UNITED NATIONS – China and Russia are pushing the U.N. Security Council to ease sanctions on North Korea by reviving a 2019 attempt to remove a ban on Pyongyang’s exports of statues, seafood and textiles and expanding it to include lifting a refined petroleum imports cap.

In a reworked draft resolution, seen by Reuters on Monday, China and Russia want the 15-member council to remove those sanctions “with the intent of enhancing the livelihood of the civilian population” in the isolated Asian state.

North Korea has been subject to U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The draft resolution also includes other measures first proposed by Russia and China nearly two years ago, including lifting a ban on North Koreans working abroad and exempting inter-Korean rail and road cooperation projects from sanctions.

Several U.N. diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the refreshed draft resolution would find little support. In 2019 Russia and China held two informal rounds of talks on the draft resolution, but never formally tabled it for a vote.

Diplomats said on Monday that China and Russia have not yet scheduled any talks on their new draft resolution. A resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Britain, Russia or China to pass.

The U.N. missions of Russia and China did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new text, which diplomats said was circulated to council members on Friday.

“It has been always China‘s will that we should also address the humanitarian dimension caused by the sanctions imposed by the Security Council,” China‘s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun told reporters last month, adding again that the 2019 draft resolution “remains on the table.”

‘DIFFICULT SITUATION’

A spokesperson for the U.S. mission to the United Nations declined to comment on private council discussions, but added that all U.N. members should be focused on addressing those who are violating the sanctions already in place.

“The Security Council has repeatedly affirmed that it is prepared to modify, suspend, or lift the measures as may be needed in light of the DPRK’s compliance,” the spokesperson said. “Yet the DPRK has taken no steps to comply with the Security Council’s demands regarding its prohibited nuclear and ballistic missile programs.”

North Korea is formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The U.N. Security Council does already allow for humanitarian exemptions. A U.N. rights investigator last month called for sanctions to be eased as North Korea‘s most vulnerable risk starvation after it slipped deeper into isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The sanctions on industries that Russia and China have proposed lifting previously earned North Korea hundreds of millions of dollars. They were put in place in 2016 and 2017 to try to cut off funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.

North Korea continued developing its nuclear and ballistic missile programs during the first half of 2021 in violation of U.N. sanctions and despite the country’s worsening economic situation, U.N. sanctions monitors reported in August.

The country has long suffered from food insecurity, with observers saying that mismanagement of the economy is exacerbated by sanctions and now the COVID-19 pandemic, which prompted unprecedented border lockdowns there.

The new draft resolution would have the council acknowledge “the difficult situation of economy and livelihood of the DPRK in recent years, underscoring the necessity to respect the legitimate security concerns of the DPRK, and ensure the welfare, inherent dignity, and rights of people in the DPRK.” – Reuters

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Nov 1 (Reuters) – NASA announced on Monday a rare, health-related delay in its SpaceX rocket launch of four astronauts to the International Space Station, the second postponement of the mission in a week, citing an unspecified medical issue with one of the crew.

NASA said the issue was “not a medical emergency and not related to COVID-19,” but the space agency declined to elaborate on the nature of the problem or say which astronaut was involved.

The launch, originally set for Sunday but then postponed until this Wednesday because of unsuitable weather conditions, has now been rescheduled for Saturday night, NASA said.

The last time NASA delayed a scheduled launch over a medical issue involving the crew was for a Space Shuttle Atlantis flight in 1990, when mission commander John Creighton fell ill. The countdown was halted for three days until he was cleared to fly, according to NASA.

That delay was followed by two additional weather-related postponements.

The SpaceX-built vehicle set to fly this weekend, consisting of a Crew Dragon capsule perched atop a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, is now set for liftoff at 11:36 p.m. on Saturday (0336 GMT Sunday) from NASA‘s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

If all goes smoothly, the three U.S. astronauts and their European Space Agency (ESA) crewmate will arrive 22 hours later and dock with the space station 250 miles (400 km) above the Earth to begin a six-month science mission aboard the orbiting laboratory.

For the time being, the four crew members will remain under routine quarantine at the Cape as they continue launch preparations, NASA said.

Joining the mission‘s three NASA astronauts – flight commander Raja Chari, 44, mission pilot Tom Marshburn, 61, and mission specialist Kayla Barron, 34 – is German astronaut Matthias Maurer, 51, an ESA mission specialist.

Chari, a U.S. Air Force combat jet and test pilot, Barron, a U.S. Navy submarine officer and nuclear engineer, and Maurer, a materials science engineer, are all making their debut spaceflights aboard the Dragon vehicle, dubbed Endurance.

Marshburn, a physician and former NASA flight surgeon, is the most experienced astronaut of the crew, having logged two previous spaceflights and four spacewalks.

Saturday’s liftoff, if successful, would count as the fifth human spaceflight SpaceX has achieved to date, following its inaugural launch in September of a space tourism service that sent the first ever all-civilian crew into orbit.

The latest mission would mark the fourth crew NASA has flown to the space station with SpaceX in 17 months, building on a public-private partnership with the rocket company formed in 2002 by Musk, founder of electric maker Tesla Inc. – Reuters

GLASGOW – More than 100 global leaders late on Monday pledged to halt and reverse deforestation and land degradation by the end of the decade, underpinned by $19 billion in public and private funds to invest in protecting and restoring forests.

The joint statement at the COP26 climate talks https://www.reuters.com/business/cop in Glasgow was backed by the leaders of countries including Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which collectively account for 85% of the world’s forests.

The Glasgow Leaders‘ Declaration on Forest and Land Use will cover forests totaling more than 13 million square miles, according to a statement from the UK prime minister’s office on behalf of the leaders.

“We will have a chance to end humanity’s long history as nature’s conqueror, and instead become its custodian,” said British leader Boris Johnson, calling it an unprecedented agreement.

A slew of additional government and private initiatives were launched on Tuesday to help reach that goal, including billions in pledges for indigenous guardians of the forest and sustainable agriculture.

Forests absorb roughly 30% of carbon dioxide emissions, according to the nonprofit World Resources Institute. The forests take the emissions out of the atmosphere and prevent them from warming the climate.

Yet this natural climate buffer is rapidly disappearing. The world lost 258,000 square kilometers of forest in 2020, according to WRI’s deforestation tracking initiative Global Forest Watch. That is an area larger than the United Kingdom.

Monday’s agreement vastly expands a similar commitment made by 40 countries as part of the 2014 New York Declaration of Forests and goes further than ever before in laying out the resources to reach that goal.

Under the agreement, 12 countries including Britain have pledged to provide 8.75 billion pounds ($12 billion) of public funding between 2021 and 2025 to help developing countries, including in efforts to restore degraded land and tackle wildfires.

At least a further 5.3 billion pounds would be provided by more than 30 private sector investors including Aviva, Schroders and AXA.

The investors, representing $8.7 trillion in assets under management, also pledged to stop investing in activities linked to deforestation by 2025.

Five countries, including the Britain and United States, and a group of global charities on Tuesday also pledged to provide $1.7 billion in financing to support indigenous people’s conservation of forests and to strengthen their land rights.

Environmentalists say that indigenous communities are the best protectors of the forest, often against violent encroachment of loggers and land grabbers.

More than 30 financial institutions with more than $8.7 trillion in assets under management also said they would make “best efforts” to eliminate deforestation related to cattle, palm oil, soy and pulp production by 2025.

COP26 aims to keep alive a target of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Scientists say forests and so-called nature-based solutions will be vital to reaching that goal.

Woodlands have removed about 760 million tonnes of carbon every year since 2011, offsetting about 8% of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and cement, according to the Biomass Carbon Monitor project backed by data analytics firm Kayrros and French research institutions.

“Our biosphere is really helping bail us out for the time being, but there is no guarantee those processes will continue,” said Oliver Phillips, an ecologist at the United Kingdom’s University of Leeds. – Reuters