Nation & World Glance
South Korean officials head to border for talks with North
SEOUL, South Korea — North and South Korea were set to hold rare talks at their tense border Tuesday to discuss how to cooperate in next month’s Winter Olympics in the South and improve their longstrained ties.
Senior South Korean officials left Seoul early in the morning for the meeting in the Demilitarized Zone that divides the two countries.
The rival Koreas’ first formal talks in about two years came about as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un makes an apparent push for improved ties with the South after a year of elevated tension over his country’s nuclear and missile tests.
In his New Year’s Day address, Kim said there is an urgent need to improve inter-Korean ties and that he is willing to send a delegation to the Feb. 9-25 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. He urged Seoul to halt its annual military drills with Washington, which he called a rehearsal for an invasion, and said he has a “nuclear button” to launch missiles at anywhere in the United States.
Moon, a liberal who favors dialogue as a way to defuse the North Korean nuclear standoff, welcomed Kim’s outreach and proposed Tuesday’s talks at the border village of Panmunjom. Kim quickly accepted Moon’s offer.
JFK airport tries to catch up, vows to probe weekend of woes
NEW YORK — Frazzled travelers snoozed on floors, and dozens of suitcases sat unclaimed as a welter of wintry problems — from a snowstorm to a burst water pipe — extended flight delays at Kennedy Airport into a fourth day Monday. The agency running the airport vowed to investigate the fiasco.
More than 115 flights of the day’s roughly 600 were canceled, and about 100 were delayed at one of the nation’s busiest airports. And the weather brought a bit more freezing rain, sleet and snow Monday night.
WASHINGTON — The United States would be “putting people intentionally in harm’s way” if it sent diplomats back to Cuba, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says in an Associated Press interview, even as a new FBI report casts doubt on the initial theory that Americans there have been hit by “sonic attacks.”
Following months of investigation and four FBI trips to Havana, an interim report from the bureau’s Operational Technology Division says the probe has uncovered no evidence that sound waves could have damaged the Americans’ health, the AP has learned. The report, dated Jan. 4, doesn’t address other theories and says the FBI will keep investigating until it can show there’s been no intentional harm.
Tillerson said he’s not convinced that what he calls the “deliberate attacks” are over. He defended his September decision to order most U.S. personnel and their relatives to leave Cuba and said he won’t reverse course until Cuba’s government assures they’ll be safe.