The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, is holding a first-ever forum in an effort to drum up international support for tens of millions of people displaced by war, poverty, repression and other woes. The Global Refugee Forum, taking place December 16-18 in Geneva, will seek to gather leaders from governments, business and civil society to work together to find solutions for the unprecedented number of people — more than 70 million, according to the U.N. — displaced in their home countries or abroad. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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Several thousand people shouting words of thanks to the police turned out in Hong Kong on Sunday in an unusual display of support for a force broadly criticized as abusive by the territory’s protest movement.People made heart signs with their hands at officers, with some calling them heroes for their policing of six months of demonstrations.The rally attracted a bigger crowd than a protest against the government a few hundred meters (yards) away. It brought together a few hundred people in a square.There were also scattered small protests against the government in shopping malls.Tensions flared in one mall after police arrested about eight protesters. Police used pepper spray when people threw bottles of water at them.
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Southeast Asian environmental activists  – including young counterparts to teenage activist and Time magazine person of the year Greta Thunberg – are concerned they are not getting the attention that the climate emergency deserves, complaining that the region’s authorities are leaving this month’s climate negotiations in Madrid, also known as COP25, without committing to new climate action plans for 2020, as other nations have done.The negotiations are meant to find a way to carry out the plans, agreed to in Paris in 2015, to cut global greenhouse gas emissions. However they have broken down as negotiators cannot agree on how much rich nations should spend to support poor nations to enact the plans. Many Southeast Asian governments want such supporting funds but their constituents also say the governments need to promise more dramatic emissions decreases.“The situation is critical: our youth are mobilizing and striking because they know that there are only 10 years left for governments to act for them to have a decent future,” Sarah Elago, a member of the Philippine House of Representatives, said. “Why is it that children are doing more than the governing adults?”  Like the Philippines, almost every nation in Southeast Asia has islands or long coastlines, making them particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Consequently, the region’s activists are particularly concerned that their governments did not offer forceful action plans at COP25, formally known as the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which was supposed to conclude on December 13 but continues as of press time.Singapore said it has to spend $72 billion over the next century to construct sea walls and reclaim land around the island. (H. Nguyen/VOA)Activists have exerted pressure on regional governments to offer a climate action plan but those governments say they are doing their best, as developing countries that did not create the problem.Some say there is little point in offering action when there is none from the United States, the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions until being recently overtaken by China. Developing nations around the Asia Pacific and elsewhere are paying the price because of polluting industrialized nations, according to Basav Sen, climate policy director at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies.“Our country, as a matter of policy, prioritizes enriching its oil and gas industry over preserving the ecosystems upon which billions of people rely for their food, water and homes,” he wrote in an op-ed for the newspaper USA Today.He recommended “responsible world governments could publicly shame the U.S. government for its climate policies.”
Southeast Asia must do more, however, Abel Da Silva, a member East Timor’s National Parliament, said.“We cannot stay on the sidelines of this catastrophe,” said Da Silva. “Southeast Asia is contributing to climate change through its reliance on coal, its deforestation and haze crisis, and its lack of ambition in its climate action plans.”The region has to “reverse this shameful historical trend and right our past wrongs on the climate,” he said.Malaysians live on the water in Penang, leaving them vulnerable to sea level rise caused by climate change. (H. Nguyen/VOA)Nations generally submit action plans on how they will decrease greenhouse gas emissions at the annual U.N. climate conference. Although nations do other things to deal with climate change, such as constructing walls against rising water levels, emissions are the main issue.Laos, which is trying to develop hydropower dams as a main industry, is the only Southeast Asian nation to set a goal of zero net carbon emissions by 2050 – it is also the only nation in the region that is landlocked. 
  
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Search teams have failed to find the bodies of the last victims of a volcanic eruption in New Zealand. The official number of dead from Monday’s disaster stands at 15.Police and navy divers have failed to find a body that was seen in the sea off New Zealand’s White Island the day after the eruption. The authorities said they faced “unique and challenging conditions.” The water has been contaminated by the volcano, and divers had to wear special protective equipment.Another victim is thought to be near the crater. On Sunday, recovery teams again landed on the island, but neither of the two missing bodies have been found. It is unclear when another recovery attempt will be made.Six bodies were retrieved Friday by soldiers, who were flown in despite the risk of another eruption. The remains have been taken to Auckland for postmortem examinations.New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says retrieving the bodies of all of the victims is a priority.”We know that reunification will not ease that sense of loss or grief, because I do not think anything can. But we felt an enormous duty of care as New Zealanders to make sure that we brought their family members back,” Arden said.Police have officially named the first victim of the volcanic eruption.Krystal Eve Browitt, a 21-year old Australian, was on holiday with her family. Identifying the other victims could take some time.Prime Minister Ardern said the country would observe a minute of silence at 2:11 p.m. Monday, exactly a week after what she described as an “extraordinary tragedy.”About 20 survivors with severe burns are in intensive care in New Zealand and Australia.New Zealand lies on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a region known for its extreme volcanic activity and earthquakes.
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North Koreans with disabilities may face disproportionate risk due to efforts to curtail the country’s weapons of mass destruction programs. Some humanitarian aid groups providing medical, educational and material support to people with physical, sensory and other developmental impairments say United Nations sanctions, as well as the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign imposed on Pyongyang for its nuclear and ballistic missile tests, are limiting their ability to carry-out work in North Korea.  Amid those restrictions, some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are abandoning their programs altogether. Multiple sources involved in aid work tell VOA that Humanity & Inclusion (HI) is ceasing its North Korea operations. The French/Belgian organization, also known as Handicap International, has been active in the country since 2001 and works in conjunction with the state-run Korean Federation for the Protection of the Disabled, according to the non-profit’s website. HI declined to respond to VOA’s request for confirmation. Visually-impaired singers perform during an event to mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, in Pyongyang, Dec. 3, 2019.North Korea’s opacity and the reluctance of many NGOs to publicly discuss their work there make it difficult for outside observers to obtain a full picture of the situation.  But, Nazanin Zadeh-Cummings, who lectures in humanitarian studies at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, says the “detrimental impact of sanctions” is primarily responsible for the departure of international organizations, like HI, from North Korea.She explains that while humanitarian activity in North Korea is permitted under the sanctions, the lengthy process of applying for exemptions from member states and the UN Sanctions Committee as well as blocks on financial transactions lead to the erosion of partnerships that these organizations have spent years building with Pyongyang.   “It’s really a tragedy,” Zadeh-Cummings says. “Because of time delays, uncertainty and difficulties in getting sanctions exemptions, those decades of trust and relations are being threatened.”Among the relief agencies that have pulled-out or suspended work in North Korea are Finland’s Fida International, which closed its food security program earlier this year, and the Britain-based charity Save the Children, which left the country in 2017. Both organizations say the pressure brought on by sanctions forced their decisions.        Zadeh-Cummings notes the closure of programs that benefit the disabled could be a lost opportunity.  She says that despite North Korea’s reputation as one of the world’s worst human rights abusers, the regime “shows a willingness to engage” with the international community over the creation of such initiatives, which have gone from “non-existent to a space for collaboration” with aid groups in the past several years. “The people on the receiving end of this aid are the ones who are losing out,” due to the international sanctions, she adds.The sanctions further complicate many NGOs’ ability to provide support for North Korea’s disabled due to a “dual use” ban on metallic objects because of concern these could end up in the hands of the country’s military. In turn, this measure could prohibit many medical supplies and adaptive equipment from entering North Korea, unless an import license and waiver are obtained, which some humanitarians say could take many months or years, if not at all. 
 
“I can’t send wheelchairs, crutches or canes because they all have metal in them,” says Sue Kinsler, whose California-based Kinsler Foundation has supported North Korean schools for the blind and has helped disabled athletes compete in recent Paralympics and other sporting events.  She says her charity, which relies on small donations from churches in South Korea and the U.S., has not been able to raise sufficient funds or collect many donations in recent years.”They all stopped helping me because of the sanctions,” she  says. “They’re afraid of breaking the rules.” Kinsler, who says she used to visit North Korea several times a year, adds that she hasn’t returned since Washington banned U.S. citizens from traveling to the country following the death of tourist Otto Warmbier in 2017. Some other American aid workers have obtained permits to enter North Korea to carry-out relief work. Dr. Kee Park, director of DPRK Programs at the Korean American Medical Association, says he travels to North Korea twice a year and performs surgeries with local physicians. DPRK stands for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s official name. Park, who lectures at Harvard and co-authored the recent report The Human Costs and Gendered Impact of Sanctions on North Korea, says the difficulty in “navigating the regulatory hurdles” required to obtain permission to transport even the most basic of medical devices to North Korea could mean many patients will become permanently disabled.  “If they have an injury and cannot obtain surgical care in a timely fashion they might end up with a disability,” he says, adding that sanctions could prevent performance of “simple operations” for disabling conditions such as cleft pallet, clubbed foot and cataracts. Park says that despite the lack of new surgical instruments, North Korean doctors are “masters at maximizing the utility of their medical supplies.””They reuse as much as possible until things become unusable,” he says. FILE – A nurse sits inside a laboratory as guests tour the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital in Pyongyang, North Korea, Feb. 20, 2013.”Collateral damage” North Korea has given Washington an end of year deadline to drop what Pyongyang calls a “hostile policy” in order to resume stalled denuclearization talks. Some observers say the North wants relief from unilateral U.S. sanctions that have reduced its capacity to earn foreign sources of income – an indication that these measures are having their intended effect. Sung-Yoon Lee, a Korea expert at Tufts University, writes in an email to VOA that “targeted financial sanctions are a potent and fine-tuned, non-lethal instrument of coercion.”Lee notes that while sanctions are not a “perfect instrument”, he argues that humanitarian concern should instead focus on the Kim regime’s “perverse priorities” as the root cause of the North Korean people’s “misery and hunger.” “There will invariably be negative trickle down effects on the innocent people and in procedural aspects related to the delivery of aid,” Lee writes.Andray Abrahamian, a visiting scholar at George Mason University’s Incheon, South Korea campus, agrees that North Korea is “unable or unwilling” to care for many of its citizens, including people with disabilities, and so has largely outsourced this responsibility to international aid groups. But Abrahamian, who previously worked for a North Korea-focused NGO, says the livelihood of this already disadvantaged population will continue to decline if recipients of humanitarian support  are seen as “collateral damage.”   “The further you are away from political power the more vulnerable you are to sanctions-imposed scarcity,” he says.
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Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam visited Beijing on Saturday for her first trip to the Chinese capital since her government was handed a crushing defeat in local elections last month, prompting speculation about changes to her leadership team.During a four-day visit, Lam is due to discuss the political and economic situation in China-ruled Hong Kong with Chinese officials. She will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday.Hong Kong has been convulsed by daily and sometimes violent protests for the last six months as demonstrations against a now-withdrawn extradition bill broadened into demands for greater democratic freedom.Hundreds of thousands of people marched last Sunday to protest against what is seen as Beijing undermining freedoms guaranteed when the former British colony was handed back to China in 1997. Many young  protesters are also angry at Lam’s government, charging it with failing to address social inequality issues in one of the world’s most expensive cities.”Our sincerity to have dialogue with citizens has not changed,” Lam said in a Facebook post on Saturday. She said her governing team would continue to pursue “different formats of dialogue to listen to citizens  sincerely.”This week Lam said a cabinet reshuffle was not an “immediate task” and she would focus her efforts on restoring law and order to Hong Kong. Still there are doubts about how long Beijing is willing to back her, especially after pro-democracy candidates won nearly 90% of the seats in district elections last month.China has condemned the unrest and blamed foreign interference. It denies that it is meddling in Hong Kong’s affairs. In an editorial this week, the official China Daily newspaper called on Hong Kong’s government to uphold the rule of law.Separately, three men were arrested on Saturday and charged with testing remote-controlled explosives, police said. Police also found body armor, shields and gas masks, they said.Police also arrested five teenagers in connection with the murder of a 70-year-old man last month and on rioting charges, the government said. The man had been hit with bricks and later died in hospital, the  government said in a statement.
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Divers in New Zealand are searching in contaminated water Saturday for the two remaining victims of the volcano eruption on White Island.  They are searching in water where a body was seen earlier.Police Deputy Commissioner John Tims said the divers are facing “unique and challenging conditions” in their dives “with between zero and two meters visibility” in water polluted with ash and other fallout from Monday’s eruption.The remains of six people were recovered Friday on the island that is continuing to vent poisonous gas from the volcano’s crater.New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has called for a minute’s silence on Monday at 2:11 pm to honor the victims, exactly one week after the eruption.  “Together we can express our sorrow for those who have died and been hurt, and our support for their grieving families and friends,” she said.Forty-seven people were on the island Monday when the volcano exploded, including 24 Australians, with the rest from Britain, China, Germany, Malaysia, New Zealand and the United States. Some of the victims were passengers from a cruise ship operated by Royal Caribbean. At least 27 survivors suffered burns over more than 71% of their bodies.  Health officials have said they need an extra 1.2 million square centimeters of skin to provide grafts for the victims.
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The United States and China have agreed on the terms of the first phase of a trade deal that would reduce some U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods while boosting Chinese purchases of American farm, energy and manufactured goods and addressing some U.S. complaints about intellectual property practices. 
 
Following are details of the deal released by both sides. The broad outlines were similar to a deal in principle announced by Trump in October that was dominated by increased Chinese purchases of U.S. agricultural goods. 
 Tariffs 
 
The United States will not proceed with 15% tariffs scheduled to go into effect Sunday on nearly $160 billion worth of Chinese goods, including cellphones, laptop computers, toys and clothing. 
 
China canceled its retaliatory tariffs scheduled to take effect that same day, including a 25% tariff on U.S.-made autos. 
 
The United States will cut by half the tariff rate it imposed on September 1 on a $120 billion list of Chinese goods, to 7.5% 
 
U.S. tariffs of 25% on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods will remain unchanged, providing U.S. negotiating leverage for a second phase of negotiations next year. 
 Trade deficit 
 
U.S. officials say China agreed to increase purchases of American products and services by at least $200 billion over the next two years, with an expectation that the higher purchases will continue after that period. 
 
The purchases include manufactured goods, agricultural goods, energy and services, and are expected to reduce the $419 billion U.S. trade deficit with China, officials said. China bought $130 billion in U.S. goods in 2017, before the trade war began, and $56 billion in services, U.S. data show. 
 Agriculture 
 
China has agreed to increase purchases of U.S. agriculture products by $32 billion over two years. That would average an annual total of about $40 billion, compared with a baseline of $24 billion in 2017 before the trade war started. 
 
Trump has demanded that China buy $50 billion worth of American farm goods annually. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said China agreed to make its best efforts to increase its purchases by another $5 billion annually to get close to $50 billion. 
 
China has committed to reduce nontariff barriers to agricultural products such as poultry, seafood and feed additives, as well as approval of biotechnology products. 
 Intellectual property 
 
The deal includes stronger Chinese legal protections for patents, trademarks and copyrights, including improved criminal and civil procedures to combat online infringement and pirated and counterfeit goods. 
 
The deal contains commitments by China to follow through on previous pledges to eliminate any pressure for foreign companies to transfer technology to Chinese firms as a condition of market access, licensing or administrative approvals and to eliminate any government advantages for such transfers. 
 
China also agreed to refrain from directly supporting outbound investment aimed at acquiring foreign technology to meet its industrial plans — transactions already restricted by stronger U.S. security reviews.  FILE – A man walks by a money exchange shop decorated with Chinese yuan in Hong Kong, Aug. 6, 2019.Currency 
 
The currency agreement contains pledges by China to refrain from competitive currency devaluations and to not target its exchange rate for a trade advantage — language that China has accepted for years as part of its commitments to the Group of 20 major economies. 
 
The deal subjects any violations of currency commitments to the agreement’s enforcement mechanism, under which they could incur U.S. tariffs. 
 
A senior Trump administration official said the currency agreement is based on provisions in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement trade deal, which require the three countries to disclose monthly data on international reserve balances and intervention in foreign exchange markets, along with quarterly balance-of-payments data and other public reporting to the International Monetary Fund. 
 Enforcement 
 
Under dispute resolution, there is an arrangement to allow the parties to resolve differences over how the deal is implemented through bilateral consultations, starting at the working level and escalating to top-level officials. If these consultations do not resolve disputes, there is a process for imposing tariffs or other penalties. There was no indication that retaliatory tariffs would be prohibited. 
 China financial services 
 
U.S. officials said the deal includes improved access to China’s financial services market for U.S. companies, including in banking, insurance, securities and credit rating services. It aims to address several long-standing U.S. complaints about investment barriers in the sector, including foreign equity limitations and discriminatory regulatory requirements. 
 
China, which has pledged for years to open its financial services sector to more foreign competition, said the deal would boost imports of financial services from the United States. 
 
But China’s state-run Global Times newspaper said that not all foreign institutions would be able to tap China’s financial market. “Naturally, entities from countries which are friendly to China will be favored by the Chinese people,” the paper said in a commentary . 
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As anti-government demonstrations engulfed Hong Kong in August, Reuters broke a sensitive story: Beijing had rejected a secret proposal by city leader Carrie Lam to meet several of the protesters’ demands in a bid to defuse the unrest. 
 
The story buttressed a main claim of the protesters: that Beijing is intervening deeply in the affairs of the semiautonomous city. A state-run newspaper denounced the story as “fake” and “shameful.” The article soon became unavailable in mainland China. 
 
It wasn’t the Chinese government that blocked the story. The article was removed by Refinitiv, the financial information provider that distributes Reuters news to investors around the world on Eikon, a trading-and-analytics platform. 
 
The article was one of a growing number of stories that Refinitiv — which until last year was owned by Reuters’ parent company, Thomson Reuters Corp. — has censored in mainland China under pressure from the central government. FILE – Protesters attend a Human Rights Day march, organized by the Civil Human Rights Front, in Hong Kong, Dec. 8, 2019.Since August, Refinitiv has blocked more than 200 stories about the Hong Kong protests plus numerous other Reuters articles that could cast Beijing in an unfavorable light. 
 
Internal Refinitiv documents show that over the summer, the company installed an automated filtering system to facilitate the censoring. The system included the creation of a new code to attach to some China stories, called “Restricted News.” 
 
As a result, Refinitiv’s customers in China have been denied access to coverage of one of the biggest news events of the year, including two Reuters reports on downgrades of Hong Kong by credit-rating agencies. Nearly 100 other news providers available on Eikon in China have also been affected by the filtering. 
 China’s heavy hand 
 
Censorship in China has been intensifying in recent years under President Xi Jinping, and Western businesses have come under rising pressure to block news, speech and products that Beijing sees as politically dangerous. 
 
Refinitiv generates tens of millions of dollars of annual revenue in China. As Reuters reported in June, citing three people familiar with the matter, Refinitiv began the censorship effort earlier this year after a regulator threatened to suspend its Chinese operation. FILE – Chinese and American flags fly outside a JW Marriott hotel in Beijing, Jan. 11, 2018.Refinitiv has joined a lengthening list of companies complying with Chinese demands. They include hotel giant Marriott International Inc., which last year temporarily shut down its Chinese websites and apologized for, among other things, listing Taiwan as a separate country in a customer questionnaire. 
 
Several U.S. airlines also stopped describing Taiwan as non-Chinese territory on their websites. Beijing considers the self-governed island part of China. The companies have defended their actions. 
 ‘Naked political aggression’ 
 
The censorship has angered the top news and business executives of Reuters and the directors of the Thomson Reuters Founders Share Co. Ltd., an independent body tasked with preserving the news agency’s independence. 
 
Speaking to Reuters journalists on a visit to the Singapore newsroom in October, Kim Williams, the Australian media executive who chairs the body, lashed out at Refinitiv, calling its actions “reprehensible” and a capitulation to “naked political aggression” from Beijing. 
 
Editor-in-chief Stephen J. Adler told Reuters journalists in London in November that the censorship was “damaging” the brand. “I don’t approve of it,” he said. 
 
Refinitiv Chief Executive David Craig and Thomson Reuters CEO Jim Smith have held multiple talks, as recently as this week, to try to resolve the issue, said people familiar with the matter. 
 
“We recognize that the processes that were put in place earlier this year need to be improved and are actively working on enhancements,” Refinitiv spokesman Patrick Meyer said of the filtering system in a statement. “As a global business, Refinitiv must comply with the laws and regulations of the countries in which we operate.” 
 
Refinitiv was formed last year when a consortium led by private equity giant Blackstone purchased a 55 percent stake in Thomson Reuters’ Financial & Risk business, which included the Eikon terminal business, for about $20 billion and rebranded it. 
 
Refinitiv is by far Reuters’ largest client, providing nearly half its revenue. As part of the spin-off deal, Refinitiv agreed to make inflation-adjusted annual payments of $325 million to Reuters over 30 years for news — a reliable income stream that is rare in the media business. 
 Tiananmen taboo 
 
Reuters reported in June that Refinitiv had blocked several Reuters stories under government pressure. The articles were about the 30th anniversary of the bloody suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. FILE – A blood-covered protester holds a Chinese soldier’s helmet following violent clashes with military forces during the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in this June 4, 1989 photo.According to the people with knowledge of the matter, Refinitiv acted after the Cyberspace Administration of China, or CAC, which controls online speech, threatened to suspend the company’s service in China if it didn’t comply. 
 
The CAC did not respond to questions about this article. China’s Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment. 
 
Refinitiv began ramping up its efforts to purge offending China coverage. Internal Refinitiv documents and emails describe how the company over the summer created an automated filtering system — referred to as the “Strategic China filter” — to block certain stories to Eikon users in mainland China. 
 
In July, Refinitiv’s news platform architecture director requested that a new code be created, called “Restricted News,” that could be added to articles. He asked that it “should be hidden for all users (internal and external),” according to notes of a conference call on July 17 where the code was discussed. 
 
One reason was that Refinitiv didn’t want to give its mainland China customers the ability to disable the filtering. In an email to colleagues, the platform director explained the code: “The flag is to highlight news that requires additional processing, due to Chinese govt restrictions, prior to consumption in China.” 
 Keyword filter 
 
The filtering system is designed to block stories for readers in mainland China but allow them to be accessed in other markets. It looks for restricted keywords in headlines, such as “Hong Kong” and “protest,” according to a person familiar with the matter. 
 
Reuters found no evidence that Refinitiv has deployed the filtering system in other nations. 
 
Besides Reuters articles, the filtering has also blocked one or more stories from 97 other news providers that are available inside China on the Eikon system — including Xinhua, China’s official state-run news agency. 
 
On December 3, Refinitiv blocked a Xinhua story about a small demonstration in Hong Kong by pro-Beijing residents. They were quoted heatedly denouncing Washington over a new U.S. law that supports Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters. 
 
Last weekend, Hong Kong witnessed another huge protest, with turnout estimated at 183,000 by police and four times that by organizers. Citizens of all stripes marched, from students to professionals to the elderly. 
 
Eikon users in mainland China couldn’t read the Reuters story on the mass protest. It was blocked. 
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The United States and China separately announced Friday they have reached agreement on the text of the first phase of a trade pact and will avert imposing further tariffs on each other.          
 
As part of the agreement, Chinese officials say their country will increase imports of American agricultural, energy and pharmaceutical products.
 
“This will create better conditions for China and the United States to strengthen cooperation,” Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Shouwen said at a news conference in Beijing.  
 
The announcement comes just two days before $160 billion in new levies on Chinese products by the United States were set to take effect.“The Penalty Tariffs set for December 15th will not be charged because of the fact that we made the deal,” Trump confirmed on Twitter. “We will begin negotiations on the Phase Two Deal immediately, rather than waiting until after the 2020 Election. This is an amazing deal for all.”Officials in Beijing say they also desire U.S. President Donald Trump to roll back some of the tariffs currently collected by the United States on $360 billion worth of Chinese goods.  The office of the U.S. Trade Representative in a statement said the two countries “reached an historic and enforceable agreement on a Phase One trade deal that requires structural reforms and other changes to China’s economic and trade regime in the areas of intellectual property, technology transfer, agriculture, financial services, and currency and foreign exchange.  “
 
While the Chinese spoke, Trump took to Twitter to characterize the phase one deal as “very large” but said the “25% Tariffs will remain as is.”Trump earlier Friday on Twitter blasted that a  Wall Street Journal  report about the trade deal, saying the report “is completely wrong, especially their statement on Tariffs.”
 The Wall Street Journal story on the China Deal is completely wrong, especially their statement on Tariffs. Fake News. They should find a better leaker!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2019 
Trump’s online comment pared gains for the price of oil in global trading and had   U.S. stock exchange indexes opening in negative territory. But as the Chinese officials spoke, several key stock indexes in the United States rose to all-time highs.  “President Trump has focused on concluding a Phase One agreement that achieves meaningful, fully-enforceable structural changes and begins re-balancing the U.S.-China trade relationship. This unprecedented agreement accomplishes those very significant goals and would not have been possible without the President’s strong leadership,” said United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in a statement.
 
Trump, with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He in the Oval Office on October 11, announced a “substantial phase one deal” of a trade pact.
 
The president, at that time, said the first portion of the pact would be written over the next several weeks, and would cover intellectual property and financial services, along with the purchase of up to $50 billion worth of agricultural products by China.
 
That turned out to be premature, however, and negotiations dragged on.
 
Progress in the trade negotiations with China is a bright spot in the Trump presidency.While the Chinese were making their announcement in Beijing, the House Judiciary Committee, voted 23-17 along party lines, to pass to the full House two articles of impeachment against Trump.
 
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The U.S. special envoy for North Korea will arrive in South Korea on Sunday ahead of a year-end deadline set by Pyongyang for Washington to soften its approach to stalled denuclearization talks, Seoul said on Friday.Stephen Biegun will be in Seoul for a three-day stay and hold consultations with his counterpart Lee Do-hoon and other officials, South Korea’s foreign ministry said on Friday.“The two sides will exchange extensive views on the recent situation on the Korean peninsula and discuss ways to bring substantial progress on achieving a complete denuclearization and enduring peace,” the ministry said in a statement.Tension has been rising in recent weeks as Pyongyang has conducted a series of weapons tests and waged a war of words with U.S. President Donald Trump, stoking fears the two countries could return to a collision course that they had been on before launching diplomacy last year.Biegun’s trip sparked speculation he might try to salvage negotiations by reaching out to North Korea, or by publicly sending a message.North Korea has vowed to take an unspecified “new path” if the United States fails to address its demands before the end of the year.On Thursday, it said Washington had “nothing to offer” even if talks were to reopen, and the United States warned against any resumption of “unfortunate ill-advised behavior”.“In any case, Biegun would try to give an impression that they won’t be manipulated by the North Koreans, while making clear that they want to keep talking,” a diplomatic source in Seoul said, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Trump met three times since last year to negotiate an end to North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, but there has been scant progress, with working-level talks led by Biegun in October in Stockholm breaking down.U.S. officials came to that meeting seeking a “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization,” and a moratorium on weapons tests as a first step, while a North Korean negotiator accused them of sticking to their “old viewpoint and attitude.”
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Washington’s call for a sharp increase in Seoul’s share of its defense costs is an untimely demand that could put the readiness of the combined U.S. and South Korean forces at risk at a time when North Korea is escalating threats, said experts.”This is the worst time to be having this debate between the U.S. and South Korea, given what North Korea has done,” said Lawrence Korb, former assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration and currently a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Washington and Seoul are engaged in a dispute over the A missile is fired during the test of a multiple rocket launcher in this undated photo released, Aug. 25, 2019, by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency.On Saturday, North Korea tested what South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo called a North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un visits a construction sites in Samjiyon County, in this undated picture released by North Korea’s Central News Agency on Oct. 16, 2019. He added the dispute over cost-sharing “emboldens Kim Jong Un,” the North Korean leader.Experts said the expiration of the current SMA could put the readiness of the U.S. and South Korean combined forces at risk.”A large number of U.S. military personnel will have to be diverted from their normal work,” such as training to maintain readiness, according to David Maxwell, a former U.S. Special Forces colonel who served on the Combined Forces Command of the U.S. and South Korea.  Instead of serving their key military functions, American troops would need to fill in the roles of Korean civilian workers who provide administrative and support duties, said Maxwell, who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.”If there is no agreement on burden-sharing, then beginning around March or April, the Korean civilian workers will be furloughed,” said Maxwell.A South Korean army K-55 artillery vehicle moves through a exercise near the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas in Cheorwon, South Korea, Aug. 21, 2017.Ken Gause, director of the adversary analytics program at research organization CNA, said, “For now, we can accommodate tension and disagreement in the alliance.”  He continued, “But over time, it will impact readiness and our ability to effectively respond to crises on the peninsula.”Maxwell said the cost-sharing dispute sends a wrong message to North Korea, giving Kim an opportunity to exploit the rift to further “divide the [South Korea]-U.S. alliance to conquer [South Korea],” which has been a goal of Pyongyang’s.”Our actions are contributing to alliance erosion,” said Maxwell.  “The alliance needs to focus on the threat from the North, which is an existential threat to [South Korea], and it is a vital U.S. national interest to prevent conflict or war on the Korean Peninsula.”Korb said Washington needs to ask Seoul to shoulder a smaller share.”While it’s not insignificant, the fact of the matter is our defense budget is $750 billion,” said Korb.  “And what you’re talking about here is a couple of billion [from Seoul]. Basically, you could settle for a much smaller amount that would make everybody happy.”  The Dome of the U.S. Capitol is visible in the early morning hours of Dec. 9, 2019.On Monday, U.S. lawmakers reached an agreement on a President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in shakes hands at the start of a bilateral meeting at the Blue House in Seoul, Sunday, June 30, 2019.”The U.S.-Republic of Korea alliance is strong and vital for regional peace and stability,” a U.S. Department of State spokesperson told VOA on background. “We appreciate the considerable resources the Republic of Korea provides to the U.S.-ROK alliance, including but not limited to the Korea Special Measures Agreement, but the president has been clear that the Republic of Korea can and should contribute more of its fair share.”The United States invests significant military resources and capabilities to meet our defense treaty obligations around the world,” the spokesperson continued. “Satisfying these obligations comes with enormous costs. Sustaining the costs of our global military presence is not a burden that should fall on the U.S. taxpayer alone, but is a responsibility that should be shared fairly with allies and partners who benefit from our presence.”The United States seeks a fair and equitable outcome to the SMA negotiations for both countries that will strengthen and sustain the resilient U.S.-ROK alliance,” the spokesperson added.Tied to the cost-sharing dispute was a concern about whether the U.S. would withdraw American troops from the Korean Peninsula if an agreement is not made.Secretary of Defense Mark Esper dispelled that concern in November, saying the U.S. has no plans to pull U.S. troops from South Korea.  The defense bill announced on Monday bars the U.S. from cutting the number of American troops in South Korea below 28,500 unless the secretary of defense certifies it is in the U.S. national security interest to do so.Ham Ji-ha contributed to this report.
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