If Donald Trump thought Kim Jong-un was going to be taken in by a charm offensive, he now knows differently.
The work of diplomacy is often dull and painstaking. Language matters. Details count. When it comes to dismantling the labyrinthine infrastructure required to become a nuclear-armed state, you cannot wing it.
Unfortunately, Mr Trump's transparent shtick has fallen a long way short of the due diligence that any disarmament deal would require. While he did walk away on his own terms, he did so at a cost. His opponent did not blink or yield to overtures that lacked substance. If anything, Mr Kim, who leads a communist regime that abuses its citizens, presides over food poverty and has shown willingness to threaten its neighbours with nuclear annihilation, emerges stronger.
Mr Trump should now realise that the North Korean leader is not a nice guy. The pair's supposed chemistry is not a substitute for deeds. It will take more than the unsubstantiated promise of an economic transformation to persuade North Korea to give up nuclear weapons. The estimate of Mr Trump's intelligence agencies – that Pyongyang has done nothing to reverse its atomic activities – is starkly at odds with the proselytising rhetoric that the president has reserved for Mr Kim.
This disconnect, eight months after a promising if sketchy start to nuclear talks in Singapore, shows the current lack of an enforceable US strategy to bring about the North's denuclearisation.
Mr Trump's preferred messaging device is limited to 280 characters or less. It is there, on Twitter and in public, that he has routinely pilloried Barack Obama's administration for the nuclear deal it did with Iran, and other world powers. It took years of painstaking face-to-face talks between those countries to persuade Iran to rein in its atomic programme. Unlike North Korea, Iran does not and has never possessed nuclear weapons.
The biggest risk following Hanoi is that Mr Kim can use the diplomacy spearheaded by Mr Trump to buy himself more time. The talks in the Vietnamese capital took place against the incongruous background of Mr Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen's testimony to Congress about the US president. In many ways, the unseemly details overshadowed Mr Trump's talks with Mr Kim, which never really got off the ground.
The North Korean leader may well be wondering how long Mr Trump will be in the White House. Why should he do a deal? Does he really need to? His answers will emerge soon enough as he and his team in Pyongyang will digest the past two days and plan their next move. Mr Trump should do the same because he left Vietnam without anything to back up his big talk. He faces an adversary, not a friend, and when it comes to diplomacy he has been made to look like an amateur whose words have so far proven the adage that talk is cheap.
The specs
Engine: 3.8-litre, twin-turbo V8
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Power: 582bhp
Torque: 730Nm
Price: Dh649,000
On sale: now
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Emergency phone numbers in the UAE
Estijaba – 8001717 – number to call to request coronavirus testing
Ministry of Health and Prevention – 80011111
Dubai Health Authority – 800342 – The number to book a free video or voice consultation with a doctor or connect to a local health centre
Emirates airline – 600555555
Etihad Airways – 600555666
Ambulance – 998
Knowledge and Human Development Authority – 8005432 ext. 4 for Covid-19 queries
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
It’ll be summer in the city as car show tries to move with the times
If 2008 was the year that rocked Detroit, 2019 will be when Motor City gives its annual car extravaganza a revamp that aims to move with the times.
A major change is that this week's North American International Auto Show will be the last to be held in January, after which the event will switch to June.
The new date, organisers said, will allow exhibitors to move vehicles and activities outside the Cobo Center's halls and into other city venues, unencumbered by cold January weather, exemplified this week by snow and ice.
In a market in which trends can easily be outpaced beyond one event, the need to do so was probably exacerbated by the decision of Germany's big three carmakers – BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi – to skip the auto show this year.
The show has long allowed car enthusiasts to sit behind the wheel of the latest models at the start of the calendar year but a more fluid car market in an online world has made sales less seasonal.
Similarly, everyday technology seems to be catching up on those whose job it is to get behind microphones and try and tempt the visiting public into making a purchase.
Although sparkly announcers clasp iPads and outline the technical gadgetry hidden beneath bonnets, people's obsession with their own smartphones often appeared to offer a more tempting distraction.
“It's maddening,” said one such worker at Nissan's stand.
The absence of some pizzazz, as well as top marques, was also noted by patrons.
“It looks like there are a few less cars this year,” one annual attendee said of this year's exhibitors.
“I can't help but think it's easier to stay at home than to brave the snow and come here.”
