SEOUL: US President Donald Trump has requested novel coronavirus test kits from South Korea, his counterpart Moon Jae-in said Wednesday, as Washington pushes for a quick reopening of the world’s biggest economy.
The South was once the hardest-hit country outside China, where the virus first emerged, but appears to have brought its outbreak under control thanks to a huge testing and contact-tracing effort.
By midnight on Tuesday more than 367,000 people in the South had been tested — processes that are free to anyone referred by doctors, those who have links to a confirmed case, and individuals who test positive.
The US has the third-highest number of confirmed cases globally with 55,000, behind China and Italy, and did little testing initially.
Trump’s request for test kits came as he called for a quick end to social distancing and declared the beginning of the end of the health crisis in the US.
“President Trump of the United States... made a request to us for the urgent provision of quarantine items such as diagnostic kits,” Moon said while visiting a test developer in Seoul.
During their phone call Moon told Trump the equipment could require US FDA approval, which Trump said he would seek “within the day,” the South’s presidential Blue House said earlier in a separate statement.
“If there is a domestic surplus, I will support as much as possible,” Moon told Trump.
No indication was given on quantities, or whether the supplies would be donated or provided on a commercial basis.
The White House confirmed that the two leaders spoke on Tuesday, but did not say whether Trump made any such request.
Trump, who is keen to get his reelection campaign back on track, on Tuesday said social distancing has caused too much pain to the US economy, adding “we lose thousands and thousands of people a year to the flu. We don’t turn the country off.”
Seoul and Washington are in a security alliance but their relations have recently been strained by the Trump administration’s demands the South pay billions of dollars more toward the costs of 28,500 US troops stationed in the country to protect it from the nuclear-armed North.
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US President Trump requests coronavirus test kits from South Korea: Seoul
US President Trump requests coronavirus test kits from South Korea: Seoul
- South Korea was once the hardest-hit country outside China but appears to have brought its outbreak under control
- By midnight on Tuesday more than 367,000 people in South Korea had been tested
North Korea’s Kim sacks vice premier, rails against ‘incompetence’
SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media said Tuesday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory.
Vice Premier Yang Sung Ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.”
“Please, Comrade Vice Premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said.
“He is ineligible for an important duty,” he added.
“Put simply, it was like hitching a cart to a goat — an accidental mistake in our cadre appointment process,” the North Korean leader explained.
“After all, it is an ox that pulls a cart, not a goat.”
Nuclear-armed North Korea, which is under multiple sets of sanctions over its weapons programs, has long struggled with its moribund state-managed economy and chronic food shortages.
Kim has been quick to scold lazy officials for alleged mismanagement of economic policy but such a public dismissal is very rare.
Touring the opening of an industrial machinery complex on Monday, Kim blasted cadres who for “too long been accustomed to defeatism, irresponsibility and passiveness.”
Yang was “unfit to be entrusted with heavy duties,” Kim said, according to KCNA.
And he urged a quick turnaround in the “centuries-old backwardness of the economy and build a modernized and advanced one capable of firmly guaranteeing the future of our state.”
Images released by Pyongyang showed a stern-looking Kim delivering a speech at the venue in South Hamgyong Province in the country’s frigid northeast, with workers in attendance wearing green uniforms and matching grey hats.
- Lazy officials -
The impoverished North has long prioritized its military and banned nuclear weapons programs over providing for its people.
It is highly vulnerable to natural disasters including flood and drought due to a chronic lack of infrastructure, deforestation and decades of state mismanagement.
The new machine complex makes up part of a large machinery-manufacturing belt linking the northeast to Wonsan further south, “accounting for about 16 percent of North Korea’s total machinery output,” according to Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies.
Kim’s public dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song Thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed in 2013 after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew, Yang said.
The North Korean leader is “using public accountability as a shock tactic to warn party officials,” he told AFP.
Pyongyang is gearing up for its first congress of its ruling party in five years, with analysts expecting it in the coming weeks.
Economic policy, as well as defense and military planning, are likely to be high on the agenda.
Last month, Kim vowed to root out “evil” at a major meeting of Pyongyang’s top brass.
State media did not offer specifics, though it did say the ruling party had revealed numerous recent “deviations” in discipline — a euphemism for corruption.
Vice Premier Yang Sung Ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.”
“Please, Comrade Vice Premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said.
“He is ineligible for an important duty,” he added.
“Put simply, it was like hitching a cart to a goat — an accidental mistake in our cadre appointment process,” the North Korean leader explained.
“After all, it is an ox that pulls a cart, not a goat.”
Nuclear-armed North Korea, which is under multiple sets of sanctions over its weapons programs, has long struggled with its moribund state-managed economy and chronic food shortages.
Kim has been quick to scold lazy officials for alleged mismanagement of economic policy but such a public dismissal is very rare.
Touring the opening of an industrial machinery complex on Monday, Kim blasted cadres who for “too long been accustomed to defeatism, irresponsibility and passiveness.”
Yang was “unfit to be entrusted with heavy duties,” Kim said, according to KCNA.
And he urged a quick turnaround in the “centuries-old backwardness of the economy and build a modernized and advanced one capable of firmly guaranteeing the future of our state.”
Images released by Pyongyang showed a stern-looking Kim delivering a speech at the venue in South Hamgyong Province in the country’s frigid northeast, with workers in attendance wearing green uniforms and matching grey hats.
- Lazy officials -
The impoverished North has long prioritized its military and banned nuclear weapons programs over providing for its people.
It is highly vulnerable to natural disasters including flood and drought due to a chronic lack of infrastructure, deforestation and decades of state mismanagement.
The new machine complex makes up part of a large machinery-manufacturing belt linking the northeast to Wonsan further south, “accounting for about 16 percent of North Korea’s total machinery output,” according to Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies.
Kim’s public dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song Thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed in 2013 after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew, Yang said.
The North Korean leader is “using public accountability as a shock tactic to warn party officials,” he told AFP.
Pyongyang is gearing up for its first congress of its ruling party in five years, with analysts expecting it in the coming weeks.
Economic policy, as well as defense and military planning, are likely to be high on the agenda.
Last month, Kim vowed to root out “evil” at a major meeting of Pyongyang’s top brass.
State media did not offer specifics, though it did say the ruling party had revealed numerous recent “deviations” in discipline — a euphemism for corruption.
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