Wyoming welcomes home Otto Warmbier

"At the direction of the president, the Department of State has secured the release of Otto Warmbier from North Korea", Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement Tuesday.

Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old college student detained and imprisoned in North Korea, is carried off of an airplane at Lunken Airport in Cincinnati on Tuesday, June 13, 2017. The family of Otto Warmbier said he was in a coma and was on a Medivac flight home. He said Warmbier, of Wyoming, in suburban Cincinnati, was en route to the U.S. He is looking to increase economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea, with help from China, but has said he's open to meeting Kim.

"We pray for him and pray for his family", Shannon said, without providing other information.

Asked whether the U.S. wanted to see an Iran-style global embargo to deny exports of petroleum and other products to North Korea, Mr Tillerson said that this would only work if Russian Federation and China co-operated. At the same time, his trips have also faced ridicule and criticism from some US politicians and activists who view them as fodder for North Korean propaganda.

- Kim Hak Song, who was detained in early May to be investigated for committing unspecified hostile acts, North Korea has said.

There was no clear sign that the former National Basketball Association bad boy would meet leader Kim Jong Un, as he did on previous visits to the isolated country.

Rodman received the red-carpet treatment on his four past trips since 2013, which generated a lot of publicity - most of it not good - and did little in terms of diplomacy. "I can only feel for what the family is going through", he said, shaking his head.

North Korea will top the agenda at next week's high-level talks between United States and Chinese officials, he added.

"Out of respect for the privacy of Mr. Warmbier and his family", said Tillerson, "we have no further comment".

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That's two Brits and two Americans, and no one you'd recognize if you saw them in the Tally Ho Pub & Grill a mile from Erin Hills. Thomas made six birdies and one bogey on his front nine in the third round, and Hoffman birdied three of his first five holes.

In November 2014, USA spy chief James Clapper went to Pyongyang to bring home Matthew Miller, who had ripped up his visa when entering the country and was serving a six-year sentence on an espionage charge, and Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae, who had been sentenced to 15 years for alleged anti-government activities.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert later said Rodman "had nothing to do with" Warmbier's release.

Officials involved in securing Warmbier's release told The Post that it had nothing to do with Rodman's trip to Pyongyang, calling it a "bizarre coincidence" that might have been a ploy by North Korea to distract from Warmbier's condition.

America appeared to be on a collision course with China today after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned that the USA was considering imposing sanctions on countries that do business with North Korea.

Together with Kenneth Bae, the DPRK government released Matthew Todd Miller, another US citizen who tore his visa upon arrival at Pyongyang International Airport in an alleged attempt to seek asylum and was later given a six-year sentence for similar charges. "We learned of this only one week ago". Of Otto's parents, Cynthia and Fred Warmbier, he said: 'I can't even begin to put myself in their shoes'.

But North Korea has so far rejected South Korean civic groups' bids to visit the North for exchanges, taking issue with South Korea's support of the latest United Nations sanctions. Tillerson says the State Department continues discussing three other detained Americans with North Korea.

Moon, a center-left politician who was sworn in last month after a landslide election win, wants to engage with the North to bring it to the negotiating table, rather than continuing the hardline stance taken by his ousted predecessor Park Geun-Hye.