By Dan Levin
May 7, 2018
NYT
Good morning.
Nuclear challenges in North Korea, devastation in the Philippines and a slide toward authoritarianism in Cambodia. Here’s what you need to know.
CreditKazem Ghane/European Pressphoto Agency
• “North Korea could make Iran look easy.”
North Korea’s secretive nuclear program presents a host of challenges for President Trump as he weighs disarmament negotiations with Kim Jong-un. Foremost, how to verify whether Pyongyang has truly shut down facilities long hidden from international monitors.
Inspections would be far more difficult than those in Iran under a deal that diplomats say Mr. Trump is inclined to end. He argues that Iran made false declarations about its nuclear program, undercutting the accord. Above, an inspection team at a uranium enrichment plant in Iran in 2014.
Iran and Israel are both lobbying hard as President Trump prepares to announce his decision on Tuesday in Washington on whether he will withdraw from the agreement. The uncertainty has sent oil prices soaring.
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CreditKevin Lamarque/Reuters
• President Trump accused federal investigators of deliberately prolonging the special counsel inquiry to influence congressional elections in November, and he appeared to warn that some involved had conflicts of interest that would be revealed soon.
The veiled threat came as the president’s legal team appears to be struggling to present a consistent message to the public and as Republican fears grow over the possibility of losing control of Congress.
In a signal of just how alarmed Republicans are, Mr. Trump also intervened in the West Virginia Republican primary, pleading with voters to oppose a controversial candidate for Senate, warning that if he were chosen, it would lead to a repeat of the party’s embarrassing loss last year in Alabama.
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CreditJim Huylebroek for Norwegian Refugee Council
• What does it feel like to live in a city on the brink of falling to the Taliban?
Our reporter visited Ghazni, not far from Kabul, where the Taliban impose “taxes” on businesses and kill police officers with impunity.
He found weary and fearful residents who say they can hardly tell anymore who’s in charge. The sense of defenselessness highlights the failures of a U.S.-led war in its 16th year and the struggles of building a democracy in the midst of bloody conflict.
And yet Afghanistan is now taking in refugees forced to return from neighboring Pakistan, among them a young boy named Bilal, above, starting a new life with his only friend, his pet parrot.
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CreditAdam Dean for The New York Times
• The Phnom Penh Post is widely seen as the last bastion of a free press in Cambodia.
So its sale, just before national elections, to a Malaysian investor with ties to Cambodia’s strongman prime minister, Hun Sen, is stirring fears that the country is sliding toward outright authoritarianism. Above, the newspaper’s printing presses in Phnom Penh in February.
Critics say the sale suggests Mr. Hun Sen no longer needs to tolerate a free media, now that China has become his government’s main patron.
The new owner, Sivakumar S. Ganapathy, made his mark felt almost immediately. Several senior editors resigned or were fired after they refused to remove a story from the paper’s website about the relationship between Mr. Sivakumar’s P.R. firm and Mr. Hun Sen, the longest-ruling leader in Asia.
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• Skeletal remains. Bomb remnants. An empty vault that used to hold money.
This is what’s left of Marawi, above, in the southern Philippines, after it was seized by pro-ISIS fighters nearly a year ago.
Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced by five months of fighting, the longest urban combat in the country since World War II. The Philippine Army, with help from the U.S., retook control in October, and residents are now beginning to return to collect their belongings.
Our correspondent takes you there as families began returning home.
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