return to the internationally backed Geneva process, the US-led peace effort that has been moribund.

"The United States government and so many other nations stand by the Geneva process as the best way forward to eventually bring peace and eventually bring about a political solution in Syria," Nauert said.