Screen shot: Seal of the Diplomatic Academy of London, where Ambassador Joseph Mifsud was once director. 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com 
 
Hour One
Wednesday 30 May 2018/ Hour 1, Block A:  Arthur Waldron, Lauder Professor of International Relations in the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania, in re:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-trump-the-challenges-from-china-multiply-1527531151
Wednesday 30 May 2018/ Hour 1, Block B:  Charles Ortel of the "Sunday with Charles" podcast, in re: http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-trade-warnings-20180130-story.html
Wednesday 30 May 2018/ Hour 1, Block C: Juliana Liu劉林 (@julianaliu). Senior editor @ inkstonenews, (SCMP), in re:  US automobiles in China.  Trade across the board. ZTE.
Wednesday 30 May 2018/ Hour 1, Block D: Matthew Ha, FDD, in re:  Kim Jong-un wants a burger stand set up in Pyongyang for the meeting w Pres Trump, even though the mtg will be in Singapore.  . . .  A high North Korean leader must have participated in a number of crimes – sinking South Korean ships, murder of Kim Jong-un’s relatives, and the like. 
..  ..  .. 
The right-hand man to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has met US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in New York to discuss a historic summit.   Gen Kim Yong-chol flew in from the Chinese capital Beijing on an Air China flight.   He is the most senior North Korean to visit the US in nearly 20 years.
US President Donald Trump previously cancelled the 12 June summit but both sides have since made fresh efforts to hold it as planned.  Scheduled to happen in Singapore, the historic meeting would be the first between sitting US and North Korean leaders.  What do we know of the first meeting?
On Wednesday evening, Mr Pompeo and Gen Kim began with a dinner at a building close to the UN headquarters.   North Korea has strongly objected to statements by Trump administration members comparing North Korean denuclearisation to Libya's.   Former Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi gave up his nuclear programme only for him to be killed by Western-backed rebels a few years later.   Further talks are planned for Thursday. What other talks are going on?
Choe Son-hui, North Korea's vice-foreign minister, is continuing to meet Sung Kim, a former US ambassador to South Korea, at Panmunjom on the border between the two Koreas.
These talks have been continuing since Sunday with some long breaks.
The two diplomats have faced one another before during previous denuclearisation negotiations.
      Media caption  The nuclear word Trump and Kim can't agree on
In Singapore itself, a US team led by Joe Hagin is thought to be meeting Kim Chang-son, the de facto chief of staff to the North Korean leader, to talk about logistics.  And Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, is due to arrive in Pyongyang on Thursday for talks. He and Mr Pompeo spoke on Wednesday for the first time, by phone.
White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders confirmed the US and North Korean leaders still planned to meet next month.  "As the president says, if it happens, we'll certainly be ready," she said.   http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44309961
 
Hour Two
Wednesday 30 May 2018/ Hour 2, Block A:  David Maxwell, retired U.S. Army Special Forces colonel and fellow at the Institute of Corean American Studies in re:  Kim Yong-choi perforce engaged in murders and massive criminality in order to achieve his high level in the DPRK regime.    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/30/kim-yong-chol-the-ultimate-north-korean-regime-insider
Wednesday 30 May 2018/ Hour 2, Block B:  Charles Burton, professor at Brock University, on this: http://www.businessinsider.com/china-social-credit-system-punishments-and-rewards-explained-2018-4
Wednesday 30 May 2018/ Hour 2, Block C:  Joe Pappalardo, Popular Mechanics, in re:
Wednesday 30 May 2018/ Hour 2, Block D:  Monica Crowley, London Center for Policy Research, in re:   GDP prognostications. The US economy. The inutility of Democrats’s railing against Pres Trump without having any good national figure nor any political proposals that appeal to the majority of the population as we roll swiftly toward the November 2018 elections. Even while the economy is burgeoning, US foreign policy seems to be moving ahead well, and
 
Hour Three
Wednesday 30 May 2018/ Hour 3, Block A: Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal editorial board; in re: Why did the Italian election generate a falling euro?  Two populist parties: La Liga (northern, wants a flat tax), and the Five Star Movement (from the south, which wants a guaranteed minimum wage).   The two have spent weeks trying to find joint policies for a coalition, but gave up. The League, esp, may use this rejection to gather more power. 
The absurd flap in Kiev, where a journo, Arkady Babchenko, was reported murdered — for twenty-four hours; then he appeared at a podium to announce that he’d lied in order to smoke out a passel of murderers who were genuinely trying to kill him for having criticized Moscow. Everyone believed the tale because of the number of reporters who almost definitely have been killed by Moscow,
Wednesday 30 May 2018/ Hour 3, Block B:  Lisa Daftari, The Foreign Desk, in re: Protests in Iran, esp in Teheran: around a funeral of a famous, senior actor who died at age 88. Had not worked for forty years, having been banned by the mullahs.  Today’s youth have heard all their lives from their parents of the golden age of their youth, before the ayatollahs grabbed power.  Massive strikes nationally: 160 cities where truckers are coming out and striking.  Also, anti-hijab protests.
Wednesday 30 May 2018/ Hour 3, Block C:  Lee Smith, RealClearInvestigations, & The  Tablet, in re:  The Maltese Phantom. . . Ambassador Joseph Mifsud was told by Vincenzo Scotti to go into hiding. Mifsud was well known to the FBI. Has been in the US at public venues. The Link Campus of the University of Malta in Rome. He trained intell and police officers for over a decade. FBI agents also taught there, having been sent by a department of the US embassy in Rome, FBI is now trying to portray Mifsud as a Russian agent or Kremlin-linked spy. Not!   He’s penetrated MI6, FBI, CIA< and multiple intll eservices.  A heckuva cut-out.
Claire Smith was a dipl with 25 yrs’ experience in Beijing and Islamabad. Was in UK Joint Intelligence Committee, at Diplomatic Academy of London, and a school near Bannockburn, Stirling University. 
Wednesday 30 May 2018/ Hour 3, Block D:  Lee Smith, RealClearInvestigations, & The  Tablet, in re:  The Maltese Phantom, part two.
 
Hour Four
Wednesday 30 May 2018/ Hour 4, Block A:  The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill, by Greg Mitchell
Wednesday 30 May 2018/ Hour 4, Block B:  The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill, by Greg Mitchell
Wednesday 30 May 2018/ Hour 4, Block C:  1956: The World in Revolt, by Simon Hall
Wednesday 30 May 2018/ Hour 4, Block D:  1956: The World in Revolt, by Simon Hall