In the name of being honest
USpol, but posting here because of the relevant motive: LA Times: Laguna Woods shooting was a hate crime targeting Taiwanese, sheriff alleges.
While investigators provided few details, they said their investigation suggests the deadly attack was a politically motivated hate incident.
“We believe, based on what we’ve discovered so far, that he specifically targeted the Taiwanese community, and this is one representation of that Taiwanese community,” said Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes, referring to the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church, which was the target of the attack.
The suspect in the shooting — which left one dead and five injured — has been identified as David Wenwei Chou, 68, of Las Vegas.
Among the evidence recovered, Barnes said, were notes written in Chinese that Chou left in his car showing he did not believe Taiwan should be an independent state from China. Law enforcement sources said investigators recovered a handwritten note in his car setting out his motivations and thinking for the attack.
Chou was born in mainland China and at some point relocated to Taiwan before moving to the United States, according to Barnes. The sheriff said it appears Chou had an issue with Taiwanese people because of the way he said he was treated while living there.
It is not clear how long Chou lived in Taiwan, but Barnes said he has been in the United States for years and is a U.S. citizen.
The FBI has opened a federal hate crime investigation into the shooting, according to Kristi Johnson, assistant director in charge of the bureau’s Los Angeles office. That would be in addition to any local charges filed in Orange County.
Chou was arrested Sunday and is being held in lieu of $1-million bail at the Orange County Intake Release Center, jail records show. He is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday.
Sheriff’s spokeswoman Carrie Braun said he was booked on one count of murder and five counts of attempted murder.
The shooting occurred Sunday at the Geneva Presbyterian Church. The congregants in attendance were members of the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church, which has been holding services at Geneva for years.
The man killed in the shooting was identified Monday as John Cheng, 52, of Laguna Niguel. He leaves behind a wife and two children.
Five others — four men ages 66, 92, 82 and 75, and an 86-year-old woman — were shot and wounded. As of Monday afternoon, two of those individuals were hospitalized in good condition, with two others in stable condition, according to the Orange County Fire Authority. The status of the fifth victim was not immediately available.
Officials praised Cheng as a hero, saying his selfless actions gave other congregants the opportunity to subdue the shooter.
Cheng charged the suspect and attempted to disarm him, “which allowed other parishioners to then intercede,” Barnes said.
“He sacrificed himself so that others could live,” Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said.
Officials alleged that the suspect secured church doors with chains and tried to disable locks with superglue. He also attempted to nail at least one door shut, Barnes said. Bags containing magazines of ammunition, as well as four Molotov-cocktail-like incendiary devices, were found at the scene.
Barnes praised the actions of parishioners, saying the shooting “could have been much, much worse.”
“The majority of the people in attendance were elderly, and they acted spontaneously, heroically. And if not for their quick action, the way that this individual set up that environment to kill many more people, there would have been many, many more lives lost if not for the concerted effort of the members of that church,” he said.
Louis M. Huang, director general at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles, said his office has reached out to family members of all victims.
Four of the five victims, including Cheng, held Taiwanese citizenship, Huang said. The remaining victim was born in the Philippines but spoke Taiwanese because of their heritage, Huang said.
Cheng came to the United States at a very early age. Other victims were senior citizens who mostly came to the U.S. to study three or four decades ago, Huang said.
Regarding the evidence recovered by law enforcement indicating the shooter was motivated by the political divide between China and Taiwan, Huang demurred, saying he was just hearing the information as well. But he strongly defended Taiwan as a free, democratic country.
“I want to call on anyone, anywhere ... any people in this country to respect the core values of freedom,” Huang said. “Freedom of speech is something that we have to respect, but we have to abide by the law.”
“Anyone sharing different views have to respect each other. Simply, that’s what democracy is all about,” he said. “People might hold different views ... but it doesn’t mean they have the right to attack anyone.”
The shooting occurred during a lunch in a hall after a worship service. The event was honoring Billy Chang, who had served as pastor for 21 years until leaving in 2020 to head a congregation in Taiwan.
The 100 or so members of Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church, most of whom are senior citizens, worship in their native language — not Mandarin but Taiwanese, a dialect that was once suppressed by the Kuomintang regime.
In an account relayed by his son, Stanley, Billy Chang said he “was confused at first. At first he thought it was a balloon popping or a joke, that it was just meant to scare people. But after seeing that everyone had crouched down, he knew something was wrong.”
“He thought, ‘I have to do something,’ so while the gunman was not looking, he sneaked on the side of the room, grabbed a chair and was able to hit the gunman while he was reloading,” Stanley Chang wrote in a text message. “He’s not sure if the gun fell out of the shooter’s hand at that point or after the gunman lost his balance after being hit. My dad pinned him on the floor before asking for help restraining his arms and legs from other members.”
The gunman “didn’t say anything before he started shooting during the luncheon,” Stanley Chang added, “so there was a lot of confusion.”
Authorities said other members of the congregation tackled the suspect and hogtied him with an extension cord, a move officials think likely saved many lives.
Officials recovered two firearms at the scene. According to an official with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, both were 9 mm semiautomatic pistols purchased lawfully in Las Vegas in 2015 and 2017.
Shortly after Sunday’s attack, authorities reached out to the Metropolitan Police Department and federal agents in Las Vegas to help with the investigation. Investigators were searching Chou’s Las Vegas home Monday, according to law enforcement sources.
At Gate 7 to Laguna Woods Village on Monday, a handful of locals gathered, cellphones poised to videotape any comings and goings across the street at the church. People at the retirement community and their friends were abuzz about the tragedy.
Hannah Young posted some video online, wanting to share with family members curious about the latest headlines emerging from “quiet” Orange County.
“When we get visitors, they think it’s a calm area, beautiful green area and we have plenty of water on tap and in the ocean. You don’t expect peace to be disturbed like this — and with death,” the retired nursing assistant said.
She spent several hours on the phone before heading out for her usual walk, updating her circle on the latest news and logging into Taiwanese sites to soak up chatter.
“This is global now,” she said. “We have people calling us from China trying to figure out what happened.”
Caretaker Samuel Nganga was cleaning a coffee thermos in the kitchen Sunday afternoon when he heard what he thought were two gunshots.
A co-worker burst through the doorway yelling, “Sam, there’s a shooting, shooting, shooting!” and asked him for the church address to give to a 911 operator.
Nganga, a 10-year employee and Geneva church member, said he crawled outside on his hands and knees to avoid being spotted.
“The trauma,” he reflected. “You know when the shooting is next to you — there’s trauma.”
Four church members weaved through the kitchen, set apart from Simpson Hall where shots were fired, to escape, and Nganga remembers law enforcement rushing to the site “so quick.”
Afterward, he attended to churchgoers by passing out water and helping them to their seats. He described Geneva as “a place where we all know one another” and said while being scared, he’s eager to resume working.
Beneath a church sign promoting Sunday worship, small blooms emerged — a token from grieving residents. Irvine homemaker Ilene Feng stopped by Monday afternoon to add a bouquet of sunflowers to the mix.
“I was shocked, torn apart that this would touch our community, the Taiwanese community,” she said. “We want the church members to know we’re mourning with them.”
Atop the stems, one of Feng’s three daughters had written the words: “To our Taiwanese family: We love you.”
Feng, who has been scrolling through TV and newspaper websites to absorb the twists and turns of the shooting, said she talked to her own family about its implications. “We’ve been trying to teach our children about their heritage and to be proud of it. This is a time for standing together.”
His head bowed and hands clasped, “Diamond” Mike Watson stood at the edge of the church parking lot reflecting on the “countless years” he, his wife and daughters were Geneva members and how worship leaders created a youth ministry that gathered members for a weekly dinner.
Watson, owner of a Santa Ana diamond gallery, used to wash pots and pans after eating.
“I found it so ironic how this event revolves around a meal — similar to the fellowship meal we all enjoyed so often,” he said. “This was a chance to get to know one another.”
He bowed again, adding: “I see slices of life as a learning experience. I’m still trying to understand what the lesson from tragedy is here.”
Before Sunday’s service, members greeted the suspect — whom they had never seen before — and welcomed him. He told them he had attended services several times, but the members were doubtful because no one recognized him, churchgoer Jerry Chen said.
Chen, who was inside the church at the time of the shooting, said the suspect spoke to parishioners in Taiwanese.
Peggy Huang, a Yorba Linda City Council member whose parents belong to the Taiwanese Presbyterian Church, said some members told her the man opened fire as churchgoers were taking photographs with the pastor.
She added that many church members had served in the Taiwanese military, which is required for young men.
The Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church started in 1994 in borrowed space in another church in its namesake city. It eventually moved to another borrowed space in a Tustin church before settling at Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods in 2012.
On Sundays, the Taiwanese group worships at 10 a.m.; the Geneva group gathers separately at 10:30.
In a statement posted online, the pastor of Geneva Presbyterian Church — the Rev. Steven M. Marsh — asked community members to “please keep the leadership and congregation of ITPC in your prayers as they care for those traumatized by this shooting.”
“The Geneva Church family will support the ITPC congregation through this traumatic experience. We will listen to this community and follow their lead,” he wrote.
Michael Downing, a former deputy chief of counterterrorism and top national security expert, said that “churches and places of worship are such an open system. They are particularly hard to protect.”
“We do really want to see magnetometers outside churches,” he said.
Downing said suspects like the one in Orange County often reveal their intent in unintended ways prior to carrying out their plans, and that, “The best thing you can do is train your security people to recognize behavior.”
Places of worship need to beware “if there is intelligence or chat around social media” of a potential threat, he said.
Cynthia Conners, a Geneva church member and mayor pro tem of Laguna Woods, said about 150 people usually attend the Taiwanese Sunday service, often gathering afterward for lunch.
“We considered it really lucky that they came to us,” Conners said. “We have tried to be inclusive and share many activities.”
A Self-inflicted Disaster
Organized Canine Bureau Special Agent
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220519/p2g/00m/0sc/067000c
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi went to the Fukushima Daiichi plant to inspect it over plans to finalize release of wastewater taken from it since 2011 to the ocean.
"Exit muna si Polgas. Ang kailangan dito ay si Dobermaxx!"
A Self-inflicted Disaster
Cross posted from the US politics thread:
Biden is scheduled to visit Seoul today and Tokyo on Sunday
Organized Canine Bureau Special Agent
Been an incident in Seoul where two Secret Service agents deployed in advance supposedly got into an incident where the two are trying to go back to the Grand Hyatt (which is a nice hotel BTW).
Word is that one of them got into a fistfight with a local cab driver. Police had to step in.
"Exit muna si Polgas. Ang kailangan dito ay si Dobermaxx!"
A Self-inflicted Disaster
It's all in the news. The two agents got sent back home.
Two presidents well-known for gaffes met. The results are predictable.
Biden visited the Samsung electronics semiconductor factory with Yoon, and accidentally thanked former president Moon, when he meant to say Yoon. He might have got the two mixed up, since he was scheduled to have a phone call with Moon.
Yoon mistook Ukraine for Russia. At the press conference, he said "I hope the tragedy caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine ends soon, so that the Russian people can return to their peaceful daily lives" but immediately corrected and said "so the Ukrainian people can return to their peaceful daily lives"
Edited by minseok42 on May 22nd 2022 at 12:06:17 AM
"Enshittification truly is how platforms die"-Cory Doctorow
Deranged X-Mas Figure
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
A Self-inflicted Disaster
Assuming that politicians in this country have the capacity, either intellectual or moral, to care about the world outside of East Asia and the US would be severely overestimating them.
On the subject of Korean politics, is there a big issue with local feminist movements having become infiltrated by TERF and other forms of radfem politics at the moment?
I've noticed that quite a lot of the Korean Twitter accounts I've been following for unrelated topics have suddenly gotten very aggressive in retweeting such things as trans activists violently assaulting radical feminists or about the Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard trials and posting claims that Amber is 100% innocent and any of the claims of her abusing Depp are lies spread by the patriarchy. A lot of them are getting their information from various English-speaking accounts that explicitly align themselves with radical feminism to boot.
Many of these accounts I started following for different reasons which suggests it to be an across-the-board issue.
I am aware that the Korean website Megalia which is a large source of Korean feminism has gotten into controversies which Western feminists have criticized as being the kinds of grotesque misandry that typically go hand-in-hand with TERF beliefs, though I can't tell how much of it is legitimate and how much of it is fabricated smears and misinformation from the right to demean more mainstream feminist movements in the country.
Edited by AlleyOop on May 21st 2022 at 4:37:00 AM
A Self-inflicted Disaster
Right now, the mainstream feminists are against Transphobia, and the mainstream feminist organizations stand in solidarity with transgender rights groups. Example
However, there are worrying trends. For one thing, there are indeed organizations that have been subverted by TER Fs. The Korea Women's Hotline, a feminist organization dedicated to helping victims of domestic violence, for example, kicked out its branch in the city of Incheon because it got taken over by TER Fs and did shit like inviting transphobic speakers to give talks. Also, when a trans female student was admitted to Sookmyung Women's University, she had to decline admission because she was bullied by transphobes.
The spread of TER Fs may probably be due to two larger trends in South Korean politics. The first is that as neoliberal economic policies were introduced, conservative politicians have smeared poor people and minorities as leeches and thus the younger generation, who have been fed this propaganda, started thinking it is unfair to address inequality. The other is the influence of conservative Christians in South Korean politics, so discrimination against queer people is much more severe in South Korea than in Japan or Taiwan.
With the introduction of neoliberalism at the start of this century, 'every person for themselves' has become the zeitgeist among young people in the last decade. A famous line from a popular TV show, 2 days & 1 night, sums this up: "I don't care as long as I don't get the short end of the stick." Thus, the ideals of solidarity and intersectionality have become weakened. For example, universities, which used to be the cradles of progressive politics, are seeing students care less about social issues and become openly hostile to the student council taking progressive positions. Another example would be the current (conservative) ruling party's leader, who went on a smear campaign against disability rights activists protesting inside subway stations, saying they are making people late on their commutes.
It is within this background that TER Fs started gaining traction within the younger generation. Since 'every person for themselves' became the zeitgeist, some feminists started going along with it, seeing the personal financial success of women as the goal, rather than the advancement of human rights across the board and forgoing solidarity with other minority groups. The biggest example of this would be the Women's Party and its leader Kim Jin-ah. This political party is filled with far-right TER Fs, who join the far-right boomers protesting against the impeachment of ex-president Park Geun-hye. Kim wrote a book titled I'm Here to Get My Slice of the Pie, not to Save the World, which makes it quite obvious what she stands for. They became a meme when they made an ad asking Lee Bu-jin, owner of the Shilla Hotel chain, and sister of Samsung VP Lee Jae-yong, to give them 100 million KRW (~USD 80,000) in campaign contributions so they can eat apple mango shaved ice at the Shilla Hotel.
Another factor that caused TER Fs to spread would be the political clout that conservative Christians have. South Korea has the largest Christian population in East Asia, and the preachers leading some megachurches are very conservative and thus queerphobic. So, there is a lot of discrimination against queer people, and politicians are too cowardly to stand up for LGBT rights. For example, former president Moon said "I am against homosexuality" on television during his election campaign. This is coming from the liberal side of the political spectrum, so it goes without saying how much worse the conservatives are. Because of the queerphobia in South Korea, there are indeed queerphobic feminists. And as the mainstream liberal party, the Democratic Party is too scared of the Christians to stand up for LGBT rights, some TER Fs have started to infiltrate the Democrats since the People's Power Party, the mainstream conservatives, are too misogynic.
So now, let's look at your other points.
For the reasons stated above, a lot of young people internalized conservative neoliberalism and fell down the TERF rabbit hole. This fits within the Twitter demographic. There are some TERF Twitter users with a lot of followers, who go around cyberbullying trans people and their allies. With the case of the Amber Heard trial, it's not only the radical feminists supporting her; some people are like 'she's a horrible person otherwise, but that doesn't mean she's not a victin this time'
Megalia has imploded in late 2015~early 2016 because of this issue. The members fought over whether TER Fs are welcome, and that resulted in the site disintegrating. The TER Fs splintered out and created a cesspool called WOMAD. Some of the 'controversies' are indeed blown out of proportion by the alt-right, and have entered the level of conspiracy theory bullshit, like when Lee Jun-seok, the leader of the ruling party, went on TV and claimed there is a Feminist conspiracy to put secret messages saying 'your penis is small' in advertisements.
Edited by minseok42 on May 21st 2022 at 11:47:40 PM
"Enshittification truly is how platforms die"-Cory Doctorow
Isn't South Korean Christianity largely American-style (and American-proselytized) Evangelicalism?
I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.
A procrastination in of itself
Yep, I think that’s also how parts of South America are shifting.
The US’s exporting of extremist Christianity is a slightly less violent version of what Saudi Arabia does with extremist Islam.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
A Self-inflicted Disaster
Yes, the majority of Protestant churches in South Korea can trace their roots to US Southern Evangelicals. Their beliefs are a mix of Evangelicalism and Korean traditional Shamanism. That is why some preachers act like they have a personal line to God that their followers don't have, and why they preach that God will give them material and worldly success (because that is what people pay shamans to pray for).
This also affects K-pop censorship; in the early 2010s, the government classified songs that mentioned alcohol in the lyrics as 'harmful to minors' because of pressure from Christian groups.
Edited by minseok42 on May 23rd 2022 at 12:01:10 AM
"Enshittification truly is how platforms die"-Cory Doctorow
And sadly the Buddhist progressives haven't been able to shift nearly as much weight, though Buddha knows they've been trying. (In part because plenty of Buddhist temples are as conservative as any of the evangelicals.)
Edited by Ramidel on May 22nd 2022 at 7:20:17 AM
I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.
Don't want to leave but cannot pretend
Buddhist progressives?
Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.
There's a significant number of Buddhist monks in South Korea who espouse left-leaning progressive causes, and support them as part of their Buddhist identity.
I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.
Don't want to leave but cannot pretend
I'm sorry but what do they say that "supports them as part of their Buddhist identity?" What parts of Buddhism do they refer to?
This is just something I've never heard of though I am aware of leftists connecting their religion to their left-leaning political beliefs like Islamic Socialism referring to the zakat and the early Medinan welfare state established by the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and Silasw being a good Christian and card-carrying member of the Labour Party.
Edited by fredhot16 on May 22nd 2022 at 8:28:12 AM
Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.
A Self-inflicted Disaster
The biggest Buddhist sect in South Korea officially participates in the Pride Parade in Seoul, and they say that Buddhist teachings do not discriminate on the basis of gender, including trans people. Also, Buddhist monks have a Thou Shall Not Kill attitude, and the vast majority of them are vegetarian, so some of them support animal rights and environmentalist causes
Oh, bother.
One of the key aspects of Buddhism is to accept impermanence and make the most of one's limited time.
Edited by M84 on May 22nd 2022 at 11:46:09 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised
In the name of being honest
Not sure how prominent they are in South Korea proper, but the Jungto Society is one particularly well-networked chapter of the altruism-centred Engaged Buddhism movement, with branches in many countries.
Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)
South Korea is their home base.
I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.
Don't want to leave but cannot pretend
What's the name of that sect?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jogye_Order
A Self-inflicted Disaster
More on Biden's trip to South Korea and Japan:
WP: S. Korean president appears uneasy when pressed on gender inequality
Yoon was asked during a news conference by a Washington Post reporter about what role he and his administration should play in helping the advancement of women and improving gender equality.
Yoon stood motionless for several moments, took off his earpiece through which he received translation, and seemed to struggle to answer. He then replied, as officially translated:
“If you look at the public official sector, especially the ministers in the cabinet, we really didn’t see a lot of women advancing to that position thus far. Probably in various regions, equal. Opportunities were not fully ensured for women, and we have actually a quite short history of ensuring that. So what we’re trying to do is to very actively ensure such opportunities for women.”
An interpreter then quickly announced that the news conference was over.
The exchange underscored the difficulty facing Yoon — and broad sectors of South Korean society — to make significant advances in gender equality. South Korea ranks among the lowest among developed countries regarding gender equality in pay, political advancement and economic participation.
During the campaign, Yoon had proposed eliminating the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. The comment was seen by some as courting young men, particularly those who are part of the “anti-feminists” movement who lashed out against movements for gender equality.
A majority of young women voted for the liberal candidate, who narrowly lost to the conservative Yoon. For now, Yoon has backed off the idea of eliminating the ministry but said he would reshape it with his own appointee.
When a Post reporter asked Yoon after his election victory in an April interview about promoting gender equality, he acknowledged that South Korea “had been rather slow in promoting equal opportunities for women,” and he said the Minister of Gender Equality had mishandled sexual harassment cases.
Yoon’s cabinet is overwhelmingly male, at both the minister and vice minister levels.
“I have a clear principle that we must conform to global standards for social and government activities, and gender issues, and guaranteeing women’s opportunities must also go in line with global standards,” Yoon said during the April interview. “Compared with the United States or European countries, South Korea has been rather slow in promoting equal opportunities for women, because of a lag in awareness, social movements and government actions."
When Yoon's office was later asked if this meant that Yoon admits there is structural sexism, the office backtracked. Also, Yoon's office said that the two countries originally asked reporters to only ask questions to their own president; i.e. US reporters were only supposed to ask questions to Biden, and Korean reporters were only supposed to ask questions to Yoon. The Korean journalists only asked questions to Yoon, but two US reporters asked questions to Yoon as well. When the above Washington Post journalist was about to ask that question to Yoon, Biden said "You only get one (question)." "I’m protecting him (Yoon). (Laughter.)"
At the banquet, Biden met with Park Ji-hyun, the interim leader of the Democratic Party of Korea and offered some words of encouragement
Biden asked Park how old she was, and when she said she was 26, a surprised Biden said he first became a senator at the age of 30 and it took a long time for him to become president. He also said that he hopes Park becomes a bigger figure in politics, as she is now the leader of the opposition party.
CBS:Biden says U.S. would intervene militarily if China invades Taiwan
President Joe Biden said Monday that the U.S. would intervene militarily if China were to invade Taiwan, in one of the most forceful and overt statements in support of Taiwan in decades.
Mr. Biden said the burden to protect the self-ruled island was "even stronger" after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Speaking at a joint news conference in Tokyo with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Mr. Biden said, "That's the commitment we made."
He said an effort by China to use force against Taiwan would "just not be appropriate," adding it would "dislocate the entire region and be another action similar to what happened in Ukraine."
Mr. Biden also said Beijing is "flirting with danger" with recent military flights close to Taiwan.
Under the "One China" policy, the U.S. recognizes Beijing as the government of China and doesn't have diplomatic relations with Taiwan. However, it maintains unofficial contacts with Taiwan, including a de facto embassy in Taipei, the capital. The U.S. also supplies military equipment for the island's defense.
Mr. Biden also said Russia "has to pay a long-term price" for its "barbarism in Ukraine" in the form of sanctions on Moscow from the U.S. and its allies.
He said Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to eliminate "the identity of Ukraine" since he "can't occupy it."
The president said if "the sanctions are not continued to be sustained in many ways, then what signal does that send to China about the cost of attempting to take Taiwan by force?"
When asked if a recession is inevitable in the U.S., Mr. Biden said simply, "No," despite record high inflation and supply shortages partly caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
He acknowledged that the American economy has "problems" but said it was better positioned than other countries.
"We have problems that the rest of the world has," Biden said, "but less consequential than the rest of the world has."
Mr. Biden acknowledged impact that severe supply shortages and high energy prices are having on U.S. families. He said his administration was working to ease the pain for U.S. consumers, but said immediate solutions were unlikely.
"This is going to be a haul," Biden said. "This is going to take some time."
On another matter, he sought to calm concerns about recent cases of monkeypox that have been identified in Europe and the United States, saying he didn't see the need to institute strict quarantine measures.
Speaking in Tokyo a day after he said the virus was something "to be concerned about," the president said, "I just don't think it rises to the level of the kind of concern that existed with COVID-19."
Monkeypox is rarely identified outside of Africa. But as of Friday, there were 80 confirmed cases worldwide, including at least two in the United States and another 50 suspected ones. On Sunday, one presumptive case of monkeypox was being investigated in Broward County in South Florida, which state health officials said appeared to be related to international travel.
Although the disease belongs to the same virus family as smallpox, its symptoms are milder. People usually recover within two to four weeks without needing to be hospitalized, but the disease occasionally is deadly.
Mr. Biden said the smallpox vaccine works for monkeypox. Asked whether the U.S. has enough stockpile of that vaccine to handle the monkeypox spread, he replied, "I think we do have enough to deal with the likelihood of a problem."
Japan's Kishida said Mr. Biden supports Japan becoming a permanent member of a "reformed" U.N. Security Council as calls grow for such reform.
If approved by the world body, Japan would join the U.S., Britain, China, France, Russia, and the U.S. as permanent members.
It does.
This has been going on for a while that even some countries are condemning Japan for allowing this to happen.
I know the PI involved in these cases though that he’s been featured in documentaries.
Latest case of this happening (in Japan) is a French expat named Vincent Fichout (hope I got his surname right) when his wife walked out of him with his kids. He’s on a hunger strike that some sympathetic Diet members visited him.
I’ll look for his YT channel. Don’t know what he’s doing though.
"Exit muna si Polgas. Ang kailangan dito ay si Dobermaxx!"