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International

North Korea: Kim receives ‘excellent’ letter from Trump

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — President Donald Trump sent North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a letter, a government-controlled news agency reported Sunday.

Kim “said with satisfaction that the letter is of excellent content,” the Korean Central News Agency reported.

“Appreciating the political judging faculty and extraordinary courage of President Trump, Kim Jong Un said that he would seriously contemplate the interesting content,” the agency said.

The White House declined to confirm that Trump had sent a letter to Kim.

Nuclear talks between the U.S. and North Korea broke down after the failed summit between Kim and Trump in February in Vietnam.

The U.S. is demanding that North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons entirely before international sanctions are lifted. North Korea is seeking a step-by-step approach in which moves toward denuclearization are matched by concessions from the U.S., notably a relaxation of the sanctions.

The North Korean report on Trump’s letter came days after Kim’s summit with visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping, which experts say underscored China’s emergence as a major player in the diplomatic push to resolve the nuclear standoff with the North.

2 finalists in UK leadership race make pitch to Tory members

LONDON (AP) — The two finalists in the race to lead Britain’s governing Conservative Party — and become the country’s new prime minister — made their first formal pitches to party members Saturday, both vowing to be the right man to deliver Brexit.

Ex-foreign secretary and former London mayor Boris Johnson, the runaway favorite of Tory lawmakers, faced off with Jeremy Hunt, the current foreign secretary, at a Conservative conference in central England’s Birmingham.

Both Johnson and Hunt said they would succeed in seeing Britain out of the EU, a challenge that defeated Prime Minister Theresa May. She quit as Conservative leader earlier this month after repeatedly failing to win Parliament’s backing for her Brexit deal and will leave 10 Downing Street when her successor is selected.

Hunt pitched himself as the better negotiator, warning that “catastrophe awaits,” if the wrong leader is sent to Brussels for talks with EU leaders.

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