N. Korea accuses US of ‘gangster-like’ demands

TOKYO (AP/Reuters/AFP) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has delivered a dose of harsh reality to Donald Trump, bashing hopes for a quick denuclearization deal in a pointed rebuke to the president’s top envoy while accusing the US of making “gangsterlike” demands.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo shrugged off North Korean accusations of ''gangster-like'' behavior and said sanctions on Pyongyang would only be lifted with ''final'' denuclearization.

Pompeo wrapped up two days of talks in the North Korean capital on Saturday on an optimistic note even without meeting Kim Jong Un, as he had on his previous two trips. He said his discussions had been productive and conducted in good faith, but he allowed that much more work needed to

TOKYO (Reuters) – The death toll from unprecedented rains in Japan rose to at least 64 on Sunday after rivers burst their banks and forced several million people from their homes, media reports said, with more rain set to hit some areas for at least another day.

Torrential rains pounded some parts of western Japan with three times the usual precipitation for a normal July and set off landslides and sent rivers surging over their banks, trapping many people in their houses or on rooftops.

“We’ve never experienced this kind of rain before,” an official at the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) told a news conference. “This is a situation of extreme danger.”

At least 64 people were killed and 44 missing, national broadcaster NHK said after the death toll had been put at 49 overnight. Among the missing was a 9-year-old boy believed trapped in his house by a landslide that killed at least three others, one of them a man in his 80s.

“All I have is what I’m wearing,” a rescued woman clutching a toy poodle told NHK television.

“We had fled to the second floor but then the water rose more, so we went up to be done. And, he and other US officials said the two countries, still technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War, had set up working groups to deal with details of an agreement.

Pompeo said he had won commitments for new discussions on denuclearization and announced a Thursday meeting between US and North Korean military officials on the repatriation of the remains. But in a harsh response issued just hours after Pompeo arrived in Tokyo, the North blasted the discussions, saying the visit had been “regrettable” and that Washington’s “gangsterlike” demands were aimed at forcing it to abandon nuclear weapons.

In a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency, the foreign ministry said the outcome of Pompeo’s talks with senior official Kim Yong Chol was “very concerning” because it has led to a “dangerous phase that might rattle our willingness for denuclearization that had been firm.”

“We had expected that the US side would offer constructive measures that would help build trust based on the spirit of the leaders’ summit... we were also thinking about providing reciprocal measures,” it said. “However, the attitude and stance the United States showed in the first high-level meeting (between the countries) was no doubt regrettable. Our expectations and hopes were so naive it could be called foolish.”

In criticizing the talks with Pompeo, however, it carefully avoided attacking Trump personally, saying “we wholly maintain our trust toward President Trump,” but stressed that Washington must not allow “headwinds” against the third floor,” she said.

Japan’s government set up an emergency management center at the prime minister’s office and some 54,000 rescuers from the military, police and fire departments were dispatched across a wide swath of southwestern and western Japan.

“There are still many people missing and others in need of help, we are working against time,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.

Emergency warnings for severe rain remained in effect for three prefectures, with 300 mm (11 inches) predicted to fall by Monday morning in parts of the smallest main island of Shikoku.

Evacuation orders remained in place for some 2 million people and another 2.3 million were advised to evacuate, although rain had stopped and floodwaters receded in some areas. Landslide warnings were issued in more than a quarter of the nation’s prefectures.

The rain began late last week as the remnants of a typhoon fed into a seasonal rainy front, with humid, warm air pouring in from the Pacific making it still more active – a pattern similar to one that set off flooding in southwestern Japan exactly a year ago that killed dozens. The front then remained in one place for an unusually long time, the JMA said.

Roads were closed and train services suspended in parts of western Japan. Shinkansen bullet train services resumed on a limited schedule after they were suspended on Friday. the “wills of the leaders.”

Japan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Taro Kono said on Sunday Tokyo, the United States and South Korea reaffirmed their commitment to implement sanctions against North Korea until it abandoned its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

The statement came after he met US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha in Tokyo.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also praised Pompeo’s conduct at denuclearization talks with North Korean officials who accused America’s top diplomat of making “gangster-like” demands.