The United States on Thursday announced new sanctions against Myanmar, also known as Burma, more than a week after the country’s military overthrew the democratically elected government.The U.S. Treasury said it had sanctioned 10 individuals and three organizations “who played a leading role in the overthrow of Burma’s democratically elected government.”“The sanctions are not directed at the people of Burma,” the Treasury statement said.The sanctions were pursuant to an executive order President Joe Biden signed earlier in the day.The Myanmar military’s overthrow of the government has led to five days of widespread street protests.“As protests grow, violence against those asserting their democratic rights is unacceptable, and we’re going to keep calling it out,” Biden said Wednesday. “The people of Burma are making their voices heard.”FILE – A police officer holds a weapon during clashes with protesters rallying against the military coup and demanding the release of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Feb. 9, 2021.The United Nations and other organizations have expressed concern about the use of force against protesters. Major rights groups have renewed calls for international corporations to break ties with military-linked enterprises and have urged governments to impose targeted sanctions on the generals and their business interests.Military leaders have placed democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi, other officials of the civilian government and the National League for Democracy party (NLD), and activists under arrest. Curfews have been enforced and gatherings restricted.The coup reversed a nearly decadelong move toward democracy after five decades of military rule. The military claims the November election won by Suu Kyi’s NLD was fraudulent.  
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Censorship, threats and internet blocks have created a climate of uncertainty in Myanmar since the military coup and could set press freedom back 10 years, media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said.   When the military took power on February 1, it imposed a yearlong state of emergency, detained key opposition figures and activists, imposed an internet shutdown and FILE – Protesters run after police fire warning shots and use water cannons to disperse them during a protest in Mandalay, Myanmar, Feb. 9, 2021.Reporters in Myanmar told VOA it was too risky to speak with foreign media or rights groups, and a few described receiving telephone calls from officials asking questions about whom they worked for. Some reporters said they were advised to be careful handling sensitive data when reporting on the coup and protests in case their notes and devices were used as evidence against them.      “What with censorship, threats and intimidation, press freedom has suddenly been set back 10 years in 10 days,” Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk, said in a statement. “The military need to understand that the people of Myanmar are now used to a free press. A sudden return to the past is out of the question.” Myanmar had made gains in media freedom in the past decade, after the end of military rule in February 2011. The country ranks 139 out of 180 countries, where 1 is the most free, according to FILE – A newspaper seller points at a front page of a newspaper in Yangon, Myanmar, Feb. 2, 2021.The military needs to respect press freedom and allow journalists to work freely, the International Federation of Journalists said in a statement. “The best interests of the people of Myanmar are best served by the truth, not its suppression.”   The digital rights group Access Now described the internet blackout as “incredibly troubling.””There is chaos and confusion, and the people of Myanmar — and the world — have a right to document events, access information and communicate with each other,” Felicia Anthonio, who is part of the group’s Keep It On campaign, which tracks shutdowns, said in a statement. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists also condemned moves by the military to disrupt access to information, calling the block on Facebook a “crude attempt at censoring news.”  “Social media and communication platforms are crucial for journalists to report the news as democracy is upended,” CPJ’s Southeast Asia representative Shawn Crispin said. In a briefing with the Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI), Myanmar journalist Soe Myint said reporters were taking precautions to avoid drawing attention to themselves, including using cellphones instead of professional cameras while reporting, and changing locations frequently.  Soe Myint, who works for the news outlet Mizzima, told IPI that a more internet-savvy generation would make it harder for the military to cut off access to information. 
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The president of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics organizing committee reportedly will resign after making sexist remarks about women that were disclosed to media.
 
Japan’s Kyodo news agency and other news outlets, citing unnamed sources, reported Thursday that Yoshiro Mori would step down on Friday after concluding he could not let the ensuing controversy continue.
 
A committee spokesman declined to comment on the reports.
 
The former prime minister reportedly said at an Olympics board of trustees meeting on Feb. 3 that “board meetings with lots of women take longer” because “if one member raises her hand to speak, others might think they need to talk, too.”
 
Mori retracted his comments and apologized the next day, saying he would not resign.
 
His remarks, which were leaked to a Japanese newspaper, sparked public debate in the country about gender equality.
 
The 83-year-old’s reported pending resignation has fueled concerns over the feasibility of holding the games later this year.  
 
More than 80% of the Japanese public believe the games should be canceled or postponed, according to recent polls.
 
A meeting of the organizing committee executive board is planned for Friday.  
 
In an interview with Nippon TV, Mori did not confirm reports he was stepping down, but said he would “explain his thoughts” at the meeting.
 
The Japanese news outlet TBS News reported that Saburo Kawabuchi, the former mayor of the Olympic village and president of the Japan Football Association, would replace Mori.
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India and China are pulling back troops from a disputed border in the Himalayas marking a key breakthrough in easing their worst military standoff in decades.     Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh told parliament Thursday that troops would begin disengaging from the strategic Pangong Tso lake in Ladakh that became a flashpoint between the Asian giants.    “Our sustained talks with China have led to agreement on disengagement on the north and south banks of the Pangong lake,” Singh said. He said the pact “envisages that both sides will cease their forward deployments in a phased, coordinated and verified manner.”    A screenshot from a video shows the disengagement process between Indian Army and China’s People’s Liberation Army from a contested lake area in the western Himalayas, in Ladakh region, India, Feb. 11, 2021. (Indian Army/Reuters TV/via Reuters)The Indian statement follows an announcement by the Chinese Defense Ministry that both armies had begun “synchronized and organized disengagement” on the southern and northern shores of the lake.     The accord was reached after multiple rounds of military and diplomatic negotiations. The pullback from Pangong Tso Lake will be followed by disengagement from other areas, Singh said.     The standoff was sparked last May when India accused Chinese troops of coming deep into territory patrolled by Indian soldiers in the Pangong Tso lake area and erecting tents and guard posts. China said its troops were operating in its own area and accused Indian border guards of provocative actions.    The standoff intensified after 20 Indian soldiers were killed and several others were wounded in a brutal hand-to-hand combat when troops from both sides fought with crude weapons such as stones and clubs last June.   In the following months, both countries deployed tens of thousands of soldiers, fighter aircraft and heavy artillery along icy Himalayan slopes.     “Our aim is to maintain peace and tranquility at LAC [line of actual control]. Last year, what China did, impacted peace at the border,” Defense Minister Singh told parliament.     Large stretches of the roughly 3,800 kilometer-long India-China border in the Himalayas are disputed, with both sides claiming large swathes of each other’s territory. The boundary dispute has simmered since they fought a war in 1962 and negotiations have failed to resolve the issue. Following the tense standoff, both sides had bolstered forces all along the border.     Analysts in New Delhi have welcomed the disengagement but warn that the deep strain in ties caused by the months-long standoff is likely to persist.“It was an important step and will hopefully build confidence,” says Harsh Pant director of studies at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. “But we will continue to see greater volatility along the disputed border. The biggest challenge is that there is no trust now and that trust deficit will define future engagement.”     FILE – Indian soldiers walk at the foothills of a mountain range near Leh, the joint capital of the union territory of Ladakh, June 25, 2020.India, analysts say, will continue to build deeper ties with countries like the United States as it seeks to counter what it sees as a more aggressive China.     “If anything, this crisis with China has reinforced that India needs to leverage its partnership with like-minded countries like the U.S. much more robustly,” says Pant.     Earlier this week, in a telephone conversation, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden agreed to strengthen Indo-Pacific security through the Quad grouping that is seen as a way to push back against China’s growing assertiveness in the region. The Quad consists of India, United States, Japan and Australia.             
 
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Members of Myanmar’s often persecuted ethnic minorities Thursday joined a sixth day of growing nationwide protests against the military’s overthrow of the civilian government.  Members of the ethnic Karen, Rakhine and Kachin minority groups participated in a mass march through the streets of Yangon dressed in the colorful outfits of their regions. Myanmar’s military has targeted the country’s ethnic groups for decades in an effort to crush their demands for greater autonomy.   The protests come as the military junta continues to tighten its grip on power more than a week after ousting de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi. One of her closest aides, Kyaw Tint Swe, was among a handful of members of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party who were taken from their homes by security forces overnight and detained. The leadership of Myanmar’s electoral commission has also reportedly been detained. The commission rejected the military’s claims of widespread fraud in November’s elections, which the NLD won in a landslide.   The latest detentions took place a day after the military raided the NLD’s national headquarters in Yangon.   The military has used the claims of election fraud as justification for the February 1 coup and subsequent detention of Suu Kyi and senior members of the civilian government. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who led the coup, promised Monday in a nationally televised speech that new elections would be held to bring a “true and disciplined democracy,” but did not specify when they would take place.The military has declared a one-year state of emergency. Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest at her official residence in the capital, Naypyitaw, is facing charges of illegally importing and using six unregistered walkie-talkie radios found during a search of her home.Tens of thousands of demonstrators have filled the streets of Myanmar’s biggest cities in defiance of a strict curfew and a ban on gatherings of more than four people, holding signs filed with pro-democracy slogans, many of them with pictures of Suu Kyi. The crowds have included civil servants, medical personnel, railway employees, teachers and workers from other sectors who have walked off their jobs.Protesters also raised a three-finger salute as they marched, a sign of resistance against tyranny in the popular Hunger Games movies.Security forces have grown increasingly aggressive against the protesters, firing warning shots, rubber bullets and water cannons in an effort to disperse them. At least two people were hit with live ammunition earlier this week in Naypyitaw, one of them a young woman who was shot in the head and later slipped into a coma. Amnesty International said Thursday video footage from the protest shows 19-year-old Mya Thwe Thwe Khaing was shot by a policeman carrying a submachine gun.Tom Andrews, a United Nations expert on human rights in Myanmar, called on security forces to “stand down” Wednesday after becoming “alarmed at the increasing levels of force against peaceful protesters.”U.S. President Joe Biden Wednesday signed an executive order blocking Myanmar’s generals from access to $1 billion in assets currently held in the United States. Biden and other world leaders have demanded the junta military to restore the elected government to power.
“The military must relinquish power it seized,” Biden said.New Zealand said Tuesday it is suspending all high-level military and political contacts with Myanmar and is imposing a travel ban on its leaders.The United Nations Human Rights Council will hold a special session Friday to discuss the crisis.Myanmar, also known as Burma, has long struggled between civilian and military rule, but until last week had been in a hopeful transition to democracy.A British colony until 1948, the country was ruled by military-backed dictators from 1962 until 2011.An uprising in 1988 led to an election in 1990, which the NLD won in a landslide. But the elected members of Parliament were imprisoned, and the dictatorship continued.Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar’s assassinated independence hero, Gen. Aung San, emerged as a leader in the pro-democracy rallies and in the NLD. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 while under house arrest.In 2010, Senior General Than Shwe announced the country would be handed over to civilian leaders, who included retired generals. They freed political prisoners, including the lawmakers from the NLD, and Suu Kyi, who was elected in a 2012 by-election and later became the state counselor of Myanmar.While popular among Myanmar’s Buddhist majority, the 75-year-old Suu Kyi has seen her international reputation tarnished over her government’s treatment of the country’s mostly Muslim Rohingya minority.In 2017, an army crackdown against the Rohingya, sparked by deadly attacks on police stations in Rakhine state, led hundreds of thousands of them to flee to neighboring Bangladesh, where they remain.The International Criminal Court is investigating Myanmar for crimes against humanity.
 
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China’s new law allowing its coast guard to “open fire” on foreign vessels is causing serious anxiety in the Philippines, Vietnam and Japan. The move may help China to create a quasi-military presence even in sea areas where its navy is absent, analysts say.The Philippines, one of several countries with competing claims to portions of the South China Sea, has lodged a formal protest describing the law as “a verbal threat of war.” Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi has said that Japan holds “major doubts” about the law and regards it as “absolutely unacceptable.”The law gives China’s coast guard, technically meant for policing the seas, authority to board and inspect foreign vessels in waters claimed by China and to demolish any structures built on Chinese-claimed reefs.The coast guard has also been authorized to create temporary exclusion zones “as needed” to stop foreign vessels and personnel from entering Chinese-claimed waters.Implications for othersThe move has implications for Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, all of which have long-standing claims to portions of the South China Sea. China claims jurisdiction over almost all of the resource-rich and strategically important body of water.“It is not only about Taiwan and the South China Sea, but also about the territorial claim it holds against Japan over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands in the East China Sea,” Yoichiro Sato, professor at the Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Japan, told VOA.Collin Koh Swee Lean, research fellow at the Institute of Defense Studies in Singapore, said the new law gives Beijing a certain legal cover for its actions in the South China Sea. It also feeds into Beijing’s portrayal of China as a party which tries to promote maritime stability by relying on its coast guard instead of using its navy.Given the timing of the law, there is also a debate on whether Beijing is trying to test the resolve of the new U.S. administration of President Joe Biden to stand up for countries in and around the South China Sea and the East China Sea.“Seeking to drive a wedge between Washington and its regional allies, Beijing has thrown a gauntlet to the new Biden administration,” said Mohan Malik, visiting fellow at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies of the U.S. Department of Defense.“Beijing’s deployment of bigger and more powerful ‘coast guard’ ships in the South China Sea for ramming purposes indicate a serious escalation in the maritime disputes,” he said. “It also shows Beijing’s growing confidence in escalation control as China ups the ante against its smaller and weaker neighbors.”Zhiqun Zhu, chair of the Department of International Relations at Bucknell University, does not think enactment of the new law was related to the change of government in Washington.“I think the timing of the passage of this new law is unfortunate, but I don’t think it was designed to test the Joe Biden administration,” he said. “The new law is meant to follow international conventions, not aimed at a particular country or to provoke the Biden administration. China needs to allay external concerns about the new law by clearly explaining its intentions.”Sato of Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University added, “It probably was already on a long-term trajectory of China’s list of ‘things-to-do’ to upgrade its lawfare (war through legal means).”China’s second navyDubbed as China’s second navy, the coast guard has a fleet of 130 large patrol ships more than 1,000 tons in size and is the biggest coast guard in the world, according to a 2020 report by the U.S. Department of Defense. The overall capacity has more than doubled from 60 ships in 2010.Most of the new ships are equipped with not only helicopter facilities and water cannon but also 30 mm and 76 mm guns. The Chinese coast guard can also call on 70 ships of more than 500 tons for more limited offshore operations.One of the issues being debated is how the United States, which has a strong naval presence in the area, would react if the Chinese coast guard opened fire on a foreign vessel in the South China Sea.One day after Manila filed the protest against the new Chinese law, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged support to the Philippines in the event of armed attacks in the South China Sea.“It seems the U.S. is encouraging the Philippines to clash with China,” said the Beijing-controlled Global Times newspaper. “But will the U.S. really come to the Philippines’ rescue when there is an armed conflict? Manila should be wise enough to see through the U.S. tricks, not playing as cannon folder of the U.S.’s South China Sea policy.”It’s the Philippines that will bear the bitter consequences when there is an armed clash with China,” the newspaper added.Collin Koh said the Chinese move may prompt countries in the South China Sea region to revisit their own legislation as a countermeasure.“Regional countries will seek to engage each other and with external parties in an attempt to foster peace and stability in the SCS,” he said.
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Thai pro-democracy protesters returned to Bangkok’s streets Wednesday for a thunderous “pots and pans” rally against the arrest of their leaders and as an act of solidarity with mass protests against a military coup in Myanmar.Protests in Myanmar after the February 1 military coup began with acts of civil disobedience, including the beating of pots and pans, to drive away “evil” — a custom now enacted nightly targeting the army that toppled the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.Wednesday evening, thousands of Thai protesters fighting their own pro-democracy battle used the same method of dissent against a government stacked with generals that is struggling to find answers to the economic damage caused by COVID-19.“The pots-and-pans theme is inspired by Myanmar,” said protester Napasin Treelayapewat, 16. “But it’s also a symbolic gesture from the Thai people to show that they’re starving, because pots and pans to some are tools to earn a living. And now, they have nothing left.”Myanmar nationals living in Thailand display pictures of detained Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a protest against the military coup in Bangkok, Thailand, Feb. 10, 2021.Thailand and Myanmar share a long, porous frontier. Hundreds of thousands of Myanmar migrants send remittances home from jobs in the Thai kingdom, which has Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy.Thailand’s second wave of COVID-19 was blamed on Myanmar migrants, who illegally crossed the border for work.Political bondsBut to the defiant, Generation Z protesters in both countries, there are tight, political bonds — forged over the internet — and a shared enmity toward armies that refuse to let democracy take root.Thailand’s pro-democracy protests began last year, calling for the resignation of the government of ex-army chief Prayuth Chan-Ocha, the drafting of a new constitution and reform of the once-untouchable monarchy.Thailand’s military has carried out 13 coups since the kingdom became a constitutional monarchy in 1932, and only one elected civilian government has been allowed to serve its full term in the last 30 years. Prayuth carried out a coup in 2014.Several key leaders were detained this week for defaming the army-backed monarchy — a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison.Protesters in downtown Bangkok carried placards reading “No 112” in reference to the criminal code provision on royal defamation.’What about us?’As night fell, scuffles broke out with authorities at a police station where the leaders were being held.“The Myanmar protests have showed us how politically conscious they are,” Thai protest leader Attapon Buapat told the crowd outside the police station. “What about us? Can Thai people be as conscious as this?”The Thai government has not condemned the coup on its borders by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.Instead, Prayuth on Wednesday told reporters that “Thailand supports the democratic process. The rest is up to him [Min Aung Hlaing] to see how to proceed.”Police hold shields in formation as pro-democracy protesters demanding the release of pro-democracy activists march in Bangkok, Thailand, Feb. 10, 2021.In the gap between military-led governments, the neighboring protest movements have struck up an online conversation, borrowing symbols and sharing tips and support over social media.“We were inspired to use the three-fingers salute by the Thai protests,” May, 25, a protester in Yangon, told VOA by telephone Wednesday, referring to the “Hunger Games” salute popular with Thailand’s pro-democracy movement.Their protest reflexes — from the virtual world of memes to the use of hard hats and umbrellas against water cannons on the streets — were also honed through a hashtag (#MilkTeaAlliance) that binds Asia’s young pro-democracy movements from Hong Kong and Taiwan to Thailand and now Myanmar.Information sharing”We retweet each other … and Hong Kong people share useful information:  how to trend massively; how to protest and get media attention; how to use apps to avoid police tracing our conversations,” May said, giving a nickname only for security reasons.Myanmar’s street movement flared shortly after the coup by the Tatmadaw — as Myanmar’s military is known — which swept away the landslide election victory of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party (NLD).But an unintended consequence of Myanmar’s movement is the reinvigoration of Thailand’s anti-authoritarian protesters, who are formally banned from gathering under security laws during the pandemic, and had broadly been dormant until the Myanmar coup.”Stories, photos and footage of people standing up for their rights in Myanmar have emboldened Thailand’s pro-democracy movement,” said Thai political commentator Voranai Vanijaka. “It says we are not alone in this fight.”   
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