JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesian authorities had to amputate the leg of a victim trapped under rubble to pull him out of a collapsed gold mine on Sulawesi island, as the slow and harrowing rescue operation entered its third day on Friday.
But the miner, trapped with dozens of others at the illegal mining site on a muddy hillside in Bolaang Mongondow area of North Sulawesi province, later died of his injuries, the national disaster mitigation said in a statement.
"Rescuers were forced to amputate the victim's leg because it was stuck under a rock, and they were afraid that moving the rock would cause a further collapse," Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman of the disaster agency, said in a statement.
Eight people have died in the accident and dozens more remain stuck under rocks and beams, authorities said. Rescue workers using simple tools and rope have pulled out 20 heavily injured miners so far but hopes are fading of finding further survivors.
"According to the assessment we did yesterday, we are not hearing voices anymore from the mining shafts," Abdul Muin Paputungan of the local disaster agency said by phone.
The seven-day rescue operation is set to last at least until next Tuesday, with more than 200 rescue and military personnel helping to pull survivors and bodies out of several mine shafts.
"Conditions in the field are trying, with steep slopes...and a danger of further landslides," Nugroho said.
The Indonesian government has banned such small-scale gold mining projects, although regional authorities often turn a blind eye to the practice in more remote areas. With little regulation, such mines are prone to accidents.
The US on Thursday welcomed Pakistan's decision to release captured Indian Air Force pilot, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, from their custody.
In a surprise announcement during a joint session of Parliament, Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Thursday that the captured IAF pilot Varthaman will be released on Friday as a gesture of peace.
Pakistan detained Varthaman on Wednesday following a fierce engagement between air forces of the two sides along the Line of Control when his MiG 21 fighter jet was downed.
“We welcome Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s commitment that Pakistan will release on Friday the Indian pilot held in its custody,” a State Department spokesperson told PTI responding to a question on the announcement made by Khan in the Pakistani parliament.
Simultaneously, the US has urged both India and Pakistan to take immediate steps to de-escalate tensions.
“The United States continues to urge both sides to take immediate steps to de-escalate the situation, including through direct communication. Further military activity will exacerbate the situation,” the State Department spokesperson said.
The US reiterated its call to Pakistan to abide by its UN Security Council commitments to deny terrorists safe haven and block their access to funds.
“We reiterate our call for Pakistan to abide by its United Nations Security Council commitments to deny terrorists safe haven and block their access to funds,” the spokesperson said.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Thursday joined other lawmakers in expressing concern over the escalating tension between India and Pakistan.
"This is “a result of a Pakistan-based terrorist group’s brutal attack”, he said.
“I urge both countries to de-escalate the mounting tensions,” Hoyer said.
Climate change plus population growth are setting the stage for water shortages in parts of the U.S. long before the end of the century, according to a new study in the AGU journal Earth's Future.
Even efforts to use water more efficiently in municipal and industrial sectors won't be enough to stave off shortages, say the authors of the new study. The results suggest that reductions in agricultural water use will probably play the biggest role in limiting future water shortages.
The new study is part of a larger 10-year U.S. Forest Service assessment of renewable resources including timber, rangeland forage, wildlife and water.
"The new study not only provides a best guess of future water supply and demand but also looks at what can we do to lessen projected shortages," said Thomas Brown, of the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station in Colorado and the study's lead author.
To do that, the researchers used a variety of global climate models to look at future climate scenarios and how they will likely affect water supplies and demands. They also factored in population growth.
On the water supply side, the authors used a water yield model to estimate the amount of water that would become available for use across the country, and modeled how that water would be delivered to in-stream and off-stream uses or stored in reservoirs for future use.
The new study finds climate change and population growth are likely to present serious challenges in some regions of the U.S., notably the central and southern Great Plains, the Southwest and central Rocky Mountain States, and California, and also some areas in the South and the Midwest.
The heart of the new analysis is a comparison of future water supply versus estimated water demand in different water-using sectors, like industry and agriculture.
The study finds continued reductions in per-capita water use rates are likely in most water-use sectors, but will be insufficient to avoid impending water shortages because of the combined effects of population growth and climate change.
The study's authors looked at a variety of adaptive strategies for alleviating projected water shortages, like increasing reservoir storage capacity, pumping more water out of groundwater aquifers, and diverting more water from streams and rivers. Increasing the size of reservoirs does not look promising for fending off water shortages, especially in parts of the U.S. expected to get drier as climate change progresses.
"Where water is the limiting factor, a reservoir enlargement is unlikely to store any water," Brown said.
Further reductions in groundwater reserves and greater diversions of in-stream flows could help alleviate future shortages in many areas but come with serious social and environmental costs. If those costs are to be avoided, improvements in irrigation efficiency will need to become a high priority, and further transfers of water from agriculture to other sectors will likely be essential, the study's authors say.
Brown cautions that people should not read too much into the report regarding their local water supplies. The new study models large watersheds and does not look at what will happen on a city or county scale.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will release the captured Indian Air Force pilot, Wing Commander Abhi Nandan, “as a peace gesture” to India, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Thursday, stressing that Islamabad desired peace and stability in the region.
Addressing a joint session of parliament, the prime minister warned that the desire for de-escalation should not be construed as weakness and that Pakistan was fully prepared to retaliate against any aggression.
“As a peace gesture we will be releasing him tomorrow,” Khan told the joint session, which was convened to discuss the situation after Indian aggression and the violation of Pakistan’s airspace on February 26 and the shooting down of two Indian fighter jets by the Pakistan Air Force on February 27.
The joint session witnessed a rare unity in the wake of tensions between Pakistan and India. The house appeared one and united as it discussed national security. After playing of the national anthem at the outset, the house echoed with slogans in favour of the state and the army.
In his address, Prime Minister Khan asked India to desist from further escalation of tension and not to even think of a war with Pakistan. He warned India that Pakistan was fully prepared to retaliate against any aggression.
“I want to give a message to India and Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi [do] not push the situation to the brink. I know our armed forces are fully prepared,” he said. “The kind of weapons, we (Pakistan and India) have, no one should even think of a war,” he added.
The prime minister reiterated that Pakistan desired peace and stability in the region as it was essential for the government’s efforts to pull the people out of poverty and attract investment and revealed that he tried to reach out to Modi for the sake of peace in the region.
“Tension is not in the interest of both the countries,” he said. “I tried to talk to Prime Minister Modi yesterday…” Khan added. However, the prime minister maintained that Pakistan’s efforts for de-escalation should not be considered as it weakness. “It should not be taken as a wrong signal.”
Pakistan will release the captured Indian Air Force pilot, Wing Commander Abhi Nandan, “as a peace gesture” to India, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Thursday, stressing that Pakistan desired peace and stability in the region.
Addressing a joint session of parliament, chaired by National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser, the prime minister warned that the desire for de-escalation should not be confused as weakness and that Pakistan was fully prepared to retaliate against any aggression.
“As a peace gesture we will be releasing him tomorrow,” Khan told the joint session, which was convened to discuss the situation after Indian aggression and the violation of Pakistan’s airspace on February 26 and the shooting down of two Indian fighter jets by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) on February 27.
The joint session witnessed a rare unity in the wake of tensions between Pakistan and India. The house appeared one and united as it discussed national security. After playing of the national anthem at the outset, the house echoed with slogans in favour of the state and the army.
In his address, Prime Minister Khan asked India to desist from further escalation of tension and not to even think of a war with Pakistan. He warned India that Pakistan was fully prepared to retaliate against any aggression.
“I want to give a message to India and Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi [do] not push the situation to the brink. I know our armed forces are fully prepared,” he said. “The kind of weapons, we (Pakistan and India) have, no one should even think of a war,” he added.
The prime minister reiterated that Pakistan desired peace and stability in the region as it was essential for the government’s efforts to pull the people out of poverty and attract investment. He revealed that he tried to reach out to the Modi for the sake of peace in the region.
“Tension is not in the interest of both the countries. I tried to talk to Prime Minister Modi yesterday…” Khan said. He expressed the hope that the international community would also try to de-escalate the situation and play its role.
The prime minister maintained that Pakistan’s efforts for de-escalation should not be considered as its weakness. “It should not be taken as a wrong signal,” he said. “We are a dignified nation and will fight for our independence and sovereignty.”
Highlighting Kashmir as a major unresolved issue, Khan pointed out that continued atrocities and oppression in Indian-Occupied Kashmir, was giving rise to the an indigenous independence movement in the occupied territory.
“Even those Kashmiri leaders, who were not supportive of the view of Occupied Kashmir’s separation from India 20 years back, are now talking of independence from India,” the prime minister told the parliamentarians.
“The people of Kashmir cannot be subdued by India through its oppressive tactics,” he said. “I ask the people of India… they should think what is the reason behind pushing the people (of Kashmir) to become human bombs?” he said. “It is the oppression and the oppressive tactics that removed the fear of Kashmiris.”
Regretting the finger-pointing at Pakistan over terrorist act in Occupied Kashmir and relating it with Islamic radicalism, Khan reminded the world of suicide attacks by Tamil Tigers—who were Hindus—before the 9/11. “It is not the religion, but desperation which took the people to such a situation.”
The prime minister said that majority of the people in India did not agree with war-mongering, by their media, which he said had not witnessed what happened in Pakistan over the last decade due to terrorist attacks.
Highlighting the devastation caused by wars, he mentioned Afghanistan, where after 17 years of war the US—most powerful country in the world, was thinking of withdrawing its forces. “No one wants war. Wars do not provide solution to issues.
The prime minister lauded the opposition parties and the whole nation for standing with the government and the armed forces of Pakistan and exhibited the unity after the February 26 Indian aggression.
During the session, the opposition lawmakers supported the government’s offer for peace to India to give a clear message to India that Pakistani political leadership was united. In their speeches, they also praised the army and the PAF for ensuring a befitting response to Indian aggression.
Opposition leader in the National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif told the joint sitting that the PAF revived the memories of 1965 war by downing two fighter jets of the enemy. “The brave armed forces have achieved a great victory,” he said.
He said it was a sad reality that the region could not see sustainable peace because the issue of Kashmir could not be resolved. Peace, he added, could not be achieved until the Kashmir dispute was resolved. “It is the dialogue table where we can resolve the issues,” he said.
He condemned Indian atrocities in occupied Kashmir and stressed that India must give the right to self-determination to the Kashmiris. “Every valley of Kashmir today is seeing freedom fighters like Burhan Wani and Adil Dar due to increasing atrocities of the Indian military,” he said.
“If its [Indian] forces continue to turn people blind through pellet guns, if they continue to disgrace Kashmiris and continue to run over their jeeps on the innocent civilians, then the world must be warned that the region will not see sustainable peace.”
Sharif, the president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) offered the opposition’s full support for the government on the current situation. “The world will hear the voice of a united parliament and a united Pakistan,” he said.
Sharif criticised the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for inviting Indian foreign minister Sushma Swaraj as a guest to its meeting. He urged the government to boycott the OIC meeting if it did not withdraw the invitation to Indian foreign minister.
Peoples Party leader and former prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, while addressing the joint session, lauded the army and the air force. “We will give a strong response if anyone tries to violate our airspace,” Ashraf said. He urged India to realise that war itself was “a big problem”.
Speaking at the session, Ghous Baksh Mehr said that war was not an answer to any issue and that disputes could only be resolved through dialogue. “Modi should accept the talks offer of our prime minister. No one will be safe if war breaks out.”
Opposition Leader in the Senate Raja Zafarul Haq also stressed that the nation was united and the performance of the armed forces deserved praise. “The role of the air force is particularly commendable.
The Amir of Jamaat-e-Islami Senator Sirajul Haq said that Kashmir was main issue between the two countries and called for early settlement of the dispute. “We appreciate the prime minister’s initiative of releasing the Indian pilot. But the release of the pilot is not an issue … the parliament must come to any solution to the Kashmir issue.”
Railways Minister Shaikh Rasheed lauded the government’s offer for peace talks but called everyone to remain vigilant for any situation. Maulana Asad Mehmood of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), Barrister Saif, Usman Khan Kakar and others also addressed the joint session.
The session will continue on Friday (today). Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ali Muhammad Khan will present a motion against Indian aggression while Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi will brief the house about his peace efforts on the diplomatic front.
Trump and Kim met in Hanoi, Vietnam for a two-day meeting that ended Thursday. The summit was cut short on the final day after both sides failed to agree on denuclearizing North Korea and lifting economic sanctions on Pyongyang.
"South Korea loses the most from the Hanoi summit ending without agreement," according to Alison Evans, deputy head of Asia Pacific country risk at consultancy IHS Markit.
For Seoul, Thursday's developments dimmed prospects of re-starting inter-Korean projects that have been stalled by sanctions, Evans wrote in a Thursday note. Political support for Moon could also fall further, she added.
"Importantly, Moon's support rating has fallen steadily ... Without progress on North Korea, Moon's domestic agenda becomes his only metric of success for voters, who have already criticised his administration for failing to deliver on economic metrics such as unemployment," she added.
Since taking office in 2017, Moon has largely counted on his push for improved relations with North Korea to shore up political support.
In a Friday speech, Moon attempted to put a positive spin to the failed talks in Vietnam.
"I believe this is part of a process to reach a higher level of agreement. Now our role has become even more important," he said. "My administration will closely communicate and cooperate with the United States and North Korea so as to help their talks reach a complete settlement by any means."
Critics have hit out at the South Korean president, saying that his focus on their northern neighbor has sidelined more pressing economic issues at home. After Thursday's breakdown in talks between Trump and Kim, criticisms of Moon will likely grow louder, according to analysts from consultancy Eurasia Group.
"South Korean President Moon Jae-in will face even stronger criticism from conservatives at home who have long argued that he is too soft on Kim and too optimistic about Kim's willingness to denuclearize," the analysts wrote in a Thursday note.
"Disappointing news about the summit will likely further darken business, investor, and consumer sentiment in South Korea," they added.
South Korean markets fell on Thursday after the White House announced that the summit between Trump and Kim was cut short. The markets were closed on Friday for a holiday.
A former Sunshine Coast man sentenced to more than five years' jail in Bali for possession of cocaine had to "pay the price", his stepfather declared after the verdict.
Key points:
Bali police charged Brendon Johnsson after they found 12 grams of cocaine in plastic bags
Johnsson and girlfriend Remi Purwanto have been sentenced to more than five years' jail
Stepdad Ashley Robinson says the family hope Johnsson will use the prison time to change his ways
Brendon Luke Johnsson, 43, was arrested last August when police acting on a tip-off raided the room he rented at Kuta Beach with his Indonesian girlfriend, Remi Purwanto.
Outside the court in Denpasar, Johnsson's stepfather Ashley Robinson welcomed the sentence and urged other people not to do such "stupid things".
Prosecutors alleged Johnsson had been selling and using drugs in Bali for the past five years.
They had sought an eight-year sentence, but the judges in Bali sentenced both Johnsson and Purwanti to five years and four months.
They were both also ordered to pay a fine of 800 million rupiah, or about $80,000.
Mr Robinson, who was in court to hear the sentence handed down, said the case had been a "massive learning curve" for their family.
"He's got to pay the price for what he's done. He's just got to put his head down now and do his time and be a good prisoner and be productive in there," he said.
"I hope that people watching in Australia know that you cannot, do not do stupid things like Brendon did here because there are consequences and he's got to pay the price.
"I would not like to see another family put through what we've been put through."
'We always knew we'd get a call'
Mr Robinson, who received an Order of Australia medal for his charitable work on the Sunshine Coast, said his step-son had been addicted to drugs since he was 16 years old.
"We always knew we were going to get a phone call and we did. It could've been hospital, it could've been like this one and arrested or it could've been worse," he said.
"So the way I see it, and his mother, is that there is a silver lining. This gives him an opportunity to do his time and come back to Australia and be a better person and be productive and have a good rest of his life.
Mr Robinson also thanked the Indonesian Government for their assistance and looking after his step-son.
"He hasn't touched drugs since August 4, so this is the first time he's been clean since he was 16.
"He's shown in prison at the moment that he can change.
"He's in prison, but he is a different person. He's thinking clearly … he's going to the meetings, he's doing everything right and we're really proud of him as a family."
India and Pakistan seem to have walked back, at least for now, from the brink of war they had reached in the past two days. Pakistan has offered to return the Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot they had captured, and an IAF representative has indicated that while the armed forces remain on high alert, any further Indian action against Pakistan would depend on provocations from that country. This is to be welcomed. Both countries had climbed up the escalation ladder of conflict with claims and accusations and actions and counter-actions. After India’s strike at a Jaish-e-Mohammad camp in Pakistan on Tuesday, Pakistani aircraft violated Indian air space in a tit-for-tat action and sought to bomb Indian facilities. India shot down a Pakistani fighter. Pakistan downed an Indian MiG-21, captured the pilot and in an act of serious violation of conventions and norms paraded the wounded pilot on television. Shelling increased across the LoC, airports were shut down, and the war of words intensified. All this marked an intensification of hostilities.
India made its point that it is ready to and capable of striking anywhere in Pakistan to ensure its security and protect its interests. Pakistan responded with some measures to save its face before its people and the world. Both countries should now display restraint and wisdom to contain the conflict and make sure that it does not go out of control. A war is bad for both countries. It will impose huge costs on the economy and society and result in terrible human misery. It will be entirely futile because it will not solve any problems that exist between the two countries.
Both sides can now claim that they have hurt each other and made their respective points. The engagement should now shift to diplomatic or back channels or even direct talks. Pakistan has expressed its readiness for talks and India should choose its option. Pakistan has also offered to release the captured pilot, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, on Friday. This may be under pressure but is also a goodwill gesture. Both countries should ensure that the situation does not escalate from here. India has received a lot of moral and diplomatic support from the world after the Pulwama attack and even before that as a victim of terrorism. But no country would support a war between two nuclear powers which would have unpredictable consequences for the countries, the region and the world. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said in China on Wednesday that India would act with “responsibility and restraint’’. This should be seen in our practice. The hysteria and frenzy created by TV studio warriors is against the interests of the country. The people do not want a spiralling of violence and war, they want peace.
More than 100 rescuers in Indonesia are racing to free dozens of people who have been trapped in a remote goldmine for three days amid fears they are ...
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The parents of Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman left for New Delhi on Thursday night to welcome their son on Friday when he is expected to be released by Pakistan from its custody.
Abdhinandan’s father, Air Marshal (retired) S Varthaman, his mother Shoba and other relatives left Chennai for New Delhi by a flight late on Thursday night. Sources said the Wing Commander’s parents will receive him at whichever place the Pakistan government hands him over to India.
As soon as Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan announced that Abhinandan will be released on Friday, celebrations broke outside the complex where the IAF officer’s parents live in Chennai. People distributed sweets among themselves and celebrated the announcement.
In the morning, the retired Air Marshal said he was proud of his son who was a “true soldier.” “Thank you, my friends, for your concern and wishes. I thank God for his blessings, Abhi is alive, not injured, sound in mind, just look at the way he talked so bravely...a true soldier...we are so proud of him.
“I am sure all your hands and blessings are on his head, prayers for his safe return, I pray that he does not get tortured, and comes home safe and sound in body and mind. Thank you all for being with us in this hour of need. We draw our strengths from your support and energy,” he said in a message.
Abhinandhan is a third-generation officer from a family whose members have served in the Indian Armed Forces for long. Abhinandhan’s family hails from Tirupanamoor village in Tiruvannamalai district of Tamil Nadu.
Instead, President Donald Trump's second meeting with North Korean despot Kim Jong Un ended in a most uncharacteristic fashion for a showman commander in chief: fizzle.
The sometimes-contentious talks held inside the green-shuttered Metropole Hotel here were cut short when it became clear to Trump and his aides that Kim would not accept any outcome less than a full removal of crippling economic sanctions -- a request North Korea's foreign minister later denied.
Trump was surprised by Kim's demand, according to a person familiar with the negotiations, believing the young despot had come to the Vietnamese capital prepared to deal. Even though his aides warned him the North Koreans were proving intractable in preliminary talks, Trump -- a self-professed deal artist -- still felt there was a chance Kim would prove reasonable at the table.
He wasn't, as Trump learned during a lengthy negotiating session that stretched beyond its allotted time. Speaking through two female interpreters, the two men went back-and-forth for more than two hours, failing even to strike an agreement on what the term "denuclearization" meant.
Even the promise of dismantling one of North Korea's major nuclear sites fell short when Trump's aides warned him that would not match the type of sanctions relief Kim was demanding. Trump told reporters, "They wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, and we couldn't do that," though later in the day Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho disputed that, stating North Korea asked only for a partial lifting of sanctions in exchange for the verified dismantling of uranium and plutonium production facilities at Yongbyon.
Whatever the case, Trump walked away -- nicely, he said -- without much clarity on what might come next in his foreign policy gambit.
He did not abandon the warmth he's shown toward Kim over the past eight months, even going as far to say he took Kim at his word when he denied knowledge of North Korea's detention of Otto Warmbier, the American student captured there only to later be returned to his family in a vegetative state. He died soon afterward.
Those remarks aside, there was palpable relief among many analysts and even some of Trump's own aides, who'd entered the talks fearful the President might agree to dramatic steps in his bid to lure Kim into getting rid of his nuclear weapons -- or to distract from the unpleasant scene of his former lawyer describing him as a racist fraudster on Capitol Hill.
According to people familiar with the conversations, Trump told some advisers ahead of the talks he did not want to appear overly thirsty to secure a deal, hoping to prove wrong the myriad analysts who predicted he'd give away the store to secure some type of progress.
He was advised by senior members of his national security team -- including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton -- that he should walk away from the talks if they proved unfruitful, according to an official familiar with the summit. He was cautioned in the days and even hours leading up to the talks that North Korean negotiators were unbudging in their demands on sanctions during pre-summit talks led by Stephen Biegun, the administration's special envoy.
Pompeo, who joined Trump onstage for his concluding news conference, later told reporters as he was flying to Manila that despite eleventh-hour negotiations, it was evident the summit could end without an agreement.
"We were prepared for the potentiality of this outcome as well," he said. "And tomorrow we will get right back at it."
On Thursday, Trump still believed he could make something happen in Hanoi, one official said, and was disappointed to learn Kim was just as unbending as advertised. The evening before, top officials from his administration were still haggling to try and reach an agreement, despite indications of intransigence from the North Koreans.
"We were hopeful even this morning. We all went back and tried to sharpen our pencils and see if we couldn't get a little further and we actually did," Pompeo said as he left Hanoi. "But still, look, it is a long ways, we have always known it was a long ways."
Summit cut short
The anticlimax came into relief midday. A signing ceremony listed on Trump's official schedule only a day earlier was scrapped, a move euphemistically deemed a "program change" by the White House. A working lunch was called off, forcing the chefs inside Le Club restaurant to toss plates of foie gras and snow fish they'd prepared for the leaders. Both men peeled away in their respective motorcades well ahead of schedule.
As US officials streamed to the airport in advance of their planned departures, workers scrambled to load their bags, still strewn on the tarmac, into the belly of the plane. When Pompeo arrived to his aircraft early, the pilot wasn't even aboard.
It was a rush to the exit for a summit that sputtered despite Trump's efforts to boost interest. Even as his aides warned a second summit with Kim would lack the historic gravity of the first, Trump pressed forward, intent on recreating what he'd come to view as a highlight of his two-year presidency: the flashy breakthrough talks in Singapore eight months ago.
In the weeks and days leading up to the talks he heightened various dramas, from revealing the location to playing coy with concessions he was willing to offer. He invited along his friend, Fox News' Sean Hannity, for an interview and companionship during his two-day stay in Hanoi. He said publicly he expected heavy media interest.
Yet Trump's short stay in the Vietnamese capital seemed from the beginning to lack the kind of elaborate spectacle on display in Singapore. The making-of-history component that drew the world's attention then was absent the second time around. There were no gimmicks like the faux movie trailer predicting economic growth the President commissioned to show Kim on an iPad.
Even Trump's decision to walk away from the talks lacked drama.
"This wasn't a walk away like you get up and walk out," he said, describing a more polite exit than the table-slamming departure he staged during government shutdown talks with Democrats earlier this year.
Kim with the upper hand?
Before he arrived, there were even indications the North Koreans held an upper hand. When Kim learned midway through his days-long train journey to Vietnam that some White House reporters were staying and working from his hotel, he demanded they leave -- a dictate the White House carried out. What ensued was a scramble among television networks to relocate their gear from the space they'd rented for tens of thousands of dollars, all in the moments before Trump touched down.
The choice of the Vietnamese capital city location also amounted to an early concession: the White House had pressed for the seaside resort of Da Nang, but Pyongyang insisted on Hanoi, where North Korea maintains an embassy.
Without a joint agreement staking out the road toward North Korea's denuclearization, Trump left Hanoi in largely the same position he arrived. Once hoping the summit might prove wrong the detractors of his diplomatic gamble, instead Trump departed with all the same questions lingering about how he plans to convince Kim to abandon his arsenal.
The outcome shocked some US allies, who expected something more. South Korean President Moon Jae-in had told reporters only an hour before the talks broke up that he planned to watch the planned signing ceremony from home.
It wasn't clear why the White House listed the signing ceremony on the public version of the President's schedule the evening before, beyond sheer optimism. One official described it as a misstep since it wasn't at all clear the two sides would agree to anything during the talks.
Trump did begin the day on an optimistic note -- albeit a guarded one.
"I can't speak necessarily for today, but I can say that this -- a little bit longer term and over a period of time, I know we're going to have a fantastic success," he said at the start of the summit.
Distractions
He arrived to the talks having spent part of the evening before watching Michael Cohen, his onetime attorney who'd dramatically broken with the President, testifying before a congressional panel. He viewed part of the testimony from his hotel room in Hanoi, though not in its entirety. Some of his aides were spotted the hotel lobby watching the hearing together.
During his welcoming meeting with Kim on Wednesday evening, Trump did not appear pleased when a reporter asked about Cohen, offering a gruff "thank you" to signal the photo-op was over. The White House later limited the number of reporters who could attend a second one, citing the "sensitive nature" of the meeting. And during his concluding news conference, Trump called on more foreign reporters than American ones -- limiting the number of questions about Cohen to one.
Trump had entered the talks regretting the timing: details of the testimony in which Cohen described Trump as a cheat and liar emerged as Trump was overseeing a series of airline trade deals in the mustard-hued Vietnamese presidential palace.
"I think he was upset that he was going to have dueling shows here," said Sen. Lindsay Graham, who spoke to Trump the night earlier. "It did bother him that there was going to be a split screen going between Cohen and him meeting with Kim Jong Un."
"I said that is just the world in which you live," the South Carolina Republican said.
What’s the bottom line on the collapse of the Hanoi summit between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un?
According to Evelyn Farkas, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and former deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Obama administration, it’s that Trump “didn’t make a bad deal, and a lot of people feared he would.”
This is the standard view of America’s foreign policy “Blob” — the oozing mass of think tank experts, future government-officials-in waiting, and cable TV commentators that constitutes the mass mind of Washington, D.C.
The reality is exactly the opposite: Almost any deal would have been preferable to Trump returning home empty-handed. That’s because the most dangerous actor by far on the Korean peninsula is the United States, not North Korea — and that’s in normal times. The U.S. is even more terrifying than normal with the Trump administration running things.
Even the Blob understands that North Korea will never use its nuclear weapon in an unprovoked, suicidal first strike against the U.S. Rather, the Blob’s concern is that its weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons, provide a deterrent against military action by America and thus, are unacceptable.
What exactly was possible in Vietnam is unclear. According to Trump, North Korea “wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety” without completely dismantling its nuclear weapons program, “and we couldn’t do that.” North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho says that North Korea offered to “permanently and completely dismantle” its main nuclear production facility in return for the lifting of “partial sanctions.” It would be nice to believe that the U.S. government is more trustworthy than North Korea’s on this subject, but that’s actually not the case in general and definitely is not where the Trump administration is concerned.
What is clear is that ahead of the summit, much of the U.S. media acted as a mouthpiece for the Blob and its anxieties. The outline of one potential agreement, Vox explained — a formal end to the Korean War and the relaxing of some sanctions in return for a halt to nuclear activities at a main North Korean facility — “looks like a huge win for Kim. For the U.S.? Not so much.”
NBC reported as a huge bombshell that the U.S. was not demanding that North Korea “disclose a full accounting of its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs” as part of a Hanoi agreement. But this was not news at all. Stephen Biegun, Trump’s special representative for North Korea, stated weeks ago that the U.S. would merely require such a declaration “at some point.”
Indeed, insisting that North Korea reveal everything about its nuclear weapons program right now would be a sign that the U.S. intended for negotiations to fail. Without a peace deal, no country is going to tell a powerful adversary exactly what to bomb in case of war. This is particularly true when that adversary is the U.S., which in 1998 used information from United Nations weapons inspections to create a target list in Iraq “stunning in its specificity.” Making the idea even more preposterous is that during the Korean War in the 1950s, America conducted one of the most brutal air wars in history on North Korea. We dropped a greater tonnage of bombs on the country than we used in all of the Pacific in World War II, burning all of its cities to the ground and killing perhaps 20 percent of its population.
What the Blob seems to have completely forgotten is that little more than a year ago, it seemed plausible that Trump was going to singlehandedly drag the world into nuclear war.
In August 2017, Trump threatened North Korea with “fire and fury like the world has never seen.” That September at the U.N., Trump called Kim “rocket man” and announced that the U.S. may “have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.”
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, known to frequently discuss foreign policy with Trump, announced that Trump had told him that “there is a military option to destroy … North Korea itself.” Another GOP senator, Jim Risch of Idaho, reported that Trump was prepared to start a “very, very brief” war with North Korea that would be “one of the worst catastrophic events in the history of our civilization. The end of it is going to see mass casualties the likes of which the planet has never seen. It will be of biblical proportions.”
During this period, the U.S. may have veered close to accidental nuclear war with North Korea several times. In a recent book, Van Jackson, an arms control expert and fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, points out three occasions when both inaccurate and accurate news likely made a U.S. attack seem imminent to North Korea.
In September 2017, fake text and Facebook messages told Americans in South Korea that the U.S. government was ordering them to evacuate. In October, the outlet Defense One falsely reported that America’s nuclear-capable bombers were about to be put on 24-hour alert. In November, 66 Navy SEALs — exactly who the U.S. would send on a mission to assassinate Kim — did in fact arrive in South Korea. At the time, retired Adm. James Stavridis, who Hillary Clinton considered as a running mate, put the odds of war at 50 percent.
The world is incredibly lucky that Trump has spun 180 degrees and spent the last year becoming bosom friends with Kim. Why he decided to do this is unknown; perhaps it’s just the natural instinct of a showman who believes that each new season of TV needs a shocking twist. What we do know is that Trump is extremely dangerous and has surrounded himself with people more dangerous still. The best we can hope for is that the U.S. and North Korea just keep talking and come to an agreement — again, almost any agreement — and this reality series is canceled before humanity stumbles into nuclear war.
Fish provide a vital source of protein for over half the world's population, with over 56 million people employed by or subsisting on fisheries. But climate change is beginning to disrupt the complex, interconnected systems that underpin this major source of food.
A team of scientists led by Christopher Free, a postdoctoral scholar at UC Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, has published an investigation of how warming waters may affect the productivity of fisheries. The results appear in the journal Science.
The study looked at historical abundance data for 124 species in 38 regions, which represents roughly one-third of the reported global catch. The researchers compared this data to records of ocean temperature and found that 8 percent of populations were significantly negatively impacted by warming, while 4 percent saw positive impacts. Overall, though, the losses outweigh the gains.
"We were surprised how strongly fish populations around the world have already been affected by warming," said Free, "and that, among the populations we studied, the climate 'losers' outweigh the climate 'winners.'"
Region had the greatest influence on how fish responded to rising temperatures, according to the study. Species in the same region tended to respond in similar ways. Fishes in the same families also showed similarities in how they responded to changes. The researchers reasoned that related species would have similar traits and lifecycles, giving them similar strengths and vulnerabilities.
When examining how the availability of fish for food has changed from 1930 to 2010, the researchers saw the greatest losses in productivity in the Sea of Japan, North Sea, Iberian Coastal, Kuroshio Current and Celtic-Biscay Shelf ecoregions. On the other hand, the greatest gains occurred in the Labrador-Newfoundland region, Baltic Sea, Indian Ocean and Northeastern United States.
Although the changes in fisheries productivity have so far been small, there are vast regional discrepancies. For instance, East Asia has seen some of the largest warming-driven declines, with 15 to 35 percent reductions in fisheries productivity. "This means 15 to 35 percent less fish available for food and employment in a region with some of the fastest growing human populations in the world," said Free. Mitigating the impacts of regional disparities will be a major challenge in the future.
These findings highlight the importance of accounting for the effects of climate change in fisheries management. This means coming up with new tools for assessing the size of fish populations, new strategies for setting catch limits that consider changing productivity, and new agreements for sharing catch between winning and losing regions, Free explained.
"Knowing exactly how fisheries will change under future warming is challenging, but we do know that failing to adapt to changing fisheries productivity will result in less food and fewer profits relative to today," Free explained.
Preventing overfishing will be a critical part of addressing the threat that climate change poses to the world's fisheries. "Overfishing presents a one-two punch," said Free. It makes fish populations more vulnerable to warming, while warming hinders the recovery of overfished populations.
Free also stressed that ocean warming is just one of many processes affecting marine life and the industries that rely on it. Ocean acidification, falling oxygen levels and habitat loss will also impact marine life. More research is necessary to fully understand how climate change will affect fish populations and the livelihoods of people that depend on them.
Referring to Pulwama, Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said such attacks are a "grim reminder".
NEW DELHI (Dunya News) - New Delhi on Wednesday has sought to ease soaring tensions in a fear of Pakistan’s retaliation.
Referring to Pulwama, Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said such attacks are a “grim reminder for the need for all the countries to show zero tolerance to terrorism and take decisive actions against it”.
Ties between the arch-rivals have been under intense strain after a February 14 suicide bombing in Kashmir that killed 40 Indian troops.
Islamabad, while denying the Indian strike caused any major damage or casualties, has vowed to retaliate -- fueling fears of a dangerous confrontation in South Asia.
Pakistan s parliament was to meet Wednesday for a joint session convened by Prime Minister Imran Khan amid growing domestic pressure to respond to what is India s air strike on Pakistani soil since the neighbours fought a war in 1971 -- when neither had nuclear weapons.
"We encourage India and Pakistan to exercise restraint, and avoid escalation at any cost," US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement after speaking with his counterparts from both countries.
Innovate or stagnate: The road to Indonesia 4.0
In an official report released on Feb. 6, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) revealed that Indonesia’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita for 2018 reached a record US$3,927. — The Jakarta Post
Indonesia Moves to Establish Fishing Zone Near South China Sea
Indonesia is pushing ahead with plans to develop a fishing zone on the edge of the South China Sea, a senior official said Tuesday, as the country seeks to assert sovereignty amid claims of overlapping rights by China. — Radio Free Asia
Oil palm farmers to hold meeting in Jakarta on Feb 27, 28
The Association of Indonesian Oil Palm Farmers (APKASINDO) will organize a national meeting of oil palm farmers from across Indonesia, in Jakarta, on Feb 27 and 28, 2019. — Antara News
It’s Not Just Regulation Hampering Indonesian Telco Deals
A planned ministerial rule revision intended to pave way for consolidation in Indonesia’s telecommunication industry won’t be enough to spark deal activity, according to analysts at Citigroup Inc., PT Danareksa Sekuritas and PT Yuanta Securities. — Bloomberg
Indonesian housewives arrested over election video: police
Intellasia East Asia News Three Indonesian housewives have been arrested over an online video that claimed President Joko Widodo would ban prayer and make gay marriage legal in the Muslim majority country if re-elected, police said Monday. Widodo has fended off accusations over his Muslim … — Intellasia
Widodo makes $28bn rural election promise
Indonesia’s president, Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo, who is trying to win re-election on April 17, has promised to boost agricultural funding to more than US$28.5 billion over the next five years. — Asean Economist
VP Jusuf Kalla Assesses Recent Blatant Slander Aimed at Jokowi
Vice President Jusuf Kalla comments on the rumors of Jokowi possibly banning the existence of the Islamic Azan (Prayer calling) if elected for the second time. Kalla assures that the slander has no basis and is a blatant hoax. — Tempo.co
Tradition meets tech in Indonesia’s mental health sector
In 2015, Carika, a 29-year-old Indonesian woman suffering from a psychosocial disability sold rice and tempeh from her stall in Central Java. Carika may look like any other roadside vendor, but between 2006 and 2010, Carika spent four years locked in a goat shed where she could barely stand or move. — Asean Today
As budget woes persist, BPJS delists cancer drugs
In another effort to curb the worsening deficit in the state health insurance, the government has attempted to remove more cancer medicines from its coverage, which may put the lives of patients on the line. — The Jakarta Post
Indonesia to ease trading rule to lure mom-and-pop investors
Indonesia’s stock exchange plans to cut the minimum trading price for shares and shrink the lot size in its drive to attract more retail investors and boost volumes. — The Malaysian Reserve
Gov’t: Online Taxi Regulation Effective in June 2019
The Transportation Ministry is eyeing to officially implement the ministry’s regulation No.PM 118/2018 overseeing special rental transportation services such as online taxi services in June this year. — Tempo.co
Rocky Gerung addresses Prabowo supporters in Kuala Lumpur
Indonesian political observer and philosopher Rocky Gerung spoke before supporters of presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto in Kuala Lumpur, Sunday evening. — Antara News
Indonesia’s Pertamina agrees to bolster ties with Petronas
Indonesia’s state energy firm Pertamina and Petronas have signed an agreement to increase business cooperation, including by swapping crude and exploring investment opportunities, Pertamina said on Tuesday. — The Edge Markets
Indonesia braces for wildfires ahead of El Niño
The government has declared 16 provinces across the country as prone to forest and land fires ahead of the upcoming El Niño, a climate pattern linked to warming waters in the central and eastern areas of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. — Relief Web
Olam takes control of Indonesia’s top cocoa processor
Olam International said on Tuesday it has acquired an 85 percent stake in the parent of Indonesia’s largest cocoa processor as it seeks to supply a growing market for cocoa products in Asia. — Reuters
Why Companies are Tepid on Employing People with Disabilities
The many elements hampering either state-run or private companies from employing people with disabilities can be traced back to the company’s lack of ability to determine the competence of the disabled applicants. — Tempo.co
Indonesia to host regional, sub-regional volleyball tournys this year
Indonesia will hold a regional volleyball tournament and a sub-regional championship before the SEA Games in the Philippineas this year, while targeting a gold medal in men volleyball in the Games, the association announced.
— Xinhua
Indonesia varsity proposal denied
The Johor government has rejected the Education Ministry’s proposal to set up an Islamic-based university from Indonesia at the Pagoh Higher Education Hub. — The Star Online
Pertamina, Petronas sign MoU on business development
PT Pertamina Persero and Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the synergy to develop the business of oil and gas and its derivatives. — Antara News
3 Flagship Tourism Programs in Lake Toba, North Sumatra
Tourism Ministry launches the 2019 Calendar of Event of Lake Toba with the theme ‘Celebrating Nature in Art’, planning to organize 17 programs. Two of the programs are enlisted in the 100 Events Wonderful Indonesia as a promotional effort to increase tourist visit to Lake Toba. — Tempo.co
Indonesia supports S Korea-ASEAN cooperation program
The Indonesian government is supporting the ASEAN-Korea Centre (AKC) by participating in ASEAN Train, to mark 30 years of ASEAN-Republic of Korea (ROK) Commemorative Summit. — Antara News
Susi to establish sunken boat museum
Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti plans to build a museum in Pangandaran Beach, West Java, to exhibit the remnants of the foreign fishing vessels that have been sunken by the ministry. — The Jakarta post
US government bestows eight awards on KPK personnel
The US government has bestowed awards on eight employees of the Indonesian Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) for their success in exposing fraud in the national electronic identity (e-ID) card project. — Antara News
Indonesia braces for El Nino wildfires
The government has declared 16 provinces across the country as prone to forest and land fires ahead of the upcoming El Niño, a climate pattern linked to warming waters in the central and eastern areas of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. — The Star Online
This week’s Indonesia morning news feature photo acknowledges World Wildlife Day, March 3.
Find our previous morning news feature photos in the AEC News Today Morning News Feature Photos gallery where you will find a pictorial display of daily life throughout the Asean Economic Community (AEC).
Indonesia morning news by AEC News Today is your one stop source for Indonesia news on matters of governance and policies affecting Asean business communities and is published M-F by AEC News Today: Governance, not government; policies not politics.
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Piseth Pov graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics Science from the Royal University of Law and Economics, Phnom Penh in 2017, and a Bachelor’s degree in English Communications from Western University, Phnom Penh, the same year.
WASHINGTON - So far, U.S. President Donald Trump has had remarkably good luck: His administration has avoided a major international crisis not of its own creation. That luck has run out, however, with a deadly dispute between India and Pakistan. In previous showdowns on the subcontinent, the United States played a critical role in preventing tensions between nuclear-armed rivals from getting out of control. We are about to find out whether an erratic, hollowed-out Trump administration is capable of a similar performance.
India-Pakistan tensions over the disputed area of Kashmir have persisted since the birth of the two nations in 1948. The current crisis broke when Pakistani militants carried out the suicide bombing of an Indian security convoy, killing more than 40 Indian troops. After more than a week of threats and counter-threats, Indian planes have bombed suspected militant camps on the Pakistani side of the so-called Line of Control — the first time Indian forces had carried out strikes on the Pakistani side in decades.
Although the amount of damage caused is unclear, the bombings raised concerns that Pakistan would feel compelled to respond militarily — which it did Wednesday, reportedly shooting down two Indian fighter jets over Kashmir and capturing one pilot. The potential escalatory implications are severe — both countries have nuclear weapons, and Pakistani doctrine reportedly emphasizes using them early in a war with India due to its conventional military disadvantages.
Given the grave dangers of an India-Pakistan war — as well as recent Pakistani threats that it might respond to an Indian assault by derailing the peace talks in Afghanistan — the U.S. has a clear interest in calming things down. In prior confrontations, in fact, American diplomacy has been vital to walking India and Pakistan back from the brink.
During the Kargil War — a limited but fierce military conflict high in the mountains over Kashmir in 1999 — U.S. President Bill Clinton used personal diplomacy to convince Pakistani leaders to pull their fighters back from confrontation with Indian troops. As Bruce Riedel, a senior National Security Council official present at the talks, recalled, “We could all too easily imagine the two parties beginning to mobilize for war, seeking third party support (Pakistan from China and the Arabs, India from Russia and Israel) and a deadly descent into full scale conflict … with a danger of nuclear cataclysm.”
Similarly, after Pakistani militants attacked India’s parliament in December 2001, leading both countries to move troops to the border, Secretary of State Colin Powell and other U.S. diplomats swung into action. They pushed Pakistan to visibly distance itself from jihadist groups in Kashmir, while also calling on India to show restraint. When the crisis flared again after an attack in Kashmir that killed 31 people in May 2002, Powell worked tirelessly to prevent Indian military retribution.
This sort of de-escalatory diplomacy — one that does not condone Pakistan’s perpetually bad behavior, but nonetheless reduces the potential of war — is again necessary. The question is whether Washington is up to the task.
In some ways, the job is harder because the U.S. has less leverage with Pakistan than it did in 2001-2002, as a result of the Trump administration’s slashing of aid and a longer-running American shift toward alignment with India. (By the same token, Washington has more leverage with India than it did two decades ago.) The deeper problem, though, is that this administration has so far struggled to perform the sort of deft diplomacy the situation demands.
Disciplined messaging with carefully calibrated pressure has not been this president’s forte. The tendency on key issues such as North Korea has been shoot-from-the-hip presidential diplomacy that leaves allies confused and Trump’s own aides scrambling to keep up. On top of that, key mid- and upper-level positions are unfilled across the foreign policy bureaucracy, including the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, and many offices and agencies are operating at far less than full strength.
While all eyes are on Venezuela and Trump’s summit with Kim Jong Un this week, the India-Pakistan crisis could actually be the acid test for Trump’s foreign policy. It may show whether an understaffed administration with a penchant for chaos is capable of executing smart and steady diplomacy when it is needed most.
Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
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