North Korea has called on China to set up an emergency alert along the two countries’ border NK-China border during the much-anticipated summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and the North’s leader Kim Jong Un, sources inside the isolated nation said.

The system has been set up on North Korea-China border since June 8 with armed soldiers from both countries on special emergency alert, as Pyongyang has asked Beijing to step up security measures in the area, they said.

“Border guards and the State Security Department have been on joint emergency alert at the border area since [June 8],”said a source from North Pyongyang who declined to be named, adding that the alert will operate for 10 days.

“It’s related to the North Korea-U.S. summit, so if anyone tries to go near the Yalu River, he or she will be accused of anti-regime crimes,” the source said, referring to the waterway on the border between the North and China that is a popular route with defectors mainly when it freezes during the winter.

U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with Kim on June 12 in Singapore to discuss Pyongyang’s relinquishment of its nuclear arsenal in exchange for security assurances and economic relief, though some U.S. lawmakers have been pushing for him raise human rights issues as well.

Joint armed forces of from the Chinese police and the People’s Liberation Army have enforced tight security in the border area of Dandong in northeastern China’s Liaoning province, that lies across from North Pyongan province, the source told RFA’s Korean Service.

The armed Chinese soldiers who are guarding the border area are specially trained soldiers dispatched from Beijing, the source said.

“I don’t know if the highest-level dignitary is heading to Singapore via China, but security along the North Korea-China border has been a lot tighter since June 8,” he said, referring to Kim Jong Un. Kim flew to Singapore.

A North Korean trader from the city of Dalian in China’s Liaoning province told RFA that every important issue regarding Kim’s travel was discussed with China during the preparation period for the summit with Trump.

“The Central Committee [of the ruling Workers’ party of Korea] called on China to tighten security along the North Korea-China border during the summit to prevent any possible disorder inside North Korea,” said the trader who declined to give his name

Cross-border trade and customs operations are continuing during the summit so those who conduct lawful trading can continue their business as usual, he said.

But a trade representative from Pyongyang issued an order on June 9 that there should be no attempts to smuggle goods between China and North Korea and that officials had to report traders’ locations every hour during this period, the source said.

“What we need to pay attention to here is that China is stricter about guarding the border,” the trader said.

“China might have wanted to prevent Chinese smugglers from entering North Korea so they cracked down on smuggling organizations in the border area few days ago and arrested number of smugglers,” he said.

Reported by Hyemin Son for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

(RFE/RL) — U.S. President Donald Trump has said that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is committed to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, promising swift progress to curb a growing threat while warning Pyongyang that sanctions will only be lifted “when we know the nukes are no longer a factor.”

Trump, speaking after a landmark summit with Kim on June 12 in Singapore, said that both leaders were “prepared to start a new history and write a new chapter between our nations.”

“[Kim] reaffirmed his unwavering commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Trump told a news conference after the summit — the first meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a leader of isolated, tightly controlled North Korea.

Trump said that the denuclearization process would start “very quickly” and that Kim had told him a North Korean missile testing site “is going to be destroyed very soon.” But neither Trump nor a joint statement he signed with Kim contained dates or details, prompting observers to question whether the unprecedented talks will be followed by tangible progress in curbing Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons capabilities.

The United States and North Korea have interpreted the term “denuclearization” in different ways in the past, with Washington’s definition referring to ridding Pyongyang of its nuclear arsenal and North Korea framing it as an end to the perceived U.S. ability to strike it with nuclear weapons from afar and to the protective U.S. “nuclear umbrella” over South Korea and Japan.

In an apparent concession, Trump said he would be “stopping the war games” together with South Korea, apparently referring to joint military exercises that have been criticized by North Korea, Russia, and China. Trump called the drills “provocative and inappropriate,” adding that he ultimately wants to “bring our soldiers home” — a reference to some 25,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea.

But in an interview with Voice of America, Trump indicated the troops will remain for the foreseeable future and said he did not discuss the issue with Kim.

“Yeah, they are going to stay. We didn’t even discuss that, that wasn’t discussed,” Trump told VOA. He added, “We are going to get out of the war games that cost so much money,” saying that “we won’t do that [continue with military exercises] as long as we are negotiating in good faith.”

South Korea’s presidential office said it would seek clarification of “the precise meaning or intentions” of Trump’s remarks on the exercises and troops.

After the summit, which Trump called a “tremendous success,” the two leaders signed a document in which Trump pledged “security guarantees” to Pyongyang while Kim reiterated his commitment to the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

In the document, which largely reiterates previous public statements without offering specifics, Trump and Kim pledged to “build a lasting and stable peace regime” on the Korean Peninsula and to repatriate the remains of prisoners of war and those missing in action during the 1950-53 Korean War.

The document makes no mention of any move to end the technical state of warfare that persists between the United States and North Korea some 65 years after the conflict, which ended with a truce but no peace treaty.

But Trump, asked about it at the news conference, said: “Now we can have hope that it will soon end. And it will. It will soon end.”

The document also does not mention any discussion about human rights in North Korea, a country known for its abysmal violations of even basic human rights.

In comments that seemed certain to draw criticism from activists who had urged him to press Kim on human rights, Trump told VOA that Kim “loves his people, loves his country.”

He said he realized that the North Korean leader is a “rough guy” but that “he’s doing what he’s seen done” in the past in his country, where his father and grandfather were autocratic rulers before him.

But Trump said at the news conference that the issue of human rights “was discussed” with Kim, albeit briefly, and will be approached more specifically in the future.

The signing ceremony followed a series of meetings at a luxury hotel on Singapore’s Sentosa island, including a 45-minute face-to-face meeting between Trump and Kim and broader talks between their delegations.

Tensions between the United States and North Korea escalated last year after Pyongyang tested several ballistic missiles and performed a nuclear test, while Kim and Trump traded threats and insults.

But at the beginning of this year Kim launched an unexpected diplomatic offensive, which included the North’s attendance at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.

Trump on June 1 said he would hold a summit with Kim on June 12 in Singapore. Trump had originally agreed to the summit, then called it off before reviving it again.

As the two leaders wrapped up their summit, Kim told reporters that the two “decided to leave the past behind and the world will see a major change.”

Trump said he and Kim “have developed a very special bond” during their day together.

He and Kim “got along very well,” Trump told VOA. “I think he liked me and I like him.”

At the end of their 45-minute meeting, Trump said the summit had gone “better than anybody could have expected” and called it a “tremendous success.”

After the two leaders met, they had another bilateral meeting with their staff that lasted about an hour and a half before they proceeded to lunch together at the luxury resort on Singapore’s Sentosa Island.

The document signed by Trump and Kim says the United States and North Korea “commit to hold follow-on negotiations” led by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and an unnamed high-level North Korean official “at the earliest possible date.”

Pompeo had signaled on June 11 that the Trump administration did not expect an immediate breakthrough at the Trump-Kim meeting, but rather hoped it would create an opening for more extended negotiations.

Pompeo said the summit should set the framework for “the hard work that will follow,” stating that North Korea must move toward complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization.

The European Union praised the meeting, which EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini called “a crucial and necessary step to build upon the positive developments achieved in inter-Korean relations and on the peninsula so far.”

Moscow “can only welcome the fact that an important step forward has been made,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said. “Of course the devil is in the details, and we have yet to delve into specifics.”

Ryabkov said that Moscow was willing to assist in implementing the deal and hopes that six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the United States, Russia, Japan, and China will be revived at some point.

In a separate statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry praised Trump’s move to end military exercises with South Korea, saying it was needed to put an end to “provocative” actions and to ease tensions on the peninsula.

In reaction to the summit, China suggested that the UN should consider suspending or lifting sanctions against North Korea.

“Sanctions are not an end,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a daily briefing in Beijing. “We believe the Security Council should make efforts to support the diplomatic efforts at the present time.”

But Trump, in his interview with VOA, reiterated his statement from the news conference that sanctions won’t be lifted before results are seen.

“Again, without the rhetoric and without the sanctions — the sanctions were very important — the sanctions are going to remain on until such time as we see, you know, this is going to happen,” Trump told VOA.

Meanwhile, Iran warned North Korea not to trust Trump, who withdrew the United States last month from a 2015 deal between Tehran and global powers over Iran’s nuclear program and reimposed sanctions.

“We don’t know what type of person the North Korean leader is negotiating with. It is not clear that he would not cancel the agreement before returning back home,” Iranian government spokesman Mohammad Baqer Nobakht said.

President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) held a first, historic summit in Singapore on June 12, 2018.

President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un conducted a comprehensive, in-depth, and sincere exchange of opinions on the issues related to the establishment of new U.S.–DPRK relations and the building of a lasting and robust peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.  President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK, and Chairman Kim Jong Un reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Convinced that the establishment of new U.S.–DPRK relations will contribute to the peace and prosperity of the Korean Peninsula and of the world, and recognizing that mutual confidence building can promote the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un state the following:

1. The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new U.S.–DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.
2. The United States and the DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
3. Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
4. The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.

Having acknowledged that the U.S.–DPRK summit—the first in history—was an epochal event of great significance in overcoming decades of tensions and hostilities between the two countries and for the opening up of a new future, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un commit to implement the stipulations in this joint statement fully and expeditiously.  The United States and the DPRK commit to hold follow-on negotiations, led by the U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and a relevant high-level DPRK official, at the earliest possible date, to implement the outcomes of the U.S.–DPRK summit.

President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have committed to cooperate for the development of new U.S.–DPRK relations and for the promotion of peace, prosperity, and security of the Korean Peninsula and of the world.

DONALD J. TRUMP
President of the United States of America

KIM JONG UN
Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

June 12, 2018
Sentosa Island
Singapore

By Max Ferrari*

Matteo Salvini, Italy’s new deputy prime minister and strongman of the populist government, effectively summarized what happened in the last week when he said: “Italy has finished obeying and lowering its head — this time we say no.” The statement was addressed to the top of the EU and came from a country that had previously been the bloc’s weak and blackmailed partner. Rome has now become a leader among the nations standing up to the Brussels elite; and it carries far greater weight than the Central and Eastern European countries that previously led the protests.

The issue that triggered the rage of Rome was immigration. After winning the elections by promising to stop the landings of illegal immigrants from Africa, Salvini, who is also minister of interior, said “the game is over” as he spoke of the 600,000 migrants who have illegally reached Italy in the past five years. This is a sentence disputed by the Italian left, but the message was received by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who admitted that Italy had been left alone to face a huge problem during the 2015 crisis.

However, Brussels’ promises for change were not followed by action and, in front of a sea full of boats bound for Sicily, and with the prospect of a long summer of landings, Salvini reacted. He said: “In the Mediterranean there are ships with the flag of Holland, Spain, Gibraltar and Great Britain, there are German and Spanish NGOs, there is Malta that does not welcome anyone, France that pushes people back at the border, Spain defends its frontier with weapons. In short, all of Europe is doing its own business. From today, Italy will also start to say no to human trafficking, no to the business of illegal immigration. My goal is to secure a peaceful life for these youths in Africa and for our children in Italy.”

At the center of the dispute was the Aquarius ship, run by a French NGO, which, according to Rome, should have been accepted by Malta. It was eventually accepted by Spain after Salvini requested and obtained the closure of Italian ports to ships run by NGOs, which it accused of doing business with the people smugglers.

What is certain is that, as soon as the Italian minister launched the hashtag “we are shutting the ports,” the internet went crazy. While the media condemned him, the people on the street are behind him, as shown by the municipal elections on Sunday and the surveys that indicate support for the League party, led by Salvini, is growing. It seems destined to be the first Italian party able to lead all European populists.

Merkel understands this and, after having opposed the populists, she has now adapted and will work with them, starting with her Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban. In a TV interview, the German chancellor said: “Hungary has a Schengen external border and does work for us. It is in a similar situation as Greece and Italy, just with a land border that is more easily secured.”

Previously, protests against Brussels involved only relatively powerless countries like Hungary, Poland, Czechia and Slovakia, but now, with the arrival of Rome and the new axis between Italy and Austria, the balance has changed and even Germany could be overwhelmed by a populist tsunami. While French President Emmanuel Macron accused Italy of irresponsibility over the Aquarius incident, the German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has invited Salvini to Berlin.

Rome can also count on English sympathies and on US President Donald Trump who, at the G7 summit in Canada, had cold relations with almost everyone but was particularly warm with new Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. The latter was the only one to support Trump’s idea of recalling Russia to the G8 and he has now been invited to the White House.

Some say that, in the spat between Washington and Berlin, Rome will be the great ally of the Americans in limiting German power in Europe. What is certain is that Italy has returned to the table of great protagonists and will voice its opinions, particularly on the Mediterranean, which cannot be treated as a French lake.

In fact a diplomatic incident with Paris immediately erupted: Macron called Italy “cynical and irresponsible,” and Salvini replied by recalling how France has welcomed only 640 of the 9,816 migrants it had promised to take from Italy. He said: “We face a situation of destabilization in Libya and Africa created by the French. They have to apologize to Italy and welcome 9,000 people straight away.”

Surely this clash has reinforced Italian national pride and consensus toward the new government. Salvini, after receiving praise from the Libyan coast guard, announced new agreements with Tunisia and Morocco and stated the need to rebuild a privileged relationship with Egypt.

Rome is back.

* Max Ferrari is a journalist and politician. He is a former parliamentary journalist, a war correspondent in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, and director of a TV channel. He is an expert in geopolitics and energy policy. Twitter: @MaxFerrari

(RFE/RL) — Belarussian lawmakers have passed controversial amendments to the country’s media laws despite claims by domestic and international groups that the move risks leading to further censorship of the press.

The National Assembly on June 14 voted on the second and final reading of the draft amendments that the government says will enable it to prosecute people suspected of spreading “false” information on the Internet.

“The adoption of the legislation will facilitate the efficient provision of information security and the enforcement of citizens’ constitutional right to receive full, accurate, and timely information,” said Valentina Razhanets, the deputy chair of the assembly’s Commission for Human Rights, Ethnic Relations, and Media.

In April, lawmakers gave preliminary approval to the amendments that would require that authors of all posts and comments in online forums be identified and that comments be moderated by website owners.

It would allow for social networks and other sites to be blocked if found in violation.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists and independent media outlets criticized the proposed changes to the law, as did the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which said the legislation could “further censor” the media in the country.

CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said in a June 8 statement that the Belarusian government has “jumped on the bandwagon of ‘fake news’ not because it wants to shield citizens from falsehoods but because it wants more power to decide what information they receive.”

Critics say they fear authoritarian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s government would use the law as a tool to tighten control over the Internet.

Belarus ranks 155th in the Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders’s (RSF) 2017 World Press Freedom Index, which evaluates the level of press freedom in 180 countries each year.

According to RSF, journalists in Belarus have received at least 48 fines since the start of 2018, most of them for reporters employed by Belsat TV, which is based in neighboring Poland.

By Karl Romano

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has amplified his tirades against the Catholic Church by threatening to publicly expose unflattering intelligence data he says he obtained on one of three priests killed in the last six months.

More than 80 percent of the country’s estimated 105 million people are congregants of the church, which has been vocal in its opposition to the Duterte administration’s anti-drugs campaign that has left thousands of suspected pushers and dealers dead since June 2016.

Three priests have been gunned down in recent months, including Father Richmond Nilo, who was shot Sunday inside his chapel in northern Nueva Ecija province.

His killing came more than a month after another priest, Mark Anthony Ventura, was killed by men who fled on a motorcycle. In December, Nueva Ecija priest Marcelito Paez was shot and killed.

On Wednesday, Duterte said he had a “matrix” of intelligence data that had been compiled about one of the priests and that he had kept it because of its sensitivity.

“If the Catholics want, I will release this matrix on why this priest died,” Duterte said. “I did not release it, but I gave a copy to the chairman of the CBCP.”

The president was referring to the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, which this week called on his government to investigate the deaths immediately.

There was no response from the CBCP, but its leaders have not given any indication that it had received intelligence data.

“The problem with these fools, they look at themselves as saints,” Duterte said. “And these policemen and soldiers are devils in their eyes.”

Duterte made these comments during a speech late Wednesday before corrections officers, police and firefighters. In the speech, he emphasized that he would not allow any of them to go to prison if they were charged in connection with any of the thousands of killings committed in his nearly two-year-old war on drugs.

Duterte has had a testy relationship with the church, which campaigned against the self-described womanizer and tough politician from the south, who has repeatedly boasted of killing drug addicts and criminals and dumping their bodies into Manila Bay.

In February, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague notified the government that it had launched a preliminary investigation into drug-related killings. Duterte initially welcomed the investigation to determine whether there was enough evidence to build a case against him.

It was based on complaints by a former Duterte police aide and a self-described assassin, who told the court that Duterte had ordered the deaths of criminals and political foes when he was a longtime mayor of the southern city of Davao.

Duterte subsequently pulled out of an international treaty that established the ICC, claiming that the court had already prejudged him.

Police have said that more than 4,000 suspected were killed in encounters with officers, but rights groups place the number of deaths at more than 12,000.

Last year, Duterte removed police from the lead role in the drug war after three teenagers were gunned down. Authorities, however, later established that the police officers involved in the shootings may have mistaken them as drug couriers.

The teens’ deaths galvanized public anger against Duterte. Church leaders ordered that gruesome photographs of people killed in the drug war be displayed outside houses of worship while bells were tolled in the evening as a sign of protest.

On Thursday, Carlos Conde, the Philippine researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch, expressed grave concern over the killings of the priests, as well as journalists and others who had opposed the government’s anti-drug campaign.

“These killings, alongside the thousands of deaths in the ‘drug war,’ are grim reminders of the vulnerability of the poor and those who speak out for their rights and against the deadly extrajudicial violence that Philippine authorities are apparently unwilling or unable to either stop or provide accountability for,” Conde told BenarNews.

Felipe Villamor from Manila contributed to this report.

Activists and netizens in Vietnam claim a contentious law on cybersecurity is a legalized step to clamp down on dissident voices and rights advocates.

On June 12, the National Assembly passed the Cyber Security Law, the first law to regulate “all activities that protect national security and ensure public safety and order on the internet” and the responsibilities of relevant agencies, organizations and individuals.

The 43-article law demands all internet-related service providers establish branches or representative offices and data centers in Vietnam, where domestic users’ important information must be stored.

Internet service providers, including Facebook and YouTube, will be asked to remove “anti-state, offensive, slandering or inciting” contents from their platforms within 24 hours of receiving requests from authorities or police.

The law, which takes effect on Jan. 1, 2019, will allow the Ministry of Public Security to have the jurisdiction to examine the customer database of any organization or company when a breach of national security or a threat to social order is detected.

The law also bans internet users from “distorting history” and “denying revolutionary achievements.” They are not allowed to gather people for anti-state purposes, to divide the national bloc, spread false information or cause religious offence.

An IT expert at a company in Ho Chi Minh City said the law is a legal tool to closely supervise and track people. “The law aims to defend the communist regime with ways of encroaching on personal life, threatening, isolating and gagging citizens,” he added.

He said trying to prevent people from speaking ill of the Communist Party and state does not ensure cybersecurity but only poses risks of losing network security and hindering economic development.

Internet users in Vietnam suffered cyberattacks costing US$540 million in 2017, according to Bkav Corporation, a security firm based in Vietnam.

With a population of 94 million, Vietnam had 64 million internet users in 2017, the sixth highest number in Asia, according to VTV.vn.

The expert said the regulations go against global trends in freedom of speech, roll back the democratic process, create barriers to freedom of knowledge, and discourage foreign firms who want to invest in Vietnam.

IT and rights organizations and tens of thousands of people have petitioned the government to drop the contentious law.

Le Hieu Dang Club, whose members are former Communist Party members and authorities who work for freedom and democracy, said the law severely violates the constitution and international laws on human rights that Vietnam has signed.

“The law puts citizens’ freedom of speech and information into the government’s control and offers authorities another weapon to confront dissident voices,” the club said, adding that the law was intentionally composed by the Ministry of Public Security.

Pham Doan Trang, a leading Facebooker with about 47,000 followers, said she was not too disappointed by the law. “Technically, internet users will find various ways to protect themselves from the bad government’s laws and to use the internet for their freedom of information and expression,” she said.

Trang, who is closely watched and regularly interrogated by police, said the authoritarian government does not have enough personnel and money to detain and persecute hundreds of dissidents for their views.

“I will continue to publicly criticize the ruling party and forces who try to defend it [the new law] and oppose the people,” Trang said on social media. “I will be happy if I become one of the first people imprisoned by this law.”

Many netizens called on people to take to the streets across the country to oppose the law.

Amnesty International has written a letter to the chief executives of Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft and to the chairman of Samsung outlining its concerns about the law and urging the companies to exert pressure on Vietnam’s government.

Japan is ready to hold talks with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, days after the landmark meeting between US President Donald Trump and leader of the isolated country.

Efforts are underway to arrange a meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Kim, local media reported Thursday.

The Sankei Shimbun said Kim discussed the possibility during his talks with Trump in Singapore on Tuesday.

“During the summit with Trump, Kim told Trump ‘I can meet with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’,” the Sankei reported.

Japan wants the talks to push the emotive issue of citizens abducted by the North decades ago, which has seen little movement despite a whirlwind of diplomacy in recent months.

Abe on Thursday repeated a pledge to push for dialogue with Pyongyang on the issue as he met families of abductees.

“I will face (North Korea) directly and work toward resolving the abduction issue,” he told the families.

“Japan has to take the initiative to resolve the issue,” he said, adding that the summit would be “meaningless if it yields no progress on the abduction issue”.

Government officials are weighing several scenarios, including Abe visiting Pyongyang in August, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported.

Another scenario would see Abe meet Kim on the sidelines of a conference in Russia in September, the daily said.

Abe has already said publicly that he would be willing to meet Kim in order to resolve the abduction issue.

Japanese foreign ministry officials plan to hold talks with North Korean officials at an international security conference in Mongolia this week as they try to firm up plans, local media said.

The issue of Japanese citizens who were abducted in the 1970s and 1980s to help Pyongyang train its spies has long soured already strained relations between Tokyo and Pyongyang.

The Japanese government has officially listed 17 people as abductees, but suspects dozens more were snatched.

Trump said Tuesday he discussed the abductee issue with Kim, but it was not mentioned in the document signed by the two leaders.

Japan has maintained a hardline position on North Korea despite the stepped-up diplomacy with Pyongyang in recent months, and has been left largely on the sidelines as South Korea and the United States have held talks with Kim.

In Seoul, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Kim understands that denuclearization must happen “quickly”, warning there will be no sanctions relief for Pyongyang until the process is complete.

Washington remained committed to the “complete, verifiable and irreversible” denuclearization of North Korea, he added after the US-North Korea summit drew criticism for its vague wording on plans for Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.

Washington’s top diplomat was in Seoul to brief his South Korean and Japanese counterparts after Trump’s post-summit comments sparked confusion and concern in Tokyo and Seoul.

But Pompeo insisted at a joint press conference with the two countries’ foreign ministers that there was no daylight among the allies on how to achieve the denuclearization of North Korea.

Contrasting the Trump policy with previous US administrations, Pompeo said: “In the past, they were providing economic and financial relief before… complete denuclearization had taken place.”

“That is not going to happen, President Trump made that clear.”

The UN Security Council punished North Korea over its weapons programs with increasingly strict sanctions last year, which were also backed by China, Pyongyang’s only ally.

Trump said after his meeting with Kim — the first between sitting US and North Korean leaders — that Washington would halt its joint military exercises with South Korea, an announcement that caught Seoul — and apparently the Pentagon — by surprise.

The US and South Korea conduct massive annual military exercises to maintain readiness for operations on the peninsula, a source of irritation for Pyongyang, which considers them preparations for an invasion.

South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha appeared to sidestep the issue at the joint press conference, saying the matter would be left to military authorities to discuss, and that the US-South Korea alliance remains “as robust as ever”.

While it is not directly involved, Japan also considers the drills vital.

The “deterrence based on them (plays) an essential role for security in northeast Asia”, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono said after “frank” trilateral talks Thursday.

Original source

As Trump stokes tensions around the world, he’s adding fuel to the fire by demanding even more Pentagon spending. It’s a dangerous military buildup intended to underwrite endless wars and enrich defense contractors, while draining money from investment in the American people.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower once noted, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

Eisenhower was a Republican and a former general who helped win World War II for the allies, yet he understood America’s true priorities. But Washington–and especially Trump–have lost sight of these basic tradeoffs.

Since 2001, the Pentagon budget has soared from $456 billion–in today’s dollars–to $700 billion, including the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other national security expenses. All told, when you include spending on the military and war, veterans’ benefits, and homeland security, military-related spending now eats up 67 percent of all federal  discretionary spending.

According to the 2018 Military Balance report by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, the United States already spends more on the military than the next 10 nations combined. Even if the Pentagon budget were cut in half, the United States would still outspend China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea combined.

The military budget has become bloated with waste and abuse. According to the Pentagon’s own internal figures, the department could save at least $125 billion by reducing operational overhead.

Out-of-control defense contractors also drive up spending. In the coming years, cost overruns alone are projected to reach an estimated $484 billion. Meanwhile, the CEOs of the top 5 defense firms took home $97.4 million in compensation last year.

Despite all this, some still argue that military spending is necessary to support good-paying jobs and economic growth. Baloney. America would be much better served by a jobs program that invested in things we really need – like modern roads and highways, better school facilities, public parks, water and sewer systems, and clean energy – not weapons systems.

The biggest reason for increases in Pentagon spending is the incredible clout of the military-industrial complex – Eisenhower’s term. Every year, defense contractors spend millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions to keep federal dollars flowing their way. More than 80 percent of top Pentagon officials have worked for the defense industry at some point in their careers, and many will go back to work in the defense industry.

Since taking office, Trump has increased military spending by more than $200 billion. Let’s take a second to look at how else that $200 billion could be spent.  We could, for example:

Offer free public colleges and universities, as proposed by Bernie Sanders.

And fund the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

And expand broadband Internet access to rural America.

And meet the growing needs for low-income housing, providing safe living conditions for families and the elderly.

And help repair the physical devastation in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.

Spending more on bombs and military machinery funnels money away from the American people and into wars. It’s time to rein in Pentagon spending and this endless war machine, and demand investment in America.

In the lead up to the presidential elections in March, the Kremlin put out the word that the media should highlight good news and ignore bad, a request that backfired on its authors by sparking rumors about events people had heard about, reducing trust in the media, and making bad events after the vote appear even worse.

But despite that track record, the Putin regime is repeating this approach at least in part, according to media reports. They say that law enforcement agencies have been told that they should not put out “negative” stories during the period of the World Cup and report that some stories are already disappearing from government sites (znak.com/2018-06-13/pravoohranitelnym_organam_zapretili_publikovat_plohie_novosti_iz_za_chm_2018).

The Znak news agency for one reports that “’bad’ news ended already on June 6,” with the usual reports about crime, arrests, and police raids replaced by big pictorial spreads about soft news like the opening of an exhibit on “100 Years in Defense of the Legal Order’” in Sakha or the dedication of a statue to a local policeman in Tomsk Oblast.

A similar pattern, the agency said, was in evidence on the sites of the State Automobile Inspectorate, the Magistracy, and regional interior ministry offices where upbeat stories about officials and police displaced negative ones about crime.

The Sakhalin news agency reports that police and prosecutors in the Urals and on Sakhalin confirm that they have been given direct orders from above “not to share negative cases with the press until the end of the month and that they are following orders and not reporting things they typically have(sakhalin.info/news/153552).

The Znak news agency says that it is “still unknown” whether this prohibition on negative stories extends to other siloviki groups. It has asked the interior ministry for an answer but not yet received any response.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has extended an invitation for North Korea’s Kim Jong-un to visit Russia.

Putin made the announcement in meeting with Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly of North Korea Kim Yong-nam in the Kremlin on Thursday

Putin said that Russia is prepared to increase economic cooperation with North Korea, and extended and invitation to Kim Jong-un to Russia; “for example, as part of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok this September. Or it can be done separately; we can schedule this meeting regardless of international events between our foreign ministries.”

In his meeting with Kim Yong-nam, Putin stressed the “old and very good relations,” of the two countries and noted that this year we mark the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties.

Putin also addressed the recent meeting between the leader of  Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump, saying that Russia welcomes and praises the outcome of that Summit that took place on June 12.

“We proceed from the premise that this is, of course, just the first step towards a full settlement, but the step was taken thanks to both leaders’ good will,” Putin said, adding that, “Of course, this creates conditions for further progress and reduces the overall level of tensions around the Korean Peninsula.”

Putin noted that, “the entire world was apprehensive, because this may have had a very dire outcome, even a large military conflict.”

Nevertheless, Putin said that thanks to this meeting, a possible negative scenario has been postponed.

“On the contrary, now there are prospects of resolving the problems by peaceful political and diplomatic means,” Putin said.

Global powers show renewed interest in the Indo-Pacific region, but should resist piling on with geopolitical intentions.

By Donald K. Emmerson*

The 2018 Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore might as well have been renamed the “Indo-Pacific Dialogue.” In the plenaries and the panels, in the Q&As, corridors, and coffee breaks, not even the imminent Trump-Kim summit hosted by Singapore could compete with the “Indo-Pacific” among the attendees. Although the toponym itself is old, its sudden popularity is new, reflecting new geopolitical aspirations for the region.

What explains the latest revival and rise of the “Indo-Pacific” in the international relations of Asia? What does the term now mean, and why does it matter?  In March, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi dismissed the “Indo-Pacific” as “an attention-grabbing idea” that would “dissipate like ocean foam.”  Is he right? And is the “Indo-Pacific” purely maritime, or does it have legs on land as well? Is the strategy Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s way of labeling his shift from “looking east” to “acting east” – and perhaps his hope of looking and acting westward past Pakistan toward Africa as well? Does the term frame a potential rival to China’s 21^st Century Maritime Silk Road? Is it an American rebranding of former President Barack Obama’s “pivot” or “rebalance” toward Asia? In the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” that Washington favors, what do the adjectives imply? Is the “Indo-Pacific” a phoenix – a Quadrilateral 2.0 meant to reunite Australia, India, Japan and the US in leading roles? Could the strategy someday morph into a five-sided “win-win” arrangement with “Chinese characteristics”?

Understandably, the officials who spoke at Shangri-La preferred not delve into such controversial and speculative questions. Satisfactory answers to some of them are not possible, let alone plausible, at least not yet. But the dialogue, a summit on Asian security, did stimulate thought and discourse about just what the “Indo-Pacific” means, for whose purposes, and to what effect.

It is easy to load the “Indo-Pacific” with geopolitical intent. Having accepted the invitation to keynote the dialogue on 1 June, Modi became the first Indian prime minister to speak at Shangri-La since the event’s inception in 2002.  Many at the gathering read the prefix “Indo-“ as a geopolitical invitation to India to partner more explicitly with states in an “Asia-Pacific” region from which it had been relatively absent, and thereby to counterbalance China within an even larger frame.

Perhaps aiming to mend relations with China after the Wuhan summit, held in April, Modi unloaded the loaded term. “The Indo-Pacific,” he said, “is a natural region.… India does not see [it] as a strategy or as a club of limited members. Nor as a grouping that seeks to dominate. And by no means do we consider it as directed against any country. A geographical definition, as such, cannot be.” Modi flattened the Indo-Pacific to a mere page in an atlas – the two dimensions of a map – while widening it to include not only all of the countries located inside “this geography” but “also others beyond who have a stake in it.” Modi thus drained the toponym of controversially distinctive meaning. India’s rival China could hardly object to being included in a vast “natural” zone innocent of economic or political purpose or design.

Not so, countered US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. Unlike Modi, he explicitly linked ideology to geography by repeatedly invoking a “free and open Indo-Pacific.” Nor did these qualifiers apply only to external relations – a state’s freedom from foreign interference and its freedoms of navigation and overflight under international law. For Mattis, “free and open” implied internal democracy as well – a state’s accountability to an uncensored society. In Singapore during his question-and-answer period, Mattis acknowledged the “free and open press” that had thronged to cover the dialogue.

In corridor conversations, understandings of the “Indo-Pacific” ranged widely, from an inoffensively natural region on the one hand, to a pointedly ideological one on the other. Will the real Indo-Pacific please stand up?

The rise of the “Indo-Pacific” in American policy discourse amounts to a rejection, a resumption, and a desire. Because Donald Trump cannot abide whatever his predecessor did or said, Barack Obama’s “rebalance” to the “Asia-Pacific” could not survive. The “Indo-Pacific” conveniently shrinks Obama’s “Asia” to a hyphen while inflating the stage on which a celebrity president can play. Yet Mattis also, without saying so, reaffirmed the result of Obama’s “pivot” to Asia by assuring his audience that “America is in the Indo-Pacific to stay. This is our priority theater.” Alongside that rejection-cum-resumption, the prefix “Indo-” embodies the hope that India as a major power can help rebalance America’s friends against what Mattis called China’s “intimidation and coercion,” notably in the South China Sea.

In Honolulu, en route to the dialogue, Mattis had added the prefix to the US Pacific Command – now the Indo-Pacific Command. But continuity again matched change in that the renamed INDOPACOM’s area of responsibility was not extended west of India to Africa. As for Modi, while recommitting his country to “a democratic and rules-based international order,” both he and Mattis ignored the Quad – the off-and-on-again effort to convene the United States, India, Japan and Australia as prospective guardians and agents of the Indo-Pacific idea.

The first effort to create the Quad died at the hands of Beijing and Canberra.  Quietly in May 2007, on the sidelines of an ASEAN meeting in Manila, the four governments met at a sub-cabinet level, followed that September by an expanded Malabar naval exercise in the Indian Ocean among the four along with Singapore. Early in 2008, however, then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, bowing to pressure from Beijing, withdrew Australia from Quad 1.0 and it collapsed.

It took the subsequent up-building and arming of land features in the South China Sea by China to re-embolden the quartet. Beijing’s maritime militancy, Trump’s disdain for Obama-style “strategic patience,” the worsening of Japan’s relations with China, and alarm in Australia over signs of Beijing’s “sharp power” operations there all came together to motivate a low-key, low-level meeting of a could-be Quad 2.0 on the margins of another ASEAN gathering in Manila in November 2017.

The question now is whether the quartet will reconvene in Singapore during the upcoming November ASEAN summitry and if it does, whether the level of representation will be nudged upward to cabinet status. Trump’s addiction to bilateralism, mano a mano, may be tested in this four-way context. Or his one-on-one real-estate developer’s proclivity could cripple the Quad from the start.

More grandiose is the idea that the “Indo-Pacific” could shed its cautionary quote marks and become a rubric for building infrastructure on a scale rivaling China’s own Belt and Road Initiative to lay down railroads, roads and ports from Kunming potentially to Kenya. That surely is, so to speak, a bridge too far.

In short, the temptation to read multilateral diplomatic content into a map of the “Indo-Pacific” drawn in Washington should be resisted. Having objected to any reference to “the rules-based international order” in the June G7 communiqué that he refused to sign, Trump is unlikely to fit the “Indo-Pacific” into any such frame. Nor is it likely to think that he would wish to augment a resuscitated Quad by adding China. Not to mention that Beijing might fail to see the humor in belonging to a five-sided “Pentagon,” the name of which is a metonym for the American Department of Defense.

*Donald K. Emmerson heads the Southeast Asia Program at Stanford University where he is also affiliated with the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

Scientists from the Institut Pasteur, the CNRS and Sanofi Pasteur have recently developed a novel alternative method to animal testing that can be used to verify the safety of vaccines such as the yellow fever vaccine. This original approach is based on the development of an in cellulo device using a 3D culture model, the “BBB-Minibrain”, to evaluate the safety of live vaccines for human use. The model was developed by the Institut Pasteur and a patent application has been filed by the Institut Pasteur and Inserm. It raises hopes for a reduction in the use of animals in quality control, especially in the tests carried out by the pharmaceutical industry to meet the requirements of regulatory authorities. The results of this research were published in the journal Biologicals in May 2018, and online on March 24th.

For several years now, following the adoption of EU Directive 2010/63/EU, the scientific community has been actively seeking to reduce the practice of animal testing. But in many cases, these efforts are hindered by a lack of acceptable alternatives that satisfy regulatory authorities. This is particularly the case for the regulatory testing required for live viral vaccines, such as the yellow fever vaccine; suppliers must demonstrate that the seed lots used to produce vaccine batches sold on the market do not represent a risk of neurotoxicity. These tests are currently performed on animals, which are monitored for the emergence of any clinical signs in the central nervous system that may suggest neurotoxic side effects.

Against this backdrop, Institut Pasteur scientists developed a 3D culture model mimicking the human blood-brain interface, the “BBB-Minibrain”, in 2014. This model, formed of a blood-brain barrier (BBB) associated with a mixed culture of neurons, astrocytes and microglia (a “minibrain”), can be used to detect when viruses enter the brain through the BBB, their multiplication in the minibrain and the emergence of any neurotoxic effects. A patent application (WO2016038123) was filed for the model.

The scientists set out to test the BBB-Minibrain’s ability to pinpoint and amplify any rare mutant particles with neuroinvasive and neurovirulent properties that are found in seed lots for live viral vaccines. They chose to use two yellow fever virus vaccine strains, including the strain currently used to produce the vaccine, which does not cause neurotoxicity.

Working with Sanofi Pasteur research teams, they demonstrated that the BBB-Minibrain can be used to identify any rare viral particles in vaccine preparations that have acquired the ability to enter the brain and multiply there. This test therefore paves the way for the rejection of any seed lots containing mutant viruses capable of entering the brain and becoming neurovirulent.

As Monique Lafon, lead author of the study and Director of the Virology Department at the Institut Pasteur, explains, “replacing animal testing is a major challenge for research. The BBB-Minibrain model is an ingenious tool that will facilitate our analysis of the basis for neurovirulence in these viruses, which colonize the brain via the bloodstream.”

These findings represent a first proof of concept and feasibility for the development of an alternative test that complies with the “3Rs” principle. Work to develop this test is ongoing. The long-term aim is to secure approval for the new test from regulatory authorities.

The BBB-Minibrain model raises hopes for the development of an alternative method that can be used by the pharmaceutical industry to perform regulatory tests on live viral vaccines. The aim of this method is to reduce the use of animals while ensuring strict monitoring of any scientific benefits and breakthroughs in the area of human health.

A team of Japanese scientists led by Masahiro Kayama of Tohoku University’s Frontier Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Sciences, has discovered a mineral known as moganite in a lunar meteorite found in a hot desert in northwest Africa.

This is significant because moganite is a mineral that requires water to form, reinforcing the belief that water exists on the Moon.

“Moganite is a crystal of silicon dioxide and is similar to quartz. It forms on Earth as a precipitate when alkaline water including SiO2 is evaporated under high pressure conditions,” said Kayama. “The existence of moganite strongly implies that there is water activity on the Moon.”

Kayama and his team analyzed 13 of the lunar meteorites using sophisticated methods to determine chemical compositions and structures of their minerals. These included electron microscopy for high-magnification, and micro-Raman spectroscopy to determine the structure of the minerals based on their atomic vibration.

Moganite was found in only one of those 13 samples, confirming the team’s theory that it could not have formed in the African desert. “If terrestrial weathering had produced moganite in the lunar meteorite, there should be moganite present in all the samples that fell to Earth around the same time. But this was not the case,” said Kayama.

He added that part of the moganite had changed into the high-pressure SiO2 minerals stishovite and coesite, which he believes was most likely formed through heavy impact collisions on the Moon

This is the first time that moganite has been detected in lunar rocks. The researchers say the meteorites probably came from an area of the Moon called Procellarum Terrane, and that the moganite was formed through the process of water evaporation in strong sunlight. Kayama’s working theory is that deeper under the lunar surface, protected from the sun, crystals of water ice could be abundant.

In recent years, space missions have found evidence of lunar water or ice concentrated at the poles where sunlight appears at a very narrow angle, leading to pockets of cold traps. This is the first time, however, that the scientists have found evidence of abundant water ice in the lunar subsurface at mid and lower latitudes.

Kayama’s team estimates that the accumulation of water in the lunar soil is about 0.6 weight percent. If they are right, future lunar explorers would have easier access to the resource, which would greatly enhance the chances of the Moon hosting human settlement and infrastructure, and supporting a variety of industries within the next few decades.

JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, is said to be considering two future missions – a lunar pole landing mission in five years to look for water resources and a sample return mission from the far-side of the Moon in ten years.

In addition to testing for water in other silica minerals found, Kayama and his team also plan to study water from solar wind to the regolith soils and volcanic eruptions from the lunar mantle. “Solar wind-induced water can give us new insight into the history of sun activity, and volcanic water provides us with information of lunar evolution together with water,” said Kayama, about his lab’s next project. “It’s all very exciting.”

The next 10 years will be critical for the future of Antarctica, and choices made will have long-lasting consequences, says an international group of award-winning Antarctic research scientists in a paper released Thursoday. It lays out two different plausible future scenarios for the continent and its Southern Ocean over the next 50 years.

Writing in Nature, the authors are all winners of the Tinker-Muse Prize for Science and Policy in Antarctica and experts in such disciplines as biology, oceanography, glaciology, geophysics, climate science and policy.

Recent work by Rob DeConto, the 2016 winner of the Tinker prize and professor of geosciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, includes findings in a 2016 paper also in Nature that highlights the potential for Antarctica to contribute much more sea level rise to the world’s oceans than previously considered.

That work also highlights how reduced greenhouse gas emission can reduce the exposure of low-lying coastlines and cities to rising seas, including Boston.

DeConto said, “Emerging science is pointing to more extreme worst-case scenarios with regards to sea level rise from Antarctica, but the good news is that a reduction in emissions, in line with the aspirations of the Paris Climate Agreement, dramatically reduces the risk of flooding our coastlines in future decades and centuries.”

He and his eight co-authors offer two alternative narratives on the future of Antarctica and surrounding ocean from the perspective of an observer looking back from 2070. The scenarios are “highly speculative,” they stress, not forecasts but intended as starting points for discussion. The narratives touch on long-term consequences of decisions made today for such variables as ice shelves, invasive species, sea ice, ocean and land ecosystems, mining and other human uses.

In the first scenario, “greenhouse gas emissions remained unchecked, the climate continued to warm,” and the policy responses are ineffective, with large ramifications in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean and “worldwide impacts.” In this narrative, Antarctica and the Southern Ocean would see dramatic loss of major ice shelves by 2070 leading to increased loss of grounded ice from the Antarctic Ice Sheet and an acceleration in global sea level rise. Further, “unrestricted growth in human use” will have degraded the environment and introduced invasive pests.

In the second scenario, “ambitious action” has been taken to limit greenhouse gas emissions and to establish policies that reduce human pressure on the environment, slowing the rate of change and enhancing Antarctica’s resilience. This might allow the contnent in 2070 to look “much like it did in the early decades of the century,” the authors suggest, with ice shelves intact, slower loss from the ice sheet and reduced threat of sea level rise.

Further, in the second scenario, ocean acidification has not worsened and Antarctic ecosystems have remained intact, human pressures have been managed by a collaborative and effective governing plan.

Lead author Steve Rintoul of the Centre for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research and Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre in Hobart, Australia, said, “The trajectory that will play out over the next 50 years depends on choices made today. Greenhouse gas emissions must start decreasing in the coming decade to have a realistic prospect of following the low emissions narrative and so avoid global impacts associated with change in Antarctica, such as substantial sea level rise.”

He added, “The future of Antarctica is tied to that of the rest of the planet and human society. Actions can be taken now that will slow the rate of environmental change, increase the resilience of Antarctica, and reduce the risk that we commit to irreversible changes with widespread impact.”

The researchers conclude, “Despite the challenges, actions can be taken now that will slow the rate of environmental change, increase the resilience of Antarctica, and reduce the risk of out-of-control consequences. An effective response to the challenges of a changing Antarctica can serve as an example of the power of peaceful international collaboration, as well as demonstrate how integration of physical, biological and social sciences can enable decision-making that is informed by the past and takes account of the long-term consequences of today’s choices.”

By Cyril Widdershoven

The ongoing speculation online about the future of cooperation between Russia and OPEC seems to be a little one-sided. The main point of discussion up until now has been the fact that, due to international pressure (such as Trump’s Twitter diplomacy, perceived Russian willingness to open up the taps and pressure from Asian consumers) Saudi Arabia will be willing to revoke its current production cut stance.

Current volatility in the global oil market is, according to most analysts, due to fears that markets are facing a severe threat. A doomsday scenario is being painted in the media which suggests that oil prices will collapse as Moscow and Riyadh allow for OPEC compliance to slip, and that a glut of Saudi crude will be hitting the market. This has been the leading theme in the last couple of days, after reporters stated that Moscow and Riyadh are ready to assist the market.

At the same time, analysts and pundits support the thesis that Saudi Arabia is able to produce at least 12.5 million bpd, which will be hitting the market on short notice. No one has really assessed the Saudi spare capacity capabilities though, with a majority of analysts taking the aggressive rhetoric for granted.

Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom of Oil, will be the savior of the oil universe as it holds not only 276 billion barrels of reserves, but also can hit the market with millions of barrels of Saudi sweet to confront or mitigate possible shortages caused by Venezuela’s collapse, the lack of U.S. oil infrastructure, and the impact of Iran sanctions. The main question to be answered, hopefully before reality hits us, is if the Kingdom of Oil really is capable of opening the taps and keep them open in the long term.

Several analysts have been warning about the possible technical issues Saudi Aramco is facing for years. The lack of inside information into the world’s largest NOC is one of the main reasons behind this.

Some insiders have, however, been opening up some doors, indicating that Aramco could have hit a possible production ceiling, as production on several large fields, including Ghawar, has been hit by a long list of issues.

In addition to the normal upstream problems, such as black powder, corrosion, biological fowling and misuse of seawater injection for decades, other issues could also affect overall capacity. Sources have seen major pipelines being blocked by corrosion and scaling, while other production has been hit by major sludging threats. These production issues are known, but the impact has never been able to be assessed fully. Financial analysts have always based their forecasts on open sources, such as reports from the IEA, EIA and OPEC, in which the statement is being repeated that Saudi Arabia has spare production capacity.

In recent years, especially since the Russia+OPEC production cut agreement, it became a fact of life. Existing production capacity of Aramco was seen as a law, and analysts even concluded that production cuts increased overall spare capacity by the same number. Few analysts dared to ask the main question: “If there is spare capacity available, can you prove the figures? At the same time, market watchers should have asked themselves the question: “When did Aramco ever produce even 11 million bpd in the last few years.

Additionally, there are other indicators that Saudi Aramco could be fighting an increasingly difficult battle to keep overall production up in its existing fields. While analysts differ about the exact rates, production declines can be expected to be above 6 percent per year on average. If this is taken as a fact for all production in the Kingdom, additional new production needed to come onstream is around 600,000-750,000 bpd per year.

Hence the ongoing impressive investment schemes, which were even in place during the last oil crisis, as continuous innovation is needed to keep existing production at the same level. This fact is also a major driver for the ongoing discussion within Aramco to speed up conventional field developments on- and offshore, such as in the Arab Gulf (shallow water) and the current focus on shallow-deep-water Red Sea area. The costs of drilling and developing these projects are much higher, than the very easy onshore oil that Saudi Arabia traditionally drilled. Still, the need is there to keep overall production figures at the same level, while even trying to get additional spare capacity. With the widely published spare capacity of 2-2.1 million bpd, the need for these projects would be much less than current investments show.

When these questions are not being addressed, but become reality, OPEC’s upcoming meeting will be put in another light. Without a real spare production capacity, or with a much lower capacity, the current discussion is null and void. Additional oil on the market will be constrained, leaving a ceterus paribus situation, with increased threats from Venezuela and Iran.

As U.S. bank Goldman Sachs already indicated, demand for crude oil and products is not showing any real slowdown. If production cuts stay in place, markets will tighten at an even faster pace.

Despite the still elevated inventories and a small supply overhang, the Russia/OPEC mission has been mostly accomplished. A healthy appetite for crude, combined with an unexpected high level of compliance (or forced compliance in Venezuela’s or Libya’s case), has stabilized markets. Demand, as reported by all institutions and market watchers, is expected to be robust. The threat of higher oil prices culling demand is still very low, but will be looming on the horizon. For 2018-2019, no real risks exist for an oil price showdown. Without a real global financial crisis, lights are on green for a tight crude oil market for an extended period of time. OPEC’s Vienna meeting will not trigger a new oil glut. Some goodwill gestures might be expected, such as the use of Saudi’s floating storage, but in reality no options exist to move anything. Without major new investments outside of Saudi Arabia or the GCC region, the world is heading for higher prices long-term. Counting on Saudi Arabia’s spare capacity could be foolish.

Source: https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/International/Can-Saudi-Arabia-Prevent-The-Next-Oil-Shock.html

On June 11, the Swedish Administrative Court of Appeal gave its decisions on Fortum Sverige AB’s hydro production related real estate tax assessments for the years 2009-2014.

According to Fortum, the court decisions are not in company’s favor and are contrary to the Administrative Court’s earlier decision. Fortum said it will apply for leave to appeal to the Supreme Administrative Court. The disputed amount including interest for the time period totals approximately SEK 520 million (approximately EUR 50 million).

In case the Administrative Court of Appeal’s ruling becomes final, there will be no impact on Fortum’s results, the company said.

In Sweden, hydro power plants have been subject to a real estate tax that has resulted in approximately 12 times higher real estate tax per kWh compared to any other production form due to different tax rates and different valuation factors.

“Over the years, hydro power production has been subjected to an increasing real estate tax burden. The tax burden has not only been detrimental to the investment climate but also been risking the sustainable operation of existing plants. The Swedish Parliament’s decision to lower the real estate tax rate for hydro power production to the normal level supports the operations in the future, but the high real estate tax has burdened our business for several years,” said Reijo Salo, Fortum’s Vice President, Corporate Tax.

In 2014, Fortum’s taxes borne totaled EUR 525 million, of which EUR 279 million was related to taxes in Sweden. In 2014, Fortum Group’s total tax rate was 14.3 % and 54.9 % in Sweden.

By Michael Lelyveld

As China’s economy charges ahead, it appears to be bumping into energy constraints on all sides.

After a rough winter for its plan to replace more coal with natural gas, the government has continued to struggle with shortages. A new push to expand gas storage facilities is already showing signs of disarray.

Other energy sources have also been strained.

A growing list of cities and industrialized provinces are bracing for a shortfall of power supplies this summer.

China’s oil imports have hit record levels as domestic production continues to decline.

And the government has been scrambling to keep coal prices under control, ordering increases in production and inventory cuts despite the environmental and economic effects.

Economic policies, high growth rates, and heavy demand appear to be at the heart of it all.

At the start of the year, many economists expected stimulus policies to ease after the government overshot its 6.5-percent growth target for 2017 with a rise in gross domestic product of 6.9 percent.

Before the Chinese Communist Party’s critical 19th National Congress last October, economists calculated that President Xi Jinping could afford to let growth drop as low as 6.2 percent and still meet the party’s pledge to double GDP in a decade by 2020.

Despite repeated references to a new era of “quality growth,” the government seems unwilling to let official growth rates fall that far.

Surrogate indicators for the first four months suggest a continuing boost for growth after first quarter GDP rose 6.8 percent from a year before.

Power consumption jumped 9.3 percent through April, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), while rail freight gained 6.1 percent from a year earlier.

Industrial output in the period was up 6.9 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.

Energy supplies have barely kept up.

Industrial users in southern Guangdong province had already started to experience power reductions ahead of the summer season. Eastern Shandong province expected a shortfall of five gigawatts (GW) during the high demand period, Reuters reported.

With the onset of hot weather, the squeeze is likely to get worse.

Last week, more than 30 central and northern cities issued heat alerts, triggering warnings that power could be limited to industrial plants, Reuters said.

Problems across the board

While high summer demand has been a consistent challenge, China has been facing energy problems across the board.

Natural gas represents a special case since the market has been whipsawed by the government’s drive to improve air quality in the Beijing region with an aborted ban on coal-fired heating in northern cities last winter.

The NDRC was forced to back down and allow coal burning to resume after gas connections could not be completed in time, but the fuel-switching campaign drove liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices to record highs.

Since then, a break from the seasonal gas shortage has yet to materialize. Over the four-month period, gas consumption climbed nearly 14 percent from a year earlier, according to Reuters, while imports soared 36.4 percent.

PetroChina, the listed unit of state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), has been limiting gas supplies and raising prices to industrial users and western regions since early May, Reuters said.

“We were caught by surprise,” an official at a gas liquefaction plant in Inner Mongolia told the news service last month. “This is the first time PetroChina has reduced our supplies ahead of summer.”

The cutback appears to be aimed at ensuring greater supplies for next winter, turning the shortages into a year-round concern.

“This is basically a ‘rationing’ system being put in place to manage the inability to meet demand growth,” said Mikkal Herberg, energy security research director for the Seattle-based National Bureau of Asian Research.

“Typically, it is always the industrial and large commercial customers that get rationed in order to avoid the big impacts on the broader population and the social concerns that would come with it,” Herberg said by email.

The NDRC tried to deal with price and demand problems by ordering suppliers to sign annual contracts with major customers by the end of April, a tactic that may risk higher losses.

On May 25, the NDRC announced a partial reform for wholesale pricing of pipeline gas, allowing “city gate” rates for residential use to rise by up to 20 percent over set levels.

The top planning agency also hoped to smooth out supply problems with big increases in the number of LNG import terminals and gas storage facilities, led primarily by CNPC.

PetroChina has estimated that China’s gas storage is equal to only 3.3 percent of consumption, compared with a global average of 11.7 percent, the South China Morning Post reported.

But an NDRC circular issued on May 28 suggested that implementation of the storage plan so far has been anything but smooth.

The commission called for “proper planning” of LNG storage projects, warning local authorities and companies that some of the facilities were “small and scattered,” the official Xinhua news service reported.

LNG facilities should not be “blossoming everywhere,” the NDRC said. The authority also voiced concern about financing for the projects and local government debt risks, a sign of another collision of policies that could slow the initiative down.

Dependence on oil imports

On the oil side, there are signs that the trend toward heavy import dependence has continued unabated.

In April, crude oil imports set an average daily record of 9.6 million barrels per day (mbpd), while domestic production continued its long decline. Output fell 2.3 percent from a year earlier to less than 3.8 mbpd, according to customs and NBS data.

In the four-month period, oil imports rose 8.9 percent from a year earlier, Reuters reported. Foreign supplies climbed 10.1 percent last year.

The growing reliance on imports is starting to draw domestic attention.

“In 2018, about 67.4 percent of the country’s petroleum and 39 percent of its natural gas consumption will rely on imports,” said Zhou Dadi, a senior researcher at the China Energy Research Society, as quoted by the official Economic Daily and English-language China Daily.

“China has become the world’s largest energy producer and consumer, but from the consumption data, the energy structure in the country has not seen any fundamental changes,” said Zhou, a former energy and environmental official.

Based on the April figures alone, import dependence for crude oil has grown to more than 71 percent.

Imports have been spurred by faster-than-expected increases in oil demand.

“The government continues to underestimate the rate of increase because it’s politically sensitive that they are not having much success in slowing oil demand growth and therefore oil import growth,” said Herberg.

“Also, domestic oil production has been declining since they cut investment in maintaining old wells during the price crash of 2014-16. That’s raising the need for oil imports beyond just the demand increase,” he said.

Rising coal demand

Coal continues to supply the bulk of China’s energy needs with signs that consumption growth is picking up speed again this year. Consumption rose 0.4 percent in 2017, the NBS has said, breaking a three-year string of declines.

Despite the environmental consequences, coal demand has been driven up by the combined forces of economic growth, higher power consumption, gas shortfalls, and reduced hydropower.

Frequent changes in regulation have aimed at managing the market but they have also added to uncertainty.

Last July, the government ordered small coal ports to turn away imports as part of an effort to curb oversupply and cut smog. But the policy was reversed in late November after inventories at power plants ran low and winter gas shortages cropped up.

This year, the government has again intervened in the market, trying to keep prices under control with a series of unusual and potentially counterproductive strategies.

Late last month, the NDRC pressed utilities to let inventories drop and stop buying coal on the spot market for two to three weeks, Reuters reported. Mining companies were also told to lower their prices to under 570 yuan (U.S. $89.25) per ton.

In a market economy, such moves would be a sure-fire way to induce shortages and eventual price spikes, but China’s state-controlled utilities and coal companies are likely to obey government orders, at least up to a point.

Thermal coal futures on June 1 were reported as high as 640.4 yuan (U.S. $100.27) per ton.

In the meantime, coal consumption appears to be increasing along with power generation, which rose 7.7 percent from a year earlier in the first four months. Coal production is up 3.8 percent during the period, the NBS said.

Last month, the NDRC reportedly told coal companies to raise supplies for long-term contracts by 200 million to 300 million tons.

China’s official press reports have yet to draw a direct link between smog and energy policies so far this year.

China Daily reported that air quality in April was “not as good as the same period last year,” citing a monthly survey of 338 cities by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment. The cities averaged 20 days of “good” air quality, a decrease of 5.3 percent, the paper said.

Average density of smog-forming particles known as PM2.5 was 58 micrograms per cubic meter, “about the same” as last April, it said.

Xinhua noted a slight improvement in “good” days over the four-month period in the 338 cities but a decline in the Beijing-Hebei-Tianjin region in April.

The ministry cited factors including weather conditions, sand storms and increased industrial and construction activities.

Another likely factor in the north was a surge in coal-fired steel production. Wintertime curbs on output to control smog expired on March 15.

In April, steelmakers responded by setting a record for monthly production of 76.7 million metric tons.

A TV show aired on the ABC Television Network in the United States on June 1 has angered Hindutva, the newly emerging political right in India. Indeed, ‘ultra-patriots’ of Hindutva abused and cyberbullied the famous Indian star Prianka Chopra on social media forums and called her traitor who needs to be sent to Pakistan.

In the “Quantico” TV show, Chopra plays an FBI agent who uncovers a terror plot just days before a summit between India and Pakistan is to be held in the United States. During her investigations, Chopra’s character finds a religious Hindu symbol on the neck of one of the suspects, leading her to conclude that the plot was devised by Indian nationalists to frame Pakistan in a terror attack on the United States.

It was a routine entertainment drama, adding some suspense and highlighting the expertise of the Secret Service to unearth a false flag attack. However, the episode caused a social media storm, with ultra-nationalist Hindutva, questioning how Chopra, who is an Indian, could have agreed to be part of such a “controversial” plot!

ABC has explained that “Quantico is a work of fiction and that the show has featured antagonists of many different ethnicities and backgrounds. But no one listened.

“The episode has stirred a lot of emotion, much of which is unfairly aimed at Priyanka Chopra, who didn’t create the show, nor does she write or direct it,” said Walt Disney-owned ABC in its statement.

In this drama executive producers, Josh Safran and Mark Gordon explore the lives of young FBI recruits who have come to the Quantico base in Virginia for 21 weeks of training to become special agents. One recruit is harboring the biggest secret of all, and he ends up being suspected of masterminding the most deadly attack on US soil since 9/11. The show has eight episodes remaining in its third and final series, but due to Indian protests, subsequent episodes of Quantico have been cancelled.

The incident was seen with a lot of disbelief and shock at most international forums as to how a minor event triggered could cause such intense anger and cyberbullying and later street protests by so-called ‘tolerant and shining India’.

Chopra on her Twitter account said “that was not and would never be my intention. I sincerely apologize. I’m a proud Indian and that will never change.”

But all in vain.

The Indian government “should cancel @priyankachopra passport & should not allow her to enter our nation… Let her stay in Hollywood & lick Pakistan boots. Traitor,” Sumit Kadel, a film critic, said on Twitter.

Unfortunately, the Hindutva humiliated the proud and graceful actress who has extraordinary achievements to her credit and has represented India and South Asia over many forums.

Priyanka Chopra, the former Miss World is the highest-paid Indian actress, model and one of the most popular international celebrities. She has been a UNICEF Goodwill ambassador and philanthropist. She promotes the education of girls in India through her namesake charity, ‘The Priyanka Chopra Foundation’. The Indian government gave her the second highest civilian award, the Padma Shri, and Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Forbes listed her among the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women in 2017.

Hindutva social media activists wrote on Twitter, “That entire episode was not just an attack on Hindus but also an attack on India. Peddling Pakistani agenda that Indians make elaborate plots to frame Pakistan.”

With some social users rebutting that,  “.. Man – what is wrong with the world we live in today? People can’t just watch a TV show. People get offended over entertainment. Demanding apologies… Snowflakes all around the world need to calm down.”

“… PEOPLE…..it’s a TV Show, not Reality TV! If you’re going to confuse a TV Show with reality, maybe you should stop watching TV.”

Any Indian who talks about peace with Pakistan or criticizes the Hindutva lynching of innocent people over rumors of beef eating or ill-treatment of Indian army against Kashmir is labelled anti-national and a traitor. Even cheering for Team Pakistan in a cricket match has dire consequences in the biggest democracy of the world.

Movies and popular culture have been under attack from Hindu nationalists in India in recent years. Earlier this year, Hindutva held violent protests and threatened actors over the release of the Bollywood film “Padmaavat”, which showed a Muslim ruler pursuing a Hindu queen. In 2016, the online retail company Snapdeal was forced to drop actor Aamir Khan as its ambassador after backlash over his comments on intolerance in India.

I have just re-read Prianka Chopra’s old article titled “No woman in Mumbai feels safe any longer”, published in The Times of India in August 2012. She discussed the murder of 25-year-old Pallavi Purkayastha by fanatics. Chopra has been talking of ethics, logic and reason for quite sometime, which the new patriots of Hindutva don’t understand.

In the end, I don’t appreciate the response of ABC television network and its apology over the incident of Priyanka Chopra in the drama series Quantico. The network has preferred ‘politics’ instead of supporting its own artists.

*Atta Rasool Malik hails from semi-tribal areas of Pakistan. He is a veteran and holds an M Phil degree in international relations’ from National Defence University in Islamabad. His interests include politics of South Asia, the Middle East and Islamic & Jewish theology.

Saudi Arabia had much at stake when its national soccer team entered the pitch for the opening match of the 2018 World Cup in Moscow. (Editors Notes: Russia beat Saudi Arabia 5-0)

With politics a permanent fixture, Saudi Arabia is playing in the World Cup finals for the first time in more than a decade at a moment that the kingdom is vying for enhanced influence in global and regional governance of the sport.

In a world in which international sports associations stubbornly maintain the fiction that sports and politics are separate, Saudi sports czar, Turki al-Sheikh, the chairman of the kingdom’s General Sport Authority and a close associate of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was unequivocal in his assertions that his decisions were based on what he deemed “Saudi Arabia’s best (political) interest.”

Barely 24 hours before the opening match, Saudi Arabia made good on Mr. Al-Sheikh’s assertion that the kingdom’s international sports policy would be driven by former US President George W. Bush’s post 9/11 principle of “you are either with us or against.”

With Morocco’s bid for the 2026 World Cup in mind, Mr. Al-Sheikh had earlier warned that “to be in the grey area is no longer acceptable to us. There are those who were mistaken in their direction … If you want support, it’ll be in Riyadh. What you’re doing is a waste of time…,” Mr. Al-Sheikh said.

An analysis of the Arab vote in world soccer body FIFA’s ballot in which Morocco lost out against a joint bid by the United States, Canada and Mexico, produced a mirror image of the deep divisions in the Arab world over regional disputes, including the one-year-old Saudi-United Arab Emirates-led economic and diplomatic boycott of Qatar and the kingdom’s rivalry with Iran.

Angry at what they asserted was a successful Saudi campaign to persuade Arab and Islamic countries to break with the principle of Arab, African and Muslim solidarity and to vote for North America rather than Morocco, Moroccan officials suggested that the vote was likely to deepen divisions and further strain once close ties between the two kingdoms.

Adopting a Saudi Arabia First approach, Mr. Al-Sheikh noted that the United States “is our biggest and strongest ally.” He recalled that when the World Cup was played in 1994 in nine American cities, the US “was one of our favourites. The fans were numerous, and the Saudi team achieved good results.”

Mr. Al-Sheikh’s remarks followed a veiled threat by President Donald J. Trump, in violation of guidelines regarding political influence of world soccer body FIFA, against nations that may oppose the US-led proposition.

The FIFA vote on the eve of the World Cup was the latest element in the Saudi attempt to exert influence in soccer governance with the kingdom’s spat with Morocco only one of several public controversies involving Saudi Arabia and Mr. Al-Sheikh.

Casting a shadow over Saudi Arabia’s success in qualifying for the World Cup was the fact that hours before the opening match, Saudi fans remained deprived of legal access to broadcasts of matches.

Saudi Arabia has yet to reach an agreement with beIN, the sports subsidiary of the Qatar-owned Al Jazeera television network that owns the broadcasting rights.

The states boycotting Qatar are demanding that the Gulf state shutter Al Jazeera or at least curb its freewheeling reporting and talk shows that often challenge the policies of countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

As a matter of principle, BeIN has been blocked in the boycotting states for the past year. While Saudi Arabia has sought to ignore Qatar’s rights by creating beOutQ, a 10-channel bootlegging operation based in the kingdom, the UAE backed down at the 11^th hour from its blockage of beIN broadcasts but maintained its jamming of Al Jazeera.

beOutQ transmits over Arabsat, a Riyadh-based satellite provider Arabsat owned by Saudi Arabia.

Unable to challenge the Saudi action in Saudi courts, Qatar has urged world soccer body FIFA to take action against what it described as Saudi pirate broadcasters

Egypt, a member of the anti-Qatar, alliance has asserted that the awarding of the broadcasting rights to beIN violated its competition law and said it would oblige FIFA to allow its state broadcaster to broadcast 22 matches free to air, including those of the Egyptian national team.

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) warned Saudi Arabia and Egypt by implication on the eve of the World Cup not to pirate World Cup broadcasts.

“Recently, an entity called beOutQ has put in place a major piracy operation against beIN Media Group. In this regard, CAF strongly condemns the practice of the audio-visual piracy of sport events, a real scourge for our industry. CAF is determined to take all necessary against beoutQ if any of CAF matches are pirated,” the soccer body said.

The Saudi national squad’s geopolitical baggage in Russia contains more goodies.

Against the backdrop of a Saudi-UAE campaign to get FIFA to deprive Qatar of its 2022 hosting rights, Saudi Arabia has been manoeuvring to ensure that it has greater say in the issue while at the same time isolating Iran in the global soccer family.

In a further bid to complicate life for Qatar, Saudi Arabia backed a proposal to speed up the expansion of the World Cup to 48 teams from 32, which is now scheduled for 2026, by making it already applicable to the 2022 World Cup. FIFA has delayed a decision on the issue.

If adopted, Qatar could be forced to share the hosting of the 2022 tournament with others in the region. Iran has already offered to help Qatar.

The Saudi-UAE moves come on the back of a two-pronged Saudi effort to gain a measure of control of global soccer governance.

Global tech investor Softbank, which counts Saudi Arabia and the UAE among its largest investors, is believed to be behind a $25 billion proposal embraced by FIFA president Gianni Infantino to revamp the FIFA Club World Cup and launch of a Global Nations League tournament. If approved, the proposal would give Saudi Arabia a significant voice in global soccer governance.

Complimenting the Saudi FIFA bid is a Saudi effort to undermine the position of the 47-nation Asian Football Confederation AFC headed by Salman Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa, a member of the Bahrain ruling family and one of the most powerful men in global soccer.

To do so, Saudi Arabia has unilaterally launched a new regional bloc, the South West Asian Football Federation (SWAFF), a potential violation of FIFA and AFC rules.

The federation would be made up of members of both the AFC and the Amman-based West Asian Football Federation (WAFF) that groups all Middle Eastern nations except for Israel and is headed by Jordanian Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein, a prominent advocate of soccer governance reform.

All of this could come to a head on the pitch if both Saudi Arabia and Iran were to make it out of the group stage and clash in the semi-finals.

“Saudi Arabia’s clash with Iran would be an explosive affair,” said a headline in the Asia Times.