CHINA’S TOP DIPLOMAT HOLDS TALKS WITH TRUMP ON NKOREA

WASHINGTON, D. C.: China’s top diplomat told Donald Trump that Beijing was willing to keep working with Washington to defuse tensions on the Korean peninsula— days after the US leader implied that Chinese efforts had failed. The meeting between State Councillor Yang Jiechi and Trump at the White House on Thursday also came after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged China to step up diplomatic and economic pressure on the North over its nuclear weapons. The meeting was reported by China’s foreign ministry. There was no White House statement on the get- together, which had not been mentioned in the president’s daily schedule. Trump told Yang he looked forward to “enhancing cooperation” with China on the denuclearization of the North, the ministry said in a statement.

NKOREA DENIES TORTURING US STUDENT WARMBIER – KCNA

SEOUL: North Korea on Friday denied torturing or mistreating Otto Warmbier, the US student who died after being released from the North in a coma, in the first official reaction to his death. South Korea has said the North bore responsibility for Warmbier’s fate and US President Donald Trump has slammed his detention and eventual death as “a total disgrace.” A spokesman for the National Reconciliation Council said that they “treat all criminals… thoroughly in accordance with domestic laws and international standards and Warmbier was not an exception.” He blasted South Korea, accusing it of seeking to exploit Warmbier’s death to press its own demand for the release of six South Korean detainees. “Those who have absolutely no idea about how well we treated Warmbier under humanitarian conditions dare to utter ‘mistreatment’ and ‘torture’,” he said according to the official KCNA news agency.

TRUMP ADMITS HE HAS NO TAPES OF COMEY MEETINGS

WASHINGTON, D.C.: US President Donald Trump admitted on Thursday (Friday in Manila) he does not have recordings of his private meetings with fired FBI director James Comey, after fueling speculation for weeks of secret Oval Office tapes. But Trump’s belated admissions did little to quell allegations that he has sought to stifle investigations into possible collusion between his presidential campaign and Russian interference in last year’s election. “With all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information, I have no idea whether there are ‘tapes’ or recordings of my conversations with James Comey, but I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings,” Trump said on Twitter. The admission threw a new twist into allegations, fed by Comey’s own claims, that Trump wanted the Federal Bureau of Investigation to pull back on its probe into the Russia scandal. Those accusations are believed to now be part of an independent Justice Department probe into possible illegal obstruction of the investigation by the president.