South Korea president Yoon seeks more Canada trade as China looms over Ottawa visit

“You are such an attractive leader; you brought unity to Canadian society,” a translator for Yoon said in English.

THE CANADIAN RIGHT WOULD DISAGREE ABOUT JUSTIN BEING ATTRACTIVE

The Canadian Press
Dylan Robertson
Publishing date:Sep 23, 2022 • 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol speak at the start of a meeting in his office on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, Friday, Sept. 23, 2022. 

PHOTO BY ADRIAN WYLD /THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol says Canada is a natural match for boosting the production of electric vehicles, as both countries try to contain the risk of a more aggressive China.

On his one-day visit to Ottawa Friday, the president praised Canada’s natural resources and research into artificial intelligence, saying they could complement his country’s work in digital technology and semiconductors.

“If we co-operate in this area, (Korea’s) digital and data technology and Canada’s A.I. technology can work together, I think, and in synergy,” Yoon said in Korean during a press conference on Parliament Hill.

Yoon already met this month with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the queen’s funeral in London and at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. From there, he had short flights for his one-day visits to Toronto and Ottawa.

Butanalysts said Yoon’s visit was more than a matter of convenience, noting it was his first formal bilateral visit since he took office in March.

Robert Huish, an international development professor at Dalhousie University, said Canadians often don’t realize how deep their cultural and economic ties have been with South Korea for decades.

“Canada sometimes forgets that it is a Pacific nation, and it’s very much committed to engaging in the South Korean market,” said Huish, who researches security in the Korean Peninsula.


“Going forward, there is a want to make that stronger.”

Huish said planeloads of Nova Scotia seafood used to arrive in South Korea multiple times a week before the COVID-19 pandemic and a network of Canada-Korea friendship groups has fostered strong industrial links.

“Canada is finding itself as a very strategic market to South Korea, from seafood exports to now getting into electric-vehicle components.”

Both could be on the agenda next month when Foreign Minister Melanie Joly and Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne will be among a delegation heading to Seoul.

Yoon also thanked Canada for its support in containing the threat posed by North Korea.

Canada recently deployed a frigate as part of an ongoing, multinational surveillance operation that tracks whether the Communist regime is trying to evade sanctions. That includes monitoring for ships transferring fuel or commodities.

Friday’s meeting comes after months of anticipation for Canada’s Indo-Pacific strategy, a document that industry groups hope will clarify which countries Ottawa wants to grow closer to, and which countries should be lower priorities due to trade barriers or human-rights concerns.

Countries like Britain and France have already published such documents, and the Liberals promised Canada would outline its Indo-Pacific strategy months ago. On Friday, Trudeau pointed out twice that South Korea is also working on its own strategy for the region.

Also Friday, Trudeau announced Canada’s ambassador to China, a post that had been left vacant since last December.

He has tasked Jennifer May, a career diplomat with three decades of experience in foreign service, with advancing both trade and democratic values.

“China is certainly a real challenging actor in the region,” Trudeau said Friday. “A nuanced approach that is looking out for the interests of Canadians, the interests of citizens across our democracies, is essential.

“For too long, China and other autocracies have been able to play off neighbours and friends against each other, by offering bits of access to their market.”

At multiple points in his visit, Yoon mentioned Canada’s sacrifice in the Korean War, including after laying a wreath at the National War Memorial.

Earlier in the day, during a visit to Trudeau’s office in the West Block, Yoon praised his policies and support for multiculturalism.

“You are such an attractive leader; you brought unity to Canadian society,” a translator for Yoon said in English.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 23, 2022.

Colombia’s ‘dinosaur of peace’




© UNVMC
Digital reconstruction of Perijasaurus lapaz, a dinosaur discovered in Serranía del Perijá, northern Colombia.

24 September 2022
Culture and Education


Colombia’s 2016 Peace Agreement has led to an unexpected outcome: the discovery of a new species of dinosaur.

Researchers now know that, around 175 million years ago, a 12-metre long sauropod, roamed around an area of northern Colombia. The scientific world is attributing the discovery of this new species of herbivorous dinosaur to the improved security situation that exists in Colombia since the signing of a 2016 peace deal, which put an end to half a century of civil war.

Just two years after the signing of the agreement, it was deemed safe for a group of researchers from the Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, and the University of Michigan, United States, to visit the Serranía del Perijá, and gather fresh data.

© Marcos Guevara
Professor Aldo Rincón and his guide, Pedro Pablo Contreras, conducting fieldwork in the Serranía del Perijá mountain range.

Searching for clues, 80 years on

The scientists returned to the place where a fossil of a dinosaur dorsal spine vertebra was found by a geologist working for an oil company in 1943. At the time no-one knew that it was part of a brand-new species and, after the find, the fossil was taken, along with some sediment samples, to the United States and given to the University of California scientific collection at Berkeley.

Aldo Rincón Burbano, professor at the Department of Physics and Geosciences at the Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla and one of the research leaders in Colombia, acknowledged that "without the security conditions provided in the area today, it would have been difficult to return to the field. This is due to the Peace Agreement."

Those security conditions are monitored by the UN Verification Mission in Colombia, which was established by the Security Council in 2017 to support the progress of the Peace Agreement, and verify the reintegration of former combatants of the FARC-EP rebel group and their families into Colombian society.

© UNVMC/Jorge Quintero
Félix Arango, a 64-year-old former FARC combatant, was one of Professor Aldo Rincón's guides at the ETCR in Tierra Grata.

From fighter to guide

Former FARC-EP fighters provided logistical services, lodging, and guides for the researchers, as they tried to locate the site where the fossil had been unearthed some 80 years earlier.

Félix Arango, a 64-year-old former FARC-EP combatant who now works on an ecotourism project in Tierra Grata, accompanied them on long walks, searching for the exact spot. "I didn't know they were looking for a dinosaur because they were studying rocks; luckily I was familiar with the area because the former 41st front of the FARC operated there".

"We spent almost a year in the process, writing and searching, and although we didn't find any new fossils, we managed to get to the site and find the same sediment collected alongside the vertebra in 1943”, says Mr. Rincón. “By studying the sediment, we were able to conclude that the vertebra was from a new genus, and a new species.”

They named the species Perijasaurus lapaz: the first part after the place where it was found, and the second as a tribute to the historic Peace Agreement. The dinosaur is similar to other sauropods of this period found in Asia, North Africa, and southern Patagonia, which were smaller than the later dinosaurs belonging to this group.

“We still must look for more fossils in rocks of the same age in other areas of the country. Including the Tatacoa desert in Huila; the Girón area in Santander; and Nobsa in Boyacá,", says Mr. Rincón.

Mr. Arango, the former combatant who accompanied Mr. Rincón and his team, says that, hopefully, these other investigations can also tell the story of the experience of former combatants, who now, thanks to peace, play a different role in society.

TRUMP DECLARES HIMSELF SECOND 

ONLY TO JESUS

Former president Donald Trump on Friday re-shared a social media post in which he was declared to be “second” only to the man Christians believe to have been the son of God.

Using his own Truth Social platform (he remains banned from Twitter and Facebook), Mr Trump “re-truthed” a post by another Truth Social user which read: “Jesus is the Greatest. President @realDonaldTrump is the second greatest”.

The admission that he would be “second” behind anyone is a notable example of humility from the twice-impeached ex-president, who frequently boasts of being the greatest chief executive in American history and describes his own accomplishments using similar superlatives.

The former president has been on a tear on Truth Social in recent days, posting furiously after New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a massive fraud lawsuit against him, three of his adult children and his company.

House GOP Rolls Out Agenda With a Fake Lincoln Quote

Sam Brodey
Fri, September 23, 2022

As he rolled out the first official Republican Party congressional platform in years, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy fittingly invoked the revered father of the GOP: Abraham Lincoln.

At the top of a letter to Republican lawmakers thanking them for their contributions to the “Commitment To America”—the policy agenda they are launching near Pittsburgh on Friday—McCarthy included a quote attributed to Lincoln.

“Commitment,” reads the quote, “is what transforms a promise into reality.”

For McCarthy’s purposes, it’s a pitch-perfect message. There’s just one problem: there’s no record of Lincoln actually saying it.

The quote appears often on social media or inspirational websites, attributed to Lincoln. But a review of historical records by The Daily Beast turned up no proof of when or where the beloved president said these words.

Christian McWhirter, a historian at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois, said he could find "no reliable evidence" that Lincoln ever said those words. "They do not appear in his writings and I cannot find them recollected by any of his contemporaries," McWhirter told The Daily Beast.

McCarthy’s office did not immediately respond to questions about how they sourced the quote.

What may have injected this phrase into the public’s bloodstream was not Lincoln but Lehman Brothers, the Wall Street titan that collapsed in the 2008 financial crisis.

In 1986, Lehman Brothers placed a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal thanking its longest-tenured employees. At the top of the page is the full quote that is attributed in some places online to Lincoln.

“Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality. It is the words that speak boldly of your intentions. And the actions which speak louder than words. It is making the time when there is none. Coming through time after time after time, year after year after year.”

“Commitment is the stuff character is made of; the power to change things. It is the daily triumph of integrity over skepticism.”

Although McWhirter found the quote himself in 1984 not attributed to Lincoln, the Lehman ad seems to have been a main source for the proliferation of the quote, with witnesses in congressional hearings referencing it—while sourcing it to Lehman Brothers—and business journals quoting it. At some point, Honest Abe was likely given credit for thinking it up.

"It appears to have been unattributed until the internet came along and people began attributing it to Lincoln, which is common with some of these false Lincoln quotes," McWhirter said

House GOP ‘Field Guide’ Pushes Transphobic Teachable Moments With Kids

On the Internet, there is a small epidemic of sage quotes falsely attributed to leaders and U.S. presidents. Although there is no shortage of wise words Lincoln actually said, he is one of the most frequent victims of the trend.

The rollout of the “Commitment to America” is a big moment for McCarthy, a distant heir to Lincoln’s leadership of the GOP. The California Republican, who has led the House minority conference since 2019, is the overwhelming favorite to be Speaker of the House next year should the GOP take control of the chamber, as is expected.

The platform is meant to be an updated statement of priorities and a message to voters about what a Republican majority would do. It partially contains decades-old GOP boilerplate on issues like the economy and energy production. Reflecting the party’s midterm priorities, it’s also heavy on border security and pro-law enforcement rhetoric, and nods heavily to cultural wedge topics like trans athletes in schools.

On Friday, McCarthy gathered a select group of GOP leaders and rank-and-file members in Pittsburgh to roll out the platform—including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). The entire House GOP apparatus spent the week gearing up for the well-coordinated launch.

The fake Lincoln quote, of course, is a minor speedbump. McCarthy would not be the first prominent Republican to flub a Lincoln quote. In 2017, the Republican National Committee tweeted words they attributed to Lincoln: “And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count; it's the life in your years.” (“It didn’t sound very Lincolnesque,” NPR charitably noted in an article at the time.)

And in 2020, Lara Trump, wife of the former president’s son Eric, gave a speech at the GOP convention in which she invoked Lincoln.

“Abraham Lincoln once famously said ’America will never be destroyed from the outside,’” Lara Trump said. “If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” Fact-checkers quickly found that it was not a real quote.

Memes have now sprouted up warning eager Lincoln admirers to think twice. In one, a black-and-white photo of Abe is paired with the message: “‘Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet just because there’s a picture with a quote next to it’—Abraham Lincoln.”

Whoops! Republicans’ ‘Commitment to America’ Video Features Stock Footage from Russia and Slovakia

By Michael Luciano

Sep 23rd, 2022

A video accompanying House Republicans’ “Commitment to America” got a Slavic touch after stock footage from eastern European countries was included in its montage.

Republicans aim to retake the lower chamber of Congress in November. As part of that effort, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) took a page out of Newt Gingrich’s playbook and his 1994 “Contract with America” and unveiled the Republican agenda in the event the GOP prevails in the midterms.

Much of the imagery from the video is Americana boilerplate, but for the fact a few clips originate from well beyond U.S. borders.

According to HuffPost, a snippet of a little boy holding a toy airplane was actually shot in Russia’s Volgograd region by Russia-based filmmaker Serg Grbanoff.



Ditto for this oil rig, which also appears in the Republicans’ video.




Elsewhere in the montage, a shot from what appears to be a grocery store in Slovakia makes an appearance. As HuffPost noted, a small red tag on the left side of the image reads, “AKCIA,” which is a Slovak word for “action.” It is used to indicate sales in the country’s stores.



The video also appears to include footage from Ukraine. In this image, a man carries a sack on his shoulder. The caption mentions the “vibrancy of the American dream.”



Republicans hope to take back the House for the first time since 2019. Though they are expected to do so, it is unclear if they’ll be able to win a few parliaments in eastern Europe as well.

A RIGHT WING ISOLATIONIST AND  CHINA AGREE

How Biden Has Committed US to War Over Taiwan

(Dreamstime)

By Patrick BuchananFriday, 23 September 2022 

If China invades Taiwan to unify it with the mainland, the United States will go to war to defend Taiwan and send U.S. troops to fight the invaders.

That is the commitment made last week by President Joe Biden.

Asked by CBS's Scott Pelley on "60 Minutes" if the U.S. would fight in defense of Taiwan if China invaded, Biden replied, "Yes, if, in fact, there was an unprecedented attack."

Pelley followed up: "So, unlike Ukraine, to be clear, sir, U.S. forces — U.S. men and women — would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion."

"Yes," Biden responded.

As Aaron Blake of The Washington Post reports, this is "a U.S. president firmly committing to go to war." Moreover, it is only the "latest of increasingly hawkish comments" made by Biden on the China-Taiwan issue.

For the fourth time in his presidency, Biden has said the U.S. will fight for Taiwan, though that could mean all-out war with China, which claims Taiwan as its sovereign territory and which has a growing stockpile of strategic missiles and nuclear weapons to validate its claim.

In August 2021, as Blake relates, Biden declared, "We made a sacred commitment to Article 5 that if in fact anyone were to invade or take action against our NATO allies, we would respond. ... Same with Japan, same with South Korea, same with — Taiwan."

But Taiwan has no mutual security treaty with the United States, nor any Article 5 war guarantee that obligates us to defend the island. The U.S.-Taiwan security pact of the 1950s was abrogated in 1979, when Jimmy Carter recognized Beijing as the legitimate government of China.

In October 2021, Biden was again asked: "China just tested a hypersonic missile. What will you do to keep up with them militarily, and can you vow to protect Taiwan?"

Biden's response: "Yes and yes."

In a follow-up, Biden was asked again, "So are you saying that the United States would come to Taiwan's defense if China attacked?"

Biden: "Yes, yes, we have a commitment to do that."

Yet we have no such commitment, no such obligation, though Biden appeared to be establishing one as head of government, head of state and commander in chief.

In May, Biden was asked, "Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?"

Biden: "Yes."

Q: "You are?"

Biden: "That's the commitment we made."

Thus, Biden has, four times in his 20-month presidency, declared the U.S. is obligated to come to the defense of Taiwan, if China attacks, blockades or invades; and that, as president, he will honor what he believes to be a national commitment and U.S. war guarantee.

Each of the times Biden has declared that we are obligated to fight for Taiwan and he will honor that obligation, White House staff have walked back his words. There is no change in U.S. policy, unnamed officials assure the press.

U.S. policy is still presumably "strategic ambiguity" as to what we will do should China attack.

Nor is Taiwan the only site in the seas off the China coast where Biden seems to have issued a unilateral U.S. war guarantee.

Biden has said that if the Philippines seeks to retrieve its islets in the South China Sea now occupied by China, America will fight on Manila's side. He has indicated that the U.S. mutual security treaty with Japan covers the Senkaku Islands Japan occupies but China claims.

One wonders: If China invades and seizes Taiwanese-claimed and -occupied islands within sight of the Chinese coast, and Taiwan resists, what would Biden do?

In the Nixon-Kennedy campaign of 1960, JFK called it "unwise" to take a risk of being dragged into war, which could lead to a world war, over islands like Quemoy and Matsu that were not strategically defensible.

If Beijing invaded and occupied islands a few miles right off its coast, and Taiwan resisted, would Biden send the Seventh Fleet to war with China?

The basic question raised by these Biden commitments to go to war with a China with a huge army and fleet, and in its own home region, is — why?

No U.S. president after Richard Nixon has challenged China's claim that there is but "one China" and Taiwan "is a part of China."

How many battle deaths, how many war dead, are we willing to sacrifice to prevent Beijing taking political control of an island of 23 million Taiwanese 6,000 miles away from the United States?

We did not fight to prevent China from imposing its control on 7 million people of Hong Kong. Why then does the independence of 23 million Taiwanese justify a U.S. war with the world's most populous nation?

And if we fought a war with China over Taiwan, what would be our long-term strategic goal?

Independence for Taiwan?

But did we not cede that in the 1970s with Nixon's trip to China, his Shanghai Communique and Carter's severing of relations with the Republic of China?

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever."

China says U.S. sending 'dangerous

signals' on Taiwan

Reuters
September 23, 2022

China has accused the United States of sending "very wrong, dangerous signals" on Taiwan after the U.S. secretary of state told his Chinese counterpart on Friday that the maintenance of peace and stability over Taiwan was vitally important.

Taiwan was the focus of the 90-minute, "direct and honest" talks between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, a U.S official told reporters.

"For our part, the secretary made crystal clear that, in accordance with our long-standing one-China policy, which again has not changed, the maintenance of peace and stability across the Strait is absolutely, vitally important," the senior U.S. administration official said.

China's foreign ministry, in a statement on the meeting, said the United States was sending "very wrong, dangerous signals" on Taiwan, and the more rampant Taiwan's independence activity, the less likely there would be a peaceful settlement.

"The Taiwan issue is an internal Chinese matter, and the United States has no right to interfere in what method will be used to resolve it," the ministry cited Wang as saying.

Tensions over Taiwan have soared after a visit there in August by U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi - which was followed by large-scale Chinese military drills - as well as a pledge by U.S. President Joe Biden to defend the democratically governed island.

Biden's statement was his most explicit to date about committing U.S. troops to the defend the island. It was also the latest instance of his appearing to go beyond a long-standing U.S. policy of "strategic ambiguity," which does not make it clear whether the United States would respond militarily to an attack on Taiwan.

The White House has insisted its Taiwan policy has not changed, but China said Biden's remarks sent the wrong signal to those seeking an independent Taiwan.

In a phone call with Biden in July, Chinese leader Xi Jinping warned about Taiwan, saying "those who play with fire will perish by it."

The State Department had said earlier that Blinken's meeting with Wang was part of a U.S. effort to "maintain open lines of communication and manage competition responsibly," and the senior official said Blinken had reiterated U.S. openness to "cooperating with China on matters of global concern."

Blinken also "highlighted the implications" if China were to provide material support to Russia's invasion of Ukraine or engage in wholesale sanctions evasion, the official added.

U.S. officials have in the past said they had seen no evidence of China providing such support.

Blinken "underscored that the United States and China and the international community have an obligation to work to counter the effects of that invasion and also to deter Russia from taking further provocative actions," the official said.

China sees Taiwan as one of its provinces. Beijing has long vowed to bring Taiwan under its control and has not ruled out the use of force to do so.

Taiwan's government strongly objects to China's sovereignty claims and says only the island's 23 million people can decide its future.

'DEVASTATE OUR BILATERAL TIES'

Blinken's meeting with Wang was preceded by one between the foreign ministers of the Quad grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the United States, which issued a statement, referring to the Indo-Pacific, saying that "we strongly oppose any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo or increase tensions in the region."

Since Pelosi's visit "China has taken a number of provocative steps that have by design acted to change the status quo", the U.S. official said.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will discuss Taiwan security during bilateral meetings with the leaders of U.S. allies Japan and South Korea when she visits them next week, another U.S. official said.

Daniel Russel, the top U.S. diplomat for Asia under President Barack Obama, said the fact Blinken and Wang had met was important after the turbulence brought by Pelosi's visit, and hopefully some progress would have been made towards arranging a meeting between Xi and Biden on the sidelines of a G-20 meeting in November, which would be their first in-person as leaders.

"Wang and Blinken's decision to meet in New York does not guarantee the November summit will go smoothly or that it will even occur. But had they been unable to meet, it would have meant the prospects for a summit in November were poor," said Russel, now with the Asia Society.

In a speech to the Asia Society in New York on Thursday, Wang said the Taiwan question was growing into the biggest risk in China-U.S. relations.

"Should it be mishandled, it is most likely to devastate our bilateral ties," Wang said, according to a transcript from the Chinese embassy.

Likewise, the decades-old U.S. law outlining Washington's unofficial relations with Taiwan – which Beijing considers null – makes clear that Washington's decision to establish diplomatic relations with China in 1979 "rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means."

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, David Brunnstrom, Michael Martina and Simon Lewis; Additionl reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Mary Milliken, Jonathan Oatis and Sandra Maler)

US, China top diplomats meet to contain

high tensions on Taiwan

Shaun Tandon and Nicolas Revise
 AFP
Published September 23, 2022

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken walks with Chinese Foreign Minister 

Wang Yi as they meet in Bali in July 2022 - Copyright AFP -

The top US and Chinese diplomats met Friday in New York as soaring tensions show signs of easing, but Beijing issued a new warning against support for Taiwan.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi shook hands but only exchanged pleasantries before the cameras before sitting down with aides on the sidelines of the annual United Nations summit.

It was their first encounter since extensive talks in July in Bali where both sides appeared optimistic for more stability.

One month later, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, infuriating Beijing which staged exercises seen as a trial run for an invasion of the self-governing democracy.

In a sign of smoother ties, Wang also met in New York with US climate envoy John Kerry despite China’s announcement after Pelosi’s visit that it was curbing cooperation on the issue, a key priority for Biden.

Blinken went ahead with the talks despite paring down his schedule following the death of his father on Thursday. Immediately before seeing Wang, he met with his counterparts from Australia, Japan and India, the so-called “Quad” which Beijing has denounced as an attempt to isolate it.

“Our four countries know very well the significant challenges that we face, as well as the opportunities that are before us, demand more than ever that we work together,” Blinken said as the ministers signed an agreement on cooperation in disaster relief.


– Taiwan the ‘biggest risk’ –


President Joe Biden in an interview aired Sunday said he was ready to intervene militarily if China uses force in Taiwan, once again deviating from decades of US ambiguity.

In a speech before his talks with Blinken, Wang reiterated anger over US support for Taiwan, which China considers part of its territory.

“The Taiwan question is growing into the biggest risk in China-US relations. Should it be mishandled it is most likely to devastate bilateral ties,” he said at the Asia Society think tank.

“Just as the US will not allow Hawaii to be stripped away, China has the right to uphold the unification of the country,” he said.

He denounced the US decision to “allow” the Taiwan visit by Pelosi, who is second in line to the presidency after the vice president. The Biden administration, while privately concerned about her trip, noted that Congress is a separate branch of government.

But Wang was conciliatory toward Biden. The New York talks are expected to lay the groundwork for a first meeting between Biden and President Xi Jinping since they became their two countries’ leaders, likely in Bali in November on the sidelines of a summit of the Group of 20 economic powers.

Wang said that both Biden and Xi seek to “make the China-US relationship work” and to “steer clear of conflict and confrontation.”

The US Congress is a stronghold of support for Taiwan, a vibrant democracy and major technological power.

Last week a Senate committee took a first step to providing billions of dollars in weapons directly to Taiwan to deter China, a ramp-up from decades of only selling weapons requested by Taipei.

Tensions have also risen over human rights with the United States accusing the communist state of carrying out genocide against the mostly Muslim Uyghur people.

Biden, like his predecessor Donald Trump, has viewed a rising China as the chief global competitor to the United States and vowed to reorient US foreign policy around the challenge.

Russia’s invasion in February of Ukraine quickly diverted the US focus to Europe but also heightened fears that Beijing could make good on years of threats to use force against Taiwan.

Yet US officials have also been heartened that China has shown some distance from Russia, nominally its close ally.

Wang met in New York with Ukraine’s foreign minister for the first time since the war and in a Security Council session Thursday emphasized the need for a ceasefire rather than support for Russia.

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/us-china-top-diplomats-meet-to-contain-high-tensions-on-taiwan/article#ixzz7fm5yaMQX

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
EPA fines pesticide maker $325,000 for marketing product as coronavirus disinfectant

Scott Fallon
NorthJersey.com

WOODLAND PARK, NJ. – Two affiliated companies will pay more than $300,000 in fines for claiming a registered pesticide could be used to fight germs and viruses including the virus that causes COVID-19, federal officials said Wednesday.

Zoono Microbe Shield was sold around the globe to fight the spread of COVID-19 in such places as United Airlines cabins and Amazon warehouses. But officials at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday that the manufacturer gave "false and misleading claims about its effectiveness and suitability for use" as a coronavirus disinfectant.

Under an agreement with the EPA, Zoono USA and Zoono Holdings will pay $205,000 and $120,000 respectively. The two are subsidiaries of a parent company based in New Zealand.

“We are committed to guarding against companies taking advantage of the fact that COVID-19 continues to pose a risk and to ensure consumer confidence and protect people’s health," EPA Regional Administrator Lisa F. Garcia said in a statement.

Zoono USA, based in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, did not have an immediate response to the agreement.

Under its registration with the EPA, Zoono Microbe Shield was only allowed to say on its label that it could fight "against odor-causing bacteria, bacteria which cause staining and discoloration, fungi (mold and mildew) and algae as a static agent," according to the agreement

But packaging, print marketing, websites, social media and other advertisements for Zoono Microbe Shield said it was a "surface sanitizer that continuously kills germs for up to 30 days," including coronavirus.

Among those that used the product as a coronavirus disinfectant was United Airlines. Executives said in September 2020 that workers would begin coating seats, tray tables, armrests, overhead bins, lavatories and crew stations with the product each week on more than 30 aircraft.

It was also used to try to disinfect bus stations and hospital rooms in the United Kingdom, along with hundreds of Amazon distribution centers, according to press reports. Other reports said it was used by Coca-Cola, McDonald's and movie theater chains.

Asahi Shuzo to build high-quality sake breweries in Japan, U.S.

'Dassai' brand sake brewer expands to meet growing overseas demand

Asahi Shuzo is one of the most active exporters among Japanese sake brewers.

MITSUTOSHI KOUTA, Nikkei staff writer

September 24, 2022 12:04 JST

YAMAGUCHI, Japan -- Asahi Shuzo, the brewer of the Dassai brand of sake, plans to expand its production capacity for high-quality sake in Japan and the U.S.

The company will build a special brewery for high-quality sake in Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture, and will also produce high-value-added sake for Western countries' markets at a brewery it is constructing in the U.S.

Unit purchase prices for sake are trending upward, mainly overseas, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, according to Asahi Shuzo. The company is receiving a growing number of inquiries for high-quality sake from its customers.

Asahi Shuzo is one of the most active exporters among Japanese sake brewers. The company's sake is being consumed as a favorite brand among sake lovers around the world, including Asia, thanks in part to the widespread popularity of Japanese food.

The company estimates its sales will grow 12% in the fiscal year ending September 2022 from a year earlier to an all-time high of just under 16 billion yen ($111 million). Its overseas sales have been steadily growing and now account for 50% of its total sales, up from just over 10% six years ago.

The percentage may further increase with the new breweries.

The special domestic brewery for high-quality sake is to be constructed mainly in the precincts of the company's head office in Iwakuni. Construction is scheduled to begin next summer and to start operating by the winter of 2024. A Dassai sake product priced at 38,500 yen ($268) per 720-milliliter bottle will be the core product at the facility.

Excellent brewers picked from among those at our head-office breweries will be assigned to the new brewery to produce high-quality sake, according to Kazuhiro Sakurai, Asahi Shuzo president and CEO. (Photo by Mitsutoshi Kouta)

The company will gradually increase production at the new brewery, aiming at an annual output of 540,000 liters in 10 years. The brewery will be staffed by 50 employees.

"Excellent brewers picked from among those at our head-office breweries will be assigned to the new brewery to produce high-quality sake," Kazuhiro Sakurai, the company's president and CEO, said.

The core high-quality item of the Dassai brand is brewed using rice grains polished until they have only 23% of their original weight. The item is priced at 5,500 yen ($38.30) per 720-ml bottle. Meanwhile, sake items priced at $150-$200 are selling well overseas, and the company expects the trend to continue.

At the new American brewery, under construction in New York, the company plans to produce high-quality sake using rice polished to 23% of the original weight and less. The brewery is slated to be completed by the end of December of this year and to become operational by early next spring.

The brewery's total floor space will be about 5,000 sq. meters and the total investment in the facility will be 7 billion yen ($48.8 million), according to the company. The brewery will start operating with a staff of nine employees and produce 126,000 liters in the first year, expanding to a staff of 50 and an annual output of 1.26 million liters in 10 years.

At the American brewery, Asahi Shuzo will produce Dassai Blue, a new brand for overseas markets, and the company hopes to use water of the state of New York and the Yamada Nishiki variety of rice grown in the U.S. The company will use brewer's rice grains polished to 45%, 39% and 23% of the weight of unpolished grains, as in Japan, but Sakurai said, "We also plan to produce higher-value-added sake using brewer's rice polished even further."

“Now that I’ve seen it in writing I’m f*cking sick to my stomach.”

Railroaders furious upon reading Biden-brokered, tentative agreement used to sabotage strike

Jacob Crosse

WSWS.ORG.

A worker boards a locomotive at a BNSF rail yard Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022, in Kansas City, Kan. [AP Photo/Charlie Riedel]

After stringing railroad workers along for nearly a week, late Wednesday night SMART Transportation Division released the 2022 tentative national rail agreement. This is the agreement that was used to block a national strike last week of over 100,000 railroaders.

The agreement was reached last week after hours of backroom deals and the personal intervention of President Joe Biden, who hailed the terms as a “great deal for both sides,” a narrative that was quickly parroted by Wall Street and their mouthpieces in the press alike.

Functioning as enforcers of a de-facto strike injunction, SMART-TD and BLET have defied a 99.5 percent strike vote and purposely slow-rolled the release of the agreement in a bid to demoralize railroaders into accepting the carrier-friendly terms.

There are many signs, however, that they have failed to quell the mood of rebellion among railroaders. Instead, the unions have floated the possibility of unilaterally imposing the deal even if workers vote it down, either by simply overriding a “no” vote or by sending the contract to binding arbitration.

As the World Socialist Web Site reported last week, the tentative agreement is a virtual carbon copy of the Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) recommendations, which have already been widely rejected by workers.

This includes a pathetic 22 percent wage increase over the life of the five-year contract, which is retroactive to July 1, 2020. With year-to-year inflation hovering at 8.5 percent, and a recession on the horizon, this represents a massive pay cut for railroaders and a victory for the immensely profitable rail carriers.

Under the misnamed “Quality of Life Enhancements” section of the agreement, SMART-TD notes the addition of “one (1) paid personal leave day” and the ability to schedule “3 annual routine/preventive medical care visits” without being assessed points under the punitive precision railroad scheduling and Hi Viz attendance systems.

These profit-driven scheduling and attendance systems have forced thousands of workers to resign and obliterated the personal lives and health of those who remain. Nothing in the “new” White House-brokered agreement would eliminate, much less curb, the use of these systems.

Furthermore, the three unpaid medical visits laid out in the agreement must be scheduled on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and “at least thirty (30) days in advance.”

Even these three days are not guaranteed, as the agreement released by SMART notes that “voluntary assigned days off” will be subject to the tentative agreement being ratified, and if that does not occur in “180 days” of the “initial Union notice,” an arbitration board will have “jurisdiction to determine whether and how the rules referenced in this Article will be implemented.”

Should the agreement be ratified, workers’ monthly medical “cost-sharing contributions” would increase from 12.6 to 15 percent capping out at, allegedly, $398.97 a month, “effective January 1, 2025.”

Something that was not in the PEB, but has been added to the deal, implementation of “Automated Bid Scheduling (ABS) rules, where such rules do not already exist.”

Page 12 of the agreement notes that ABS will “serve as the primary method to assign employees on a regular basis, based on seniority, qualifications and job preferences.” In order to ensure the trains are always running and staffed, the carriers will maintain “pools and extra boards” which will be used by the carrier to eliminate jobs while forcing railroaders left to take additional assignments.

An engineer for Union Pacific explained to the WSWS that the creation of these “self-regulated pools,” otherwise known at “The Robinson Rule” will “make our schedule even more chaotic and unpredictable.” He noted that this change “will be the end of many jobs, and will have a devastating effect on our personal lives.”

Speaking on the tentative agreement as a whole, he was blunt. “It’s f***ed. Now that I’ve seen it in writing I’m sick to my stomach…a slap in the face.”

Terry, a BNSF carmen and participator in the September 14 online public meeting hosted by the Rail Workers Rank-and-File Committee (RWRFC), told the WSWS that he opposed the agreement and wanted to learn more about the RWRFC.

“You know as a worker, you get tired of being taken advantage of. You are always, always, losing something every contract and it has got to stop.”

“I am just a carman, I got 25 years in. Every year we have lost something. I feel bad, I feel bad for the ways and means guys and the TY&E. How could you have a life? How could you have life? You never see your family. You are sick all the time. We are exhausted, dragging all the time, we are so tired.”

He continued, “This TA doesn’t even cover the cost of inflation. It’s terrible, it’s hard even getting by with our pay. I am scratching by, trying to help my mom. It is difficult to get by. These bills, prices for food, you are not gaining any headway. You have no savings.”

On increases to insurance costs, Terry said, “Our local rep said it would go up $66 per month. Any time we get a raise, the union gets their cut and we just get what’s left over, which is basically nothing.”

Terry predicted that if the agreement was forced through, “...a majority of the transportation guys are going to take their back pay and leave. That is going to cripple the railroad and inflation is going to be absurd. Right now farmers can’t even get fertilizer for their crops.”

Speaking on the possibility of a Congress of millionaires dictatorially imposing the White House- and rail carrier-backed agreement, Terry said, “They don’t give two shits about the common people. They are the ones that have everything paid for and given to them by us.”

After discussing the Rail Workers Rank-and-File Committee, Terry said, “I will be sure to pass this on to the other guys. The other two guys I sent this information to, are not quiet people. They want to learn more about this and spread the word. We have got a lot, a lot, of upset employees at work and I am sure they would love to be a part of the [RWRFC], because what [the unions] are doing is complete bulls***. We are actually losing money if this contract goes through.”

That the trade unions would agree to such a proposal, Terry said, showed that there is “no representation from the unions at all. How much are they making on bribes and donations? Probably six figures, every year. Wage increases, every year. Sounds just like our Congress. They (the unions) sure aren't looking out for the members. And it just sickens me as well. I hope the majority are aware of the Rank-and-File movement, they need to know.”

'Blood on your hands' if world steps back on tackling Covid-19 now — WHO official


23 September 2022

BY JENNIFER RIGBY

In an interview, WHO senior adviser Bruce Aylward warned that richer nations must not step back from tackling Covid-19 as a global problem now, ahead of future potential waves of infection.

Image: 123RF/Sasirin Pamai

If rich nations think the pandemic is over, they should help lower-income countries reach that point too, a senior World Health Organisation official told Reuters.

In an interview, WHO senior adviser Bruce Aylward warned that richer nations must not step back from tackling Covid-19 as a global problem now, ahead of future potential waves of infection.

In the last few weeks, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the end of the pandemic was in sight, and US President Joe Biden said the pandemic was over.

“When I hear them say, 'Well, we're so comfortable here,' it's like, 'Great, now you can really help us get the rest of the world done',” said Aylward.

Aylward said that the group he co-ordinates, which focuses on equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines, treatments and tests worldwide, is not yet ready to move out of the emergency phase of tackling the pandemic and that countries need to be ready and have treatments in place for any further waves of infection.

“If you go to sleep right now and this wave hits us in three months... God — blood on your hands,” he said.

He also stressed that Biden had a point domestically as the US has good access to all Covid-19 tools. It has also not cut its global commitment to fighting Covid-19, he added.

Aylward co-ordinates the ACT-Accelerator, a partnership between WHO and other global health bodies to help poorer countries access Covid-19 tools. The effort, which includes the vaccine-focused Covax, has reached billions of people worldwide but has faced criticism for not acting quickly enough. There had been some speculation that the effort may wind up this autumn, but Aylward said it was simply changing its focus as the pandemic changes.

Over the next six months, the partnership will aim particularly at delivering vaccines to the roughly one quarter of the world's healthcare workers and elderly who have still not had a shot, as well as on improving access to test-and-treat, particularly with Pfizer's Paxlovid, he said.

It will also look to the future as Covid-19 is “here to stay”, and unless systems are put in place, support will collapse once other industrialised nations also think the pandemic is over, said Aylward.

The initiative already has an $11 billion gap in its budget, with most of its available $5.7 billion in funding pledged towards vaccines rather than tests or treatments.

Reuters

CDC: 32% of Americans Should Be Masking or Considering It

The percentage has been on the decline for about two months, but COVID-19 transmission levels remain high across most of the country.

By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder
Sept. 23, 2022, 

Pictured is the entrance to the Centers for Disease Control 

and Prevention as seen on April 19, 2022, in Atlanta, GA.

RON HARRIS/AP PHOTO

More than 32% of Americans should be wearing masks while indoors in public spaces or considering the measure based on their risk for severe COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That percentage is down considerably from roughly two months ago, when 87% of Americans lived in counties considered a high or medium COVID-19 community level, according to CDC data.

According to the agency, people living in those areas should consider mitigation measures to protect themselves and others, like masking. The percentage has been on the decline for weeks as coronavirus cases, deaths and hospitalization fall.

Coronavirus cases in the U.S. have been declining since its most recent peak in July at 130,000 new infections each day on average. Now the U.S. is averaging fewer than 55,000 new cases each day, according to CDC data. COVID-19 transmission levels, however, remain high across the majority of the country.

Deaths have fallen slightly but remain elevated at nearly 350 per day. That’s down from 500 a day in August.

But it still equates to nearly 2,500 deaths per week – a number that experts agree is too high.

In fact, the number of COVID-19 deaths still occurring was a sticking point for many who criticized President Joe Biden’s remarks that the “pandemic is over.”

Leading infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said this week that the number of deaths is “not an acceptable number as far as I'm concerned, we've gotta get it down much, much lower.”

But Biden administration officials sidestepped questions about whether Biden’s statement was incorrect, instead noting that the U.S. is in a different phase.

"I think if we look at the big picture, things are very different," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said when asked about Biden’s comments. "We're in a different place. Schools are open and businesses are open. We have a lot of population immunity out there right now."

The World Health Organization, on the other hand, did not mince words.

“At our media briefings over the past two weeks, I have said that the pandemic is not over, but the end is in sight,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Thursday.

'Bro, How Do I Fix This?': Home Depot Workers Form Independent Union


September 21, 2022 / Jonah Furman

LABOR NOTES



Home Depot has raked in record-breaking profits, while its workers worry about paying bills and making rent. Photo: Flickr user JJBers, CC BY 2.0.

On September 19, workers filed a petition to organize a union among 276 workers at a Home Depot in northeast Philadelphia. If successful, the independent union would be the first at the home repair chain, the fifth-largest private employer in the U.S with 500,000 employees.

Vince Quiles, who’s worked at the store for five years, says the union effort gathered over 100 signatures for an election in just five weeks.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Quiles was promoted to supervisor in the plumbing department. Plumbing is the highest-volume section of the store, with around 6,000 sales per day, but the company did little to prepare him. “No training, no staff,” says Quiles. “They said, ‘You’re good with people, go figure it out.’”

Quiles ended up running the department so well that he was eventually offered a promotion to be put on a management track. He turned it down. “If I move up I’m basically just going to be f***ing over the people that I’m cool with, that I go to work with every day, who talk to me about their families,” says Quiles. “And I’m supposed to look these people in the eye when they ask for a raise and say the company can’t afford it.”

RECORD EARNINGS

Home Depot can afford it, as Quiles knows. On his break time, Quiles would research the company’s finances, and can recite by heart his own store’s profits. “The store made $30,170,052 in profit last year. Their target was $26,754,634 dollars. Which left them over their plan by $3,415,418 dollars.”

Home Depot, which has 2,317 stores in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, has raked in record-breaking profits during the pandemic, fueled by a surge of homeowners seeking to improve their properties. With demand rising, the company raised its prices. Higher prices drove down transactions among lower-income customers, but higher-income customers more than made up for the loss. “In the second quarter [of 2022], we delivered the highest quarterly sales and earnings in our company’s history,” CEO Ted Decker recently announced.

Quiles began asking why the company couldn’t pay its workers more. Last year, Home Depot made $16 billion in profit. In a meeting with a regional vice president, Quiles questioned why the company couldn’t pay premiums for operating machinery like forklifts, or for translating for Spanish-language customers, or for working in multiple departments. The regional manager touted that the company had spent a billion dollars on employee compensation. “You spent one billion dollars over 500,000 employees,” Quiles remembers saying, “and $15 billion dollars in stock buybacks”—not to mention $7 billion more on investor dividends.

‘BRO, HOW DO I FIX THIS?’

Meanwhile, workers at the Home Depot in Philadelphia routinely worry about paying bills, having enough food for both their kids and themselves, or paying rent. The starting wage at the store is around $14.50. The Walmart they share a shopping center with pays more.

All of this has meant workers leaving. With uncompetitive pay, crushing customer volume, and little to no training, it was hard to retain new employees. One day, Quiles recalls, he ran into a new associate, Aaron, working in the plumbing department. He tried to train him, but kept getting pulled to other assignments or questions. Customers would come up showing pictures of complicated plumbing repairs and asking for solutions, which staff couldn’t answer.

“I can’t tell you how many pictures I would see, like, ‘Bro how do I fix this?’” recalls Quiles. “I would have so many people get mad saying, ‘If you don’t know this, why do you work in the plumbing department?’ I was like, ‘If I knew this shit, I would be a plumber, not making $19.25 an hour as a supervisor.’” Within two months, Aaron, the new associate, making $14.50 an hour, overwhelmed by the volume of the job, and with no meaningful training, had quit.

INSPIRATION FROM ALU

Having taken his concerns up the corporate chain, Quiles decided change wasn’t going to come voluntarily from management. So he started doing more research.

Quiles watched the Amazon union drive in Staten Island, and became fascinated with Chris Smalls’s path. It wasn’t dissimilar; Smalls had also been promoted within Amazon, started voicing concerns and complaints, and found himself being stonewalled by management. And the scale of the Amazon Labor Union’s victory in Staten Island gave Quiles hope: “If Chris Smalls could do that at a warehouse of over 8,000 people, we can do it in our store of 300.”

So he called the NLRB to learn more about the process, watched interviews with Smalls about how he did it, and started having conversations with people about their jobs. “I would say ‘How do you feel about working here? How do you feel about working conditions and compensation? I’m not part of management.’ They would give me their raw, emotional experience.”

In just five weeks, he and a few co-workers collected over 100 signatures, and submitted them to the Board.

‘WE FILED FOR A UNION, NOW YOU CARE?’

About a month ago, Home Depot management caught wind of the effort. They posted flyers around the store that said, “You Ask, We Listen,” and sent out employee surveys to address concerns. They talked about designating employee-only restrooms, and setting up port-a-potties outside for customers. But they wouldn’t talk about the core issues workers were organizing around.

“You’re talking about an employee bathroom, you’re not talking about why people won’t stay. You can’t go and give a chess player only five pawns and you won’t have a knight, a bishop, or a rook, and say, ‘Go win the game.’”

White-collar management was flown into the store to hold captive audience meetings and one-on-one conversations with employees about how little a union could do for them. The store manager was switched out overnight. But Quiles thinks the move is backfiring. “Now it’s funny, corporate’s walking around the store and talking to people,” says Quiles, “and they think they’re doing something, but it’s backfiring. People are like ‘Oh, we filed for a union, now you care?’”

A version of this article was originally published at More Perfect Union.