WEAPON EXPORT POLICY’ NATO to SoKor: Step up for Ukraine

SEOUL—NATO

Secretary General

Jens Stoltenberg asked South Korea on Monday to “step up” military support for Ukraine, suggesting it reconsider its policy of not exporting weapons to countries in conflict.

Stoltenberg is in Seoul on the first leg of his Asia trip, which will also take in Japan, as part of a drive to boost ties with the region’s democratic allies in the face of the Ukraine conflict and growing competition from China.

He met top South Korean officials Sunday, and on Monday urged Seoul to do more to help Kyiv, saying there was an “urgent need for more ammunition”.

He pointed to countries like Germany and Norway that had “long-standing policies not to export weapons to countries in conflict” which they revised after Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February last year.

“If we believe in freedom, democracy, if we don’t want autocracy and tyranny to win then they need weapons,” he said, speaking at the Chey Institute in Seoul.

South Korea is an increasingly important arms exporter globally and has recently signed deals to sell hundreds of tanks to European countries, including NATO-member Poland.

But South Korean law bans the export of weapons to countries in active conflict, which Seoul has said makes it difficult to provide arms directly to Kyiv, although it has provided non-lethal and humanitarian assistance.

South Korea opened its first diplomatic mission to NATO last year.

Stoltenberg said it was “extremely important that President Putin doesn’t win this war”, saying it would make the world a more dangerous place. AFP

EXTRA-JUDICIAL SETTLEMENT WITH WAIVER OF RIGHTS

Notice is hereby given of the extrajudicial settlement among the heirs of Domingo R. Rayel on 25 July 2022 as per Doc No. 71, Page No.16, Book No. I, Series of 2022, of Notary Public Shawn Dustin B. Coscolluela of Makati City. (MS-JAN. 31, FEB. 7 & 14, 2023)

UK PM Sunak sacks ally as minister, Tory party chair

LONDON—British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Sunday dismissed a senior ally whose murky tax dealings have focussed anger at the government as a costof-living crisis brings misery to millions.

An inquiry into the wealthy Conservative party chairman Nadhim Zahawi’s tax affairs -- dating from his founding of the YouGov polling company in 2000 -- had found a “serious breach” of ministerial rules, the government said.

“As a result, I have informed you of my decision to remove you from your position in His Majesty’s Government,” Sunak wrote in a publicly released letter to his Iraqi-born ally.

Sunak appointed Zahawi as the party chairman, and cabinet minister without portfolio, when he entered 10 Downing Street nearly 100 days ago, following the implosion of Liz Truss’s premiership and the demise of the scandalplagued Boris Johnson.

Then, as his letter noted, Sunak vowed to deliver “integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level”. Instead, the Zahawi case, and allegations of bullying levelled by civil servants at Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, have undermined Sunak’s attempts to restore public faith in the beleaguered Conservatives. AFP

PEACE TO THE FALLEN. This handout picture taken and released by the Ukrainian Presidential press service on January 29

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky taking part in a ceremony in Kyiv to commemorate the 105th anniversary of the Battle of Kruty against Bolshevik Red Army. AFP

GOP leader, Biden meet to avoid US debt default, spending cuts

WASHINGTON—House speaker Kevin McCarthy said he would meet Wednesday with Joe Biden to discuss avoiding a US debt default, but warned the president must rethink his refusal to consider spending cuts in exchange for raising the borrowing limit.

“I want to find a reasonable and a responsible way that we can lift the debt ceiling,” while controlling what he called runaway spending by Congress, the Republican leader told CBS Sunday show “Face the Nation.”

The talks will be McCarthy’s first with the president since he became speaker of the House of Representatives this month after Republicans won control of the chamber.

The raising of the national debt limit — which allows the government to pay for spending already incurred—is often routine.

But members of the new House Republican majority have threatened to block the usual rubber-stamping of that increase above the current $31.4 trillion.

Japan avalanche: 2 men presumed dead

TOKYO—Two men have been found following an avalanche in Japan and are presumed dead, police said Monday, a day after the off-piste accident in the central region of Nagano.

A search had been underway for two foreign nationals reported missing, and police official Tomohiro Kushibiki told AFP that officers were working to confirm they were the same pair.

Both men were found “in cardiorespiratory arrest”, he said, a term commonly used in Japan before a death can be confirmed by a doctor.

The missing two had been outside the patrolled areas of a ski resort in Otari village along with 11 other skiers and snowboarders when the incident took place on Sunday.

Five people were hit by the ava- lanche, with the other three able to climb down by themselves, Kishibiki said.

The other members of the group also reportedly made it safely back down the slope.

Last week, a cold snap blanketed much of Japan in heavy snow, including Nagano, which draws many overseas tourists during ski season.

An avalanche warning and snow warning are currently in place for the area.

Mountain Gazette magazine reported that professional American skier Kyle Smaine, 31, had been killed in an avalanche in Nagano on Sunday.

Fans were quick to leave tributes on a video he had posted on Instagram on Sunday showing him skiing off-piste. AFP

Biden says the matter is non-negotiable, accusing the Republicans of taking “the economy hostage” in order to push a purely political debate on government spending.

Reflecting the White House’s refusal even to frame Wednesday’s meeting as a negotiation, Biden’s official agenda said merely that he would discuss “a range of issues” with the Republican speaker. Raising the debt ceiling “is an obligation of this country and its leaders to avoid economic chaos,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said recently. “Congress has always done it, and the president expects them to do their duty once again.”

“That is not negotiable.”

That sets the stage for a high-stakes clash in the weeks or months ahead.

A US debt default could trigger a global financial crisis, sending borrowing costs up and undermining the role of the dollar as an international reserve currency, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned. AFP

French premier nixes backtracking on pension reforms

PARIS—France’s prime minister on Sunday ruled out backtracking on a plan to raise the retirement age as unions prepared for another day of mass protests and strikes against the contested reform.

An increase in the minimum retirement age to 64 from the current 62 is part of a flagship reform package pushed by President Emmanuel Macron to ensure the future financing of France’s pensions system.

After union protests against the change brought out more than a million people into the streets across France on January 19, the government signalled there was wiggle room on some measures.

They included special deals for people who started working very young, and provisions for mothers who interrupted their careers to look after their children and for people who invested in further education.

But the headline age limit of 64 is not up for discussion, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said Sunday.

“This is now non-negotiable,” she told the FranceInfo broadcaster.

While unions have welcomed the government’s readiness for negotiation on parts of the plan, they say the proposed 64-year rule has to go.

Calling the reform “unfair”, France’s eight major unions, in a rare show of unity, said they hoped to “mobilise even more massively” on Tuesday— their next scheduled protest day—than at the January 19 rallies. AFP

Diminishing

TOURISTS. A woman walks next to a mural of the Sacsahuaman Inca fortress in the city of Cusco, Peru, on Jan. 29, 2023, as the number of tourists arriving at the popular tourist destination continues to diminish due to the ongoing nationwide protests. Violent clashes with police in protests to oust the government of Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, close congress, and call for general elections have already left 48 people dead -among them a policeman. The demonstrations began the second week of December, had a truce at the end of the year, and resumed on Jan. 4 in Puno, south of the border with Bolivia. AFP

Medtech maker Philips cuts 6,000 more jobs after sleep device recall

THE HAGUE, Netherlands—Embattled Dutch medical tech maker Philips said on Monday it will slash 6,000 more jobs worldwide after fresh losses caused by a massive recall of faulty sleep respirators.

Chief Executive Roy Jakobs announced the “difficult, but necessary further reduction of our workforce” by 2025, which comes just three months after it announced another 4,000 cuts.

“2022 has been a very difficult year for Philips and our stakeholders, and we are taking firm actions to improve our execution and step-up performance with urgency,” Jakobs said in a statement. The Amsterdam-based firm unveiled net losses of 105 million euros ($114 million) for the fourth quarter of 2022 and 1.6 billion euros for last year as a whole, largely due to the recall.

Philips announced a global recall in 2021 of its appliances to treat people suffering from sleep apnea.

This followed concerns patients risked “possible toxic and carcinogenic effects” if they inhaled or swallowed pieces of degraded sound-dampening foam on the machines.

Jakobs, who took over in October, said Philips needed to “improve performance and simplify our way of working to improve our agility and productivity.”

“This includes the difficult, but necessary further reduction of our workforce by around 6,000 roles globally by 2025,” he added. AFP