South Korea on Saturday confirmed nine more cases of the virus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), but said it did not represent a spread of the outbreak as the infected were already in quarantine. The additional cases brought the total number of people infected with the virus to 50.
The outbreak first reported on May 20 has claimed four lives and stirred public fear as the government was blamed for an ineffective initial response that allowed one man who had returned from Saudi Arabia to infect more than half the rest.
All nine new cases were traced to the initial patient, the health ministry said, calling them health care associated infections. But the ministry said tests showed no sign of mutation in the virus that has affected the South Korean patients, with its genetic traits "almost identical" to the one that was found in the Middle East outbreak.
There has been no sustained human-to-human transmission, but the worst case scenario is the virus changes and spreads rapidly, as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) did in 2002-2003 killing about 800 people around the world.
MERS was first identified in humans in 2012 and is caused by a coronavirus from the same family as the one that triggered SARS. But MERS has a much higher death rate at 38 percent, according to World Health Organization (WHO) figures.
South Korea's new cases bring the total number globally to about 1,194, based on WHO data, with at least 443 related deaths.
Meanwhile, Kwon Joon-wook, a senior official of the ministry, told journalists Saturday the 68-year-old man who was the first case, and his wife who contracted the virus from him, have both been cured and were released from hospital Friday. Two others were also waiting to be released, he said.
Consequently, more than 1,660 people who may have been exposed to the virus have been placed under varying levels of quarantine. The outbreak has forced hundreds of schools to shut their gates, thousands of people to cancel travel plans and dealt a blow to many businesses as people were told to avoid large crowds.
White South Korea is far from being in a state of panic, the number of face masks sold in pharmacies is said to have dramatically increased over the past week.
"This weekend will be critical. The incubation period for primary and secondary patients ends this weekend. If there is no further infection, then we can say we have stemmed the main tide," said Choi Jae-wook, an official at the Korean Medical Association. "But if there are more cases, we will have to prepare for tertiary and fourth generation infections — and the spread into the local community."
The WHO said Friday it would send a team of experts to South Korea for a joint mission with the government in collecting information of the outbreak. The team is expected to arrive here as early as next week, the ministry said. The WHO has said it expects more infections in South Korea, while stressing there was currently "no evidence of sustained transmission in the community."
The government plans to step up its efforts to select the final disposal site for high-level radioactive waste from nuclear power generation, after having failed to find any willing host community for more than a decade. But the long-stalled process will have little prospect of moving forward unless doubts and questions surrounding nuclear power — including those highlighted by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster — are answered.
In 2000, the government decided that high-level radioactive waste, produced after spent fuel from nuclear power plants is reprocessed, should be vitrified and buried deeper than 300 meters underground. Two years later, it started soliciting municipalities around the country that would volunteer to host a disposal site, offering hefty subsidies in exchange for preliminary research. One town in Kochi Prefecture came forward in 2007, only to withdraw the offer after its mayor resigned in the face of local opposition.
In December, the Abe administration decided that the government, rather than waiting for offers from municipalities, will identify scientifically suitable areas where stored high-level radioactive wastes are deemed safe from the effects of seismic and volcanic activities or underground water, and then approach municipalities in the areas for research as possible candidates for storage sites.
Japan’s nuclear power generation has often been likened to a “condominium without a toilet” due to the lack of a final disposal site for radioactive waste that piles up as more fuel is used for power generation at nuclear plants.
The issue is cited by many as one reason for opposing nuclear power. The Abe administration, in its bid to maintain nuclear energy as the nation’s key source of energy, apparently hopes to accelerate the process to choosing a disposal location.
But the government’s push for expediting the process bypasses all the concerns raised over radioactive waste disposal, including a report by the Science Council of Japan in 2012 that called for a thorough review of the disposal method itself.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has told the Diet that technology for safely burying nuclear waste deep underground has been established, but doubts have been raised as to whether the technology is viable in quake-prone Japan.
The head of the Science Council’s expert panel said it is difficult to predict what changes would occur in the structures of ground layers at a disposal site in the next 100,000 years — the estimated time needed for the radiation emitted by the high-level waste to reach safe levels. It is therefore impossible, he said, to convince people of the safety of the disposal method.
The council observed that disposal site selection was going nowhere because the government pushed ahead with the process without a public consensus on the nation’s nuclear energy policy, including the final disposal of high-level radioactive waste. It urged the government to fundamentally review the disposal method and set a direction of nuclear energy policy that can win broad public support and then specify what amount of radioactive waste needs to ultimately be disposed.
No such discussions seem to have since taken place within the government. Rather, the Abe administration appears bent on seeking a return to the pre-Fukushima disaster nuclear power policy without any public discussions, even though much of the mess from the 2011 Fukushima meltdowns remains unresolved and people continue to harbor fears over the safety of nuclear power, as indicated by media opinion polls.
Japan does need a permanent disposal site for its nuclear waste given that there already exist piles of spent fuel from past nuclear power generation, which will further increase if idled reactors are restarted. We urge the Abe administration to first consider ways to reduce the production of radioactive waste — by decreasing the nation’s reliance on nuclear power as the prime minister has repeatedly pledged — and then review the entire disposal scheme and seek to build a public consensus on the issue.
The United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries have reached a deal on the most sweeping trade liberalization pact in a generation but the accord on Monday faced initial skepticism in the U.S. Congress.
In a deal that could reshape industries and influence everything from the price of cheese to the cost of cancer treatments, the 12 countries will cut trade barriers and set common standards. Details of the pact were emerging in statements by officials after days of marathon negotiations in Atlanta.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership would affect 40 percent of the world economy and stand as a legacy-defining achievement for U.S. President Barack Obama, if it is ratified by Congress. Lawmakers in other TPP countries must also approve the deal.
Initial reaction from key U.S. lawmakers was skeptical.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a U.S. Democratic presidential candidate, said he was disappointed and warned the pact would cost U.S. jobs and hurt consumers. “Wall Street and other big corporations have won again,” he said in a statement, vowing to “do all that I can to defeat this agreement” in Congress.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, a Republican, said he feared the TPP could fail to break down trade barriers for American-made products.
“While the details are still emerging, unfortunately I am afraid this deal appears to fall woefully short,” Hatch said.
The TPP has been controversial because of the secret negotiations that have shaped it over the past five years and the perceived threat to interest groups from Mexican auto workers to Canadian dairy farmers.
Obama said the pact will “level the playing field” for American workers and businesses and added that Americans would have months to read the deal before he signs it into law.
Biotech compromise
The trade talks had snared on the question of how long a monopoly period should be allowed on next-generation biotech drugs, until the United States and Australia negotiated a compromise.
Although the complex deal sets tariff reduction schedules on hundreds of imported items from pork and beef in Japan to pickup trucks in the United States, the issue of the length of the monopolies awarded to the developers of new biological drugs had threatened to derail talks until the end.
Negotiating teams had been deadlocked over the question of the minimum period of protection to the rights for data used to make biologic drugs, made by companies including Pfizer Inc , Roche Group’s Genentech and Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.
The United States had sought 12 years of protection to encourage pharmaceutical companies to invest in expensive biological treatments like Genentech’s cancer treatment Avastin. Australia, New Zealand and public health groups had sought a period of five years to reduce drug costs and the burden on state-subsidized medical programs.
Negotiators agreed on a compromise on minimum terms that was short of what U.S. negotiators had originally sought and that through a two-track process would effectively grant biologic drugs a minimum period of 5 years and up to a minimum of 8 years, aiming to achieve a comparable outcome across both tracks, free from the threat of competition from generic versions.
A politically charged set of issues surrounding protections for dairy farmers was also addressed in the final hours of talks, officials said. New Zealand, home to the world’s biggest dairy exporter, Fonterra, wanted increased access to U.S., Canadian and Japanese markets.
Separately, the United States, Mexico, Canada and Japan agreed rules governing the auto trade that dictate how much of a vehicle must be made within the TPP region in order to qualify for duty-free status.
The North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico mandates that vehicles have a local content of 62.5 percent. The way that rule is implemented means that just over half of a vehicle needs to be manufactured locally. It has been credited with driving a boom in auto-related in investment in Mexico.
The TPP would give Japan’s automakers, led by Toyota Motor Corp, a freer hand to buy parts from Asia for vehicles sold in the United States but sets long phase-out periods for U.S. tariffs on Japanese cars and light trucks.
The deal being readied for expected announcement on Monday also provides minimum standards on issues ranging from workers’ rights to environmental protection and sets up dispute settlement guidelines between governments and foreign investors separate from national courts.
A container wharf in Tokyo.CreditKazuhiro Nogi/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn June, Mr. Obama successfully overcame opposition from Democrats to win trade promotion authority: the power to negotiate trade deals that cannot be amended or filibustered by Congress. He must now convince Congress — his fellow Democrats, in particular — to approve the trade deal. Lawmakers have 90 days to review the pact’s details. The debate in Congress will put all the elements of the trade pact under scrutiny. It would be the final step for United States adoption of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the most ambitious trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s.
Why Has the Pact Been So Divisive?
Supporters say it would be a boon for all the nations involved, that it would “unlock opportunities” and “address vital 21st-century issues within the global economy,” and that it is written in a way to encourage more countries, possibly even China, to sign on. Passage in Congress is one of President Obama’s final goals in office, but he faces stiff opposition from nearly all of his fellow Democrats.
Opponents in the United States see the pact as mostly a giveaway to business, encouraging further export of manufacturing jobs to low-wage nations while limiting competition and encouraging higher prices for pharmaceuticals and other high-value products by spreading American standards for patent protections to other countries. A provision allowing multinational corporations to challenge regulations and court rulings before special tribunals is drawing intense opposition.
Why This, Why Now?
The pact is a major component of President Obama’s “pivot” to Asia. It is seen as a way to bind Pacific trading partners closer to the United States while raising a challenge to Asia’s rising power, China, which has pointedly been excluded from the deal, at least for now.
It is seen as a means to address a number of festering issues that have become stumbling blocks as global trade has soared, including e-commerce, financial services and cross-border Internet communications.
Moreover, as efforts at global trade deals have faltered (such as the World Trade Organization’s Doha round), the Trans-Pacific Partnership is billed as an “open architecture” document written to ease adoption by additional Asian nations, and to provide a potential template to other initiatives underway, like the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
What Are Some of the Issues Addressed by the Pact?
Tariffs and Quotas Long used to protect domestic industries from cheaper goods from overseas, tariffs on imports were once a standard, robust feature of trade policy, and generated much of the revenue for the United States Treasury in the 19th century. After the Depression and World War II, the United States led a movement toward freer trade.
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A shoe factory in Vietnam. The United States imposes tariffs on imported shoes.CreditAaron Joel Santos for The New York Times
Today, the United States and most developed countries have few tariffs, but some remain. The United States, for example, protects the domestic sugar market from lower-priced global suppliers and imposes tariffs on imported shoes, while Japan has steep surcharges on agricultural products including rice, beef and dairy. The pact is an effort to create a Pacific Rim free-trade zone.
Environmental, Labor and Intellectual Property StandardsUnited States negotiators stress that the Pacific agreement seeks to level the playing field by imposing rigorous labor and environmental standards on trading partners, and supervision of intellectual property rights.
Data Flows The Pacific trade pact to address a number of issues that have arisen since previous agreements were negotiated. One is that countries agree not to block cross-border transfers of data over the Internet, and not require that servers be located in the country in order to conduct business in that country. This proposal has drawn concerns from some countries, Australia among them, that it could conflict with privacy laws and regulations against personal data stored offshore.
Services A big aim of the Pacific pact is enhancing opportunities for service industries, which account for most of the private jobs in the American economy. The United States has a competitive advantage in a range of services, including finance, engineering, software, education, legal and information technology. Although services are not subject to tariffs, nationality requirements and restrictions on investing are used by many developing countries to protect local businesses.
State-Operated Businesses United States negotiators have discussed the need to address favoritism often granted to state-owned business — those directly or indirectly owned by the government. Although Vietnam and Malaysia have many such corporations, the United States has some too (the Postal Service and Fannie Mae, for example). The final agreement may include terms that seek to insure some competitive neutrality while keeping the door open to China’s future acceptance of the pact.
Why Hasn’t China Been In on the Talks?
China has never expressed interest in joining the negotiations, but in the past has viewed the pact with concern, seeing a potential threat as the United States tries to tighten its relationship with Asian trading partners. But lately, as the talks have accelerated, senior Chinese officials have sounded more accepting of the potential deal, and have even hinted that they might want to participate at some point. At the same time, the deal provides China some cover as it pursues its own trade agreements in the region, such as the Silk Road initiative in Central Asia.
United States officials, while making clear that they see the pact as part of an effort to counter China’s influence in the region, say they are hopeful that the pact’s “open architecture” eventually prompts China to join, along with other important economic powers like South Korea.
The Shadow of Nafta, and the Debate in Washington
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Nafta, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, helped lead to a boom in trade among the United States, Mexico and Canada. All three countries exported more goods and services to the other two, cross-border investments grew, and the United States economy has added millions of jobs since then. But of course not all those trends were attributable to Nafta, and the benefits were not equal: The United States had a small trade surplus with Mexico when the pact was signed, but that quickly became a trade deficit that has widened to more than $50 billion a year.
Critics of Nafta also point out that job growth in the United States does not account for the loss of jobs to Mexico or Canada; the A.F.L.-C.I.O. contends about 700,000 United States jobs have been lost or displaced because of Nafta.
Nafta was a significant victory for President Clinton after a difficult congressional battle, where he won support from just enough fellow Democrats to ensure passage. The votes were 234 to 200 in the House, and 61 to 38 in the Senate.
President Obama may yet win that kind of outcome. Working with Republican leadership in the House and Senate, he gained final approval for trade promotion authority, a critical step that allows the White House to present the trade package to Congress for a straight up-or-down vote, without amendments.
But the tortuous legislative process further soured relations with many fellow Democrats, as well as unions and progressive groups, who vehemently oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Many Democrats said the president would have to address their concerns over labor and environmental standards and investor protections when he returns to Congress seeking approval of the trade deal.
Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage captionAsylum seekers trying to reach Australia by sea have been moved to offshore detention centres in the Pacific
Australia has insisted Nauru is "safe" for refugees, playing down fears that they could face attack once they are free to leave an Australian-owned detention centre on the island.
Nauru says it will open up the centre, effectively ending detention there.
Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said any attacks on refugees in Nauru would be fully investigated.
Rights groups have catalogued violence and abuses against Australia-bound asylum seekers detained in Nauru.
Under Australian government policy, all people who try to reach Australia by boat as refugees are held in offshore centres such as the one in Nauru.
In a surprise announcement, Nauru said on Monday that it would open up the detention centre on its territory, allowing the centre's residents to move freely around the island.
It also said it would process some 600 outstanding claims for refugee status within the next week.
Image copyrightGetty Images
In a statement, Mr Dutton welcomed the move, and promised to help the Nauru government "deliver settlement services" to the refugees.
He said that while the Australian government could not offer any "guarantee" of safety to refugees on Nauru, it was working with the authorities there to ensure that the environment was "as safe as it possibly can be".
For instance, he said, Australian police was training police in Nauru to investigate and prosecute crimes against refugees and asylum seekers.
While rights groups have welcomed Nauru's move, they have warned that it does not address fundamental problems with Australia's refugee policy.
"The men, women and children on Nauru need a real solution - settlement in a safe place where they can rebuild their lives," Daniel Webb from the Melbourne-based Human Rights Law Centre told AFP News agency.
"Instead they're being left languishing in an environment that is clearly unsafe for women and children."
Last week, ABC aired allegations by a Somali woman who said she had been raped by two men on Nauru - and that it took police on the Pacific island four hours to respond.
Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage captionNauru: The world's smallest republic
And last month, an Australian senate report found conditions on Nauru were not "appropriate or safe" for detainees and urged the government to remove children from the centre.
It said allegations of rape and abuse should be investigated and access given to journalists and rights workers.
Nauru's decision came two days before the Australian High Court was due to examine the legality of Australia's role in the offshore detention.
In the interview with ABC, Mr Dutton dismissed suggestions that the move was intended to pre-empt a potentially "adverse finding" at the court.
"This has happened progressively over a long period of time," he said, referring to the Nauru authorities gradual easing of restrictions on the movement of detainees at the centre.
Australia's new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has come under pressure to shut down all offshore migrant detention centres.
But he has defended the rules - a central policy of his predecessor Tony Abbott - by saying they are tough but save lives.
Australia and asylum
Many asylum seekers - mainly from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq and Iran - travelled to Australia's Christmas Island by boat from Indonesia.
The number of boats rose sharply in 2012 and early 2013. Scores of people died making the journey.
To stop the influx, the government adopted hard-line measures intended as a deterrent.
Everyone who arrives by boat is now detained and processed in Nauru and Papua New Guinea. Those found to be refugees will be resettled in PNG, Nauru or Cambodia.
