Tens of thousands campaigners to march in Glasgow and London during Cop26

Katrine Bussey
Wed, 15 September 2021

Tens of thousands of climate campaigners are expected to march through Glasgow and London when the UK hosts the global Cop26 summit (Yui Mok/PA)

Tens of thousands of campaigners are expected to march through London and Glasgow in November as the UK hosts the global Cop26 climate change summit.

The Cop26 Coalition, which brings together a range of groups demanding action to tackle the issue, stressed that Covid-19 precautions would be put in place “so we can safely take to the streets and demand real action on climate change”.

As well as the “major mobilisations” planned for both Glasgow, the host city of the Cop26 conference, and London, activists will take to the streets at another 15 locations across the UK.

In Glasgow campaigners will rally in the city’s Kelvingrove Park on the Global Day of Action on November 6, before marching to Glasgow Green for a rally in the afternoon.

Meanwhile in London, the march will set off from outside the Bank of England, ending with a rally at Trafalgar Square.

With the events taking place during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, all those taking part will be encouraged to socially distance, wear a mask and test themselves before attending.

Quan Nguyen from the Cop26 Coalition said: “The decisions made at Cop26 will shape how governments respond, or not, to the climate crisis.

“They will decide who is to be sacrificed, who will escape and who will make a profit.

“This conference is happening at a crucial moment in history.

“Across the world and across movements, we are seeing a new wave of resistance, global solidarity and grassroots organising.”

The campaigner continued: “This November, we will take responsibility for our collective wellbeing by putting in place Covid-19 precautions so we can safely take to the streets and demand real action on climate change be taken at Cop26.

“This is a unique opportunity to rewire our system as we recover from the pandemic.

“We can either intensify the crisis to the point of no return, or lay the foundations for a just world where everyone’s needs are met.”

The Cop26 summit is being held at the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow this November. (Andrew Milligan/PA)

Stuart Graham of the Cop26 Coalition’s Glasgow local hub said: “This November, climate activists will stand shoulder to shoulder with trade unionists, community groups, anti-poverty and anti-racist campaigners and the rest of civil society to demand climate justice.”

As well as the marches in Glasgow and London, events are also planned to take place in Nottingham, Chichester, Manchester, Cardiff Bristol, Oxford Newcastle Leeds Truro, Swansea, Sheffield, Birmingham and Plymouth.

World Anti-Doping Agency to review cannabis ban after top US athlete forced to miss Tokyo Olympics


Wed, 15 September 2021


The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) will review whether cannabis should remain a banned substance for athletes.

The move follows American sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson missing the Tokyo Olympics after testing positive for the substance in June.

Cannabis is currently prohibited in competition and the ban will remain in place in 2022, WADA said.

An advisory group to WADA will begin the scientific review next year.

While cannabis is not thought to be performance-enhancing, it is classified as a "substance of abuse", the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) has said, referring to a worldwide code.

Richardson said she used the drug after hearing from a reporter that her biological mother had died - a week before she began Olympic trials in Oregon, where cannabis is legal.

The 21-year-old's trial results were disqualified after she tested positive for THC, the banned chemical found in cannabis.

She had been seen as a top contender, winning her 100m test race with a time of 10.86 seconds on 19 June.

The suspension was widely criticised and sparked calls for a review of anti-doping rules, including by USADA.

What could have been a three-month sanction was reduced to one because Richardson agreed to participate in a counselling programme.

"The rules are clear, but this is heart-breaking on many levels," USADA CEO Travis Tygart had said.

USA Track and Field had described the situation as "incredibly unfortunate and devastating for everyone involved".

Richardson had apologised to fans and said the death sent her into a "state of emotional panic", adding: "Don't judge me, because I am human."

 

Deutsche Bahn, train drivers union reach pay deal

Germany's rail operator and a train drivers union have agreed on a new pay deal. The dispute had earlier seen three rounds of strikes.

    

Deutsche Bahn and the GDL union reached a deal following three sets of drivers' strikes

After several rail strikes that crippled Germany's nationwide train system, a deal between German railway operator Deutsche Bahn (DB) and the GDL train drivers' union was announced on Thursday.

The deal, announced by the premiers of the German states of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, is set to resolve railway disruptions across the country after months of deadlock between DB and GDL.

Pay raise for train drivers

The two parties agreed on a gradual 3.3% wage increase for drivers for a duration of 32 months and two bonus payments of €800 to €1,000 ($940-1,180) for each member.

Starting from December 1, a hike of 1.5% will go into effect. Another 1.8% salary increase will take effect on March 1, 2023.

UK

Yodel workers to strike, threatening M&S, Aldi and Very deliveries

Sarah Butler
Thu, 16 September 2021, 

Photograph: John Morrison/Alamy

Delivery group Yodel is set to face strike action after 250 of its couriers voted to protest over pay and conditions, potentially adding to disruption caused by lorry driver shortages.

The dispute, which could affect deliveries for Marks & Spencer, Aldi and Very from Yodel’s depots in Hatfield in Hertforshire, Glasgow and Wednesbury in the West Midlands, according to the GMB union, comes as campaigners leverage worker shortages, caused by a mix of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic, to fight for better rights.

The Yodel drivers’ vote for action comes as drivers at the Booker distribution network, which is part of Tesco, and more than 200 drivers and engineers at Hanson, the cement producer, moved closer to industrial action in disputes over pay and conditions.

The GMB union said Yodel’s drivers were angry over issues including a lack of work-life balance, and the fact that agency workers were paid more than drivers directly employed by the company. Workers are also concerned over an alleged lack of payouts in lieu of annual leave and an alleged failure to honour contractual agreements on pay for holiday and sick leave.

GMB also accused Yodel of “dragging its heels” on substantial pay increases that would keep drivers from leaving for better-paying jobs elsewhere, especially at a time when employers across the country were scrambling to hire workers.

Nadine Houghton, a national officer for the GMB, said: “GMB drivers working for parcel delivery giant Yodel have returned a massive vote in favour of taking industrial action over pay and working conditions.

“With acute labour shortages across a range of sectors the time for working people to organise and take action to improve their lot is right now.

She said Yodel union members would now agree dates for their first round of strikes.

A Yodel spokesperson said: “We are in ongoing, meaningful talks with GMB officials with a further meeting scheduled for next week. We will continue to work in good faith and remain committed to find a resolution for our valued transport colleagues on any outstanding matters.”

A lack of lorry drivers, due in part to the Covid-19 crisis and Brexit, has put pressure on UK supply chains and left some retailers struggling to refresh their stock.

The issue has combined with global disruption to logistics networks caused by the pandemic which led to the location and quantity of ships and containers being out of sync with demand. Ports are struggling to cope with a rapid return to business.

On Wednesday, the drinks group Fever-Tree said its profit margins had been “significantly impacted” by the increased costs prompted by the logistics disruption. The Restaurant Group, owner of the Wagamama chain, said it was experiencing rising labour costs and an increase in costs of distribution and food.

Shell to build Dutch biofuels plant in 

net-zero push

Thu, 16 September 2021, 

FILE PHOTO: The Shell logo is pictured at a gas station in the western Canakkale 

province in Turkey

(Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell plans to build a biofuels facility in the Netherlands to help achieve its target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, it said on Thursday.

The facility in Rotterdam will be able to produce 820,000 tonnes of renewable fuel per year when it starts production in 2024 and is expected to be one of Europe's largest such facilities, the energy giant said.

The plan follows Shell's pledge in February to eliminate net carbon emissions by 2050, raising its ambition from previous targets in the face of growing investor pressure to battle climate change.

Sustainable aviation fuel could make up more than half of the Rotterdam plant's capacity, with the rest for renewable diesel, depending on customer demand.

The facility will produce the fuels from waste in the form of used cooking oil, animal fat and other residual products.

Sustainable vegetable oils like rapeseed will supplement the waste feedstocks at the plant, which will not use virgin palm oil.

(Reporting by Siddarth S in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni)

‘I worry what’s going to happen’: how Covid has made airline work risky and exhausting in the USA

Michael Sainato
Thu, 16 September 2021,


From mass furloughs, voluntary job losses and retirements, to understaffing problems and a surge in cases of harassment and assaults by unruly passengers, workers at airports and airlines continue to bear the brunt of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the air travel industry.

The sector was among the hardest hit by Covid-19, losing about 100,000 jobs in the first few months of the pandemic. Through three rounds of funding, Congress provided the industry with $54bn in federal assistance to keep workers on payrolls, while surges in the Delta variant have stifled air travel recovery domestically and internationally.

US airlines have differed on whether to implement vaccine mandates for their employees, while passengers are not required to be vaccinated or have a negative Covid test to fly and some airlines did not support extending mask mandates on US domestic flights.

“In my entire career, I have never experienced what we are experiencing right now,” said an American Airlines flight attendant who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, as they are not authorized to speak with the media. “I go to work now and I always worry what’s going to happen, what’s going to trip somebody up, trigger their anger. It’s a whole new ballgame out there right now and it’s a different type of passenger we’re seeing right now.”

They said that flight attendants were constantly dealing with irate passengers who refuse to comply with federal mask mandates for all flights, and would like to see more support from management and paid self-defense training provided to all flight attendants.

While enforcement of Covid safety protections has fallen on flight attendants, workers are still worried about contracting the virus and spreading it to loved ones, and grappling with stressful working conditions and the loss of several co-workers who died of the virus.

So far in 2021, the Federal Aviation Administration has issued more than $1m in fines against unruly airline passengers and received about 3,900 individual reports. A national survey of nearly 5,000 flight attendants released in July 2021 by the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO (AFA) found 85% of flight attendants have experienced disorderly passengers in 2021, and one out of five have experienced physical incidents.

Workers in the airline industry are dealing with additional risks associated with Covid-19: a lack of sick leave benefits, widespread understaffing, and enforcing Covid-19 safety protocols.

Delta Air Lines plans to raise health insurance premiums for all unvaccinated employees starting in November 2021 and will require they take weekly Covid tests beginning 12 September. Delta announced the policy was intended to mitigate the financial impact of Covid-19 infections, as the average hospital stay for coronavirus has cost the company $40,000 per person.

A Delta Air Lines ramp agent in the midwest US who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation said he viewed Delta Air Lines’ decision to raise health insurance premiums for unvaccinated employees as marketing rather than the company’s concern for the health of their workers.

“To this day, the people responsible for cleaning your aircraft before boarding are contract workers who do not receive health insurance. These are the people who can least afford to be sick and are most likely to tough it out and come to work with an illness,” the worker said.

The ramp agent once used accrued sick time to call out of work because they were not feeling well and went to get tested for coronavirus. The managers threatened to start reprimanding employees for calling out of work for double shifts – which are the only type of shifts this worker has.

A Delta Air Lines spokesperson said in an email, “Our leaders are encouraged and empowered to support our people who need time off to get tested and take care of themselves.”

Some airline industry workers are employed by third-party contractors, and have long suffered from low pay and a lack of any benefits or healthcare, problems that have become even more burdensome during the pandemic and as domestic travel recovered through the summer of 2021.

Jane Spurka, a wheelchair attendant for a contractor, Bags Inc, at Orlando international airport in Florida, was furloughed from March to August 2020. Shortly after returning to work, Spurka was injured on the job and had to work through the pain of her injury until her workers’ compensation claim was processed in May 2021. She’s been on light duty since then.

“We are understaffed, overworked and unappreciated,” said Spurka, who makes $7.98 an hour plus tips. “If we are sick, whether it’s just a simple head cold or the flu, we have no choice but to work. There are no paid days. We don’t get any kind of anything from the company.”

She said wheelchair attendants had been so overwhelmed that they hadn’t been able to take breaks, often take on two passengers at once, and are subjected to anger and frustration from airline passengers.

Joseph Gourgue, 62, a gate agent and wheelchair attendant at Orlando international airport, recently contracted Covid and received no pay for the two weeks of work he missed while quarantined. He also spread the virus to his wife. He has pre-existing health conditions and said he would have stayed home from work longer, but could not afford to do so.

“All the company does is make sure you work every day, and make sure you get your job done,” said Gourgue, who gets paid just above the federal minimum wage and relies on tips from passengers. “This is why I’ve been working so hard with my colleagues for two years to unionize. They’re going to have to negotiate, to look into our eyes. I don’t like the idea of workers being taken advantage of, but this is America right now.”

A spokesperson for Bags Inc declined to comment on specific employees, citing company policy, but added in an email, “Generally speaking, employee wages and eligibility for benefits vary depending on the position, responsibilities, experience, location, client, full-time/part-time status and other factors. We value our employees and are committed to providing a safe work environment and following government-mandated regulations where applicable.”

Neurocracy: futuristic murder-mystery fiction as told through Wikipedia

Sarah Maria Griffin
Thu, 16 September 2021



On first click, Omnipedia feels like the shadow-sister of Wikipedia: empty white space with the occasional image, marked up by slim black text and iconic blue hyperlinks. But we are on a different internet now. This fictional encyclopedia is essentially the narrator of Neurocracy, which is part game, part murder-mystery novella and part postmodern exploration of how we take in stories and information. It is a labyrinth of text – the reader, or player, navigates a 2049 version of our world by clicking hyperlinks. Having done some exploring, I believe it’s best to go in totally blind, though I will say that the central mystery concerns the death of the man who launched Omnipedia in the wake of Wikipedia, a character named Xu Shaoyong.

We click through from one fictional entry to the next, learning gradually that this future world is full of threats, from the presence of a civilisation-upending disease to binaural implants that track and enhance our experiences online, all the way down to dating shows that end in shocking loss of life. It feels unnervingly close to the internet as we know it, but with subtle differences that amount to clever environmental storytelling. For example, the GDPR cookie-tracking pop-up that’s now the doorman at the gate of every website includes both familiar text about data and consent, and a note about our “montages” being tracked – our emotional state, as tracked by an algorithm.

The storytelling style is rather like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, but it rejects linearity in favour of allowing the reader-player to intuit themselves through the web of information. The online rabbit-hole becomes a literary device. There’s even an option, as there is on Wikipedia, to start on a random page. This is ambitious and confident writing – there is a sureness here that the machine of this mystery works so well that you can walk into the maze from any angle, and still find what you are looking for.

Omnipedia is an unreliable narrator – we are encouraged to look at the edit logs of each wiki page, to see what information is new and what has been deleted. This feature of Wikipedia, programmed into the encyclopedia for transparency, is used here as a postmodern storytelling tool, and it provides a strange kind of tension. Revealing what is new information and old information on the search for the truth behind Shaoyong’s death injects drama into the static, familiar space of a website.

New material has been added to Neurocracy every week, and its storytelling method is compelling. For me, the best way to engage is with a notebook, marking down my findings – but there is a thriving Discord community sleuthing away too. What is more powerful than the murder mystery, however, is the depiction of a world that feels uncannily close to our reality. There is a sense in each entry that what we see there could be just around the corner. This is what excellent science fiction does: it holds up a mirror to culture as it is, and shows us what is just creeping up behind us.

Neurocracy is playable here; first chapter free, access to the remaining nine chapters costs £15.

Hezbollah brings Iranian fuel into crisis-hit Lebanon
Issued on: 16/09/2021 -

Tankers carrying Iranian fuel arrive from Syria at al-Ain in Hermel in east Lebanon's Bekaa Valley on September 16, 2021. 

© AFP
Text by: NEWS WIRES

Hezbollah began bringing Iranian fuel into Lebanon via Syria on Thursday, a move the Shi'ite Muslim group says should ease a crippling energy crisis but which opponents say risks provoking U.S. sanctions.

A convoy of trucks carrying Iranian fuel oil entered northeastern Lebanon near the village of al-Ain, where Hezbollah's yellow flag fluttered from lampposts.

"Thank you Iran. Thank you Assad's Syria," declared a banner, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Hezbollah's al-Manar TV said a convoy of around 20 trucks had crossed into Lebanon.

The trucks sounded their horns as they passed through al-Ain as people watched on. Some waved Hezbollah's flag, while a woman and boy threw petals at one vehicle.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah has said the ship carrying the fuel docked in Syria on Sunday after being told going to Lebanon could risk sanctions.

Washington has reiterated that U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil sales remain in place. But it has not said whether it is considering taking any action over the move by Hezbollah, which it designates a terrorist group.

The Lebanese government has said its permission was not sought to import the fuel.

The move marks an expansion of Hezbollah's role in Lebanon, where critics have long accused the heavily armed group of acting as a state within the state.

Founded by Iran's Revolutionary Guards in 1982, Hezbollah has long been part of Lebanon's governing system, with ministers and members of parliament.

It has fought numerous wars with Israel, and its fighters have helped Assad in the Syrian war.

Breaking 'the American siege'

The energy crisis is a result of a financial meltdown since 2019, sinking the currency by some 90% and sending more than three quarters of the population into poverty.

Fuel supplies have dried up because Lebanon does not have enough hard currency to cover even vital imports, forcing essential services including some hospitals to scale back or shut down and sparking numerous security incidents.

Hezbollah declared it had broken an "American siege".

Lebanon's financial system unravelled as a result of decades of profligate spending by a state riddled with corruption and waste, and the unsustainable way it was financed.

The French ambassador rebuked the former prime minister in July for saying Lebanon was under siege, saying the crisis was the result of years of mismanagement and inaction by Lebanon.

Western governments and donor institutions have said they will unlock aid once Lebanon enacts reforms.

The United States, a big supplier of humanitarian and military aid to Lebanon, is backing a plan to ease the energy crisis using Egyptian natural gas piped via Jordan and Syria. The U.S. ambassador has said Lebanon does not need Iranian fuel.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has said a second ship with fuel oil will arrive in the Syrian port of Baniyas in a few days, with a third and fourth, respectively carrying gasoline and fuel oil, also due.

A new government aims to resume talks with the IMF to tackle the crisis.

(REUTERS)

 

UN: Pandemic did not slow advance of climate change

The results of the United in Science 2021 report are an "alarming appraisal of just how far off course we are," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said.

    

Global fossil fuel CO2 emissions in the power and industry sectors are at the same level as in 2019

The UN released a report on Thursday warning that the COVID-19 pandemic has not slowed the pace of climate change.

Virus-related economic slowdown and lockdowns caused only a temporary downturn in CO2 emissions last year, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said.

The United in Science 2021 report, which gathers the latest scientific data and findings related to climate change, said global fossil-fuel CO2 emissions between January and July in the power and industry sectors were already back to the same level or higher than in the same period in 2019, before the pandemic.

"This is a critical year for climate action," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, saying the results were an "alarming appraisal of just how far off course we are."

Pandemic pause was brief 

The WMO said that emissions reductions during the first COVID-19 wave in early 2020 represented a "brief lapse." 

"Overall emissions reductions in 2020 likely reduced the annual increase of the atmospheric concentrations of long-lived greenhouse gases, but this effect was too small to be distinguished from natural variability," the report concluded.

Although CO2 emissions from road traffic in 2021 have been below the levels before the pandemic outbreak, concentrations of the major greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming continued to increase, according to the report. 

"We are still significantly off-schedule to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. 

"Unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale  reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to 1.5C will be impossible, with catastrophic consequences for people and the planet on which we depend." Guterres said.

jcg/sms (dpa, Reuters)

1.5 C warming limit 'impossible' without

 major action: UN

Issued on: 16/09/2021 - 

The global average mean surface temperature for 2017 to 2021 is estimated to be 1.06 C to 1.26 C above pre-industrial levels 

JOSH EDELSON AFP/File

Geneva (AFP)

A new climate change report out Thursday shows that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will be impossible without immediate, large-scale emissions cuts, the UN chief said.

The United in Science 2021 report, published by a range of UN agencies and scientific partners just weeks before the COP26 climate summit, said climate change and its impacts were accelerating.

And a temporary reduction in carbon emissions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic had done nothing to slow the relentless warming, it found.

The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, struck at the COP21 summit, called for capping global warming at well below 2 C above the pre-industrial level, and ideally closer to 1.5 C.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the report's findings were "an alarming appraisal of just how far off course we are" in meeting the Paris goals.

"This year has seen fossil fuel emissions bounce back, greenhouse gas concentrations continuing to rise and severe human-enhanced weather events that have affected health, lives and livelihoods on every continent," he wrote in the report's foreword.

"Unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to 1.5 C will be impossible, with catastrophic consequences for people and the planet."

COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference, will be held in Glasgow from October 31 to November 12.

- Pandemic effects -

Fossil greenhouse gas emissions peaked in 2019, shrinking by 5.6 percent in 2020 due to the Covid-19 restrictions and economic slowdown.

But outside aviation and sea transport, global emissions, averaged across the first seven months of 2021, are now at about the same levels as in 2019.

And the report said concentrations of the major greenhouse gases -- carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide -- continued to increase in 2020 and the first half of 2021.

Overall emissions reductions in 2020 likely shrank the annual increase of the atmospheric concentrations of long-lived greenhouse gases, but the effect was "too small to be distinguished from natural variability", it said.

The global average mean surface temperature for 2017 to 2021 -- with this year's data based on averages up to June -- is estimated to be 1.06 C to 1.26 C above pre-industrial (1850-1900) levels, the report said.

The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change called for capping global warming at well below 2 C above the pre-industrial level

 ARMANDO BABANI AFP/File

The global mean near-surface temperature was meanwhile expected to be at least 1 C over pre-industrial levels in each of the coming five years, with a 40-percent chance it could climb to 1.5 C higher in one of those years, it said.

Guterres said the world had reached a "tipping point", and the report showed "we really are out of time".

- Net-zero goal -

The all-time Canadian heat record was broken in June when a high of 49.6 C was recorded in Lytton, British Columbia.

Though the Pacific Northwest 2021 heatwave was a rare or extremely rare event, it would be "virtually impossible without human-caused climate change", the report said.

As for the severe flooding in Germany in July, the report said with high confidence that human-induced climate change "increased the likelihood and intensity of such an event to occur".

The report said the increasing number of countries committing to net-zero emission goals was encouraging, with about 63 percent of global emissions now covered by such targets.

But, it said, far greater action was needed by 2030 to keep those targets feasible and credible.

Calling for all countries to commit to net zero emissions by 2050, Guterres said: "I expect all these issues to be addressed, and resolved, at COP26."

"Our future is at stake."

© 2021 AFP

WW3.0
South Korea: new kid on the SLBM block

  submarine-launched ballistic missile 

Issued on: 16/09/2021 - 

Seoul's missile was fired underwater from South Korea's newly commissioned submarine Ahn Chang-ho

 Handout South Korean Defence Ministry/AFP/File


Seoul (AFP)

Missile test headlines on the Korean peninsula are almost invariably about the nuclear-armed North, but this week the South fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile of its own as it rapidly scales up its military capabilities.

The successful test puts the South among the elite flotilla of nations with proven SLBM technology, and Seoul is on a multi-billion-dollar drive to develop its defence forces.

On the other side of the Demilitarized Zone that splits the peninsula, the North maintains the world's largest standing army and has made rapid progress in its nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programmes, earning it multiple international sanctions.

But Seoul's SLBMs shift the strategic balance, enabling it to respond with a surprise second strike even if its land-based forces were destroyed in a conflict.

Wednesday's launch took place from the Ahn Chang-ho, a new 3,000-ton missile submarine named after an independence campaigner.

Afterwards President Moon Jae-in -- who has long pursued engagement with Pyongyang to bring it to the negotiating table -- told the vessel's commander: "Activist Ahn Chang-ho remarked in 1921 that 'The only thing we can trust and wish for is our strength'."

South Korea maintains a conscript army to defend it against the North, which invaded in 1950, and this month unveiled a blueprint to raise its defence budget to 70 trillion won ($60 billion) by 2026, with a focus on developing "cutting-edge advanced technologies".

It is adding more Aegis-class destroyers to its navy and building more SLBM submarines, as well as replacing ageing F-4 and F-5 jets with indigenously-designed KF-21 fighters.

The state Agency for Defense Development (ADD) also unveiled a supersonic cruise missile on Wednesday and said it was pursuing a high-powered ballistic missile able to deliver a significantly heavier warhead.

And in July it successfully tested what it called a solid-fuel engine for space rockets, designed to put small satellites into low Earth orbit.

Space rockets and military missiles use similar engine technology -- a correlation previously exploited by the North when it carried out what it said were satellite launches and others called disguised missile tests.

Solid-fuelled missiles are more mobile and quicker to deploy than liquid-fuelled ones.

- Lesson learned -

Washington stations around 28,500 troops in the South to help defend it against the North, but analysts say Seoul's development programmes are also driven by its experience of Donald Trump's administration, which showed it could be strategically unwise to rely on the US in perpetuity.

"We have to remember just how erratic the exercise of American power became," said Yonsei University professor John Delury.

"President Trump would regularly talk about in very hostile terms about the alliance with South Korea. So of course, that leaves a legacy," he said.

"And obviously nothing has really worked with North Korea," he added.

"From a South Korean perspective, you know you need your backup plan."

Under terms of the alliance, in the event of war their forces will be combined under American control.

Transferring that operational command to South Korea is a touchstone issue for the country's nationalistic left, and the South's military capacities are among the conditions required.

Moon has repeatedly pressed for the change to happen before he leaves office, but that is now unlikely with only eight months to go.

Outside the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, only India and now South Korea have proven SLBM technology. And aside from the South, all the others are nuclear powers.

Whether Seoul should go nuclear is a long-running topic of debate in the country, particularly on the right -- the last US atomic weapons were removed in 1991.

As a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) the South is barred from having atomic weapons of its own, but a recent opinion poll by the conservative Asan Institute showed almost 70 percent support for their acquisition in light of the North's arsenal -- the highest figure in a decade.

"The NPT protocols failed to prevent North Korea from becoming a nuclear power and yet restrict the Republic of Korea from developing its own weapons," retired South Korean lieutenant general Chun In-bum told AFP. "This needs to change."

© 2021 AFP