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If US maintains its sanctions, Kim Jong Un warns North Korea could consider change of tactics

Agencies
January 2, 2019

Pyongyang, Jan 2: Nuclear-armed North Korea wants good relations with the US but could consider a change of approach if Washington maintains its sanctions, leader Kim Jong Un warned in his New Year speech Tuesday after 12 months of diplomatic rapprochement. At a summit with US President Donald Trump in Singapore in June the two signed a vaguely worded pledge on denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. But progress has since stalled with Pyongyang and Washington arguing over what that means.

"If the US fails to carry out its promise to the world... and remains unchanged in its sanctions and pressure upon the DPRK," Kim said Tuesday, "we might be compelled to explore a new path for defending the sovereignty of our country and supreme interests of our state".

He was willing to meet Trump again at any time, he added, "to produce results welcomed by the international community".

The North is demanding sanctions relief -- it is subject to multiple measures over its banned nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes -- and has condemned US insistence on its nuclear disarmament as "gangster-like".

Washington is pushing to maintain the measures against the North until its "final, fully verified denuclearisation".

Kim's speech "expressed his frustration with the lack of progress in negotiations so far", said former South Korean vice unification minister Kim Hyung-seok.

The North Korean leader "obviously had certain expectations that the US would take certain steps -- however rudimentary they are -- after the North blew up a nuclear test site and took other steps. But none of them materialised.

"He is faced with this urgent task to improve his 'socialist economy' -- which is impossible to achieve without lifting of the sanctions."

In marked contrast with January 1, 2018, when he ordered mass production of nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles, Kim said the North had "declared that we would no longer produce, test, use or spread our nuclear arsenal", calling for the US to take "corresponding measures".

The production pledge was a "significant evolution in leadership intent, if true", Ankit Panda of the Federation of American Scientists said on Twitter, but credibility was an issue.

"All this might offer is a temporary cap on warhead production as long as talks are on with the US -- to be withdrawn when sanctions relief doesn't arrive," he added.

The line was not included in the first English-language summary of the speech by the North's official KCNA news agency.

Kim spoke sitting in a dark leather armchair, in a large office lined with packed bookshelves and paintings of his predecessors, father Kim Jong Il and grandfather Kim Il Sung.

As he began speaking -- in a deep, gravelly voice and wearing a dark suit and blue tie -- a clock behind him read at moments after 12.

But at times during the address it was blurred out and towards the end of the half-hour broadcast it was close to 1, suggesting the speech was recorded in several takes.

The leader's New Year speech is a key moment in the North Korean political calendar, reviewing the past and setting out goals for the future.

The 2018 address was a crucial catalyst for the developments that followed.

It came after a year of high tensions when the North made rapid progress with its weapons development, carrying out its sixth nuclear test -- by far its most powerful to date -- and launching rockets capable of reaching the entire US mainland.

The two leaders had traded personal insults -- Trump mocked Kim as "Little Rocket Man", who in turn called him a "mentally deranged US dotard" -- and threats of war as fears of conflict rose.

In last year's speech Kim warned "the nuclear button is on my office desk all the time", but also offered to send a team to the forthcoming Winter Olympics in the South.

That opened the way for the South's dovish President Moon Jae-in to play the role of peace broker.

Seoul and Washington are in a security alliance and the US stations 28,500 troops in the South to protect it against its neighbour.

A rapid sequence of developments followed, with athletes and a senior delegation led by Kim's powerful sister going to the Pyeongchang Games in February, before Kim met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing ahead of the Singapore summit with Trump.

Kim also met Moon three times in 2018 -- twice at the border truce village of Panmunjom and once in the North's capital -- and at the weekend vowed to meet Moon "frequently" this year.

South Korea on Tuesday reacted positively to Kim's speech, which came after Seoul and Pyongyang have pursued several reconciliation initiatives in recent months.

These include projects to upgrade the North's outdated rail infrastructure and reconnect it with the South.

"We welcome Kim's reaffirmation... for complete denuclearisation and permanent peace of the Korean peninsula as well as the improvement in North-South ties," Seoul's unification ministry said in a statement.

Much of Kim's speech Tuesday focused on North Korea's moribund economy, saying that improving people's lives was his top priority and tackling energy shortages was an urgent task.

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Agencies
January 9,2020

Washington, Jan 9: The U.S. and Iran stepped back from the brink of possible war Wednesday as President Donald Trump signaled he would not retaliate militarily for Iran's missile strikes on Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops. No one was harmed in the strikes, but U.S. forces in the region remained on high alert.

Speaking from the White House, Trump seemed intent on deescalating the crisis, which spiralled after he authorized the assassination of Iran's top general, Qassem Soleimani. Iran responded overnight by firing more than a dozen missiles at two installations in Iraq, its most direct assault on America since the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

Trump's takeaway was that “Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world.”

The region remained on edge, however, and American troops including a quick-reaction force dispatched over the weekend were on high alert. Hours after Trump spoke, an ‘incoming’ siren went off in Baghdad's Green Zone after what seemed to be small rockets “impacted” the diplomatic area, a Western official said. There were no reports of casualties.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the overnight strike was not necessarily the totality of Iran's response. “Last night they received a slap,” Khamenei said. “These military actions are not sufficient (for revenge). What is important is that the corrupt presence of America in this region comes to an end.”

The strikes had pushed Tehran and Washington perilously close to all-out conflict and left the world waiting to see whether the American president would respond with more military force. Trump, in his nine-minute, televised address, spoke of a robust U.S. military with missiles that are “big, powerful, accurate, lethal and fast.'' But then he added: “We do not want to use it."

Iran for days had been promising to respond forcefully to Soleimani's killing, but its limited strike on two bases--one in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil and the other at Ain al-Asad in western Iraq--appeared to signal that it too was uninterested in a wider clash with the U.S. Foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted that the country had “concluded proportionate measures in self-defence.”

Trump said the U.S. was “ready to embrace peace with all who seek it.” That marked a sharp change in tone from his warning a day earlier that “if Iran does anything that they shouldn't be doing, they're going to be suffering the consequences, and very strongly.”

Trump opened his remarks at the White House by reiterating his promise that “Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.” Iran had announced in the wake of Soleimani's killing that it would no longer comply with any of the limits on uranium enrichment in the 2015 nuclear deal crafted to keep it from building a nuclear device.

The president, who had earlier pulled the U.S. out of the deal, seized on the moment of calm to call for negotiations toward a new agreement that would do more to limit Iran's ballistic missile programmes and constrain regional proxy campaigns like those led by Soleimani.

Trump spoke of new sanctions on Iran, but it was not immediately clear what those would be.

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Agencies
August 7,2020

Russia boasts that it's about to become the first country to approve a Covid-19 vaccine, with mass vaccinations planned as early as October using shots that are yet to complete clinical trials -- and scientists worldwide are sounding the alarm that the headlong rush could backfire.

Moscow sees a Sputnik-like propaganda victory, recalling the Soviet Union's launch of the world's first satellite in 1957.

But the experimental Covid-19 shots began first-in-human testing on a few dozen people less than two months ago, and there's no published scientific evidence yet backing Russia's late entry to the global vaccine race, much less explaining why it should be considered a front-runner.

“I'm worried that Russia is cutting corners so that the vaccine that will come out may be not just ineffective, but also unsafe,” said Lawrence Gostin, a global public health law expert at Georgetown University. “It doesn't work that way... Trials come first. That's really important.”

According to Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia's Direct Investment Fund that bankrolled the effort, a vaccine developed by the Gamaleya research institute in Moscow may be approved in days, before scientists complete what's called a Phase 3 study.

That final-stage study, usually involving tens of thousands of people, is the only way to prove if an experimental vaccine is safe and really works.

Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said members of “risk groups,” such as medical workers, may be offered the vaccine this month.

He didn't clarify whether they would be part of the Phase 3 study that is said to be completed after the vaccine receives “conditional approval.”

Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova promised to start “industrial production” in September, and Murashko said mass vaccination may begin as early as October.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease specialist, questioned the fast-track approach last week.

“I do hope that the Chinese and the Russians are actually testing a vaccine before they are administering the vaccine to anyone, because claims of having a vaccine ready to distribute before you do testing I think is problematic at best," he said.

Questions about this vaccine candidate come after the US, Britain and Canada last month accused Russia of using hackers to steal vaccine research from Western labs.

Delivering a vaccine first is a matter of national prestige for the Kremlin as it tries to assert the image of Russia as a global power capable of competing with the US and China.

The notion of being “the first in the world” dominated state news coverage of the effort, with government officials praising reports of the first-step testing.

In April, President Vladimir Putin ordered state officials to shorten the time of clinical trials for a variety of drugs, including potential coronavirus vaccines.

According to Russia's Association of Clinical Trials Organizations, the order set “an unattainable bar” for scientists who, as a result, "joined in on the mad race, hoping to please those at power.”

The association first raised concern in late May, when professor Alexander Gintsburg, head of the Gamaleya institute, said he and other researchers tried the vaccine on themselves.

The move was a “crude violation of the very foundations of clinical research, Russian law and universally accepted international regulations" the group said in an open letter to the government, urging scientists and health officials to adhere to clinical research standards.

But a month later, the Health Ministry authorized clinical trials of the Gamaleya product, with what appeared to be another ethical issue.

Human studies started June 17 among 76 volunteers. Half were injected with a vaccine in liquid form and the other half with a vaccine that came as soluble powder.

Some in the first half were recruited from the military, which raised concerns that servicemen may have been pressured to participate.

Some experts said their desire to perform well would affect the findings. “It's no coincidence media reports we see about the trials among the military said no one had any side effects, while the (other group) reported some," said Vasily Vlassov, a public health expert with Moscow's Higher School of Economics.

As the trials were declared completed and looming regulatory approval was announced last week, questions arose about the vaccine's safety and effectiveness.

Government assurances the drug produced the desired immune response and caused no significant side effects were hardly convincing without published scientific data describing the findings.

The World Health Organization said all vaccine candidates should go through full stages of testing before being rolled out.

“There are established practices and there are guidelines out,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said Tuesday.

“Between finding or having a clue of maybe having a vaccine that works, and having gone through all the stages, is a big difference.”

Offering an unsafe compound to medical workers on the front lines of the outbreak could make things worse, Georgetown's Gostin said, adding: “What if the vaccine started killing them or making them very ill?”

Vaccines that are not properly tested can cause harm in many ways — from a negative impact on health to creating a false sense of security or undermining trust in vaccinations, said Thomas Bollyky, director of the global health program at the Council on Foreign Relations. 

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News Network
July 25,2020

Madrid, Jul 25: Spain is witnessing a new surge in virus" coronavirus infections with nearly a thousand cases daily, a month after lifting the pandemic lockdown.

The country is reinstating both voluntary guidelines and mandatory restrictions that it had lifted on June 21, The Washington Post reported.

Spain on Wednesday reported over 224 outbreaks and 2,622 virus" coronavirus cases. According to a report in Washington Post, the new surge is attributed primarily to seasonal farmworkers, people attending family get-togethers and nightclub partyers.

On Thursday, the health ministry reported an additional 971 cases.

"The majority are related to fruit collection and also to the spaces where measures to avoid contact are relaxed," Spain Health Minister Salvador Illa told parliament. "We have to call on citizens to not lose respect for the virus not to be afraid of it, but not to lose respect for it either."

The government of Spain lifted all restrictions put in place to combat virus" coronavirus on June 21 and declared 'a new normal'. 

The virus" coronavirus pandemic till then had killed 24,000 people and infected more than 2,70,166.

Countries around the world are witnessing the second surge of virus" coronavirus. The resurgence could threaten the economic bounce Spain was hoping to get from vacationers eager for summer fun.

The surge in cases has been greatest in the northeastern region of Catalonia with more than 7,953 new confirmed cases since July 10.

Spain's National Epidemiological Survey has predicted that the rate of increase more than doubled in the past three weeks.

Meanwhile, the Catalan government reverted to pre-June 21 confinement rules in Barcelona and a dozen other municipalities in the metropolitan area, as well as in Figueras, Vilafant, La Noguera and Lleida.

Authorities have ordered bars and restaurants to limit indoor occupancy to 50 per cent, reduced sports to fewer than 10 people, closed night clubs and gyms and blocked some cultural activities.

The epidemiologist in charge of the region's biggest hospital warned in an interview last week with the Spanish daily El Pais that the situation in the agricultural hub of Lleida, located about 100 miles west of Barcelona, "had clearly gotten out of hand."

"Nobody foresaw that there would be a number of people coming from abroad to pick fruit in unfavourable conditions and that they might be infected," said epidemiologist Magda Campins of Vall d'Hebron in Barcelona. "And when the infections began to be detected, it was hard to keep tabs on the cases and their contacts because some of them, although they should have been in isolation, got away because they needed to earn money."

Catalonia's Department of Labour, Social Affairs and Family is using a hotel in Lleida to quarantine fruit workers who test positive for COVID-19 but are unable to isolate at home.

In the capital of Madrid, which was the epicentre during the pandemic's first wave in the spring, authorities reported 710 new cases in the past week. The use of face masks is widespread, but the region has shied away from making them mandatory in public.

Madrid's regional health secretary, Enrique Ruiz Escudero, defended that position while citing an uptick in infections in the under-40 age group. He told young people not to let down their guard.

"We can't take even one step backwards. Young people have to be aware of the responsibility they have," Ruiz Escudero said in a news conference Thursday. "I ask them to use the face mask and to maintain a safe distance."

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