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Despite recent tensions over North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests, life is actually quite normal for American military families living at Camp Humphreys in South Korea, which is the largest overseas Army installation in the world.

Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Puskas tries to come to most of his daughters’ high school soccer games at Camp Humphreys. In fact, his family’s lifestyle at this sprawling U.S. military base is similar to one they would lead back home.

“We go to church on Sundays. We see all our friends there. We’re on the soccer field most of the afternoons, or just going for bike ride, the same things we would do if we were back in the States,” said Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Puskas, with the U.S. Eight Army.

This is Puskas’ fourth tour in Korea. He met and married his Korean wife Mi-jung, during an earlier tour. His children have spent much of their lives at military bases in Korea.

“I think it has given me a wider world view and has helped me understand other people a lot more,” said Elizabeth Puskas, the eldest daughter of the family who will attend college next year in the United States.

Sprawling city

The U.S. military in Korea is consolidating its forces in Camp Humphreys, including its military headquarters, as it moves to close older bases in congested Seoul and other regions of the country.

Camp Humphreys is now the size of a small city, encompassing over 140 square kilometers of land, with construction underway to expand its capacity to accommodate over 40,000 people.

There are modern apartments for soldiers and their families, schools, movie theaters, shopping centers and fast food restaurants to help bring some of the comforts of home to military life in Korea. The base even has its own golf course.

“I have been around the army for part of the last 40 years as a soldier and now as a civilian, and this is as normal as any army post I’ve ever been on. In fact it is probably the nicest one I’ve been on because everything is new,” said Bob McElroy, a Camp Humphreys public affairs officer.

Military readiness

Located 100 kilometers south of the heavily fortified inter-Korean border, Camp Humphreys is also outside the range of most North Korean artillery stationed at the border.

The increased threat of military conflict with North Korea has not altered the family friendly environment on this growing base.

The annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises underway are just part of the routine of military life here.

Like many U.S. soldiers in Korea, Lieutenant Colonel Puskas tries not to overreact to reports that war is imminent over the North’s nuclear and missile tests, or that peace is at hand with the upcoming nuclear summits, with the meeting of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon planned for this week, and the summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim expected to be held in May or June..

“Obviously we are sensitive to what is going on. Do we worry about it? I mean, we think about it,” said Lt. Col. Puskas.

Instead Puskas, like many in Camp Humphreys, works to balance family responsibilities with maintaining military readiness to respond quickly if called upon to act.

The Camp Humphreys expansion is estimated to cost $11 billion. The South Korean government has invested over $900 million to build roads, water treatment facilities and other support services for the base.

Lee Yoon-jee and Kim Hyung-jin in Seoul contributed to this report
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President Donald Trump threatened to make Mexican immigration control a condition of a new NAFTA agreement Monday, saying the southern U.S. neighbor must stop illegal immigrants from getting into the United States.

“Mexico, whose laws on immigration are very tough, must stop people from going through Mexico and into the U.S. We may make this a condition of the new NAFTA Agreement,” Trump wrote in a Twitter post. “Our Country cannot accept what is happening!”

The U.S. president made similar threats linking NAFTA, known formally as the North American Free Trade Agreement, and immigration when a “caravan” of migrants moved through Mexico earlier this month. “They must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA,” Trump wrote on Twitter on April 1.

However, discussion of immigration controls has not been a part of formal negotiations on the new NAFTA accord and talks by all accounts — including Trump’s — are progressing.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, speaking at the Hanover trade fair in Germany on Monday, said he hoped for agreement soon on a reworked NAFTA, which includes Mexico, the United States and Canada.

Nieto said differences between the parties could be overcome to revamp the 24-year-old accord, which underpins some $1.2 trillion in annual trilateral trade.

Representatives from the three nations were to meet again in Washington on Tuesday as they push to wrap up a deal.
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Police said Monday they have caught the man suspected of shooting six people, four of them fatally, at a chain restaurant in the southern state U.S. state of Tennessee the day before.

Officials have identified the suspect as 29-year-old Travis Reinking, who was reportedly wearing a green jacket and nothing else when he got out of his truck and shot two people in the parking lot of a Waffle House restaurant early Sunday.

He opened fire with a rifle inside the restaurant, where three people died at the scene and a fourth later died at the hospital.

Nashville area schools opened under lockout procedures Monday morning after being cleared by local officers.

Nashville police chief Steve Anderson said Reinking came into the Waffle House with a “lot of firepower,” carrying four weapons. Two guns were found at the scene.

A customer at the Waffle House tackled the gunman and tossed the weapons behind the counter before the suspect threw off his jacket and fled naked from the scene.

The U.S. Secret Service said Reinking was arrested in July for being inside a restricted zone near the White House in Washington.

Nashville police said the FBI determined Reinking should no longer be allowed to own weapons and turned his guns over to his father, who allegedly returned the weapons to his son.

Police believe the attack was random and that the suspect may have mental issues.

They are calling James Shaw, Jr. – the young customer who tackled the gunman and grabbed the weapon – a hero who likely saved a lot of lives. Police chief Anderson said Shaw’s reaction was “beyond belief.” But Shaw is downplaying his actions.

“I was just trying to save my life. I’m no Superman,” he quietly told reporters.

Reinking was allegedly armed with an AR-15 assault style weapon.

“People have had enough of this,” Nashville mayor David Briley said. “These kind of weapons have to come off the street. Period.”
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U.S. President Donald Trump is welcoming French President Emmanuel Macron to the White House on Monday for a three-day state visit, during which the two leaders have scheduled a mix of official meetings and social events.

WATCH: Macron remarks shortly after landing in Washington

Shortly after his arrival, the French leader and his wife Brigitte Macron, Trump and his wife, first lady Melania Trump, are planting a European Sessile Oak sapling on the South Lawn of the White House, a gift from the Macrons.

About a meter and a half tall and between five and 10 years old, the tree comes from Belleau Wood, where more than 9,000 American Marines died in a 1918 World War I battle on French soil as allied forces fought off German troops.

​The two couples are then taking a helicopter tour of historic monuments in Washington before heading to Mt. Vernon, the majestic 18th century estate of the first U.S. president, George Washington, that overlooks the Potomac River in nearby Virginia. They are touring Washington’s white, British Palladian-style mansion, one of the country’s most popular tourist sites, before having dinner there.

On Tuesday, Trump and his wife are hosting the official military welcoming ceremony at the White House for the Macrons that will include nearly 500 U.S. troops from all five branches of its armed forces.

The leaders will then hold official talks, with Macron set to try to keep Trump from withdrawing next month from the 2015 international pact restraining Iran’s nuclear weapons development. The United States and France, along with Britain, Germany, Russia and China, negotiated the agreement with Tehran in exchange for lifting sanctions that had hobbled Iran’s economy.

But Trump says the deal is the “worst ever” negotiated by the United States and will eventually allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon. Macron and Trump are also expected to discuss trade issues, the continuing civil war in Syria and other world concerns.

The Trumps are hosting their first state dinner for the Macrons on Tuesday at the White House, with the Washington National Opera set to entertain.

Macron is addressing Congress, in English, on Wednesday, before heading back to Paris.

 
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Anticipation is building in Washington before an expected meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, the man Trump dispatched to North Korea for an initial meeting with Kim, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, faces a Senate confirmation vote this week for a new post, secretary of state.
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French President Emmanuel Macron is heading to the United States for a state visit with President Donald Trump, looking to convince him of the need to keep a U.S. presence in Syria even after the defeat of Islamic State terrorists.

Ahead of his arrival in Washington Monday, Macron told Fox News during an interview at the Elysee Palace in Paris, “We will have to build a new Syria after war. That’s why I think the U.S. role is very important.”

He described the U.S. as “a player of last resorts for peace and multilateralism.”

Trump has said he wants to pull the estimated 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria as soon as possible, even as a week ago he ordered the U.S. military to join France and Britain in launching a barrage of missiles targeting Syrian chemical weapons facilities in response to a suspected Syrian gas attack. Trump’s planned troop withdrawal comes after the fall of Raqqa, IS’s self-declared capital of its religious caliphate in northern Syria.

“I’m going to be very blunt,” Macron said in the interview. “If we leave … will we leave the floor to the Iranian regime and [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad? They will prepare a new war.”

He said the U.S. and France are allied but that “even Russia and Turkey will have a very important role to play to create this new Syria and ensure the Syrian people decide for the future.”

Macron is set to arrive in Washington on Monday for three days of meetings, a speech in English to Congress, social events and Trump’s first state dinner.

His visit is occurring as an international chemical weapons monitoring group said its team of inspectors has collected samples at the site of the alleged gas attack two weeks ago in the Syrian town of Douma.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said a report based on the findings and other information gathered by the team will be drafted after the samples are analyzed by designated laboratories.

The group added it will “evaluate the situation and consider future steps, including another possible visit to Douma.”

The fact-finding team’s attempts to enter the town were initially postponed for several days due to a series of security-related setbacks.

Emergency responders said at least 40 people were killed in the suspected April 7 gas attack, which the U.S. and its allies blamed on the Assad regime.

The Syrian government has denied using chemical weapons, a violation of international law, and invited inspectors to investigate.

They arrived in Syria on April 14, the same day the U.S., Britain and France launched missiles targeting three chemical weapons facilities in Syria.

Ken Ward, the U.S. ambassador to the OPCW, claimed on April 16 the Russians had already visited the site of the chemical weapons attack and “may have tampered with it,” a charge Moscow rejected.

On April 9, Moscow’s U.N. ambassador told the U.N. Security Council that Russian experts had visited the site, collected soil samples, interviewed witnesses and medical personnel, and determined no chemical weapons attack had taken place.

U.S. military officials have said the airstrikes were designed to send a powerful message to Syria and its backers, showing that the United States, Britain and France could slice through the nation’s air defense systems at will.
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U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday the United States has given up nothing ahead of his planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, while Pyongyang has already curtailed its nuclear weapons development.

The U.S. leader said on Twitter, “We haven’t given up anything & they have agreed to denuclearization (so great for World), site closure, & no more testing!”

But Trump acknowledged that the eventual outcome of his talks with Kim, which could occur in late May or early June, is uncertain. Pyongyang yet to agree to dismantle its nuclear arsenal and, despite Trump’s claim, has not agreed to the permanent denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

South Korea has said that the North has expressed interest in doing away with its nuclear weapons.

Watch related video by VOA’s Michael Bowman:

“We are a long way from conclusion on North Korea, maybe things will work out, and maybe they won’t – only time will tell,” Trump said, “But the work I am doing now should have been done a long time ago!”

Trump, as is often the case, offered his thoughts after hearing television news commentary he didn’t like, this time from NBC News anchor Chuck Todd.

The president said, “Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd of Fake News NBC just stated that we have given up so much in our negotiations with North Korea, and they have given up nothing.”

Todd said of Kim’s overtures ahead of the summit, “He seems to be giving very little but making it seem like he’s giving a lot.”

The television newsman said, “There’s not many pre-conditions the United States is asking for. So far in this potential summit, North Koreans have gotten a lot out of it. What has the United States gotten yet? We don’t have a release of any of those Americans that they held captive, we don’t have a pledge of denuclearization as the ultimate goal. There’s a lot of things they are not promising that is raising some red flags.”
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Mitt Romney was forced into a Republican primary in his bid for U.S. Senate in Utah after losing a nomination battle Saturday at the state’s far-right-leaning GOP convention.

Romney remains the heavy favorite overall to replace long-serving Sen. Orrin Hatch in November and said he was ready to keep campaigning hard.

If he had won the party delegate vote at the convention, he would have bypassed a primary altogether. Instead, he was edged out by state lawmaker Mike Kennedy, who got 51 percent of the vote to Romney’s 49 percent.

GOP voters will decide between the two in a June 26 primary.

Romney secured his spot on the primary ballot by gathering 28,000 voter signatures but said Saturday that choice was partly to blame for his loss.

Romney, 71, went up against 11 other candidates at the convention, including one dressed as Abraham Lincoln, complete with vest and bow tie. Some candidates questioned Romney’s past criticism of President Donald Trump.

Romney pushed back against critics who said he’s an interloper in Utah politics by referring to his role in staging the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah.

“Some people I’ve spoken with have said this is a David vs. Goliath race, but they’re wrong,” Romney said in his speech. “I’m not Goliath. Washington, D.C., is Goliath.”

Kennedy, a doctor and lawyer, framed himself as an underdog taking on the “Romney machine.” At one point, he pitched in to sweep up tiny paper American flags that had been shot from a confetti cannon hours before.

Delegate Matt Murdoch, 28, said he voted for Kennedy because he’s a family doctor serving many of his neighbors in Alpine, south of Salt Lake City.

Stay-at-home mother Michelle Cluff said she liked Romney’s experience and believes he is ready to get to work as a senator.

Romney was governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007. While in office he signed legislation that greatly expanded access to health care through state-level subsidies and individual mandates to purchase insurance, much like Obamacare.

Romney asked for delegates’ votes after spending two months on the campaign trail visiting dairy farms, taking selfies with college students and making stump speeches in small towns.

After his failed 2012 presidential campaign, he moved to Utah, where he gained popularity after running as the first Mormon presidential nominee of a major political party.

He’s worked to keep the focus on state issues rather than his history of well-documented feuds with Trump.

The two men have shown signs of making peace, and Romney has accepted Trump’s endorsement for Senate. But Romney said Saturday he hasn’t decided whether he’ll endorse the president’s 2020 re-election bid.
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The World Bank’s shareholders on Saturday endorsed a $13 billion paid-in capital increase that will boost China’s shareholding but bring lending reforms that will raise borrowing costs for higher-middle-income countries, including China.

The multilateral lender said the plan would allow it to lift the group’s overall lending to nearly $80 billion in fiscal 2019 from about $59 billion last year and to an average of about $100 billion annually through 2030.

“We have more than doubled the capacity of the World Bank Group,” the institution’s president, Jim Yong Kim, told reporters during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings in Washington. “It’s a huge vote of confidence, but the expectations are enormous.”

The hard-fought capital hike, initially resisted by the Trump administration, will add $7.5 billion paid-in capital for the World Bank’s main concessional lending arm, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Its commercial-terms lender, the International Finance Corp, will get $5.5 billion paid-in capital, and IBRD also will get a $52.6 billion increase in callable capital.

Lending rules

The bank agreed to change IBRD’s lending rules to charge higher rates for developing countries with higher incomes, to discourage them from excessive borrowing.

IBRD previously had charged similar rates for all borrowers, and U.S. Treasury officials had complained that it was lending too much to China and other bigger emerging markets.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said earlier Saturday that he supported the capital hike because of the reforms that it included. The last World Bank capital increase came in 2010.

Cost controls

The current hike comes with cost controls and salary restrictions that will hold World Bank compensation to “a little below average” for the financial sector, Kim said.

He added that there was nothing specific in the agreement that targeted a China lending reduction, but he said lending to China was expected to gradually decline.

In 2015, China founded the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and lends heavily to developing countries through its government export banks.

The agreement will lift China’s shareholding in IBRD to 6.01 percent from 4.68 percent, while the U.S. share would dip slightly to 16.77 percent from 16.89 percent. Washington will still keep its veto power over IBRD and IFC decisions.

Kim said the increase was expected to become fully effective by the time the World Bank’s new fiscal year starts July 1. Countries will have up to eight years to pay for the capital increase.

The U.S. contribution is subject to approval by Congress.
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The National Museum of American History recently celebrated one of the most iconic American filmmakers of the past 25 years: Wes Anderson. From life-sized movie-scene backdrops to organized discussions, live music and drinks, the festival had something to offer for faithful fans and newcomers alike. Masha Morton filed this report.
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