Midwifery students in London are learning to bring new life into the world in a radically new way with the help of augmented reality (AR) technology.

Using AR headsets and lifelike models of full-term mothers, trainee midwives at Middlesex University can take part in fully simulated births, which the university’s clinical staff hope will both hone their clinical skills and leave them better prepared to face challenges rarely seen in day-to-day practice.

AR technology offers users an interactive experience in which objects in the real world are enhanced by computer-generated information.

Midwifery educator Sarah Chitongo said the AR system allowed students to understand better the birthing process by displaying an interactive representation of a patient’s anatomy.

“It allows you to see a visual picture of the actual anatomy itself, which is raised out of the normal body, and you can step in, walk around and have an internal view,” Chitongo told Reuters.

Chitongo cited high-risk problems such as shoulder dystocia – when a baby’s shoulders get stuck in the mother’s body – and breech births – when a baby is born bottom first – as particular rarities for midwives where AR could help prepare students to cope better and ultimately to save lives.

Chitongo believes that younger trainees will embrace the technology positively as they are of a generation that has largely grown up with computers and interactive environments.

However, her overarching aim is for midwives to become better prepared to reduce mortality rates, which are disproportionately high among ethnic minority pregnancies.

“Currently, here in the U.K., it sits at 60% combined, compared to 9.8% in white women,” Chitongo said, adding that the issue had not been meaningfully addressed despite the trend having risen since 2011. “When you get it right, with a population where it’s actually on the worst side (of the statistics), it means you’ve got a better and safer maternity service across the U.K.”

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Venice should be put on the United Nations’ list of endangered cities and cruise ships should be banned from its fragile lagoon to prevent an ecological disaster, Italy’s main conservation group said on Monday.

The call came less than a month after a towering cruise ship collided with a dock and a tourist boat in Venice, injuring four people and rekindling a heated debate in Italy about how to protect the historic city, which draws some 30 million tourists a year.

“Venice is unique and we cannot allow it to be destroyed even more than it has been already,” said Mariarita Signorini, national president of Italia Nostra [Our Italy], whose stated mission is to defend Italy’s cultural and natural heritage.

“Venice is one of the most endangered cities in the world,” she told a news conference announcing the decision to ask the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to put the city on its List of World Heritage in Danger.

Venice and its lagoon are already on UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites but Italia Nostra says unbridled tourism, a steady exodus of longtime residents and environmental decay pose a huge threat to the city’s survival.

According to UNESCO’s website, the danger list is meant to “encourage corrective action.”

While being put on the danger list would have no immediate consequences, Italia Nostra argues that this would compel national authorities to enact more safeguards.

It was not immediately clear what Venice’s prospects were for being included on the list, which currently has 54 sites worldwide, some of them but by no means all in conflict zones.

‘Not just buildings’

The June 2 collision between MSC Cruises’ massive 2,679-passenger Opera and the moored “River Countess,” which had 110 people on board, re-ignited calls for banning giant ships.

The accident conjured up memories of the 2012 accident involving the Costa Concordia, which overturned after hitting rocks near the island of Giglio, killing 32 people.

“If something like that happened in the lagoon, it would be the end of the ecosystem,” said Lidia Fersuoch, head of Italia Nostra in Venice. “Venice is not just buildings. The lagoon is a living thing.”

Cruise ships enter the lagoon via one of the three “mouths” that connect it to the Adriatic Sea, pass near St. Marks Square and go through the Giudecca Canal to reach a passenger terminal.

Italia Nostra says they cause waves that damage historic buildings. The group wants a port for big ships built at one of the mouths where the Adriatic meets the lagoon.

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A court in Istanbul has released an employee of the U.S. Consulate from house arrest for health reasons.
 
The court on Tuesday ruled, however, that Nazmi Mete Canturk should continue to be barred from leaving the country pending the outcome of his trial.
 
Canturk — along with his wife and daughter — is on trial accused of links to U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkey holds responsible for a failed coup attempt in 2016. He is among three U.S. diplomatic missions’ Turkish employees to be prosecuted on terror or espionage charges.
 
 The top U.S. diplomat in Turkey, Jeffrey Hovenier, welcomed Canturk’s release but said the U.S. saw “no evidence to support the charges brought against him.”
 
 He called for a quick resolution of cases brought against his staff.

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Britain appears to be moving closer to U.S. President Donald Trump’s position on Iran and hardening its attitude towards Tehran — the result, diplomats say, partly of talks during the American leader’s recent visit to London, but also because of aggressive Iranian actions.

U.S. officials say they’ve been cheered by the stiffening of Britain’s public rhetoric in support of Trump in the precarious standoff with Tehran.

They contrast that with British criticism of Trump’s decision last year to pull out of a 2015 deal, co-signed by his predecessor Barack Obama, in which Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.  President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement, citing concerns that Tehran had done nothing to curb expansionist behavior in the region and was still determined to eventually build nuclear weapons.

British officials had also bristled at Trump’s reimposition of sanctions on Iran and had been searching with other European powers ways to circumvent the U.S. sanctions so they wouldn’t impact European businesses.

Britain is still calling for a “de-escalation” in the Persian Gulf, but has been more forthright than France or Germany in condemning Iran for aggression in the Strait of Hormuz, including mining tankers and downing a U.S. drone — as well as for Tehran’s threats to step up nuclear activities and to breach the cap on uranium stockpile limits set by the 2015 accord.

Britain’s foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said Monday he was worried an accidental war could be triggered, adding, “we are doing everything we can to ratchet things down.”

Hunt said Britain is closely in touch with the United States over the “very dangerous situation in the Gulf” and is “doing everything we can to de-escalate.”

But he did not rule out the possibility Britain would consider a request for military support from its “strongest ally,” and would consider backing the U.S. in the Gulf “on a case-by-case basis.” That might include greater British support in protecting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

Britain blames Iran for strains

And Hunt put the onus on Iran for the dramatic rise in tension.

“We do strongly believe that the solution is for Iran to stop its destabilizing activity throughout the Middle East and we are very concerned about the sabotaging of tankers that has happened recently, which is almost certainly Iran,” he said.

Concern about a potential armed confrontation between the U.S. and Iran has mounted since Washington blamed Tehran for mine attacks on a pair of oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic sea passage between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

Tehran denies it mined any ships.

Last week, Trump said he had canceled a retaliatory airstrike against several Iranian targets, including anti-aircraft missile batteries, for the downing of a U.S. drone, on the grounds that it would have been disproportionate because of the loss of life it would entail.

But according to U.S. news accounts, Trump approved cyber-warfare disruption of Iranian intelligence computer systems used to control missile and rocket launches.

The U.S. president has been criticized in Washington by some in his own party as well as Democratic Party foes for ordering a retaliatory airstrike and then calling it off. Hawks in his own party fear the about-turn makes him look like a “paper tiger;” Democrats says it demonstrates confusion and “strategic incoherence.”

But Trump’s restraint appears to have calmed British fears of the president being reckless, with some officials saying it demonstrates his determination to calibrate his responses. Trump has said he wants to force the Iranians to return to negotiations in order to hammer out a better and more sustainable nuclear deal, in which the Iranians agree to curtail expansionist activity in the region.

“We certainly don’t want to give the Iranians any encouragement or make them think that their threats or aggression will drive a wedge between us and Washington,” a senior British diplomat told VOA.

“Tehran is calculating that it can use brinkmanship to isolate Trump and to get the Europeans en masse on side against Washington, hoping to weaken the American sanctions regime. We need to set them straight. One can dispute whether the U.S. should have withdrawn from the nuclear treaty in the first place, but we are where are,” he added.

The change in Britain’s tone appears to have been noted in Tehran. On Sunday, officials there said they were disappointed in the talks they held with a junior British foreign minister, Andrew Murrison, describing the discussions as “disappointing and repetitive.”

Speaking in the Iranian capital, Murrison said Iran “almost certainly bears responsibility for” the mining, but added, “I was clear that the UK will continue to play its full part alongside international partners to find diplomatic solutions to reduce the current tensions.”

Britain also signed on to a joint statement Monday with the U.S., Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates expressing “their concern over escalating tensions in the region and the dangers posed by Iranian destabilizing activity to peace and security both in Yemen and the broader region.”

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U.S. President Donald Trump imposed what he described as “hard-hitting” new financial sanctions on Iran on Monday, specifically targeting the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Trump signed an executive order he said would curb access that Khamenei and the country have to world financial markets. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the action would “literally” lock up “tens and tens of billions of dollars” of Iranian assets.

The U.S. leader called his order a “strong and proportionate” American response to Tehran’s shoot-down last week of an unmanned U.S. drone, which Washington says occurred in international airspace near the Strait of Hormuz and Iran claims occurred over its airspace.

Drone incident

Trump at the last minute last Thursday rejected a military response to the downing of the drone upon learning that about 150 Iranians would be killed in a U.S. attack. In announcing the new sanctions, he said “I think a lot of restraint has been shown by us, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to show it in the future. But we’ll give it a chance.”

Trump said he imposed the sanctions because of a series of “belligerent acts” carried out by Iran, which U.S. officials say include Iran’s targeting of Norwegian and Japanese ships traversing the Strait of Hormuz with mine explosions days before the attack on the drone.

The executive order is aimed at pushing Tehran back to one-on-one talks with the U.S. over its nuclear weapons program after Trump last year withdrew from the 2015 international pact restraining Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump called the international deal negotiated by his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, “a disaster.”

“We’d love to be able to negotiate a deal,” Trump said.

But he declared, “Never can Iran have a nuclear weapon,” adding, “They sponsor terrorism like no one’s seen before.”

He said, “I look forward to the day when sanctions can be lifted and Iran can be a peace-loving nation. The people of Iran are great people.”

‘Highly effective’

Mnuchin said earlier sanctions imposed when Trump pulled out of the international agreement have been “highly effective in locking up the Iranian economy. We follow the money and it’s highly effective.”

“Locking up the money worked last time and they’ll work this time,” Mnuchin said. The Treasury chief said the U.S. could target Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, one of Tehran’s best known figures on the world stage, with sanctions in the coming days.

He said some of the sanctions Trump imposed Monday had been “in the works” before the drone was shot down, and some were being imposed because of the attack on the drone.

The Treasury Department headed by Mnuchin said that in addition to Khamenei, the U.S. sanctions also targeted eight senior commanders in the Iranian military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. It said that any foreign financial institution that engages in a “significant financial transaction” with the Iranians targeted by the sanctions could be cut off from U.S. financial deals.

Coalition to counter Iran

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described the new sanctions as “significant” as he left Washington on Sunday for a trip to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to continue the Trump administration’s effort to build a coalition of allies to counter Iran.  Pompeo met Monday with Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

“The world should know,” Pompeo said, “that we will continue to make sure it’s understood that this effort that we’ve engaged in to deny Iran the resources to foment terror, to build out their nuclear weapon system, to build out their missile program, we are going to deny them the resources they need to do that thereby keeping American interests and American people safe all around the world.”

Iran has defended its missile work as legal and necessary for its defense. Tehran has sought support from the remaining signatories to the 2015 agreement to provide the economic relief it wants, especially with its key oil exports as the U.S. has tightened sanctions in an attempt to cut off Iranian oil shipments.

Trump said in a series of tweets Saturday about the sanctions that he looks forward to the day when “sanctions come off Iran, and they become a productive and prosperous national again — The sooner the better!”

Iran cannot have Nuclear Weapons! Under the terrible Obama plan, they would have been on their way to Nuclear in a short number of years, and existing verification is not acceptable. We are putting major additional Sanctions on Iran on Monday. I look forward to the day that…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2019

….Sanctions come off Iran, and they become a productive and prosperous nation again – The sooner the better!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2019

He also said in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press that he is “not looking for war” with Iran and is willing to negotiate with its leaders without preconditions.

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Days before the first Democratic presidential debates, Sen. Bernie Sanders and House progressives came out with legislation to cancel all student debt, going farther than a signature proposal by Sen. Elizabeth Warren as the two jockey for support from the party’s liberal base .

By canceling all student loans, Sanders says the proposal would address an economic burden for 45 million Americans. The key difference is that Warren’s plan considers the income of the borrowers, canceling $50,000 in debt for those earning less than $100,000 per year and affecting an estimated 42 million people in the U.S.

Questions face both candidates about how to pay for all of that plus their proposals for free tuition at public colleges and universities. But the battling ideas highlight the rivalry between senators who have made fighting economic inequality the cornerstones of their 2020 presidential campaigns.

Sanders vowed at a Monday news conference that his plan “completely eliminates student debt in this country and the absurdity of sentencing an entire generation, the millennial generation, to a lifetime of debt for the crime of doing the right thing. And that is going out and getting a higher education.” He appeared alongside the proposal’s House sponsors, Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., with American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten also in attendance.

His bill and Warren’s plan are part of their broader appeal to liberal voters on issues such as health care, technology and education.

That appeal is likely to be fleshed out this week during the first Democratic debates . Twenty candidates are set for the showdown, with Warren part of the lineup on Wednesday and Sanders appearing a day later. The events come as Warren appears to be cutting into Sanders’ support from the left.

Sanders’ effort at one-upmanship on student loans, named the College For All Act, would cancel $1.6 trillion of debt and save the average borrower about $3,000 a year, according to materials obtained by The Associated Press. The result would be a stimulus that allows millennials in particular to invest in homes and cars that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford. It would cost $2.2 billion and be paid for — and then some — by a series of taxes on such things as stock trades, bonds and derivatives, according to the proposal.

The universal debt relief is designed partly around the idea that it would mostly benefit Americans who can’t afford college tuition without loans, according to a senior Democratic aide who spoke on condition of anonymity because the legislation wasn’t yet public.

Warren’s plan, which she has suggested in published reports will be introduced as legislation, would be paid for by imposing a 2% fee on fortunes greater than $50 million. Warren projects the levy would raise $2.75 trillion over 10 years, enough to pay for a universal child-care plan, free tuition at public colleges and universities, and student loan debt forgiveness for an estimated 42 million Americans — with revenue left over. Critics say top earners would find ways around such penalties.

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At least 152 children have died in an encephalitis outbreak during the month of June in India’s eastern state of Bihar, according to local health authorities. Following a petition, India’s supreme court ordered an investigation into the epidemic.

Acute encephalitis syndrome, sometimes referred to as ‘brain fever’, has claimed lives in 20 of Bihar’s 38 districts.  In particular, the disease has gripped the Muzaffarpur district of Bihar, reaching epidemic proportions in a region already stricken with poverty and poor child health.

In 2014, an outbreak of encephalitis killed 350 children in Muzaffarpur.  

A petition filed to India’s supreme court sought to end the current epidemic, accusing local and regional governments of being negligent in their response.

“[Encephalitis] is completely curable and lives of young children are being lost due to the inaction of state machinery,” the petition read.

“Most of the deaths are occurring due to lack of medical facilities in the area of outbreak,” it continued.

In response to the petition, Indian supreme court justice Sanjiv Khanna said “We issue notice to the Bihar government seeking a detailed response.”

State and national officials must respond within seven days on health conditions, according to India’s top court.

India’s health ministry affirmed its earlier promise to open a children’s ward in the district and monitor the epidemic, as state health official face sharp criticism for what has been seen as indifference and negligent behavior.

India’s health minister Harsh Varadhan insisted that the Indian government was providing “all possible support” to combat the epidemic.  

Since June 1, more than 700 cases of the disease have been recorded, though there are signs that the disease has been slowing, with no new deaths reported on Monday.

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A smaller Woodstock 50 festival could possibly be held at an upstate New York harness track and casino.
 
Town of Vernon Supervisor Randy Watson tells the Poughkeepsie Journal that Woodstock 50 has applied for a permit to hold its concert Aug. 16-18 at Vernon Downs, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) east of Syracuse.
 
Watson says the proposed capacity was 45,000-50,000 people — far smaller than the 150,000 planned for at the initial venue, Watkins Glen International.
 
Woodstock concert promoters had no comment Monday.
 
 Vernon Downs owner Jeffrey Gural said in an email Monday they’re close to signing a letter of intent and could host up to 65,000 people, but without camping.
 
 The festival has faced a series of setbacks, including Watkins Glen pulling out earlier this month .

…

Another Democrat has entered the 2020 race for the White House.

Retired Navy admiral and former Pennsylvania congressman Joe Sestak announced his candidacy Sunday on his website.

He introduced himself to voters by telling them “I wore the cloth of the nation for over 31 years in peace and war, from the Vietnam and Cold War eras to Afghanistan and Iran and the emergence of China.”

He said he postponed announcing his candidacy to care for a daughter ill with brain cancer.

Sestak was also part of former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s national security team, holds a doctorate in government from Harvard, and unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate twice.

He embraces many positions popular with liberals, including abortion rights, gun control, and backs the nuclear deal with Iran.

Sestak is the 24th Democrat to officially announce a challenge to President Donald Trump in 2020, with Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren leading the polls so far.

…

Syrian rebel groups have launched a major offensive this week against government troops in a Syrian province in what is seen by analysts as a new twist to the ongoing conflict in the northwestern part of the country.

Rebel fighters affiliated with the Turkish-backed National Front for Liberation said Tuesday that they have begun targeting Syrian regime forces in the northern part of Hama, a province bordering the flashpoint province of Idlib, which is the last rebel stronghold in Syria.

The new assault is primarily aimed at targeting villages from which government forces launch attacks on Idlib, according to a rebel source quoted by German news agency DPA.

This “military operation that opposition groups have started positions belonging to regime troops came about after government forces deployed military reinforcements in the countryside of Hama and Idlib in order to launch a large military offensive,” the unidentified rebel source said.  

Hama province has largely been under the control of the Syrian regime with parts of it briefly captured by rebel groups and Islamic State (IS) militants during different stages of Syria’s civil war.

For weeks, Syrian government troops, backed by Russian warplanes and Iranian militias, have been trying to dislodge rebels from Idlib. Dozens of civilians have been killed in the recent escalation across Idlib, according to local media.

Distraction strategy

Assaulting areas like Hama at this point could be an attempt by the rebels to distract the regime from focusing on it, some analysts charge.

“This offensive is to move the battle to regime-held areas as opposed to keeping in rebel-held areas, which has been Idlib for a long time now,” said Rami Abdulrahman, director of Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Syrian war monitor.

“There is a Russian military presence in Hama. So rebels are also seeking to threaten Russian forces there,” he told VOA.

But other experts view this offensive as an extension of the ongoing battle between rebels and Syrian government forces.

“For rebels, the battles of Idlib and Hama is one battle because to be able to enter Idlib, they have to first battle regime troops in northern Hama,” said Ahmed Rahal, a former Syrian army general who is now a military analyst based in Istanbul.

Impasse for Russia

Rahal added that such battlefronts could create a new impasse for Russia as Moscow has been seeking to assert the control of its embattled ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“The Russians are in an awkward position. They clearly didn’t accomplish their objectives to retake Idlib from opposition fighters and now Hama is under threat,” he told VOA.

Fabrice Balanche, a Syria expert at the University of Lyon in France, echoes Rahal’s assessment about the ongoing battle for northwestern Syria.

“More than the Syrian regime itself, Russia has been trying so hard to remove rebels and extremist groups such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham from the entirety of Idlib,” he said.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a powerful Islamist group that was once al-Qaida’s Syria branch, controls large territory in Idlib.

Recently, HTS claimed responsibility for a missile attack against the Russian Hmeimim air base in the nearby province of Latakia.

Turkey’s role

With hopes to end the violence in Idlib, Turkey and Russia signed an agreement in September of 2018 which required Turkey to remove extremist elements from Idlib, while Russia would stop the Syrian regime from carrying out attacks on the province.

Several months into the deal, however, both sides have so far been unable to fully implement a ceasefire. This, experts believe, has caused tensions between the two powers.

“Turkey is not happy about Russia’s insistence to retake Idlib from rebels,” Balanche said.

“So by launching an offensive in Hama, Turkish President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan wants to tell Moscow that Turkish-backed rebels can still create problems for Russian forces elsewhere in Syria,” he said.  

Yielding to pressure

While Syrian regime forces seem to have the upper hand in recent battles against opposition fighters, some experts believe this time around rebel fighters are poised to shift the balance.

“Opposition forces appear to be more organized which could make this offensive [on Hama] very costly for the Assad regime,” military analyst Rahal said.

“That’s why we are seeing Hezbollah and other Shi’ite militias are being deployed to the frontlines once again,” he added.

Since the beginning of Syria’s conflict in 2011, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias have played a central role in recapturing major cities from rebel forces.  

Depleted from years of fighting on different fronts across the country, experts express doubts about the capability of Syrian government troops to get involved in yet another unpredictable battle with rebels.

“The Syrian regime could yield to this pressure from rebels, because they understand that they don’t have enough resources to protect Hama and engage in a large battle in Idlib at the same time,” analyst Balanche said.

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A Yemeni Houthi rebel attack on an airport in southern Saudi Arabia has killed one civilian and wounded seven others, the Saudi-led military coalition said Sunday.

Coalition officials say the parking lot at the Abha airport, which services a resort, was hit. It gave no other details including whether it was struck by a missile or a drone.

The Houthi rebels say they flew drones over the Abha and Jizan airports, but the Saudis did not confirm Jizan was also targeted.

A Houthi missile struck Abha last week, wounding 26. Human Rights Watch condemned the attack as a possible “war crime” and the Saudis promised to take “stern action.”

The Saudi coalition is helping the Yemeni government try to push the Iranian-backed Houthis out of the capital, Sana’a.

While Iran admits support for the Houthis, it denies Saudi allegations of arming the rebels.

A diplomatic quartet made up of Britain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and United States issued a statement Sunday condemning the Houthi attacks on the airports and what it calls Iranian “destabilizing activity” in Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The statement demands Houthis end all restrictions on food and emergency aid deliveries in Yemen and allow the World Food Program to get back to work.

While the quartet’s statement makes no mention of Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen, which have killed thousands of civilians, it urges all parties to accelerate implementation of the December ceasefire agreement. The statement says the quartet remains committed to the peace process and Security Council resolutions concerning Yemen.

The Saudi coalition and rebels agreed at Stockholm in December to a military withdrawal from southern Yemen, including the key ports of Hodeidah, Ras Issa, and Saleef.

While the rebels have started pulling back from the ports, the Saudis say they will not do so until the U.N. can verify the Houthis have fully kept their side of the bargain.

The Houthis accuse the coalition of stepping up airstrikes on their positions in northern Yemen, prompting retaliatory airstrikes on Saudi territory.

…

Chinese President Xi Jinping may have encouraged North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to renew talks with the U.S. during his recent visit to Pyongyang, but without a concrete road map for denuclearization, diplomacy is meaningless, experts say.

“The international community hopes that North Korea and the United States can talk and for the talks to get results,” Xi told Kim on Thursday, according to Chinese media.

Xi left Pyongyang early Friday afternoon. It was the first visit by a Chinese president in 14 years.

Pyongyang’s denuclearization talks with Washington have been stalled ever since the Hanoi summit in February, which was cut short without producing any deals.

‘Didn’t get a positive response’

According to Chinese media, Kim told Xi that North Korea took many positive steps to reduce tensions but “didn’t get a positive response from the relevant side,” referring to the U.S.

Kim added, “North Korea is willing to exercise patience and, at the same time, hopes the relevant side can meet North Korea halfway, seek a solution that accords with both side’s reasonable concerns, and promote results for the talks process of the peninsula issue.”

Evans Revere, acting assistant secretary for East Asia and the Pacific at the State Department during the George W. Bush administration, said Xi’s meeting with Kim could have helped Pyongyang reconsider resuming its talks with Washington.

“There have been signs that North Korea may be preparing to reengage diplomatically,” Revere said. “And the Xi-Kim summit is the latest indication that Pyongyang is exploring what benefits renewed diplomacy might bring.”

Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump said he received a “beautiful letter” from Kim and took an optimistic stance on the possibility of future talks.

Scott Snyder, director of the U.S.-Korea policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the letter signifies that “Kim still values the relationship with Trump.” He added, “Trump is keeping the door open to denuclearization talks, and Kim is keeping the door open to the prospect of American affirmation of North Korea as a nuclear state.”

North Korea’s internal policy document used in training its top military officials in November, which VOA obtained over the weekend, indicated Kim’s aspiration for the country is to be accepted as a nuclear state.

Xi’s visit to Pyongyang came ahead of next week’s Group of 20 summit in Osaka, where Xi is expected to meet with Trump on the sideline of the summit, which is being hosted by Japan.

‘Trying to … restart things’

Ken Gause, director of the Adversary Analytics Program at CNA, said, “China is trying to kind of restart things.”

He continued, “[Xi] could potentially carry a message from Kim to Trump when he meets Trump later next week and guidance about how to get the negotiations restarted.”

Experts, however, caution Washington against holding talks with Pyongyang without narrowing their gaps over denuclearization.

Revere said, “Diplomacy toward what end?” He continued, “There are no signs that Pyongyang has modified the position that it took at Hanoi summit, where it rejected a common definition of denuclearization with the United States and refused to agree to a timetable and road map to achieve denuclearization.”

At the Hanoi summit, Kim demanded Trump lift sanctions while offering a partial denuclearization of dismantling its Yongbyon nuclear facility. Trump, instead, asked Kim to denuclearize completely in exchange for lifting the sanctions.

North Korea’s concept of denuclearization envisions the U.S. removing its nuclear umbrella and troops from the Korean Peninsula while the U.S. understanding is for North Korea to undertake a fully verified dismantlement of all of its nuclear facilities and weapons.

No interest in dismantling

Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said, “I see no evidence that Kim is interested in dismantling all of his nuclear program.”

Gause said Xi could have told Kim to put more on the table other than dismantling the Yongbyon, while Kim most likely asked Xi to push for sanctions relief in return.

Manning said, “Xi will push Trump to ease sanctions and offer a way to break the stalemate.”

Revere said, however, while Kim could have pressed Xi “for help in removing international sanctions,” Xi would not have agreed “in the absence of concrete North Korean steps toward denuclearization.”

Further, he added, “Beijing will be mindful of the need not to undermine international solidarity and pressure on North Korea by providing open-ended assistance on North Korea.”

Bruce Klingner, the former CIA deputy division chief for Korea and current senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said, “The ball is in North Korea’s court to take tangible, significant steps toward denuclearization before it gets yet more benefits.”

Snyder said, “The essential condition for a third summit is that both leaders work out an understanding in advance that does not repeat the failure of the second summit.” He continued, “The stakes will be higher because there will be no walking away.”

Other than showing support toward denuclearization talks, Xi’s visit to Pyongyang was, according to Revere, “a mixture of symbolism, largely rhetorical assurance of support by China to North Korea, and a reminder that China intends to remain a key player in diplomacy with North Korea.”

…