Month: October 2018

It was reported recently that microplastics, both in the ocean and in the plastic all around us, is finding its way into the human body. But the convenience and affordability of plastic means that, for now, the best we can hope to deal with this problem is to improve recycling efforts. Indonesia’s second largest city is trying to do just that by offering free rides on the city’s bus system in return for plastic trash. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
…

China plans to provide an unspecified financial “grant” to Pakistan while the United Arab Emirates is actively considering Islamabad’s request for a fiscal relief package of up to $6 billion to help the country deal with a looming balance-of-payments crisis, Chinese and Pakistani officials say.  

News of the anticipated financial aid came days after Prime Minister Imran Khan secured more than $6 billion in immediate financial support from Pakistan’s close ally, Saudi Arabia, during an official visit to Riyadh. 

Pakistan urgently needs foreign currency to shore up its depleting reserves of less than $8 billion, which is barely enough for servicing its debt and paying import bills. 

Khan’s nascent government, which took office two months ago and has inherited a debt-ridden national economy, estimates the country urgently needs about $12 billion to fulfill domestic and external liabilities. 

Khan is to travel to Beijing Nov. 2-5 on his first official visit to the country, where he is scheduled to meet President Xi Jinping and his Chinese counterpart. 

Chinese diplomats in Islamabad have announced ahead of Khan’s visit that it will result in “good news” in terms of securing financial assistance for Pakistan. 

“During the visit of the prime minister, we will provide, hopefully, a grant to the Pakistani government. Please look forward to the outcome of this visit. There will be more good news to follow,” said Deputy Chinese Ambassador Lijian Zhao, when asked whether Beijing would provide Khan financial assistance similar to the package the Saudis have pledged. He declined to speculate on the size of the grant. 

Under the Saudi deal, Riyadh will deposit $3 billion in the coming days with the central State Bank of Pakistan for one year, as balance-of-payments support. Additionally, Saudi Arabia will export oil to Islamabad worth more than $3 billion on a deferred-payment basis over the next three years. 

Khan’s government has rejected reports of any conditions attached to the Saudi aid package. 

Federal Minister Haroon Sharif, chairman of the Board of Investment, said Saturday that the Pakistani government had formally submitted a financial request to a visiting UAE delegation similar to what Saudis have pledged. The Gulf state, he noted, is one of the biggest oil suppliers to Pakistan. 

The minister told local Dunya TV the UAE delegation “positively” noted the Pakistani request and has promised to return with possible options in the next few days.

“It is expected to be a good package. I am unable to share the figures, but I think it would more or less be similar to the one Saudi Arabia has announced [for Pakistan],” said Sharif, who accompanied Khan during his visit to Saudi Arabia and will be part of the Pakistani delegation traveling to China. 

​IMF bailout plan 

In addition to pushing friendly countries to provide fiscal relief, Khan’s government has also turned to the International Monetary Fund to seek a bailout package. Formal talks are scheduled to begin in Islamabad on Nov. 7. Pakistan has taken advantage of repeated IMF bailouts in the past several decades. 

Analysts say the Saudi financial package and expected aid from both China and the UAE will most likely boost Pakistan’s negotiating position and may mean the country will require a smaller IMF arrangement. 

During Khan’s visit to Beijing, officials said the two countries would sign “many agreements” to boost trade and investment ties and launch the second phase of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is the flagship of Xi’s global Road and Belt Initiative. 

The two sides will sign a framework for launching industrial cooperation under CPEC and increasing Pakistani exports to China. 

CPEC, Khan’s visit to China 

The United States has persistently expressed concerns about the Chinese infrastructure and connectivity initiative, saying they are burdening partner nations like Pakistan with debt. The U.S. also criticized a lack of transparency about the terms of contracts under the infrastructure initiative and consequent effects on the economy, said Henry Ensher, acting deputy assistant secretary of state. 

He acknowledged in a speech in Washington this month the importance of China-led initiative. “But that role ought to be done, ought to be played in accordance with usual rules about the transparency and accountability so that people in countries that cooperate with China can see clearly what they are signing up for,” Ensher said. 

U.S. officials have already cautioned the IMF about entering into an arrangement with Pakistan, citing CPEC loans as a main factor for the country’s debt crisis and suspecting the IMF money would be used to pay back China. 

Islamabad and Beijing have vehemently rejected Washington’s assertions as “misplaced” and “irrelevant.” Both countries acknowledge Chinese loans under CPEC are just over 6 percent of Pakistan’s total domestic and external debts of about $95 billion.  

Since launching CPEC in 2013, China has invested $19 billion in Pakistan, building or upgrading its transportation network and power plants and putting into operation the key Arabian Sea port of Gwadar. 

The mega-project is expected to bring more than $62 billion to Pakistan in Chinese investment by 2030, ultimately linking Gwadar to the landlocked western Chinese region of Xinjiang and giving Beijing the shortest secure access to international markets. 

“We are building these projects totally based on mutual consultation and also mutual sharing. … Definitely, there is no private interest or unilateral interest from the Chinese side. We believe all the projects are mutually beneficial,” Yao Jing, Beijing’s ambassador to Islamabad, told reporters at the sprawling Chinese Embassy on Friday.  
…

Declarations filed in support of a lawsuit filed by the parents of Otto F. Warmbier, the University of Virginia student who died after returning to the U.S. from 17 months in captivity in Pyongyang, may raise new questions about how the college student was treated while in North Korea.

Warmbier, a 22-year-old American, traveled to North Korea in December 2015 and was taken into custody by North Korean officials at the airport Jan. 2, 2016. He was accused of stealing a poster from his hotel and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in March 2016. Warmbier died June 13, 2017, shortly after being returned to the United States in a coma.

Otto Warmbier’s parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, have filed a lawsuit against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“It is unbelievable to me that North Korea would send Otto home as a vegetable, with scars on his body and crooked teeth,” Fred Warmbier said in his declaration to a U.S. federal court Oct. 10 in support of a lawsuit he filed with his wife.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho. The lawsuit charged the North Korean government with “hostage taking, illegal detention, torture and killing of a young American tourist” in order “to extract various concessions from the United States government.”

Claims of being beaten

In the complaint filed in April, the Warmbiers, who live in Wyoming, Ohio, claimed their son had been intentionally beaten.

“Physically, he returned destroyed in a state of unresponsive wakefulness with a devastating brain injury; he also had a large scar on his left foot and traumatic dental injuries, all of which resulted from North Korea’s torture,” the complaint stated.

​North Korea has denied torturing Warmbier.

Declarations from his pediatric dentist and the dentist he transferred to as an adult, suggest otherwise, as does a declaration filed by the neurologist who led Otto Warmbier’s care upon his return from North Korea. On Saturday, a day after VOA Korean reported on the declarations, North Korea replied with “indignation” to suggestions in the latest court filings that Warmbier may have been tortured.

“I remember Otto as having straight teeth without any significant misalignment or crowding,” said Dr. Murray Dock, a pediatric dentist in Cincinnati, Ohio, who was Otto Warmbier’s dentist between 2011 and 2013.

After reviewing post-mortem dental images, Dock stated in his declaration that he “observed substantial differences in the positions of Otto’s … bottom four middle-most teeth.” The teeth were “moved backwards towards the tongue, in comparison to his teeth before he traveled to North Korea. This sort of change would most typically be caused by some sort of impact. Nothing in my treatment of Otto would have led me to expect this sort of change as a result of natural occurrence.”

Warmbier’s dentist between 2014 and 2015, Todd Williams, also of Cincinnati, Ohio, declared “Otto had excellent teeth” with an excellent “bite” between the upper and lower teeth. But upon review of the Warmbier’s post-mortem dental images, Williams declared that some of his patient’s bottom teeth were “positioned towards the back of his mouth. In my professional opinion, some force was obviously applied to them after his May 27, 2015, appointment. There is also evidence … indicating a loss of bone. This is very unusual for a previously healthy young dental patient.”​

​Neurologist’s declaration

And a declaration filed by Daniel Kanter, the neurologist who was the lead physician for Otto Warmbier upon his return at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, said Otto died of severe brain damage resulting from being deprived of oxygen, which was caused by “the sustained cessation of blood flow to the brain” for “about five to 20 minutes. Because the injury was so extensive, it was unlikely that Mr. Warmbier was with medical personnel who were willing and able to intervene to resuscitate him when the injury occurred.”

It remains unclear how Otto Warmbier was deprived of oxygen.

The director of Pyongyang’s Friendship Hospital said in a report released on Saturday by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), North Korea’s official mouthpiece, that Warmbier was “undergoing the reform through labor that he had been sentenced to” before he was returned to the United States. KCNA did not name the director.

The KCNA report said “several American doctors reportedly involved in the health checkup and treatment of Warmbier submitted ‘medical observation’ to a federal district court in Washington, D.C., on October 10 to the effect that ‘he had died of torture,’ alleging that ‘they had concluded his teeth were dislocated and his gum bone damaged by physical force from outside.’

“As the director of the hospital directly involved in medical treatment of Warmbier, I cannot repress my indignation over the American total distortion of the truth regarding his death,” the report said.

The Warmbiers are holding North Korea liable for “economic and noneconomic compensatory damages” for the suffering of their son and their own. The couple seeks damages in an amount to be determined by the court.

Financial losses incurred by Otto Warmbier and his parents are estimated to range between $1,993,386 and $6,038,308, according to an expert statement submitted to the court by James V. Koch, an economics professor at Old Dominion University.

Koch estimated the minimum amount of damages based on the average salaries of University of Virginia graduates and the maximum amount based on what Otto Warmbier would have earned if he had followed his intended career path to Wall Street.

Private citizens are not allowed to sue foreign governments under American law. However, because the Trump administration re-instated North Korea to the state sponsors of terrorism list in November 2017, the Warmbiers could sue North Korea as citizens injured in acts of state-sponsored terrorism may take legal actions against countries on the list.

If the court rules in favor of the Warmbiers, they may be awarded compensatory damages from the U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund.

The summons to the foreign minister was sent from Washington in May via the international shipping company DHL and delivered to Pyongyang in June. The receipt was signed by “Kim.”

Shortly after Otto Warmbier returned to the U.S., but before he died, a senior American official said the United States had obtained intelligence reports stating that Otto Warmbier had been beaten repeatedly, according to a New York Times article.

​Coroner’s report

After Otto Warmbier’s death, Dr. Lakshmi Kode Sammarco, the Hamilton County, Ohio, coroner, found no evidence that Otto Warmbier had been tortured.

During a press conference in September 2017, Sammarco said, “There was no evidence of trauma to the teeth,” and the post-mortem report filed in the same month said “the teeth are natural and in good repair.”

The report, signed by Dr. Gretel Stephens, deputy coroner for Hamilton Country, said Otto Warmbier died of “complications of chronic anoxic/ischemic encephalopathy due to unknown insult more than a year prior to death,” but concluded the manner of his death as “undetermined.”

Anoxic-Ischemic encephalopathy is medical terminology for brain damage resulting from the lack of oxygen fed into the brain by the blood stream.

In interviews with VOA Korean Service, former American detainees in North Korea have said they were subject to harsh treatment but denied being physically tortured.

Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American Christian missionary who was detained in North Korea in 2012 said, “I was not treated with force.” Bae was accused of conducting “hostile acts” against the government before being released in 2014.

“There was no physical [force] used on me,” Bae said. “But they used psychological tactics, saying that I could not go home and that I will be held for 15 years.”

Jeffrey Fowle, a father of three children in Ohio, was detained in North Korea for six months for leaving a Bible in a restaurant in Pyongyang during his tour of the country in 2014.

Fowle said, “At one point … [I was told I was not as] forthcoming as I should have been with my answers and [was asked], ‘Would you like to be transferred to a place where conditions might be harsher?’“

The U.S. imposed a travel ban on North Korea following Otto Warmbier’s death in June 2017.

Christy Lee and Ahn So-young contributed to this report which originated on VOA Korean. 
…

Declarations filed in support of a lawsuit filed by the parents of Otto F. Warmbier, the University of Virginia student who died after returning to the U.S. from 17 months in captivity in Pyongyang, may raise new questions about how the college student was treated while in North Korea.

Warmbier, a 22-year-old American, traveled to North Korea in December 2015 and was taken into custody by North Korean officials at the airport Jan. 2, 2016. He was accused of stealing a poster from his hotel and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in March 2016. Warmbier died June 13, 2017, shortly after being returned to the United States in a coma.

Otto Warmbier’s parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, have filed a lawsuit against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“It is unbelievable to me that North Korea would send Otto home as a vegetable, with scars on his body and crooked teeth,” Fred Warmbier said in his declaration to a U.S. federal court Oct. 10 in support of a lawsuit he filed with his wife.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho. The lawsuit charged the North Korean government with “hostage taking, illegal detention, torture and killing of a young American tourist” in order “to extract various concessions from the United States government.”

Claims of being beaten

In the complaint filed in April, the Warmbiers, who live in Wyoming, Ohio, claimed their son had been intentionally beaten.

“Physically, he returned destroyed in a state of unresponsive wakefulness with a devastating brain injury; he also had a large scar on his left foot and traumatic dental injuries, all of which resulted from North Korea’s torture,” the complaint stated.

​North Korea has denied torturing Warmbier.

Declarations from his pediatric dentist and the dentist he transferred to as an adult, suggest otherwise, as does a declaration filed by the neurologist who led Otto Warmbier’s care upon his return from North Korea.

“I remember Otto as having straight teeth without any significant misalignment or crowding,” said Dr. Murray Dock, a pediatric dentist in Cincinnati, Ohio, who was Otto Warmbier’s dentist between 2011 and 2013.

After reviewing post-mortem dental images, Dock stated in his declaration that he “observed substantial differences in the positions of Otto’s … bottom four middle-most teeth.” The teeth were “moved backwards towards the tongue, in comparison to his teeth before he traveled to North Korea. This sort of change would most typically be caused by some sort of impact. Nothing in my treatment of Otto would have led me to expect this sort of change as a result of natural occurrence.”

Warmbier’s dentist between 2014 and 2015, Todd Williams, also of Cincinnati, Ohio, declared “Otto had excellent teeth” with an excellent “bite” between the upper and lower teeth. But upon review of the Warmbier’s post-mortem dental images, Williams declared that some of his patient’s bottom teeth were “positioned towards the back of his mouth. In my professional opinion, some force was obviously applied to them after his May 27, 2015, appointment. There is also evidence … indicating a loss of bone. This is very unusual for a previously healthy young dental patient.”​

​Neurologist’s declaration

And a declaration filed by Daniel Kanter, the neurologist who was the lead physician for Otto Warmbier upon his return at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, said Otto died of severe brain damage resulting from being deprived of oxygen, which was caused by “the sustained cessation of blood flow to the brain” for “about five to 20 minutes. Because the injury was so extensive, it was unlikely that Mr. Warmbier was with medical personnel who were willing and able to intervene to resuscitate him when the injury occurred.”

It remains unclear how Otto Warmbier was deprived of oxygen.

The Warmbiers are holding North Korea liable for “economic and noneconomic compensatory damages” for the suffering of their son and their own. The couple seeks damages in an amount to be determined by the court.

Financial losses incurred by Otto Warmbier and his parents are estimated to range between $1,993,386 and $6,038,308, according to an expert statement submitted to the court by James V. Koch, an economics professor at Old Dominion University.

Koch estimated the minimum amount of damages based on the average salaries of University of Virginia graduates and the maximum amount based on what Otto Warmbier would have earned if he had followed his intended career path to Wall Street.

Private citizens are not allowed to sue foreign governments under American law. However, because the Trump administration re-instated North Korea to the state sponsors of terrorism list in November 2017, the Warmbiers could sue North Korea as citizens injured in acts of state-sponsored terrorism may take legal actions against countries on the list.

If the court rules in favor of the Warmbiers, they may be awarded compensatory damages from the U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund.

The summons to the foreign minister was sent from Washington in May via the international shipping company DHL and delivered to Pyongyang in June. The receipt was signed by “Kim.”

Shortly after Otto Warmbier returned to the U.S., but before he died, a senior American official said the United States had obtained intelligence reports stating that Otto Warmbier had been beaten repeatedly, according to a New York Times article.

​Coroner’s report

After Otto Warmbier’s death, Dr. Lakshmi Kode Sammarco, the Hamilton County, Ohio, coroner, found no evidence that Otto Warmbier had been tortured.

During a press conference in September 2017, Sammarco said, “There was no evidence of trauma to the teeth,” and the post-mortem report filed in the same month said “the teeth are natural and in good repair.”

The report, signed by Dr. Gretel Stephens, deputy coroner for Hamilton Country, said Otto Warmbier died of “complications of chronic anoxic/ischemic encephalopathy due to unknown insult more than a year prior to death,” but concluded the manner of his death as “undetermined.”

Anoxic-Ischemic encephalopathy is medical terminology for brain damage resulting from the lack of oxygen fed into the brain by the blood stream.

In interviews with VOA Korean Service, former American detainees in North Korea have said they were subject to harsh treatment but denied being physically tortured.

Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American Christian missionary who was detained in North Korea in 2012 said, “I was not treated with force.” Bae was accused of conducting “hostile acts” against the government before being released in 2014.

“There was no physical [force] used on me,” Bae said. “But they used psychological tactics, saying that I could not go home and that I will be held for 15 years.”

Jeffrey Fowle, a father of three children in Ohio, was detained in North Korea for six months for leaving a Bible in a restaurant in Pyongyang during his tour of the country in 2014.

Fowle said, “At one point … [I was told I was not as] forthcoming as I should have been with my answers and [was asked], ‘Would you like to be transferred to a place where conditions might be harsher?’“

The U.S. imposed a travel ban on North Korea following Otto Warmbier’s death in June 2017.

Christy Lee and Ahn So-young contributed to this report which originated on VOA Korean. 
…

The top U.S. general says diplomatic efforts on the Korean Peninsula will lead to military “discomfort” in the coming months, as leaders try to strike a “very difficult balance” between military risk and political progress.

“The more successful we are in the diplomatic space, the more uncomfortable military leaders are going to be,” General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a group of reporters at a conference at the Navy League Building just outside Washington Friday.

The general’s comments came a week after the U.S. and South Korean militaries suspended another large-scale joint military exercise.

Give diplomacy a chance

Chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana White said last Friday the two militaries were suspending their joint air exercise, dubbed Vigilant Ace, in order to “give the diplomatic process every opportunity to continue.”

Before that, the United States and South Korea canceled annual Ulchi-Freedom Guardian exercises that had been scheduled for August.

Dunford told reporters the decision to suspend these exercises was informed by the fact that the general in command of the peninsula, General Vincent Brooks, is an experienced commander who has been in the Korean theater for three years. He added that staff turnover for the South Korean forces is typically not until around January.

“So we felt like we had sufficient staff training and exercises that had been conducted where we could look at tasks,” Dunford said. “You’ve either demonstrated proficiency to perform that task or you haven’t.”

Many smaller-scale military exercises have continued on the peninsula and across the region, but the U.S. general nominated to be the next commander of American forces in South Korea pointed out during his confirmation hearing last month that the Ulchi-Freedom Guardian suspension had caused “slight degradation” to military readiness on the peninsula.

When asked how many large-scale exercises could be skipped before a “significant decline in readiness,” Army Gen. Robert Abrams told Senate members it was “hard to judge.”

Officer rotation

As U.S. and South Korean leaders rotate out to make way for new leaders, their untested forces will need to find ways to practice successfully operating together.

Dunford said Friday it was incumbent to find ways “to mitigate training in a different way” in the absence of some of these major exercises on the peninsula.

He then added, “Where we cannot mitigate those impacts on readiness, (we must) communicate it to our political leadership so they can then say, ‘Is the risk that we’re occurring in the readiness of the force actually justified by the reason we’re taking that risk in the political space?’”

Dunford, Brooks and Admiral Philip Davidson, the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, spent hours in talks Thursday.

Dunford said the leaders started defining what “mission-essential tasks” in which U.S. Forces Korea and Republic of Korea Armed Forces must demonstrate proficiency over the next several months.
…