North Korea and US

North Korea is not a threat. It is the belief that it is a threat that is the danger. Leaders of North Korea will never use their weapons pre-emptively because they know the outcome would be disastrous. The danger is of Trump doing something silly.

Sorry......excuse me while I laugh ( hollowly) at your post counterpoint

I wonder why the threat was issued by NK?

Spot on durhamjen, and a sizeable number of people in this country could be said to have their lifestyles dictated by unsympathetic officialdom. The North Korean people may not like their situation, but how can it be altered in the face of US intransigence?

Exactly durhamjen....... you don't know what dictatorship is!

A forlorn hope margs because if Hilary Clinton had won and was the POTUS then Kim Jong-il would be strutting about and still saying the things he is doing.NK is a threat and it may turn out to not just be rhetoric either.
Of course, we would all feel calmer and happier about the situation if she was in charge, but the situation would still have to be addressed: a very public threat issued by NK to
the US would have needed a strong statement because the world is watching.

Except that May is acting more and more like a dictator these days.
Every time any of her cabinet say something reasonable about Brexit she contradicts them, and they have to go along with her.
If that's not dictatorship, I don't know what is.

What a scenario - two overweight guys with even more overweight egos engaging in what amounts to Willy Waving and with the authority to access nuclear weapons.

And they've both managed to get even Russia and China worried - that certainly takes some doing!

(I'd like to think that were women in charge of North Korea and the USA then this would NEVER be allowed to get started.)

ww I assume that was a joke ( Thatcher) we are fortunate here to have democracy, but there are still countries run by awful dictators and tyrants where the lifestyle of the people and the fear of officialdom is pathetic.

The poverty in NK is awful,with those at the top living in luxury just like communist China.
The people are not allowed to know anything about the world outside, all they know is what they are told by state tv.
Kim lives in a permanent state of luxury, absolute power and paranoia.

'We've got the best weapons' says Trump (I paraphrase) - it's like kids in the playground saying my Dad's bigger than yours. I do worry but hope the worst won't happen. Wat a nightmare scenario!

Yes I always thought that applied to Thatcher

Leaders become mentally unbalanced when they are told they are godlike, can do anything and their people revere them.

Bush did. Got no where. That was the lesson learned by the USA and why Obama followed a patient diplomacy course.

Not a Donald fan...but I have to say on the flip side....nobody has ever challenged the Korean before...maybe its just what he needs to make him realise the error of his ways..hopefully!

Some one from the security services this week said we should not assume that Kim is mentally unbalanced. There is nothing to suggest he is.

That just leaves Trump then

He doubtless has his faults, but it's rather unfair to label Kim Jong-un a nutter. For the sake of balance, shouldn't we consider the background? Korea was invaded and controlled by the Japanese well before WWII. Resistance to the Japanese was led by Kim Il-sung with support from the Chinese. After the war, the Americans imposed a Japan-sympathetic regime under President Park and arbitrarily divided Korea. The north was very heavily bombed by the Americans, causing huge destruction. Following the Korean war, the Americans have consistently refused to agree a peace treaty with the north. North Korean leaders are concerned that without nuclear weapons, they would go the same way as Saddam Hussein etc. While we don't have to agree with the North Korean regime, their behaviour is largely rational and conditioned by their history.

If u read that C.N.N. Link posted above it seems obvious that we really know very little about N.Koreas sources of money. What amazed me was the huge sum stolen from the Federal Reserve bank!!! Did no one notice!!! The article also downplays the fact that Europe buys from N.Korea too.

Tillerson is proving more moderate and level headed than his boss. Trump is beginning to seem more and more irrelevant (hopefully).

Can we find a big enough rocket & send them into space together where they can bicker all day without anoying or harming the rest of the world. If no rocket how about a desert island?

Just thinking (ouch!) this could be the perfect appendage to yesterday's thread on worrying.

I was thinking why on earth hasn't trump come back from his golfing, but perhaps it's better if he doesn't and the diplomats are the ones there.......

I got eight right. So difficult when they're both as deranged as each other.

7 right.

Well, this is according to CNBC (American)
www.cnbc.com/2017/04/18/how-does-north-korea-get-money-to-build-nuclear-weapons.html