Update: In the latest ominous sign out of North Korea, South Korean intelligence has reportedly spotted "special activities" happening at North Korea’s missile research center in Pyongyang, according to local media reports cited by Bloomberg. Whatever is going on at the missile research center, the intelligence source said they couldn't tell if it began before or after the Hanoi summit.
In other news, President Trump told a group of reporters at the White House on Wednesday that he would be "very disappointed" if reports about Kim rebuilding the long-range missile facility turned out to be true, according to Politico.
"I would be very, very disappointed in Chairman Kim. I don’t think I will be, but we’ll see what happens. We’ll take a look. It will ultimately get solved."
Mere hours after Kim Jong Un arrived back in Pyongyang after the breakdown in talks with President Trump in Hanoi, the North Korean dictator was greeted by a flurry of western media reports warning that his regime had started rebuilding one of its missile-launch facilities. The reports, which follow a decision by the US and South Korea to again suspend military exercises on the peninsula, suggest that the Kim regime may be hedging its bets and planning to restart its missile tests - which have been halted since November 2017 - if the US refuses to budge on sanctions relief for the North Korean economy, which is suffering through an acute economic crisis.
Images from commercial satellites appear to confirm warnings from South Korean intelligence that the North has started "rapidly rebuilding" its long-range rocket-launch site at Sohae, according to the New York Times. Construction work at the facility, which was partially dismantled last summer as part of a good-faith gesture by the Kim regime, began before the Hanoi summit, and analysts said it could have started as early as mid-February. The facility is located in Tongchang-ri, a remote area near the northwestern border with China.
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