May confronts Brexit worries at EU summit

BRUSSELS: Embattled British Prime Minister Theresa May tried to convince European leaders she can still push through Brexit despite being badly weakened by an election bet that turned sour.

The two-day Brussels summit marks the debut of French President Emmanuel Macron, the figurehead of a renewed confidence among the remaining 27 states that Britain’s withdrawal can be a fresh start.

But talks on issues including post-brexit defence plans risk being overshadowed by concerns that a disastrous election has left May so enfeebled that Brexit negotiations will be hampered.

“There is an enormous insecurity among the Europeans: how long will she last? Has she got the majority to deliver?” a senior EU official said.

In Brussels, security has been stepped up after Tuesday’s bombing at one of the city’s main rail stations by an Islamic State sympathiser, following attacks in Britain and France.

Over dinner, May is expected to fill in some of the blanks for the other EU leaders on Brexit. It will be their first meeting since her Conservative party unexpectedly lost its majority in a June 8 election, leaving her in charge of a so-called “zombie government”.

Britain’s shock referendum vote to leave the EU was a year ago on Friday, and the country remains in a dark national mood after a string of terror attacks and a deadly tower block blaze. SEOUL: North Korea on Thursday called US President Donald Trump a “psychopath” as tensions soar following the death of American student Otto Warmbier, who was evacuated in a coma from North Korean detention last week.

Pyongyang’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said the US president was in a “tough situation” at home and claimed he was toying with the idea of a preemptive strike on North Korea to divert attention from a domestic political crisis.

“South Korea must realize that following psychopath Trump...will only lead to disaster,” an editorial carried by the paper said.

A series of atomic tests and missile launches since last year have ratcheted up tensions on the Korean peninsula, and Warmbier’s death has further strained relations between Pyongyang and Washington.

Trump slammed the “brutal regime” in Pyongyang, and said he was determined to “prevent such tragedies from befalling innocent people at the hands of regimes that do not respect the rule of law or basic human decency.” His language was echoed by South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who said in an interview ahead of a White House visit next week that North Korea bears responsibility for the student’s death.

“I believe we must now have the perception that North Korea is an irrational regime,” Moon told CBS television’s “This Morning.”

Moon, a centre-left politician who was sworn in last month after a landslide election win, favours engagement with the North, rather than the hardline stance taken by his ousted conservative predecessor Park Geun-hye.

Washington has also stepped up its muscleflexing in the region, flying two B-1 bombers over the Korean peninsula Tuesday in a planned training mission with Japan and South Korea as its latest show of force.

Meanwhile, Moon said on Thursday China should do more to rein in North Korea’s nuclear program and he would call on President Xi Jinping to lift measures against South Korean companies taken in retaliation against Seoul’s decision to host a US anti-missile defence system. WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has proposed to install solar panels on the wall he wants to be built along the border with Mexico, so that the energy produced will help finance it and that Mexico “will have to pay a lot less money”.

“We’re thinking of something that’s unique, we’re talking about the southern border, lots of sun, lots of heat. We’re thinking about building the wall as a solar wall so it will generate energy and pay for itself,” Trump said on Wednesday during a rally in the city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

“And this way, Mexico will have to pay much less money. And that’s good, Right?”

The idea of putting solar panels on the wall had already been circulating for two weeks in Washington DC since the President spoke of the plan at a private meeting with a group of Republican lawmakers on June 6, but Trump had not mentioned it in public until now, reports Efe news. He suggested the plan was his own, saying: “Pretty good imagination, right? Good? My idea”, reports the BBC.