Tuesday, February 15, 2022
On Israel as an Apartheid State: an Interview with Richard Falk
Photograph Source: Chris Yunker – CC BY 2.0
Daniel Falcone: Could you give the context of the framework that brought us to Amnesty International’s findings regarding Israel and Palestine? What has changed regarding the organization to make this happen?
Richard Falk: I have no insight into the inner workings of Amnesty International, but it seems obvious from the length and detailed coverage in their 278-page report that this undertaking was begun years earlier. There were undoubtedly several elements in the background that prompted AI to undertake an inquiry that was bound to be controversial, and from experience to result in an insulting backlash with likely adverse impacts on funding. It has, perhaps, become a bit awkward for AI to dodge the issue of apartheid any longer given the 2001 reports of the two of the most prominent civil society human rights NGOs, Israel’s B’Tselem and Human Rights Watch, which detailed their reasons for concluding that the allegations of apartheid were well grounded in factual evidence and legal analysis.
I would also add that the UN Social and Economic Council for West Asia (ESCWA) academic report co-authored by Virginia Tilley and myself, released in March 2017 had reached similar conclusions, producing acrimonious reactions by Israel and the United States. This pushback reached a climax in a Security Council session, when the American representative, Nikki Haley arrogantly threatened the UN with a punitive response unless this report was repudiated. The recently elected Sec. General, dutifully ordered the report removed from the ESCWA website, which led the director of ESCWA, Rima Khalaf, to resign rather than carry out, a task left to her more compliant successor. So far as I know our report, although removed from the ESCWA website, was never repudiated.
Daniel Falcone: Yair Lapid called the report “false” and “antisemitic.” Do you suppose he believes this to be the case? It seems to be a talking point that is losing its effectiveness.
Richard Falk: I have now carefully read the AI Report and have concluded that it maintains the highest professional standards of research and analysis throughout. Of course, any legal argument made in the context of a complex fact situation of this sort is subject to logically plausible divergent interpretations. Lawyers earn their livings by learning how to mount arguments defending their respective clients, and I am sure Israel and its supporter abroad have many qualified jurists who can interpret the evidence along lines consistent with Israeli claims of constitutional democracy with human rights equally protected whether the objecting party is a Jew or Palestinian.
Yet for Yair Lapid and others to attack the AI Report as ‘a despicable lie’ that is full of falsehoods, as well as being the work of anti-Semites is nothing other than a shaming tactic designed to redirect the conversation away from the substance of the apartheid allegations to an inquiry into the dubious motivations of AI. This is in an inflammatory and disgracefully irresponsible way of responding in view of AI’s long, distinguished identity as among the most trusted and professional human rights organizations in the world. It is reminiscent of the manner Israel has chosen to respond to all criticisms over the course of the last decade, especially during the period when Netanyahu was prime minister. A similar diatribe was launched against the International Criminal Court a year ago when it formally authorized an investigation of Israeli criminality in response to well-evidenced allegations of a series of distinct crimes by the Palestinian Authority (PA). Incidentally, the PA did not list ‘apartheid’ among its legal grievances.
Daniel Falcone: Lawrence Davidson just wrote a piece called the “Israeli Pogrom,” citing a Zionist group’s attack on Palestinians. Do you see this type of extreme violence as cause for leading up to the report?
Richard Falk: The Davidson essay is devoted to a critique of Israeli settler violence directed at Palestinian civilians living in the West Bank. It shows significantly the double standards manifested by Israeli indulgence of Palestinian abuse by Israeli settlers, while displaying a contrasting vigilance with respect to protecting Jews from Palestinian violence whether in Occupied Palestine or Israel. This certainly manifests racial discrimination carried out with the complicity of the Israeli State. However, it is not evidence of the ideology or even the existence of an apartheid system of control, which either explicitly or implicitly premises governance on racial inequality as between a dominant and subordinate race and adopts specific policies to ensure the persistence of structures of inequality. In Israel’s case it denies complicity and rejects racism as part of its governance plan.
Whether such Israel’s persistent disregard of the obligations of an Occupying Power as set forth in the Fourth Geneva Convention played any role in leading AI to investigate the apartheid allegation remains unknowable as the organization has made no such reference. It is more plausible to suppose that the earlier reports on the apartheid claim played a principal role in leading AI to join the chorus although this is also a matter of conjecture.
Daniel Falcone: According to Haaretz, the US seems ready to dismiss the Amnesty International findings, can you comment on the state of the bipartisan consensus?
Richard Falk: I never for a minute expected the U.S. Government, including Congress, to accept an accusation of apartheid directed at Israel, no matter how impeccable the source and how persuasive the evidence and analysis. For one thing, it would break the special relationship causing a serious disruptive backlash domestically as well as gravely weaken the anti-Iran alliance in the Middle East. We should by not be surprised by the primacy of geopolitics when it collides with the requirement of international law and human rights standards, as well supposedly affirmed national values such as here, anti-racism.
For another, Biden like most of his presidential predecessors unabashedly follows unwaveringly a pro-Israel path in relation to grievances of the Palestinian people, although less crudely than Trump. This predisposition led Biden even to accept several of Trump’s more extreme shows of support for Israeli defiance of the UN consensus, including moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem, the normalization agreements with Arab neighbors, and the annexation of the Golan Heights. In effect, Biden has lowered his voice while maintained continuity most of Trump’s policies. The apparent discontinuities in the form of reviving support for a two-state solution or objection to further settlement expansion are gestures at best, widely known to be policy non-starters having a long record of zero behavioral impact. Above all, because the Oslo-type diplomacy has become superseded by Israeli disinterest in negotiating with the Palestinians, as equals with a shared acceptance of the principal goal being the establishment of an independent sovereign Palestine.
As a result, there is a wide gap in perceptions and attitude between the U.S. Government and the human rights civil society consensus on this crucial question of how to evaluate the apartheid charges. As the AI Report clearly argues, the evidence points to apartheid, and this engages international responsibility to take positive steps to suppress and punish the crime. On this basis AI recommends imposing an international arms embargo on Israel and urges the ICC to investigate the question of Israeli criminality and its legal consequences that is raised by the evidence of Israeli apartheid.
Daniel Falcone: Can you comment on how the Palestinian question is evolving in mainstream US circles? It seems that both individuals and institutions have become more robust to deal with the potential consequences of this political engagement. Can the movement maintain its intensity and enter liberal pragmatic spaces at the same time in your estimation?
Richard Falk: Despite notable developments, Israel continues to hold most of the cards as to the approach taken to the Palestinian question in the U.S. Although the bipartisan consensus and the Zionist civil society infrastructure has somewhat frayed due to the excesses of illiberal Trumpism and because of the increasing normalization of the apartheid critique, Israel still has the upper hand with respect to Congress, White House, and Beltway think tanks.
At the same time, the symbolic victories achieved by the Palestinians over the course of the last two years are significant from a Legitimacy War perspective. Admittedly, to an uncertain extent these developments have been offset by the successes of Trump’s normalization diplomacy (‘The Abraham Accords’), especially as endorsed and extended during the first year of the Biden presidency. It seems premature to reinterpret the symbolic balance between Israel and Palestine as it plays out in the U.S., The picture should become clearer during the next two years.
Because the apartheid line of critique indicts Israel for systemic criminality, which can only be overcome by renouncing the fundamental Zionist claim to secure a fully sovereign Jewish state, it will likely run into a stone wall of resistance in the United States, including in liberal Zionist circles. This resistance may take the form, as it has in NYT/CNNresponse to AI Report, which has been to maintain a stony silence. It is my impression that, not only in the U.S. but throughout the West, liberal opinion with respect to Palestinian grievances is evasive, if not entirely silent. Neither the alternative of implementing the AI recommendations nor the alternative of endorsing the official Israel pushback by way of attacking the reports as full of falsehoods and the work of anti-Semites is acceptable. Under these conditions silence and evasion seem like preferred options.
Yet such a course of action amounts to a validation of critiques of double standards. To weep about excess police force in responding to Hong Kong protest demonstrations or the treatment of the Uyghurs but avert eyes when it comes to the reality of prolonged Palestinian suffering and suppression of basic rights may be a contradiction is morally unacceptable, especially given the history of Western involvement in the political evolution of the Israeli state. At some point, the contradiction may become too blatant to accept even if it currently seems to remain an attractive pragmatic solution in relation to the apartheid critique.
Daniel Falcone: Is there any possibility that mainstream groups labeling the situation as “Apartheid” are making an oversimplification? Aren’t some parts of the region “better” than conditions were in South Africa, and some “worse,” as Chomsky points out. Also, is there a fear that the Palestinian cause is being reduced to a type of US middle class classical rights movements discourse, largely focused on symbolic political rights without constructing a path to wholesale economic policy and transformative justice?
Richard Falk: You raise an important set of overlooked issues. In retrospect, many progressives in South Africa feel that it was a severe mistake to settle for political rights and forego any challenge to white economic and social privilege. And it is also true that when Nelson Mandela was hailed for achieving the breakthrough agreement bringing the apartheid regime to an end, little attention was given to the widespread poverty of the black majority or the gross inequalities in health care, housing, educational opportunity that have hardly changed in the more than 30 years sincepolitical apartheid was dismantled.
At the same time, if Mandela had pressed demands for a more comprehensive approach to societal injustice no agreement at all would have been forthcoming. I am reminded of Hannah Arendt’s comparison between the American Revolution and the French and Russian Revolutions. She argues that the American Revolution was a humanitarian and political success because it didn’t seek to challenge economic and social structures, whereas the French and Russian Revolutions fell a bloody victim to their own laudable ambitions. Arguably the popular movement in Egypt that overthrew an autocratic leader settled for too little, making itself vulnerable to counterrevolutionary reversal, which occurred two years later. I think we are left with an insoluble problem that must be addressed in terms of the particularities of the situation.
Applying these considerations to the Palestinian situation, I would argue that it is preferable to accept limited goals in a manner like what ended apartheid in South Africa. This is ambition enough given the Palestinian circumstances and might make apartheid-ending diplomacy eventually negotiable. As in post-apartheid South Africa, I believe it best to leave the admittedly important economic and social agenda to post-apartheid Israel/Palestine, although realizing that these formidable justice issues remain unresolved.
So Far, Putin is the Biggest Winner in the Ukraine Conflict
FEBRUARY 15, 2022
Photograph Source: Lazopoulos George – CC BY 2.0
So far Russian President Vladimir Putin is the biggest winner in the Ukraine crisis by converting some heavy-duty sabre rattling into real political leverage. He has succeeded so well because US President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron and other leaders draw political benefits from opposing or defusing the Russian leader’s unspoken threat to invade.
Putin wants Russia to be taken seriously as an international player, recalling the era when it was the core nation in the USSR. It is still a nuclear superpower, though otherwise the Kremlin today rules a much-shrunken state with a population of 144 million or half that of the Soviet Union. The Russian economy is only a 15th the size of that of the US, while the Soviet economy was a third as big.
The Kremlin will be greatly gratified by the flood of Western leaders who have made their way in the past few weeks to Moscow where they can stand tall and issue stern warnings against a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
There was British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss warning Moscow against indulging in “Cold War rhetoric”, a cheeky demand given that a few weeks back Truss was accusing Moscow of grooming political lightweights in Kyiv as quisling rulers-to-be of a Russian occupied Ukraine.
Also defying the Russian bear is Boris Johnson, on his way to Brussels and then Warsaw, who said before leaving that Nato “must draw lines in the snow and be clear there are principles on which we will not compromise”.
Given the tendency of snow to melt, Johnson’s bit of rhetoric sounds less than convincing. With the Defence Secretary Ben Wallace also in Moscow, British diplomatic activity over Ukraine is embarrassing in its intensity and is presumably geared to show that Britain is still an international power whose leaders should not be diverted by scandal and criticism back home.
Putin is under some pressure, but much of it is rhetorical and conditional. Threats of sanctions made by Nato powers are predicated on a Russian invasion having actually taken place. Britain is putting 1,000 troops on alert to deal with a potential flood of millions of Ukrainian refugees, supposing there is a Russian military assault. American troops dispatched by Biden will have much the same task.
Words and actions by Biden and Johnson are at least partly addressed to domestic audiences whom their embattled leaders are eager to impress with their statesmanlike resolve. And, if there is no Russian invasion, they can claim that this is only because they deterred it.
Some Western analysts say that Putin would find it difficult to step back from maximalist Russian demands that Ukraine would never join Nato. But the same pundits often declare that Putin is a dictator unaffected by public opinion so not achieving all he wants will not do him political damage. He is also in full control of the Russian media narrative so, as long as he avoids war, whatever he does do will be hailed as a success.
Russia will never get a public declaration by Nato that Ukraine will not join the organisation, but then it does not really need to. It has already succeeded in toxifying the issue, making it unlikely that Nato powers will raise it as a serious option in future.
“It will be pushed to the margins of discussion,” one former diplomat told me, “as nobody will want to reignite a crisis with Russia.”
Keep in mind also that the Nato powers all declare that they will not send troops to Ukraine invasion or no invasion. This must deflate the value of Kyiv joining what is, after all, a military alliance, if the other members are pledged not to defend it.
The Kremlin has obtained other diplomatic dividends. Among punishments threatened if Russia does launch an invasion is an end to the Nord Stream 2 gas project, but if there is no invasion then presumably it will go ahead.
Yet sabre-rattling is a dangerous game that cannot be played successfully for too long. Putin needs to give his invasion scare enough substance to make it credible without turning it into a reality.
Thus Russia is currently conducting military exercises in Belarus and naval manoeuvres in the Black Sea, allowing it to keep up the pressure.
The problem from the Russian point of view that if the sabre does not come out of the scabbard, then eventually rattling it ceases to impress an opponent.
But any escalation in the threat level brings us closer to real military action and the risk of an accident – such as the shooting down of the Dutch airliner MH17 by Russian armed separatists in east Ukraine in 2014 – escalating the crisis uncontrollably.
Nato powers might also decide that Moscow is doing too well out of “coercive diplomacy” and demand that it reduce its forces close to the border with Ukraine.
Other dangers lurk in the Ukrainian political minefield, such as the balance of political power inside Kyiv. One explanation for the movement of Russian troops to the border early last year is that President Volodymyr Zelensky, backed by the incoming Biden administration, moved against pro-Russian parties, detained their leaders, and closed their television channel. Exactly who holds power in Kyiv will determine the extent of the security threat perceived by Moscow.
So far, all the players in the Ukraine crisis have enhanced their international or domestic status, but over time winners and losers will begin to emerge. If the arena in which they fight out their rivalries is to be Ukraine, the most unstable country in Europe, then the danger of a real military crisis becomes acute.
CAN YOU COMMUNICATE WITH A SEVERED HEAD?
zef art/Shutterstock
BY JEAN MENDOZA
/FEB. 14, 2022
In 1792, the guillotine was introduced in France as a way to decapitate criminals. Before that, capital punishment was done by way of a sword. However, a reform to the Criminal Code stated that punishments must be "humane" and criminals must not be left to suffer before their death. Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin proposed the idea of using a simple mechanism — the guillotine — to carry out capital punishments. "With my machine, I'll have your head off in the blink of an eye, and you will not suffer at all," he stated to the members of the National Constituent Assembly, as reported by Cairn Info.
In 1536, Anne Boleyn was executed by way of a sword, and according to onlookers, they saw her mouth moving, as if attempting to speak when the executioner held her head for everyone to see (via Discover Magazine). On July 17, 1793, Charlotte Corday was sentenced to death for assassinating French revolutionary leader Jean-Paul Marat. After beheading Corday using the guillotine, the executioner grabbed her severed head and slapped her cheek. According to How Stuff Works, the crowd was surprised to see Corday's cheeks flushed with color and her face contorted to show indignation for being slapped. Clearly, Dr. Guillotin was wrong to assume that death was instant.
THERE IS BRIEF BRAIN ACTIVITY AFTER DECAPTIATION
According to Discover Magazine, a French physician named Dr. Gabriel Beaurieux wanted to confirm whether a person remains conscious after being decapitated. He attended an execution and placed himself close to where the severed head would drop. When the head dropped, he called out his name in an attempt to get a reaction. The physician claimed that the man's eyes briefly looked toward him, and then looked down. He tried a second time, and the same happened. On the third try, the man no longer reacted. The physician determined that the brain remains conscious for about 25 to 30 seconds after being severed from the body.
Throughout the years, there have been many studies regarding brain activity after death. One study experimented on mice, which were connected to an electroencephalography machine to measure their brain waves. After decapitation, there was brain activity close to four seconds Other studies showed the same result in varying lengths of time on different animals (via Live Science). In humans, the brain needs oxygen in order to function. When the head is severed, however, the oxygen supply also stops. The brain is then left with whatever oxygen remains in the system after decapitation, and this, per the Independent, provides a brief wave of activity in the brain after the heart has stopped beating.
Although the brain can remain conscious after being severed, talking is not possible, as the lungs and vocal cords are needed in order to do that. However, as Mental Floss notes, researchers speculate that "communication" might be possible, just like what happened with Dr. Beauriex's experiment, if only briefly.
Read More: https://www.grunge.com/768299/can-you-communicate-with-a-severed-head/?utm_campaign=clip
Having a Ph.D. no guarantee of salary equality between sexes
By RINTARO SAKURAI/ Staff Writer
February 9, 2022
Males armed with a Ph.D. tend to earn significantly more than their female counterparts a year after they finish their doctoral courses, a study shows.
Most male doctors earned between 4 million yen ($34,900) and 5 million yen in the fiscal year following their graduation. The disparity in annual income with regard to the opposite sex came to around 1 million yen.
The finding by the Japan Doctoral Human Resource Profiling was released Jan. 25 by the National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP), which is affiliated with the education ministry.
The NISTEP noted the gender difference likely emanates from more women opting to work in humanities fields, where salaries are generally lower. It called for the imbalance between genders to be rectified.
The study, conducted from November through December 2020, covered 15,658 individuals who completed their doctoral courses in fiscal 2018. Responses were received from 3,894, or 25 percent.
Respondents were divided into 15 groups ranging from a no-salary category to those receiving 15 million yen or more on an annual basis.
The highest percentage of male respondents, 14.8 percent, said their annual earnings are between 4 million yen and 5 million yen. Most female doctors earned 3 million yen to 4 million yen, accounting for 14.3 percent.
The rate of those with annual incomes of 8 million yen or more reached 26 percent among men. But the percentage for women was 12.7 percent, less than half that of male Ph.D. holders.
By academic specialty, the most typical highest annual salary--12 million yen to 15 million yen--was for physicians, dentists and other health care providers.
The figures for engineering, social and natural sciences, agriculture, and humanities came to 4 million yen to 5 million yen; 3 million yen to 4 million yen; 2 million yen to 3 million yen; and 1 million yen to 2 million yen, respectively.
The survey also came with a comment section where people could jot down what they thought.
One respondent said women with doctoral degrees often found it “difficult” to get a job after giving birth.
“Reporting one’s pregnancy to an employer can result in the woman receiving a reduced wage,” said the individual. “Overtime money is another issue as it may not be paid in cases of power harassment.”
Another respondent stated that Ph.D. holders working as part-time lecturers could “starve to death” because their exemplary qualifications prove utterly fruitless at their workplaces.
“The government will really need to forge ahead with a national project to improve our working conditions,” the person said.
In one comment, an individual pointed out that many doctors, particularly those in social sciences and humanities, have to work part time as lecturers at more than one school.
“We must have spare time on our hands to prepare for lectures,” the critique said. “This not only affects my research hours but also my mind and body.”
Science turns to seals to unlock mysteries under the ice sheet
By YUMI NAKAYAMA/ Staff Writer
February 6, 2022 
Japanese researchers in Antarctica are deploying Weddell seals fitted out with high-tech head-mounted measuring devices to survey waters under the thick ice sheet at the South Pole.
It allows team members from the National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR) and Hokkaido University to collect observation data in areas where it is unrealistic to even launch submersibles to remotely collect data during the winter season.
The practice also helps scientists to trace the animals’ behavioral patterns and ecology. Penguins are also used for research programs in Antarctica. So-called bio-logging involving sea creatures is gaining growing attention in the scientific community as a means to measure water temperature, salinity and other marine conditions in areas where the environment is extremely harsh.
Eight Weddell seals equipped with 580-gram devices on their heads to record water temperatures and salt levels were used for the project between March and September 2017, when the researchers were wintering over at Japan’s Syowa Station.
The project was overseen by Nobuo Kokubun, an assistant professor of ecology at the NIPR.
The information collected was relayed via satellite when the seals, which have an average body weight of 326 kilograms, emerged from the water. Data was recovered from seven of the seals.
It showed that one of the animals traveled as astonishing 633 kilometers from Syowa Station while another had descended to a depth of 750 meters.
Analyzing the data, the researchers learned that warm seawater from the upper layer in the open sea reached Antarctica from the autumn season in March and April through the winter that year. The warmer water flowed below the ice, allowing seal populations to catch food efficiently.
“Antarctic krill and other creatures that serve as food (for seals) can be found in vast numbers in the top layer of the open sea,” said Kokubun. “They streamed in along with seawater, likely bolstering biological productivity near the coast.”
Scientists from Hokkaido University, who research changes brought on by oceanic conditions to the amount of ice in Antarctica, examined the warm seawater’s impact on coastal areas.
“A good point is that seals can collect data in a wider area beneath the thick ice surface, even during periods when vessels cannot be used for monitoring,” said Shigeru Aoki, an associate professor of climate change studies at the university.
‘Divine’ white deer spotted in snowfields in Hokkaido
By MASATOSHI NARAYAMA/ Staff Writer
February 15, 2022
Two white “ezoshika” deer are spotted in the Sarobetsu plain in northern Hokkaido on Feb. 13. (Masatoshi Narayama)
Two indigenous white “ezoshika” deer, considered a “messenger of God,” were seen separately grazing in snow-covered fields in the Sarobetsu plain in northern Hokkaido on Feb. 13.
The two were spotted in the late afternoon on the eastern side of the scenic Ororon Line, a road running along the coast of the Sea of Japan. They appeared to be does.
One was seen in a snowfield in Toyotomi town, grazing on what was initially a round hay bale. The hay was strewn about after being eaten almost daily by animals.
This ezoshika is apparently a “regular” visitor to the location since it was also spotted there in January. The other ezoshika was seen accompanying a slightly larger doe in a snowfield in Horonobe town.
Deer are normally covered with dark brown fur this time of winter, but the white deer had vivid white spots on their bodies, making them look even more divine.
A white deer has been spotted around the area from time to time. The latest sightings confirmed that there are at least two white deer.
The northernmost main island has been hit by heavy snow this winter, apparently prompting herds of the indigenous Hokkaido deer to search for food in coastal areas that have experienced lighter snowfall.
Small quakes reported near North Korea nuclear site amid talk of resumed testing
REUTERS
February 15, 2022
SEOUL--A series of small, natural earthquakes has struck near North Korea’s shuttered nuclear test site, South Korea has said, highlighting the area’s geological instability as Pyongyang hints it could resume testing for the first time since 2017.
At least four earthquakes have hit the region in the past five days, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) in Seoul.
The latest was a 2.5 magnitude quake on Tuesday morning, which was centered about 36 kilometers from the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site. A pair of 2.3 magnitude earthquakes were reported in the area on Monday and another at 3.1 magnitude on Friday.
Punggye-ri in northeast North Korea is the country’s only known facility for conducting nuclear tests. The last known weapons test was conducted in Sept. 2017, when North Korea detonated its sixth and largest nuclear bomb, which it claimed was a thermonuclear weapon.
In the weeks after that explosion, experts pointed to a series of tremors and landslides near the nuclear test base as a sign the large blast had destabilized the region, which had never previously registered natural earthquakes.
After one such quake in 2020, South Korean government experts said the nuclear explosions appeared to have permanently changed the geology of the area, while some experts raised fears that radioactive pollution could be released if North Korea ever used the site again.
Seismic activity induced by nuclear tests is not unusual and has been documented at other major nuclear test sites such as the Nevada Test Site in the United States and the former Soviet Union’s Semipalatinsk site in Kazakhstan, said Frank Pabian, a retired analyst with the United States’ Los Alamos National Laboratory.
“Such seismicity should not prevent the Punggye-ri nuclear test from being used again in the future,” he said. “The only difference being that any future testing would be limited to only previously unused tunnels.”
The entrances to those tunnels were blown up in front of a small group of foreign media invited to view the demolition when North Korea closed the site in 2018, declaring its nuclear force complete. North Korea rejected calls for international experts to inspect the closure.
Leader Kim Jong Un has said he no longer is bound by the self-imposed moratorium on testing, and the country hinted in January that it is considering resuming tests of nuclear weapons or long-range ballistic missiles because of a lack of progress in talks with the United States and its allies.
Since the closure, monitoring groups have said that satellite imagery so far shows no major signs of activity at Punggye-ri beyond routine security patrols and maintenance.
Trump, Pence speak at global forum held in South Korea
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 15, 2022
SEOUL--Former U.S. President Donald Trump has criticized the Biden administration over its handling of North Korea, at an event in South Korea that included as a guest speaker former Vice-President Mike Pence.
Several former leaders and top officials participated virtually or in-person at the weekend event in Seoul jointly sponsored by the Cambodian government and the Universal Peace Federation, an organization linked to the South Korea-based Unification Church, a religious group known for its mass weddings and global business and media interests.
Pence, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon were among those who attended the event and spoke in person.
Trump appeared in a recorded video message that was screened on Sunday at the forum.
He said that a recent “return to escalation” that has seen North Korean leader Kim Jong Un launch missile tests would “never have happened if I were president.”
He also urged North Korea not to undertake any actions that could “endanger” what he described as the “unique opportunity that we worked so hard to create together over the past four years.”
The North resumed tests of shorter-range weapons threatening U.S. ally South Korea while Trump was in office in 2019. The year before, Kim had unilaterally suspended the testing of nuclear explosives and intercontinental-range ballistic missiles.
Trump met Kim three times during his presidency. Their diplomacy never recovered from the collapse of their second meeting in February 2019, when the Americans rejected North Korean demands for a major release of U.S.-led sanctions in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear capabilities.
North Korea kicked off 2020 with ramped-up testing activity, conducting seven rounds of missile launches in January alone.
Experts say the North could increase weapons demonstrations after its ally China finishes hosting the Winter Olympics in Beijing, as it attempts to move the needle with the Biden administration, which has offered open-ended talks but shown no willingness to budge on sanctions.
During his speech at the weekend gathering, Pence said deepening relations between China and Russia are posing increasing threats to their democratic neighbors, according to the forum organizers. He also called for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the statement read.
While in Seoul, Pence met with South Korean conservative presidential candidate, Yoon Suk Yeol, as well as foreign policy advisers to the rival ruling party of Lee Jae-myung. The U.S. politician exchanged views on North Korea, according to campaign officials with from both camps.
3M expects to sell fewer Covid-19 masks this year
NEW YORK, Feb 15, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - After seeing sales of medical masks soar during the Covid-19 pandemic, US manufacturer 3M warned Monday that demand is expected to slow sharply this year.
The warning echoes that of other companies like vaccine-maker Pfizer and the CVS drugstore chain that have said pandemic-related sales are likely to soften.
After Covid-19 broke out in 2020, 3M, a conglomerate that makes a wide range of products from Post-it notes to air filters, quickly ramped up output of face masks, which became ubiquitous.
But in its quarterly earnings report Monday, 3M forecast a "decline in Covid-related respirator demand" which it said will weigh on overall sales growth and also dampen earnings.
Honeywell in early February said it sold fewer masks in the fourth quarter compared to the same period in 2020, and sees the slowdown continuing this year, hitting the company's overall sales.
Pfizer, whose vaccine developed with German company BioNTech was the first approved in the United States to counter the deadly virus, warned last week that sales of the jabs would slow in 2022.
But the US pharmaceutical group expects to see sales of its Covid-19 treatment pill to jump to at least $22 billion.
Meanwhile, CVS, which conducted 32 million Covid tests and administered more than 59 million vaccines in 2021, said last week it is expecting vaccinations to drop by 70 to 80 percent and testing to fall by as much as 50 percent.
CVS Chief financial officer Shawn Guertin told analysts the chain should see a "modest" uptick in sales of over-the-counter test kits.
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