Mere hours after Kim Jong Un arrived back in Pyongyang after the breakdown in talks with President Trump in Hanoi, the North Korean dictator was greeted by a flurry of western media reports warning that his regime had started rebuilding one of its missile-launch facilities. The reports, which follow a decision by the US and South Korea to again suspend military exercises on the peninsula, suggest that the Kim regime may be hedging its bets and planning to restart its missile tests - which have been halted since November 2017 - if the US refuses to budge on sanctions relief for the North Korean economy, which is suffering through an acute economic crisis.

Images from commercial satellites appear to confirm warnings from South Korean intelligence that the North has started "rapidly rebuilding" its long-range rocket-launch site at Sohae, according to the New York Times. Construction work at the facility, which was partially dismantled last summer as part of a good-faith gesture by the Kim regime, began before the Hanoi summit, and analysts said it could have started as early as mid-February. The facility is located in Tongchang-ri, a remote area near the northwestern border with China.