Day: January 18, 2023

MARSEILLE— The world’s oldest known person, French nun Lucile Randon, has died aged 118, a spokesman of a nursing home announced Tuesday.

Randon, known as Sister Andre, was born in southern France on Feb 11, 1904, when World War I was still a decade away.

She died in her sleep at the Sainte-Catherine-Laboure nursing home in Toulon, spokesman David Tavella said.

The sister was long feted as the oldest European, before the death of Japan’s Kane Tanaka aged 119 last year left her the longest-lived person on Earth.

Guinness World Records officially acknowledged her status in April 2022.

She grew up in a Protestant family as the only girl among three brothers, living in the southern town of Ales.

Sister Andre, who converted to Catholicism and was baptised at the age of 26, worked as a governess in Paris — a period she once called the happiest time of her life — for the children of wealthy families.

Driven by a desire to “go further”, she joined the Daughters of Charity order of nuns at the relatively late age of 41.

Sister Andre was then assigned to a hospital in Vichy, where she worked for 31 years before moving to Toulon along the Mediterranean coast.

In 2021 she survived catching Covid-19, which infected 81 residents of her nursing home.

It is likely that France’s new oldest person is now 112-year-old Marie-Rose Tessier, a woman from Vendee, longevity expert Laurent Toussaint said.

Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 in Arles, southern France, at the age of 122 holds the record for the oldest confirmed age reached by any human.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

By expressing an interest in acquiring nuclear weapons, South Korea is demonstrating an urgent determination to secure enhanced security assurances from the United States as the nuclear threat from North Korea grows, experts say.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said at a policy briefing on January 11 that Seoul could either build nuclear weapons or have them redeployed to the country to counter Pyongyang.

While South Korea has discussed over the years the redeployment of U.S. nuclear weapons, this marked the first time a South Korean president had expressed an interest in the arms since the U.S. withdrew them from the Korean Peninsula in 1991.

Yoon’s remarks came after Pyongyang’s New Year’s Day call for an “exponential increase” in the country’s nuclear arsenal. North Korea launched more than 90 ballistic and cruise missiles last year, a record.

Seeking assurance

“One interpretation of Yoon’s recent remarks is that they suggest a desire for more than merely a U.S.-ROK ‘alliance’ in the way that they have existed up to now, from the perspective of the South Korean administration,” said Edward Howell, a lecturer on North Korea at Oxford University in England. South Korea’s official name is the Republic of Korea (ROK).

The remarks “epitomize a sense of frustration that he wants more than simply a ‘security guarantee’ from the United States,” Howell said.

South Korea is protected by the policy of extended deterrence, under which the U.S. promises to use a range of its military assets, including nuclear weapons, to provide a so-called “nuclear umbrella” to defend the country against threats, including ones from North Korea.

Evans Revere, a former State Department official with extensive experience negotiating with North Korea, told VOA Korean that Washington and Seoul have already been engaged in dialogue about security assurances against North Korean threats “as a matter of urgency.” These were discussed in a recent Extended Deterrence Strategy and Consultation Group meeting.

At the September 16 meeting in Washington, the U.S. reaffirmed its commitment to use wide-ranging capabilities including nuclear weapons and to bolster information sharing, training, and “better use of tabletop exercises” to counter North Korean threats, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Defense.

The tabletop exercises, launched in 2011 and held annually but only twice during the 2017-22 administration of Moon Jae-in, are aimed at responding to North Korea’s use of nuclear weapons. A table-top exercise is a discussion-based session “where team members meet in an informal, classroom setting to discuss their roles during an emergency and their responses to a particular emergency situation,” according to ready.gov.

In February, the U.S. and South Korea plan to hold tabletop exercises “on operating means of extended deterrence under the scenario of North Korea’s nuclear attacks,” followed by “more concrete and substantive” exercises in May, said South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup on January 11, according to a Reuters article.

When asked at a press briefing on Tuesday whether the U.S. and South Korea plan to use U.S. nuclear assets in the extended deterrence drills next month, Pentagon spokesperson Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder said, “We will continue to focus on training and making sure that we can be interoperable when it comes to working together.”

‘United States needs to do more’

Some experts think Washington should do more to provide nuclear security assurances to Seoul. Their suggestions range from discussing plans for employing and operating nuclear weapons to considering a nuclear-sharing option, which would allow Seoul to jointly operate U.S. nuclear weapons with Washington.

“Although I think it would be a bad idea for South Korea to acquire nuclear weapons, the United States needs to do more to make sure that Seoul is comfortable with America’s extended guarantees,” said Zack Cooper, former special assistant to the principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy at the Defense Department during the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush who was interviewed by email.

Cooper continued to write, “That could take the form of more engagement on nuclear planning, but it will also require that the United States talk in detail with South Korea about why an independent nuclear capability (or even nuclear sharing arrangement) would be counterproductive.”

On the other hand, Daryl Press, director of the Institute for Global Security at Dartmouth College, thinks nuclear sharing or South Korea having its own nuclear weapons could add to its deterrence.

“Giving South Korean leaders meaningful control over their country’s own deterrent force, through Korean nuclear sharing or an independent ROK arsenal, would substantially reduce these credibility problems and strengthen deterrence,” Press said.

Mirroring the nuclear sharing option used by NATO, South Korea’s would entail joint planning and using U.S. nuclear weapons deployed to bases in the country.

It would also involve joint nuclear exercises because both South Korean and U.S. aircraft and pilots would bomb enemy target areas when necessary. The U.S. would transfer control of the nuclear weapons to South Korea if North Korea crossed an agreed-upon nuclear threshold, Press said.

An option to deploy nuclear weapons to South Korea would not involve joint drills. The weapons would be delivered by U.S. aircraft and pilots for South Korea to drop on an adversary, according to U.S. plans after both countries agree their use is necessary.

South Korea is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which bans countries from pursuing the development of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear value

Thomas Countryman, who recently served as acting undersecretary of arms control and international security under the Biden administration, said, “It would not be appropriate for the U.S. to give the ROK military experience in handling nuclear weapons.”

He continued, “But there’s no limitation on what the good allies can discuss” on nuclear weapons although “there are certain limits to what can be done physically” to utilize the weapons jointly.

Countryman also said that although others might disagree, redeploying U.S. nuclear weapons to South Korea would not contradict the NPT. But the redeployment would “not make a significant military difference” or add much deterrent value.

By initiating a nuclear program, however, Seoul would violate the NPT, damage its international reputation and ties with Washington, and hamper U.S. efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, Countryman said.

Scott Snyder, director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, said, “It is not clear if South Korean nuclear capabilities would reduce the actual threat or expand it.”

“The common aim here,” he continued, “is to take actions that reduce the risk of miscalculation.”

Source: Voice of America

Hundreds of refugees are fleeing to safety in India as the Myanmar military intensifies airstrikes in Chin state in Myanmar’s northwest, a refugee aid group told VOA on Wednesday.

At least 200 Chin refugees crossed the border last week following airstrikes by the Myanmar military on a key rebel camp on the India-Myanmar border, according to the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO).

“Within the first half of this month, the Myanmar junta carried out four airstrikes in Chin state,” Salai Mang Hre Lian, a CHRO program manager, told VOA by phone.

The organization, which has reported “a total of at least 14 airstrikes after the military coup in February 2021,” is working to protect and promote the rights of Chin people and other oppressed and marginalized communities in Myanmar.

The latest airstrikes were reportedly conducted by the Myanmar junta air force on January 10 and 11 and targeted Camp Victoria, headquarters of the Chin National Front (CNF), an ethnic resistance organization in Chin state.

“The bombing killed five CNF soldiers, including two women, and injured more than dozens of civilians around the area of Camp Victoria,” Salai Mang Hre Lian told VOA, adding that “the bombing also destroyed civilian housing and the medical facilities of Camp Victoria.”

He said hundreds of refugees from at least five villages fled across the border. “They also have grave concerns about their safety, as there is a possibility of future airstrikes and military operations from the Myanmar junta in their surrounding areas,” he said.

According to CHRO’s report, during the junta’s airstrikes last week, two bombs landed on the Indian side of the border in Mizoram state, where thousands of Chin refugees have pursued protection.

“Our main concern is the safety of Chin internally displaced persons in the Indo-Burma border areas as well as the Chin refugees in Mizoram state of India,” Zo Tum Hmung, executive director of the Chin Association of Maryland (CAM), told VOA.

CAM said in a statement to VOA that “at least one bomb landed on Indian soil and damaged the truck of a villager from Farkawn Village in Mizoram State, India.” The organization identified “five Myanmar military fighter jets, three Yak-130s and two MIG 29s.”

“India should condemn the Myanmar military fighters [for] dropping a bomb on India soil,” Zo Tum Hmung said.

Global watchdog Fortify Rights also called on India to prevent Myanmar junta fighter jets from accessing its airspace.

“New Delhi shouldn’t tolerate the junta’s incursions on its airspace, and Indian authorities should do everything in their power to ensure the security of civilians and border areas,” Matthew Smith, CEO of Fortify Rights, said last week.

So far, there have been no responses from New Delhi or Mizoram regarding the airstrikes.

CHRO said more than 52,000 Chin civilians have fled to India since the military coup last year. Around 44,000 live in Mizoram, and about 8,000 are in New Delhi.

Source: Voice of America