WHITE HOUSE REPORT

To : <redaksi@mediahukumindonesia.com>Date : Fri, 09 Mar 2018 21:43:51 +0700   Subject : President Trump agrees to meet North Korea’s Kim Jong-un

President Trump agrees to meet North Korea’s Kim Jong-un 

Speaking just outside the White House’s West Wing last night, South Korean National Security Advisor Chung Eui-Yong delivered news that President Donald J. Trump’s maximum pressure policy—together with international solidarity driven by American leadership—had brought the North Korea situation to an important juncture

“Today, I had the privilege of briefing President Trump on my recent visit to Pyongyang, North Korea,” Chung said. “In our meeting, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said he is committed to denuclearization. Kim pledged that North Korea will refrain from any further nuclear or missile tests. He understands that the routine joint military exercises between the Republic of Korea and the United States must continue.”

Kim also expressed his eagerness to meet President Trump “as soon as possible.” The President said he would meet Kim Jong-un by May to achieve permanent denuclearization.

“Great progress being made but sanctions will remain until an agreement is reached. Meeting being planned!,” President Trump tweeted last night.

Read the full statement by Chung about North Korea.

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Protecting American steel and aluminum 

President Donald J. Trump is addressing unfair trade practices in the steel and aluminum industries by putting in place a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports.

“Economic vitality, growth, and prosperity at home is absolutely necessary for American power and influence abroad,” the President says. “A Nation that does not protect prosperity at home cannot protect its interests abroad.”

A few key details about these Proclamations:

• Tariffs on steel and aluminum are anticipated to reduce imports to levels needed for these American industries to achieve long-term viability.
• The strengthening of the U.S. domestic steel and aluminum industries will reduce our reliance on foreign producers.
• President Trump is welcoming any country with which we have a security relationship to discuss alternative ways to address these concerns.

Learn more about how President Trump is addressing unfair trade practices.

Go deeper: The President will protect national security from the effects of unfair trade.

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Closing the ‘digital gender gap’ 

The revolution in information technology over the past few decades has often been called a “great equalizer.” Yet just as the impact from digital technology is accelerating, far too many women are being left behind. According to USAID, more than a billion and a half women in low- and middle-income countries today still do not own mobile phones.

Yesterday, as the world recognized International Women’s Day, Ivanka Trump joined with USAID Administrator Mark Green to launch USAID’s next women’s empowerment initiative, the WomenConnect Challenge. The initiative is a global call for solutions designed to close the gender digital divide, with USAID identifying and testing promising pilot approaches.

“Through closing the digital gender gap, women can help pull their families out of extreme poverty and serve as active participants and leaders in their societies,” USAID says.

Learn more about the WomenConnect Challenge and the Trump Administration’s work to empower women.

Photo of the Day

President Donald J. Trump signs the Section 232 Proclamations on Steel and Aluminum Imports | March 8, 2018 (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

POTUS TODAY

This morning, President Trump will receive his daily intelligence briefing. In the afternoon, Vice President Mike Pence will deliver keynote remarks at an America First Policies “Tax Cuts to Put America First” event.

White House Press Briefing (3/9/18):

THE WHITE HOUSE  MHI

Q-MHI Daily Brief ;

 Good morning, Q-MHI readers!

WHAT TO WATCH FOR TODAY

South Korea heads to the US with a message from North Korea. Two officials who met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un earlier this week are expected to extend an offer from the dictator to the Trump administration to negotiate over denuclearization.

Such talks have failed before, so Washington remains cautious.Some denuclearization agreements Pyongyang previously acceded to:

• Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (1985)
• Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula (1992)
• Agreed Framework between the United States of America and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (1994)
• Six-Party Talks agreement on verifiable North Korean denuclearization (2005)
• “Leap Day agreement” (involving US food aid), part of the possibly resumed Six-Party Talks (2012)

The caution of 2005 proved warranted. Though in September of that year North Korea agreed in principle to abandon its nuclear weapons project—a move seen by many as a major diplomatic breakthrough—in July 2006, it conducted more missile tests, and in October 2006 held its first nuclear test, prompting the United Nations to impose a variety of sanctions.

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Donald Trump formally announces tariffs. The White House may be willing (paywall) to temporarily exempt Canada and Mexico from controversial steel and aluminum tariffs that the president initially insisted would be universal.

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Kroger releases its fourth-quarter earnings. The US supermarket operator was hit by stiff competition after Amazon’s $13 billion acquisition of Whole Foods last year. Expectations are low—it’s the 2018 profit outlook investors are particularly anxious about.

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Treating others like you’d like to be treated. This has always been Four Points by Sheraton’s guiding principle. Watch real stories about how they live every day by the #GoldenRule.  

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

Grab neared a deal with Uber… Southeast Asia’s dominant ride-hailing service is reportedly ready to buy out Uber’s operations in the region and offer Uber a stake in Grab. That’s a similar deal to the one Uber did with Didi Chuxing in China in 2016, when it sold its China operations to Didi in exchange for equity in the company.

…And Travis Kalanick launched his own investment fund. The ex-Uber CEO said the fund, called 10100, will invest in real estate, e-commerce, and emerging tech in China and India, and in companies that focus on ‘large-scale job creation.’ Kalanick is well placed to make some investments: he made $1.4 billion from selling his Uber shares to SoftBank.

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Apple unearthed serious supplier problems during its audits.Apple, which runs one of the world’s largest supply chains, said that it had found a higher number of violations of its labor and environmental policies for suppliers. It found 44 “core violations” of its labor rules in 2017, double the previous year. Compliance with Apple’s 60-hour work week fell.

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More than 300 trains were cancelled as Spanish women went on strike. Workers unions called the 24-hour strike to highlight gender inequality on International Women’s Day. Women in Spain are paid 13% and 19% less than their male counterparts in the public and private sectors respectively.

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Trump asked witnesses what they discussed with the special counsel. Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigators are reportedly aware of two occasions where the president asked witnesses about their interviews, including asking former chief of staff Reince Priebus if they had been “nice” to him (paywall).

Q-MHI OBSESSION INTERLUDE

Lianna Brinded on why women need to start bragging if they want to close the pay gap. “You’d think that simply performing well at work and helping others would be enough to get you the recognition you deserve. But as a woman you might as well shoot yourself in the foot. If want to move up the ladder, you need to be your own personal cheerleader because people are less likely to do it for you. You need to brag.”

MATTERS OF DEBATE

Rich people are ruining wine. The hobbyist “lifestyle vintner” lacks knowledge of vines, husbandry, and winemaking, and puts in no physical labor.

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The boom in self-employed working mothers is nothing to celebrate. It’s often their only option, but means they don’t get the employee benefits or the stability that comes with working for a company.

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Streaming is killing cult film. Once upon a time, you had to wait for an arthouse theater to schedule a screening to watch obscure movies.

SURPRISING DISCOVERIES

A lack of diversity hurts firms’ profits. A study found that discriminatory pay practices cost the UK economy £127 billion ($176 billion) in lost output each year.

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Switzerland is wrapping its glaciers in blankets. The white canvas coverings reduce melting by reflecting sunlight.off the Rhone Glacier, to try to reduce how much of it disappears each year.

And Swiss glaciologist David Volken says it’s probably working; he told Agence France-Presse the blankets may reduce seasonal melting by as much as 70%.

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Dogs “see” the world with their noses. New research reveals that canines form a mental picture of a target when tracking down a scent.For humans, vision is an incredibly important sense. Dogs, by contrast, rely more on their senses of smell and hearing to gather information about the world around them. Their vision actually sucks, having a visual acuity that’s four to eight times worse than ours.

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Samsung’s new TVs are nearly invisible. “Ambient Mode” allows you to snap a picture of the wall behind the TV and make it the TV’s background.The result is something that looks like a floating black rectangle mounted on a wall.

Samsung even includes a digital version of the shadow this black rectangle would cast on the wall, as if there really wasn’t a large LED panel sitting in the middle of the thin metal strips.

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Giant squids practice food piracy. Kleptoparasitism occurs when one giant squid kills another to steal its food.Even in death, the squid was an opportunity for scientists. Guerra rushed to the beach on the Bares peninsula, where he found the carcass, the size of a large adult man, still “very fresh.” He and his colleagues at the Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas, part of the Spanish National Research Council, set out to learn how the squid had met her end.

This story is still full of questions. No one knows how long giant squid really live, Guerra points out. We don’t know how male and female giant squid find each other in the dark, wide ocean, or how they mate. We don’t know how or where they lay eggs, where baby squid grow up, how adults migrate through the ocean. We don’t even know if giant squid make sounds.

Discovering things about Architeuthis dux has been “like a hobby” outside of Guerra’s main research in marine ecology and fisheries, he says. Giant squid appear so rarely that it’s almost impossible to study them. Earlier in his career, Guerra spent two 15-day research cruises trying unsuccessfully to film the animals. Now, as an emeritus professor, he has been able to add a little more to our understanding of these animals. “I am very happy with that,” he says.

Q-MHI 

WHITE HOUSE REPORT

To : <redaksi@mediahukumindonesia.com>Date : Wed, 07 Mar 2018 22:17:51 +0700   Subject : North Korea feels the pressure

North Korea feels the pressure 

News broke yesterday that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is willing to talk to the United States about giving up his country’s nuclear weapons, according to South Korean officials who traveled to Pyongyang this week.

President Donald J. Trump responded with cautious optimism that America’s “maximum pressure” campaign could produce a breakthrough. “For the first time in many years, a serious effort is being made by all parties concerned,” the President tweeted yesterday. “May be false hope, but the U.S. is ready to go hard in either direction!”

Vice President Mike Pence echoed Ronald Reagan in his statement about the Administration’s response. “Whichever direction talks with North Korea go, we will be firm in our resolve,” the Vice President said. “All options are on the table and our posture toward the regime will not change until we see credible, verifiable, and concrete steps toward denuclearization.”

Read about Vice President Pence’s visit with North Korean defectors before the 2018 Olympic Games.

A year of achievements in science and technology 

Since President Trump’s inauguration, the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has built a robust team of more than 50 staff members, including a corps of scientists and engineers, policymakers, and academics. Today, OSTP unveils a report highlighting the tremendous science and technology achievements of the Administration to date.

The report is not an exhaustive list of activities, but it showcases select accomplishments that demonstrate how science and technology policymaking is helping to Make America Great Again.

A few of its highlights:

• President Trump’s 2018 Budget Request would result in the highest percentage of the budget allocated for Research & Development since fiscal year 2014.
• Last March, the President established the White House Office of American Innovation to develop policies to improve government services and drive technological breakthroughs.
• OSTP has been instrumental in Administration efforts to promote the free flow of data while standing firm against unfair trade practices.

Learn more about OSTP’s year of empowering Americans to innovate.

200 years with Sweden 

“They’ve been with us for a long time. In fact, I think we’re together for about 200 years, to be exact,” President Trump told reporters before his bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Stefan Löfven of Sweden. “This is an anniversary.”

The President and Swedish Prime Minister discussed trade, security, and the threat from terrorism during their meeting yesterday at the White House. “Our relationship is a very strong one. We have trade deals; we have military deals,” President Trump said. “So we’re going to have quite a long discussion.”

President Trump also fielded questions about North Korea during the joint press conference. “Sweden will always be helpful. Sweden has been helpful in the past,” he said.

Watch a short recap from President Trump’s visit with Prime Minister Löfven.

Photo of the Day

President Donald J. Trump and Prime Minister Stefan Löfven of Sweden | March 6, 2018 (Official White House Photo by Stephanie Chasez)

POTUS TODAY

Today, President Trump deliver remarks at the Latino Coalition Legislative Summit.

This afternoon, The Vice President will deliver keynote remarks at an America First Policies “Tax Cuts to Put America First” event.

White House Press Briefing (3/7/2018) :

THE WHITE HOUSE  MHI