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President Trump says any deal with North Korea has to be an "all or nothing deal" that covers all of North Korea's nuclear weapons. Mr. Kim had offered only the Yongyan complex which Mr. Trump rejected, walking away from the talks in Hanoi. National Security Adviser Bolton has persuaded the president that any deal must include chemical and biological weapons, and "cover all weapons of mass destruction."

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Protests in Berlin against coronavirus restrictions  with some demonstrators rushing to parliament in an attempt to storm it. Police cleared the area. A separate peaceful demonstration in Berlin had about 38,000 people.

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The covid test requirement applies for entry to the US from China and South Korea. It also includes airports in Canada at Vancouver and Toronto. Japan and India have their own covid test requirements for travelers from China following the surge in cases in China in December 2022 after all covid restrictions are removed.

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Downtown San Diego Towers owned by Irvine Company go for 50% of purchase price when office vacancy is at 35%. After buying 93000 acres of coastal Orange County in 1977 and building office towers in San Diego, David Bren now 93 years, is offloading most of his investments in San Diego at half the price paid for it. This and the quality of life and homelessness in the downtown area of San Diego is depressing prospects for the city which is now dependent on the biotech sector.

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The 23rd Winter Olympics open in Pyeongchang, South Korea with 92 countries participating.For the first time the North and South Korean delegations marched under one flag. This is the result of policies pursued on the Korean peninsula by the North and South Korean governments to reduce tensions that increased the dangers of a conflict following repeated North Korean nuclear tests. The U.S. has responded with tougher sanctions coordinated with China. South Korea's president, Moon Jae-in sees this as an opportunity to engage North Korea in the direction of reduction of tensions, a policy he planned during his election campaign but cut short by worsening U.S. relations with North Korea.

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An old rundown dilapidated U.S. military base that was set up at a time when ox carts rolled down Seoul streets in 1965 closes down in 2019 as the Trump administration reviews the costly commitments made during a different time. America is not withdrawing as troops will be relocated at a new base 50 miles south of Seoul. The effort is designed to consolidate American operations in South Korea, and have South Korea share the cost.

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This editorial in the WSJ reminds readers of China's warning about North Korea's nuclear weapons in April 2015, and says the nuclear agreements with North Korea never worked. It sees a similiar situation with the nuclear agreement the Obama administration is working out with Iran.

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The probabilities are high say health experts for hidden transmission even if there are only 4-5 cases in a county, district or local area. There may already be an outbreak that is remaining undetected.

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In a video interview the Indian army chief says the tensions at the India China border in the mountainous Himalayan region arise from different perceptions of where the border is, with each side patrolling the area based on its perception of the border. In random situations both sides are patrolling the same area leading to tensions. This has happened before and is likely to happen again. Cross border discussion mechanisms between the two sides have been setup to tackle the situation of patrols.

The Indian border is defined by the McMahon line for India, and set during British times. China has its own perceptions of the border and China was further away from the Indian border till it moved into Tibet in 1950.

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The strange story of port authorites behaviour in Beirut for an incoming ship from Georgia on the Black Sea loaded with ammonium nitrate explosive materials- keeping the ship in port because it lacked the proper papers and because it was not fit to sail. If allowed to leave the ship would probably not caused an explosion in a congested port area. The mystery of the behaviour of port authorites extends to the next step where the port authorites actually unloaded the ship's explosives material to a port hangar warehousing area when there was no need to do so or no need to keep the ship in Beirut. waters as its actual destination was in Mozambique in the west coast of Africa.

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Germany's national broadcaster DW.com looks into the details of the vaccination drive in countries around the world, including Germany, and finds that there is more to the story than meets the eye in headlines about safety in vaccinations. Many headlines do not tell the whole story carefully. DW revewed reports from Italy, Austria, South Korea, Germany, Spain, the USA, Norway, Belgium and Peru, and found that in most cases health authorites have not found causal links between the vaccination and deaths.  As of March 15 it says 360 million people have been vaccinated in 120 countries, or about 9.25 million a day.  DW.com cites the Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) which states: 'there is no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions, which are not listed as side effects with this vaccine. Information available so far indicates that the number of thromboembolic events in vaccinated people is no higher than that seen in the general population." As of March 10, 2021 30 cases of blood clots are recorded for 5 million people vaccinated with Astra Zeneca vaccine in the European Economic Area.  The Paul Ehrlich Institute which is in charge of vaccination in Germany has looked into 113 reported deaths in 46 years to 100 years old patients in Germany. Of these 113 deaths PEI finds that 20 died of the Covid 19 infection as it takes 14 days after the second dose for full protection, and 43 died of pre-existing conditions or other infections. For the patient population it says "they were seriously ill patients with many underlying diseases." PEI says "based on the data we have we assume they died of their underlying disease- in a coincidental time with the vaccination." A virologist at the Technical University of Munich, says that the deaths after vaccination are below the expected number of deaths without the vaccination.  ...

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Spain's Opposition PP party wins 7 million votes compared to Socialists in government winning 6.3 million. PP party won an absolute majority in the Madrid area which means it does not depend on the far right Vox party. Spain's prime minister Pedro Sanchez and Socialist leader calls for a snap general election on July 23.

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The Raleign area in North Carolina near the location of 3 research oriented universities is rebounding quickly from the pandemic. It is now No. 3 in WSJ's annual survey of US labor markets with big gains in wags and jobs. This report in WSJ looks at how this was done with business, communities and local government working together.

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Closing fast in Asian countries have helped these countries to reopen faster. South Korea and Taiwan are examples of swift action and the benefit of experience from past epidemics, public cooperation and understanding that is not as prevalent in the U.S. and Europe. SARS and MERS prepared Asian countries for this virus compared to countries in Europe and the U.S.

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Health experts say go inwards and go outside. Prayer and meditation that can go on with yard work and other activities outside in the garden or backyard. The Fredettes in North Carolina are shown here in their natural setting in a wooded area. Ms. Fredette talks about understanding one's deeper self through walks in a natural setting.

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The greenest city in Europe. A city once known as steel city as it powered England through the Industrial Revolution starting in the 1700's. There are more trees than residents. About 19 percent of the city's area is green with trees. There are 7 trees per person in the city. The city is Sheffield in Yorkshire, England.

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The bursting of the Kakhovka dam leaves the Dnipro river uncrossable and shifts the Ukraine counteroffensive away from the Kherson region and into areas that focus on the land bridge to Crimea. Russian forces in the Kherson region may be moved to other areas. WSJ shows the counteroffensive in different maps of the area around the Sea of Azov.

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The CEO of Little Bird Company, Marshall Kirkpatrick, on why startups should move to Portland, and the Oregon area.

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More than 6.7 million persons are displaced inside Ukraine most of them from the war torn eastern part of Ukraine, and most of them women and children. In addition over 3 million are refugees in neighboring countries such as Slovakia and Poland. 

The war is now extending to the Donetsk region with about half of the population of the population in eastern Ukraine having left that region for safety in central and western Ukraine. The rolling farmland and old coal mines of the region, the destroyed infrastructure and industrial facilities, make the area of no use to Russian forces. A fraction of the Russian population in the area has also left says this report in the NYT. 

The scale of the damage and the refugee situation is hard to imagine and can be seen in the pictures in this NYT report. Boarding trains and buses civilians have poured out of cities in eastern Ukraine where the war has intensified.
 

 

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South Korean public opinion shows 80% of the public opposed to the release of slightly radioactive Fukushima water into the sea by Japan. Japanese public opinion is accepting this as unavoidable. This is weakening the position of South Korean president Yoon in coming elections. Yoon is a prosecutor who joined politics only a few years back and has seen his popularity drop by 7 percentage points to 35%. Yoon is known for his effort to bring South Korea and Japan closer together with the US in dealing with North Korea and China. Biden met with Kishida and Yoon at the White House only recently, and Yoon made a state visit to the US before India's Modi. Because Yoon is an outsider to politics he has been able to get South Koreans to accept the idea of settling past disputes with Japan tracing back to the colonial era and World War II, yet the Fukushima water release is opposed by the vast majority of South Koreans.

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About 30% of recent postings are for hybrid work at Boeing and it favors remote and hybrid work. It helps to reduce cost by trimming payrolls and cutting office space to return to cash flow and profitability. The leader of America's largest aerospace company Mr. Calhoun says headquarters is himself and CFO Mr. West. Calhoun is CEO of Boeing since 2020, and has run the company using remote work. He sees the company as distributed all over the US. Its headquarters shifted twice from Seattle to Chicago, and then to Virginia outside Washington D.C. He says about this that 70% of his day is virtual no matter where he is because he runs a large distributed company that Boeing is today. Many factories are in the Seattle area, suppliers in many locations. Calhoun has homes in the Hilton Head area, and near Lake Sunapee in New Hampshire. Boeing says it is a different approach to get employees to travel to many locations and engage people rather than be tied up at a corporate headquarters.  ...

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California has lots of water after record breaking rains in 2024 but this is not the situation in the Central Valley leading agricultural region of California and the nation. Farmers in the San Joaquin Valley in California say they are getting a reduced allottment of water because of concern about endangered fish species. Farmers in the Central Valley the fruit and vegetable basket of California will get just 40% of their usual alottment of water this year and will plant less crops. Some ranches planting only 60% instead of 80% of their land. In 2014, 2015 and 2022 droughts the farmers lost about $7 billion and it cost 40,000 jobs, say University of California researchers. This area is a top producer of almonds, pistachios, and tomatoes. Westland Water District, which covers this area and is largest irrigator in the US, has a study that shows correlation between water and poverty in this part of California. Just when it is recovering the water supply is being cut. ...