 Hello and welcome to News Clicks International Roundup. Today, we look at the developments in the Korean Peninsula in the aftermath of the failure of the Hanoi summit, as well as the imprisonment of Chelsae Manning for refusing to testify against Julian Assange. To talk more about this, we have with us Prabir Prakasar, editor-in-chief of News Clicks. Hello, Prabir. Prabir, let's start with North Korea. So, as we discussed the last time, the Hanoi summit failed because Donald Trump was not willing to accept the conditions North Korea was putting forward, the offers it was making, and was asking for much more. And in the aftermath of it, there's been an increased amount of rhetoric from the U.S. side claiming that North Korea is about to test missiles again, may go nuclear again, whereas all the evidence is regarding the launch of satellites. So, could you take us through the process of the North Korean thought process basically here regarding the launch of satellites and the U.S. plans? I think it's very clear, the aftermath of the failure, whatever reports have come out, that North Korea was willing to make substantive offers or put it on the table, particularly with respect to the three square kilometer area, which is the Yangon nuclear complex. And I guess that they were willing to talk about 2000 post-2016 sanctions, which the U.S. had imposed, not all sanctions, post-2016 sanctions, and even the extent of the sanctions could have been open to discussion. But basically what the United States wanted was complete de-nuclearization before they would lift any of the sanctions or any of the substantive sanctions, so that's already we have discussed. The argument that we have or what the U.S. seems to believe is that if nothing is done, then they have got secession of missile testing, they have got secession of nuclear testing, so therefore this status quo for them is okay because North Korea still has to test its ICBM, particularly the re-entry part of it, which questions have also been raised. So and North Korea does not really have any further negotiating margin, so to say, and do something else without violating this. If they do violate these two stoppages as it were, then the United States can also start doing what it did always earlier, which is do the war games at its borders, threatened invasion and so on, and there's no pressure for them to remove sanctions either. So this was the belief that the North Koreans really don't have much more bargaining power and what North Korea has done is put on course, which it did earlier also, that they can go ahead with satellite launches and this satellite launches have nothing to do with either the stoppage of the missile testing or with the nuclear tests. So both of these they would still maintain, but they could do also testing of the satellite. Now satellites as we know are have a primarily a commercial purpose because it's true that communication satellites today are the heart of the new shall we say media world that is emerging and therefore to expect a country to have rocket tree capabilities in this area and not go on to commercial launches or commercial satellites, that would be shall we say at least stupid. And this is something that ISRO has done as well. They have developed of course ICBM capabilities, the missile capabilities, but they have also concentrated on also on commercial launches. So this is a part of what could be considered as a civilian windfall as a consequence of military activity, but they could also be considered as independent activity. So this is where it rests now in Soche where you have facilities for satellite launches. These are not rocket testing sites, they are basically satellite launches, they have been used earlier also that they have now said we will start making this an active site and we will prepare for satellite launches. Now the whole argument that is coming up from the American side and we have various leaks today which talk about how the satellite launches and ICBM launches are similar. It's not true. We have enough technical papers including CEPRI in 2016 who have identified that the ICBMs have much shorter burn phase because they can be shot down at that period by ABM presides and therefore what a satellite launch does is a much longer burn phase because it doesn't really have this as its danger. So therefore they are two dissimilar, shall we say technologies. But let's face facts that if you have satellite launch capabilities, if you have the ability to engineer satellite carrying vehicles essentially the rocketry then to also develop military capabilities is not something which is very difficult. Of course the main issue for North Korea is now the re-entry phase, it's not the range they are worried about, it's a re-entry phase and these are being tested, they were being tested elsewhere. We have places from which these rocketry was being tested. This seems to be not the place where these rockets are being deployed or developed. So I think these are two dissimilar activities but yes they have some bearing on each other. Re-entry is not what we can, North Korea can test now because they really will have to test putting it into orbit and re-entry vehicles, space vehicles like the one which for instance SpaceX is doing that would be a little further away. But yes if they do must re-entry of space launched vehicles and getting the module back then they would have also tested re-entry for ICBM. So that's again there is these are always therefore dual use technologies and therefore there are dual use possibilities but that's really a long way off. So what I'm summarizing is North Korea is not without any options as the Americans seem to believe and this is one thing they seem to be now testing because it falls, remains within what they have committed that they will not do a topic test, nuclear test and they will not do ICBM tests but they can do this. One point I would like to make on this but the battle is really not between North Korea and the Americans on the issue of what they want to do. Real battle on this is within the Trump administration between Bolton and the company who would like to burn completely any understanding with North Korea and a certain section and Trump somewhere shall we say depending on the photo ops he gets somewhere in between that they should accept that North Korea is a nuclear power and then negotiate from that to see that it does not develop further strike capabilities and but to expect that they will get a completely denuclearized North Korea before they take any of the steps identified in the Singapore Summit I think is the battle that is taking place within the Trump administration. It is not the one taking place between North Korea and the United States. And this pattern has been going on for many months since the Singapore declaration so there's been an attempt to continuously reverse Pompeo, Bolton all these people continuously trying to reverse the gains that were being made during this process by insisting that denuclearization be the single most important item on the agenda. You know this has been the US problem from 1990s onwards there is not a single treaty the US is signed and not reneged or negotiated and not reneged. So if you take this history yes this is the history of the United States that even if it signs some understanding and even if it signs treaties it does pull out of it because there are sections in the United States who seem to be able to reverse these decisions. So and Bolton is we have to give him credit for consistency. He has sabotaged every agreement that the United States has reached by being able to influence a subsequent administration starting with George Bush and later with what we are seeing now but also the Iran issue earlier. North Korea the first agreement that he sabotaged followed of course by the ABM Treaty. So we have a whole set of things that have happened and it's very much enlightened that. And moving on to Chelsea Manning's imprisonment. So with this we've been seeing a series of developments for the past year starting with the leaked indictment of Julian Assange and there's been a sustained campaign being built up in the United States connecting WikiLeaks to the so called Russia Gate and branding it as a national security threat. And now this is the latest development in this although she has specifically said that she has ethical issues with the grand jury and there's been no clarity on how long she's going to be in jail. So how do you see these developments especially with respect to the case against Assange? It is very clear that the Julian Assange grand jury has been there for a long time and therefore Julian Assange refused refuge in Ecuadorian embassy was basically to protect himself being extradited to the United States. Now there are two issues in the extradition which is where it's really coming from which is Ecuador seems to have agreed that it might extradite Julian Assange to the United States by handing him over to the British who in turn will send him to the United States to face this grand jury indictment which has now become public. The only problem they face is there are two sets of international agreements one to which Ecuador is party two which talks about extraditing in Ecuadorian citizen or somebody who could face a death penalty and could he therefore be sent to Britain and could then Britain send him to United States in which case United States having death penalty on its records I mean in its laws then of course this violates this condition. Similarly for the UK, United Kingdom also is supposedly a party to European Union and European statements that they will not extradite people to countries which have death penalty unless those countries give an assurance that death penalty will not be used which of course as we know United States is never going to give. So there are legal issues of how to get Julian Assange to face the grand jury indictment in the US which is still under negotiations between Ecuador, United Kingdom and the United States. So as a further pressure and because also the fact that they have never really forgiven Chelsea Manning the Obama administration or Obama did commute her sentence and therefore she did not serve what he would like much longer sentence but the fact that Obama did commute that sentence is something which the security establishment of the United States is not forgiven so they would like to put her behind bars again and this is really an attempt is a secret grand jury. We do not know the details of this but essentially it is asking her to give evidence against Julian Assange which she already given has given statements on during her court martial. So it is not that there is something which is new being sought. She was already in jail. She was already a court martial. She was serving a prison sentence. So it would otherwise be a second sentence for the same offense. So in order to circumvent that it appears we are not legal experts of the United States system. The issue is that this is the contempt of the grand jury on which then she can remain behind bars unless she is forced to give the evidence or as long as the grand jury lasts. So this is a shall we say the open ended imprisonment and this entirely grand jury's decision to put her behind bars under contempt of court. And let's face the historical facts that this was what the McCarthy period was all about where if people did not implicate their fellow citizens then it would be considered contempt of the Congress and they would then remain bars for different periods of time. And the heinousness of this decision it's an indefinite one. So as long as the grand jury lasts this jail sentence could last. So these are all pressures I would say on Julian Assange. These are pressures on Chelsea Manning to implicate Julian Assange further. It's really the larger battle against WikiLeaks, the United States security establishment. Of course the United States is fighting in which unfortunately the United Kingdom has been fully apartheid. Thank you very much. That's all we have time for today. Keep watching this link.