It looks like there will be a vodka shortage for a little while for the Kim regime elite:

Dutch customs officials at the port of Rotterdam have seized 90,000 bottles of vodka believed to be destined for the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, and his army chiefs.
The discovery, on the eve of Kim’s two-day summit with Donald Trump in Hanoi, was made after Dutch authorities flagged up the suspicious route and records of a Chinese-owned container ship, Nebula.

The Russian vodka, contained in 3,000 boxes, had been recorded as being due for unloading in China, via the ports of Hamburg and Rotterdam.
When officers sought to retrieve the container from the ship’s hull, it was found to be concealed and hemmed in by the fuselage of an aircraft also due to be exported to China.

The Guardian

You can read more at the link.

The Warmbier case is clearly taking a backseat to the larger US goal of trying to get North Korea to denuclearize:

Donald Trump took Kim Jong Un’s word that he knew nothing of the torture of an American college student while in North Korean custody, an about-face that sparked a bipartisan backlash back home on Thursday.
The US president appeared to side with the reclusive leader about the 2017 case of Otto Warmbier, drawing outrage from incredulous Democrats who accused Trump of repeatedly aligning with tyrants.
The 22-year-old Ohio native was returned to the United States in a coma and died shortly afterwards. A US judge concluded Warmbier was tortured by North Korean authorities.
At the conclusion of his Hanoi summit with Kim, Trump told reporters he talked with Kim about the “horrible” Warmbier case.
“He knew the case very well, but he knew it later,” Trump said, adding that “some really bad things” happened to Warmbier while he was detained.
Kim “tells me that he didn’t know about it, and I will take him at his word.”

AFP

You can read all the so called outrage from the usual suspects at the link.

It will be interesting to see if whoever was responsible for this is caught by Spanish authorities:

The Spanish Ministry of the Interior is currently investigating an incident alleged to have occurred at the DPRK embassy in Madrid, an official confirmed to NK News on Wednesday. 
Spanish outlet El Confidencial first reported that the DPRK embassy had been the subject of an attack and break-in last Friday, with diplomatic staff said to have been tied up and gagged while computer equipment was stolen.
“We can confirm that this is under investigation, but that is the only thing we can say,” an official from the communications department of the Ministry of the Interior said. 
When pressed to confirm a robbery had in fact taken place, the official reiterated that they had nothing more to add.

NK News

You can read more at the link.

We promised Libya’s dictator Gaddafi that if he gave up his nuke program, we wouldn’t overthrow him. He gave them up, and we blew him away. NK’s Kim won’t make the same mistake. Just another negative consequence of short-sighted regime-change war policies

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) February 26, 2019

As long as these companies are allowed to operate without facing consequences, the Kim regime will continue to be able to break sanctions:

A Russian tanker violated international trade sanctions by transferring fuel to a North Korean vessel at sea at least four times between October 2017 and May 2018, two crew members who witnessed the transfers said.

Such transactions could have helped provide North Korea with an economic lifeline and eased the isolation of the secretive communist state, whose leader, Kim Jong Un, is due to meet U.S. President Donald Trump in Vietnam this week.
Primportbunker, the owner of the vessel the crew members said made the transfers, did not respond to requests for comment by telephone. No one answered the door when Reuters visited the building where Primportbunker has its headquarters in the port city of Vladivostok on Russia’s Pacific coast.

On the four voyages between Oct. 13, 2017, and May 7, 2018, the Tantal tanker gave its destination as the Chinese port of Ningbo when it set sail, according to port documents seen by Reuters and tracking data from financial data company Refinitiv.
It then met up in international waters with a North Korean vessel to which it transferred its cargo of fuel, the two crew members who witnessed the transfers said.
The two crew said the fuel transfers took place when the Tantal’s transponder, which allows the vessel to be tracked at sea, was not operating. Shipping industry experts said this indicates the transponder was deliberately turned off or the Tantal had entered a zone not covered by ship-tracking radar.
On each occasion, the transponder started operating again when the Tantal was close to port in Russia, the two crew said.

Reuters via a reader tip

You can read more at the link.

It looks like President Trump is not interested in the “pretend denuclearization” that the North Koreans want and instead is committed to pressuring them to really denuclearize by walking away from the summit:

U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un failed to reach an agreement on denuclearization at their summit here in the Vietnamese capital, Thursday.

Ultimately, the breakdown of the summit “was about sanctions,” Trump said in a press conference after the meeting with Kim. 

“It wasn’t a thing to be signing anything today. He (Kim Jong-un) is quite a guy, quite a character. We had some options but at this time, we decided not to do any of the options,” Trump told reporters in a hurriedly arranged press conference after holding extended talks with the North Korean leader.

“Sometimes, you have to walk. This was just of those items. Basically, they (North Korea) wanted the sanctions lifted, and we couldn’t do that. We haven’t given up anything. He wants denuclearization. He just wants to do areas that are less important than what we want.”

Ahead of the conference, the White House said in a statement that dialogue on nuclear disarmament would continue. “Their respective teams look forward to meeting in the future.” But top U.S. officials went on to say that the negotiations will take time.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but I have to wonder if the North Koreans misread the Trump administration based off of media coverage? Maybe they thought that with all the negative media and analysts saying Trump was desperate for a deal that they actually believed it; thus they kept pressuring him on sanctions thinking he would fold. If this what the North Koreans were thinking they obviously don’t know President Trump very well.

It seems the one good thing that came out of this summit is that Kim Jong-un has heard for himself from President Trump instead of from surrogates and the media that he is serious about sanctions remaining in place until they commit to real denuclearization.

Activists convicted of crimes during anti-US protests over the 10 years of conservative rule in South Korea have been pardoned:

“We selected seven major conflicts of our society and pardoned those involved in the cases for the sake of social unity,” Minister Park said.

Of the 107 activists, 13 were convicted of holding demonstrations against the Lee government’s decision to resume imports of U.S. beef. Moon also pardoned 11 people who were convicted of participating in illegal protests to condemn the Park administration’s poor handling of the Sewol ferry’s sinking in 2014 and 22 convicted of holding illegal rallies to denounce a comfort women deal with Japan signed during her presidency. 

The ministry said Moon also pardoned 13 people convicted of holding illegal rallies over the Park government’s decision to allow the U.S. deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) anti-missile system. Participants in rallies to both support and oppose the deployment were pardoned. 

Seven people convicted of holding illegal strikes at Ssangyong Motor in 2009 also received special pardons. 

Moon also issued special pardons to 19 people who were convicted of holding illegal rallies against a government plan to build a naval base in Jeju. The plan was initiated by the Roh Moo-hyun administration in 2007, when Moon was serving as the presidential chief of staff. After the plan faced fierce protests from Jeju residents, Moon repeatedly expressed regret that the government failed to listen to their opinions at the initial stage.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but what President Moon has endorsed is that holding illegal rallies is okay.

So how would the Moon administration react if conservative activists made up a phony issue like the 2008 US beef protests, occupied and closed down central Seoul, and violently attacked police?

Kim Jong Un had a cigarette break this morning at Nanning station in China.

Kim Yo Jong can be seen carrying an ashtray for him.

Hyon Song Wol also visible in one shot.

Pics from TBS Japanhttps://t.co/3imj1VnugQ pic.twitter.com/gu3cATjjiK

— Chad O'Carroll (@chadocl) February 26, 2019