It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
BIDEN GOES GREEN, RECYCLES CAMPAIGN SIGNS
Michelle Obama fury: Ex-FLOTUS named as shock choice for Vice President if Biden wins
MICHELLE OBAMA has just won a Grammy award for her memoir ‘Becoming' and now she has been named as Joe Biden's choice for Vice President if he is elected President.
Mr Biden replied: “Yeah, I would, but I don’t think he’d do it.”
The man who asked the question then said: “Second question is: which Obama?”
The crowd then responded with applause and laughter at the question.
Mr Biden replied: “Well I sure would like Michelle to be the Vice President.
Michelle Obama news: Ex-FLOTUS named as shock choice for Vice President if Biden wins (Image: GETTY)
The crowd then responded with applause and laughter at the question (Image: GETTY)
“They’re both incredibly qualified people.
“And they’re such decent, honourable people.
“And I found it strange yesterday in that Republican presentation that they talked about how Obama should have been impeached. Wow.”
Mr Biden then pulled a shocked face as he made his speech.
Many have speculated whether Michelle might run for President or any office (Image: GETTY)
Many have speculated whether Michelle might run for President or any office.
But sources close to the former First Lady have said she has no interest in running for public office.
The Obamas are still very popular within the Democratic Party.
Michelle took home the trophy for the Grammys’ spoken-word category for her spoken word edition of 'Becoming'.
By March 2019, the book had sold 10million copies (Image: GETTY)
The Obamas are still very popular within the Democratic Party (Image: GETTY)
Her 2018 memoir about her life and days in the White House took the world by storm on its publication in 2018, selling 1.4million copies in its first week.
By March 2019, the book had sold 10million copies.
In winning this year's memoir award, Michelle joins her husband, Barack Obama, who won the award in 2006 and 2008.
Those millions who bought and read the book were enlightened about Michelle’s early life growing up on the South Side of Chicago through to her entrance to and first years as the FLOTUS.
The award was picked up as part of the early announcements in the pre-show.
Michelle attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School (Image: GETTY)
Before becoming First Lady, Michelle attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School.
She had a career as an attorney at a Chicago Law firm called Sidley & Austin, where she also met her husband Barack Obama.
She then worked at the Chicago mayor’s office, the University of Chicago and the University of Chicago Medical Centre.
Her best-selling memoir, 'Becoming', sold more copies than any other book published in the US in 2018.
Michelle Obama shock: Trump warned of stunning victory by ex-FLOTUS ahead of 2020 election
MICHELLE OBAMA could win the 2020 presidential election in the US, the professor who predicted Donald Trump’s stunning victory in 2016 has warned.
Michelle Obama: Fans want the ex-FLOTUS to run (Image: GETTY)
It comes after Michelle left Instagram fans begging for her to run for President after she dropped an adorable update on the social media platform.
The ex-FLOTUS saw hundreds of Instagram users ask her to consider a tilt at next year’s election.
Many hope she will consider becoming the Democrat nominee and run against current US President Donald Trump.
The post that sparked the wave of outpouring shared the Obamas Christmas card.
The post was shared thousands of times.
Among the fans asking for her to consider running, one wrote: “Please come back.
“The planet has not been the same since your sweet family was in the spotlight, and we could see your faces so frequently.
"We cried when you left the White House."
Michelle Obama: Ex-FLOTUS with husband Barack (Image: GETTY)
Jamaica earthquake YESTERDAY mapped: Where did HUGE 7.7 quake hit? Latest updates
AN EARTHQUAKE has struck in the ocean between Jamaica and Cuba at a huge magnitude of-7.7, and has triggered a tsunami warning.
But where exactly did the quake strike? Here are the latest maps.
By GEORGINA LAUD PUBLISHED: 20:00, Tue, Jan 28, 2020
A powerful earthquake of magnitude-7.7 struck south of Cuba on Tuesday. The quake has triggered a tsunami waves warning for Cuba, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS) and the International Tsunami Information Center.
Jamaica earthquake: A huge magnitude-7.7 quake has shaken Jamaica (Image: USGS)
It was centred 86 miles (139km) north-west of Montego Bay, Jamaica, and 87 miles (140km) west-southwest of Niquero, Cuba.
It hit at 2.10pm local time (7.10pm GMT) and now the Cayman Islands disaster management agency has warned residents in coastal and low-lying areas to “evacuate vertically” as a precaution following the quake.
A statement from the International Tsunami Information Center said: "Hazardous tsunami waves from this earthquake are possible within 300 km (186 miles) of the epicentre along the coasts of Jamaica... Cayman Islands and Cuba."
The Center later added: "Hazardous tsunami waves are forecast for some coasts".
Jamaica earthquake today: A tsunami warning is in place for several countries (Image: TWITTER) Jamaica: Earthquake creates HUGE holes in road
A tsunami warning of up to three feet has been issued for Belize, Cuba, Honduras, Mexico, Cayman Islands and Jamaica.
Dr Enrique Arango Arias, head of Cuba's National Seismological Service, told state media that there had been no serious damage or injuries reported.
The quake could be felt strongly in Santiago, the largest far-eastern Cuban city, according to those in the area.
Belkis Guerrero who works in a Catholic cultural centre in Santiago said: "We were all sitting and we felt the chairs move.
Ms Guerrero said there was no apparent damage in the heart of the colonial city.
She added: "It felt very strong but it doesn't look like anything happened."
The quake was not strongly felt in the Cuban capital of Havana or in Kingston, Jamaica, according to witnesses.
Jamaica earthquake today: Workers wait outside buildings in Miami after the quake struck (Image: GETTY)
Meanwhile, Mikhail Campbell, a police media relations officer in the Cayman Islands, said he was not immediately aware of any reports of serious damage.
The earthquake was also felt a little farther east at the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on the south-eastern coast of the island.
Several South Florida buildings were evacuated as a precaution, according to city of Miami and Miami-Dade County officials.
The quake also hit the Cayman Islands, leaving cracked roads and what appeared to be sewage spilling from cracked mains.
There have been reported aftershocks close to the Cayman Islands, the largest of which was recorded as measuring magnitude-6.5.
Claude Diedrick, 71, who owns a fencing business in Montego Bay, said he was sitting in his vehicle reading when the earth began to sway.
He said: "It felt to me like I was on a bridge and like there were two or three heavy trucks and the bridge was rocking but there were no trucks."
Mr Diedrick said he had seen no damage around his home in northern Jamaica.
Large undersea earthquake strikes in the Caribbean
The epicenter was located south of Cuba and northwest of Jamaica, prompting initial fears of a tsunami, though those concerns have since passed. The tremors peaked at a strength of 7.7, the US Geological Survey recorded.
A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck in the Caribbean Sea between Jamaica and Cuba on Tuesday, causing tremors from Mexico to Florida. However, there were no casualties were reported.
The quake's epicenter was 117 kilometers (73 miles) northwest of Jamaica's town of Lucea and just south of Cuba, and had a depth of 10 kilometers, according to the US Geological Survey.
The quake was felt across much of the island of Jamaica, lasting for several seconds, the Kingston-based Jamaica Observer newspaper reported. People gather outside after evacuating buildings in Miami, Florida
In Cuba's capital Havana, residents were evacuated out of buildings when the city was rattled by the quake (pictured), which was also felt in Guantanamo, Santiago de Cuba and Cienfuegos.
It was not immediately clear if the earthquake caused any damage or injuries. The International Tsunami Information Center (ITC) issued an initial warning, though this was later lifted.
"The tsunami threat has now largely passed," the ITC said.
Meanwhile, the US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said that based on all available data, waves reaching 0.3 to 1 meter above the tide level were possible for portions of Belize, Cuba, Honduras, Mexico, the Cayman Islands and Jamaica.
A hole appeared caused by the earthquake at Public Beach on West Bay, Grand Cayman
Indeed, the Cayman Islands recorded an aftershock of magnitude 6.5 as a result of the quake that left cracked roads and what appeared to be sewage spilling from damaged mains.
Purdue Pharma taps a Gilded Age history of pharmaceutical fraud
March 4, 2019 Jonathan S. Jones
Classified advertisement for Leslie Keeley’s Gold Cure.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune, July 21, 1884
Newly unsealed documents from a lawsuit by the state of Massachusetts allege that Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin and other addictive opioids, actively sniffed out new, sinister ways to cash in on the opioid crisis.
Despite years of negative press coverage, unwanted attention from regulators, multi-million dollar fines and several major lawsuits, Purdue staff and owners sought to expand the company’s sights beyond its usual array of opioid painkillers. Purdue planned to become an “end-to-end pain provider,” by branching into the market for opioid addiction and overdose medicines, looking to peddle these medicines even while the company continued to aggressively market its addictive opioids. Internal research materials coldly explained the rationale behind this plan: “Pain treatment and addiction are naturally linked.”
As thousands of Americans continue to overdose on opioids annually, Purdue’s secret marketing research predicted that sales of naloxone, the overdose reversal drug, and buprenorphine, a medicine used to treat opioid addiction, would increase exponentially. Addiction to Purdue’s opioids would thus drive the sale of the company’s opioid addiction and overdose medicines. Purdue even planned to target as customers patients already taking the company’s opioids and doctors who prescribed opioids excessively, according to the Massachusetts lawsuit filing. To keep the plan quiet, Purdue staff dubbed the scheme “Project Tango.”
According to the Massachusetts lawsuit, Purdue used this graphic in its internal strategy materials to illustrate Project Tango. State of Massachusetts, CC BY-SA
The audacity of Project Tango enraged many observers. But considered in historical context, the news that Purdue sought to peddle opioid addiction medicines while continuing to sell opioids seems less surprising. In fact, there is clear historical precedent for Purdue’s business plan. Over a century ago, “patent medicine” sellers pioneered this strategy during the U.S.’s Gilded Age opiate addiction epidemic. Opiate addiction in the Gilded Age
Opiates were some of the most commonly prescribed medicines in American history until the 20th century. Pills containing opium, hypodermic morphine injections and laudanum, a drinkable liquid concoction of opium and alcohol, constituted half or more of all medicines prescribed in American hospitals during most of the 19th century, according to research by the historian John Harley Warner. Opiates were also present in countless “patent medicines,” over-the-counter panaceas made of secret ingredients, often sold under catchy brand names like Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup. Americans could choose from 5,000 brands of patent medicines marketed for all manner of ailments by the 1880s. In 1904, just before federal oversight began, patent medicines had matured into an astonishingly profitable industry, with estimated sales at US$74 million dollars annually – equivalent to about $2.1 billion dollars today.
Opiate-laced prescriptions and patent medicines often caused addiction. The historian David T. Courtwright estimates that opiate addiction rates in the U.S. skyrocketed to 4.59 per thousand Americans by the 1890s – a high rate, although lower than the rate of fatal opioid overdoses in recent years. Most individuals developed addictions through medicines, rather than the infamous smoking variety of opium. Victims of “the habit” cut across demographic lines, encompassing middle-class housewives suffering from menstrual pain, Civil War veterans reeling from amputations and many others in between.
Yet even for those who became addicted to prescription opiates, the condition was socially stigmatized and physically dangerous. Like today, addiction to opiates often led to fatal overdose, condemnation and sometimes even involuntary commitment to mental asylums. As one doctor reported to the Iowa Board of Health in 1885, addicted people lived “truly in a veritable hell.”
To avoid these frightful outcomes, desperate, opiate-addicted Americans frequently sought out medical treatment for their condition.
Gilded Age Americans could choose from a range of therapies for opiate addiction. Wealthy patients frequented plush private clinics, where they could receive inpatient treatment for opiate addiction. The most popular were the Keeley Institutes, which offered patients injections of the “Bichloride of Gold” remedy, invented by the doctor Leslie Keeley.
Scores of Keeley Institutes sprang up around the country in the late 19th century, a testament to the popularity of Keeley’s “Gold Cure,” which he marketed for alcoholism and drug addiction. No up-and-coming Gilded Age city was complete without a Keeley Institute. At the height of the Gold Cure craze, there were 118 institutes serving 500,000 Americans between 1880 and 1920. Even the federal government had a contract with Keeley to provide the Gold Cure to addicted veterans. Although injections of the Gold Cure had little intrinsic medical value, historians believe that socializing with other like-minded patients in the Keeley Institutes may have helped some patients recover from addiction.
Advertisement for the main Keeley Center, in Dwight, Illinois, 1908.
Keeley faced stiff competition, however. Other popular therapies for opiate addiction included patent medicine “cures” and “antidotes,” which were cheaper than inpatient care. These could be ordered by mail without a prescription, and consumed in the privacy of one’s home, away from prying eyes.
Fueled by high demand, during its heyday at the turn of the 20th century, addiction cures bloomed into a multimillion-dollar sector of the patent medicine industry. Dozens of pharmaceutical companies peddled their “cures” to willing, opiate-addicted customers, which they marketed through pamphlets, postcards, and newspaper and magazine classifieds.
Ironically, these “cures” for opiate addiction almost universally contained opiates, unbeknownst to hopeful customers, who received little therapeutic benefit by today’s standards. But in an era before federal regulation of medicines and narcotics, there were no effective safeguards to protect addiction patients from medical fraud. Pharmaceutical fraud
Much like Purdue Pharma, which famously marketed Oxycontin as non-addictive precipitating the opioid crisis, Gilded Age patent medicine companies also fraudulently marketed their addiction treatments as non-addictive, targeting and intentionally deceiving addicted customers. For their part, Gilded Age doctors were deeply skeptical of such products, and they often accused proprietors of fraud in medical journals and newspapers.
Samuel B. Collins of La Porte, Indiana, inventor of the “Painless Opium Antidote,” one of the era’s most popular brands, insisted that his product was not addictive. Collins was proven a fraud, however, by a skeptical Maine doctor, who in 1876 sent off a sample of Collins’ product to several chemists for analysis. Their tests indicated that the Painless Opium Antidote contained enough morphine to perpetuate opiate addiction, actually fueling demand for Collins’s product, rather than curing the underlying addiction.
Despite the overwhelming evidence, however, without any effective medical regulation or oversight, Collins maintained his fraud for decades. His business strategy presaged Purdue’s Project Tango by targeting vulnerable opiate-addicted individuals.Advertisement for Theriaki, a painless cure for the opium habit. Exterior view of Dr. Collins’ Opium Antidote Laboratory, LaPorte, Indiana. National Library of Medicine
Hopkins painted such a scathing portrait of opiate addiction cures, whose proprietors the writer dismissed as “scavengers,” that the American Medical Association paid to disseminate Adams’s reporting as part of a lobbying campaign for the regulation of patent medicines. This strategy paid off. Although far from perfect solutions, the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914 regulated the ingredients and sale of patent medicines and narcotics, including opiate addiction medicines. These measures ultimately ensured that Collins, Keeley and other patent medicine sellers could no longer prey upon opiate-addicted customers.
Like its Gilded Age predecessors, today’s Big Pharma actively schemes to profit off of vulnerable, addicted customers, even while taking steps to ensure that opioid addiction persists. I believe that only sustained, vigilant oversight can prevent the reemergence of a medical Gilded Age, one in which companies like Purdue Pharma can manufacture an addiction crisis and charge customers for “curing” it.
Author Jonathan S. Jones PhD Candidate in History, Binghamton University, State University of New York Disclosure statement Jonathan S. Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
New Zealand to invest record amount in infrastructure
-- A new program to build and upgrade roads, rail, schools and hospitals was announced by the New Zealand government on Wednesday in Auckland.
The 12-billion-New Zealand-dollar investment package is named Upgrade New Zealand with a focus on infrastructure projects.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described the program as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to modernize the country's infrastructure to prepare for climate change and help grow its economy.
New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters said the program is the largest investment in infrastructure in decades.
According to the program, road construction projects will receive the largest proportion with Auckland's road alone to receive 2.2 billion New Zealand dollars. Health system, particularly mental health and addiction reduction services will also get a boost.
With the recent record low interest rates, New Zealand Finance Minister Grant Robertson believed it is a good time to invest in infrastructures that have been under-invested and long due.
"It makes sense to take advantage of record low long-term interest rates and invest in infrastructure to grow the economy. These low rates -- around 1.5 percent for 10 years -- can be locked in over the long term, making this programme sensible and affordable," said Robertson. (1 New Zealand dollar equals 0.65 U.S. dollars)
16 hours ago - The Canadian National Railway will be laying off almost 2000 staff members. According to a report by the Globe and Mail, the Canadian ...
CBJ — Despite posting its best quarterly revenue numbers in history, Canadian National Railway followed that up by laying off some non-unionized workers.
THE STRIKE DID NOT SAVE THOSE JOBS
STRIKES ARE AN OUTMODED TACTIC THE EMPLOYER CAN DEFEAT BEFORE, DURING OR AFTER IT IS TIME TO OCCUPY THE WORKPLACE AND SEIZE THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION LAYING OFF THE EMPLOYER
A secret reason Rx drugs cost so much:
A global web of patent laws protects Big Pharma
January 28, 2020 Faisal Chaudhry Advocates for lower drug prices held a vigil on Sept. 5, 2019 outside of Eli Lilly in New York City, honoring those who have lost their lives due to the high cost of insulin. Eric McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images
The high price of insulin, which has reached as much as US$450 per month, has raised outrage across the country. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has called it a national embarrassment, wondering why U.S. residents should have to drive to Canada to buy cheaper insulin.
As a legal scholar who focuses on the contradictory role of property rights on economic well-being, including through the role of intellectual property rights, my research makes it clear that drug pricing is far more complicated than any candidate on the debate stage has time to explain.
To fully understand these complexities requires looking at a web of international patent law and trade agreements.
Insulin was discovered almost 100 years ago, saving the lives of many people with diabetes. Its soaring costs in recent years has brought outcries from patients and politicians. John Fredricks/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Why no generic insulin?
Scientists working in Canada’s public sector discovered insulin nearly a century ago. The first techniques for synthesizing the compound, which should have more readily allowed for the production of generic versions, emerged some four decades ago. Yet today insulin remains unavailable in any significant generic version. One of the three companies that control 90% of the world insulin market, Eli Lilly, recently did bow to public pressure by announcing a forthcoming “authorized generic” version called Lispro. But that could still run some people $140 per prescription.
U.S. consumers are not alone in facing high prices of insulin and other life-saving drugs. For the last two decades, intense controversy has raged around multinational pharmaceutical giants being able to monopolize access to vital medicines the world over. A key means of doing so is through the legal power of patents, and the monopoly-like profits – or what some experts call unearned economic rents – they guarantee.
Think of rent as a windfall gained for making little effort of one’s own. Being “unearned,” rents are thus usually distinguished from ordinary business profits. In this way, they are comparable to the fees a medieval lord would charge for access to cropland on a vast estate.
For more than 20 years, in various parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, countries have been battling a global system of rent-taking, or “rentierism” for short, that disproportionately benefits Big Pharma.
This state of affairs could not exist without the government officials whom Big Pharma has lobbied successfully in wealthy countries. Patents and other intellectual property rights allow the multinationals to capture rent by evading competition for years on end.
This global battle around pharmaceutical patents began in earnest with the founding of the World Trade Organization(WTO) in 1994. This included an annex agreement on intellectual property rights known as the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.
Many countries already allowed for patents before 1994, but only on “processes” of manufacture or synthesis. After 1994, WTO member countries were required to extend patents to the vital end products of such processes as well.
For inhabitants of developing countries, whose greatest public health problems at the time derived from diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and HIV-AIDS, this crystallized various questions of great import. Should the agreements enable Big Pharma’s monopoly-like patent rights to trump the ability of the sick and dying to obtain generic versions of life savings medicines? And if so, to what extent?
Yet for just as long, critics have alleged that Big Pharma typically uses inflated, misleading or otherwise opaque cost data to tout the billions of dollars it claims to spend on drug development. Likewise, critics have continuously called attention to the way that most drug development is built on publiclyfunded research.
And, finally, critics have never stopped highlighting the fact that Big Pharma long ago largely abandoned research and development for drugs for infectious ailments in developing nations, and increasingly switched to spending on blockbuster noninfectious disease drugs.
In a developing world where public health problems increasingly look similar to the developed world’s, in fact, multinational pharmaceutical corporations could become better – not worse – placed to expand their profits by tapping new markets for drugs like insulin and beta blockers.
A convergence between the sick across the globe
One unexpected lesson from this is that ordinary people around the world will increasingly find themselves in the same boat when it comes to accessing the medicines they need.
Therefore, if countries in the developing world are forced to give up the fight against patent rentierism, it should be a concern both to their own residents and to residents of wealthy countries too.
Just this past September, for example, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi signaled that his country – which has a robust generic drugs industry that supplies low-cost medicines to people around the world – was ready to concede to the demands of Big Pharma by moving toward abdicating his country’s vital role as “the pharmacy of the world.” India has now signed an interim trade agreement with the Trump administration that will require it to more strictly enforce the patent rights of pharmaceutical multinationals, with the latest news reports indicating it may even now be finalized.
Over the course of the current battle for the Democratic nomination, many will have heard about the plight of residents of Michigan who are left asking how insulin costs 10 times in the U.S. what it costs 10 minutes away across our northern border.
Given the larger conversation about patent rents and access to medicines that we should be having, however, it behooves those of us who live in places like the U.S. to look not only to Canada but to what is happening around the world, where the sick and dying face increasingly similar ailments – and fights – as our own.
Author
Faisal Chaudhry Professor of Law, University of Dayton Disclosure statement Faisal Chaudhry has received funding from the Mellon Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Fulbright Program of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State and Harvard University. Partners
Seoul: 2.5-magnitude quake detected near North Korea site
By Elizabeth Shim North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site has experienced tremors in the aftermath of a sixth North Korea nuclear test in September 2017. File Photo by Airbus Defense and Space/38 North
Jan. 29 (UPI) -- A 2.5-magnitude earthquake was detected in an area near North Korea's Punggye-ri nuclear test site, according to South Korea's meteorological agency on Wednesday.
The tremor occurred on Wednesday at 9:33 a.m. local time in an area near Kilju, North Hamgyong Province, the agency said.
The minor earthquake is believed to be the result, or the aftermath, of North Korea's sixth nuclear test, which occurred in September 2017, Seoul said.
Experts have previously said North Korea's sixth test may have involved a bomb that released the same energy as 108 kilotons of TNT. In 2017, they had also warned of a major environmental disaster as a result of the explosion, or a mountain collapse.
On Wednesday, Seoul's weather agency described the tremor as a "natural earthquake," and said the quake occurred in an area less than two miles from the nuclear test site.
Punggye-ri was also the site of Pyongyang's first nuclear test in 2006. The tunnel used for the test has since collapsed, South Korean news service News 1 reported.
In May 2018, North Korea invited foreign journalists to witness the detonation of the test site.
Park Han-ki, chairman of South Korea's joint chiefs of staff, has said the detonation does not mean the site couldn't be restored.
Tunnels 3 and 4 at Punggye-ri can be repaired for use, Park had said during a parliamentary hearing on Jan. 8, according to News 1.
The minor quake is being reported at a time when the United States and South Korea could be discussing missile guidelines
The Chosun Ilbo reported this week the United States may have agreed to lift caps on South Korean rockets for civilian use, but on Wednesday the presidential Blue House said the report is "impossible to confirm."
U.S.-South Korea missile guidelines date back to 1979 and have been revised three times, in 2001, 2012 and 2017. Rocket thrust is capped at 1 million pounds per second for South Korea, or one-tenth of thrusts allowed in other countries, according to the Chosun.
TRUMP COST CUTTING UNDER CUTS US SECURITY IN KOREA U.S. military issues furlough notice to 9000 South Korean employees By Thomas Maresca The U.S. military began issuing furlough notices to its almost 9,000 South Korea civilian employees on Wednesday. Seoul and Washington have been deadlocked over a new defense cost-sharing agreement on the Korean Peninsula. Photo by Thomas Maresca/UPI | License Photo SEOUL, Jan. 28 (UPI) -- The U.S. military has begun issuing a notice of a potential furlough to its nearly 9,000 South Korean civilian employees as a defense cost-sharing arrangement between Washington and Seoul remains unresolved. In a press statement issued Wednesday, United States Forces Korea, the main command for U.S. troops stationed on the Korean Peninsula, said that residual funds from 2019 being used to pay the salaries of the Korean employees would soon run out. "Without the Republic of Korea's continued commitment to share the cost of employing our Korean national workforce, USFK will soon exhaust programmed funds available to pay their salaries and wages," the statement said. The Republic of Korea is the official name of South Korea. An administrative furlough would begin on April 1 if a new Special Measures Agreement, which covers costs for maintaining the roughly 28,500 U.S. troops stationed on the peninsula, is not signed, the statement said. RELATED South Korea to evacuate citizens from Wuhan, China The military is issuing the notice 60 days in advance of a possible furlough as required by U.S. law. "USFK greatly values its Korean national workforce and their contributions to the RoK-U.S. alliance and will continue to provide them timely updates for their preparation of a potential furlough," the statement said. Seoul and Washington remain deadlocked over the cost-sharing agreement. U.S. President Donald Trump has reportedly asked for a $5 billion annual contribution from South Korea, a more than five-fold increase from the $890 million Seoul paid in 2019. RELATED North Korea slams South for military exercises A sixth round of talks to renew the agreement ended earlier this month in Washington, D.C., without a deal. U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris recently told reporters that the United States has already compromised on its original figure and said the gap between the two sides was narrowing. However, administration officials are still pressing Seoul to substantially increase its contribution. In a joint op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on Jan. 16, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper wrote that South Korea "can and should contribute more to its defense." RELATED South Korea's economic growth slows to decade-low 2% In a letter to Pompeo and Esper issued Monday, U.S. Sens. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., expressed concern about the lapsed agreement, saying it is "creating increasing diplomatic and military risk on the peninsula" and calling for a "fair and mutually beneficial burden-sharing agreement that reflects the realities of the 21st century." "Our alliance with Korea is critical to deter adversaries, provide stability to the region, shape the environment and endows U.S. forces in the region with leverage that enhances our nation's security, extends our values and enables our prosperity," the senators wrote. "Yet the current U.S. negotiating position appears to contradict these key principles and undermines our enduring commitment to the Republic of Korea." South Korea's foreign ministry said in a statement after the latest round of negotiations ended that both sides "broadened their mutual understanding and consensus but confirmed that there are still differences."
Advertisement for Theriaki, a painless cure for the opium habit. Exterior view of Dr. Collins’ Opium Antidote Laboratory, LaPorte, Indiana. National Library of Medicine
Collier’s ad, Dec., 1905, after the publication of articles on patent medicine fraud. Wikimedia Commons
