U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are heading to South Korea Wednesday after warning China the Biden Administration will respond to Beijing’s use of coercion and aggression in the region. Blinken and Austin left Tokyo earlier in the day after holding joint “two-plus-two” talks with Japanese counterparts Toshimitsu Motegi and Nobuo Kishi aimed at reaffirming the trans-Pacific partnerships in the face of an increasingly assertive China and hostile North Korea. In a joint statement after the meeting, Blinken pledged that the Biden administration will “push back, if necessary, when China uses coercion and aggression to get its way.” In remarks before a separate meeting between he and Motegi, Blinken said that Washington and Tokyo believe in “democracy, human rights and the rule of law,” but said those values are “under threat” in the region,” whether it’s in Burma or China,” using Myanmar’s alternative name in referring to the coup in that country.US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, left, elbow bumps with Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, center, and Japan’s Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, front, after a joint news conference, March 16, 2021.Motegi said later that he and his American counterpart are both opposed to China’s attempt to change the status quo in the East and South China Seas, where it has aggressively expanded its military presence and claimed territorial rights to much of the region. In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters that U.S.-Japan ties should not “target or harm the interest of third parties,” urging the two sides to “contribute to solidarity and cooperation, as well as peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.” Relations between the world’s two largest economies are at a low point thanks in part to a trade war that former President Donald Trump initiated as well as rising military tensions in areas that China regards as its sphere of influence. Less than two months into his presidency, Joe Biden has signaled he is in no hurry to relieve some of the pressure that his predecessor placed on Beijing. His administration has maintained import tariffs, voiced support for Taiwan’s democratic government and condemned President Xi Jinping’s alleged human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. China’s Xinjiang region has been the center of allegations of forced labor and other human rights violations.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken boards a helicopter after arrived at the Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, March 17, 2021.President Biden has yet to announce his strategy toward North Korea, but a policy review is underway. Since February, the Biden administration has attempted to contact Pyongyang through several diplomatic channels but has not received any response, according to an unnamed U.S. official who spoke with the Reuters News Agency. The silence was broken Tuesday when Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, issued a statement ahead of Blinken and Austin’s talks in Tokyo accusing the Biden administration of being eager “to spread the smell of gunpowder on our land from across the ocean.” Kim Yo Jong also warned the new administration to “refrain from causing a stink” if it didn’t want to “lose sleep” over the next four years.
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Month: March 2021
First ‘Virtual Meeting’ Between Biden, China’s Xi Could Be April’s Climate Summit
The first virtual meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping could happen as early as April 22, as Biden hosts the “Global Leaders Climate Summit” in Washington on Earth Day. The event is aimed at gathering world leaders to discuss climate change, which Biden has described as “an essential element of U.S. foreign policy and national security.” On Tuesday, a senior U.S. administration official described the approach as “we’re going to cooperate with China, where we have an interest in doing so.” U.S. officials have said China, the largest emitter of carbon in the world, must raise its ambitions on carbon neutrality. China contributes 30% of the world’s emissions and has announced its goal to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. The United States is second in the world, contributing about 15% of the world’s emissions and has announced a goal of reaching net-zero emissions no later than 2050.US: China Must Raise Its Ambitions on Carbon NeutralitySignificant action from China needed to stem climate change, US saysThe first high-level in-person meeting between top U.S. and Chinese officials is expected on Thursday in Anchorage, Alaska, where U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan are meeting with Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, and chief diplomat Yang Jiechi.Having the top U.S. diplomat and the national security advisor together in talks with their Chinese counterparts sends a clear message that “this administration is unified and coordinated when it comes to China policy,” said that senior administration official during a call briefing, adding the United States has “seen a track record from China in the past of attempting to try to play favorites within an administration.” The Alaska meeting is a “one off meeting” and not the resumption of a particular dialogue mechanism, neither will there be a joint statement, the official added. Tensions between the United States and China are at their worst in decades due to clashes over trade policy, 5G technology, human rights and regional security. U.S. officials have said Washington will raise issues with China including “Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Chinese economic coercion of our allies and partners, and China’s increasingly aggressive activities across the Taiwan Strait.” Concerns over North Korea’s continuing nuclear and missiles programs are high on the agenda as the head of the U.S. military’s Northern Command, Air Force General Glen VanHerck, warned on Tuesday that North Korea might begin testing an “improved” intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) design in the “near future.” According to recent estimates, North Korea possesses anywhere from 15-60 nuclear warheads. It also has an increasingly diverse array of ballistic missiles, including some that may be able to reach anywhere in the continental United States. As Biden Mulls North Korea, Some Urge Arms Control ApproachThe United States has long demanded the complete denuclearization of North Korea, even as a wide range of Korea watchers agreed that will likely never happenThe Biden administration is expected to unveil its North Korea policy review in coming weeks, after Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrap up their first overseas tour to Asia. U.S. officials are exploring the possibility of working with China over the North Korea denuclearization issue. “Throughout this review process, we will have and we will continue to engage with our Japanese and South Korean allies to solicit input as well as explore fresh approaches. We’ve listened carefully to their ideas, including through trilateral consultation,” State Department deputy spokesperson Jalina Porter told VOA this week. She added the “thorough interagency review” will include “evaluating all options” to address the increased threats posed by North Korea to its neighbors and the international community. Biden has described North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a “thug,” saying a meeting would only happen “on the condition” that Kim would agree on “drawing down his nuclear capacity.” Blinken has mentioned more sanctions in Washington’s approaches to Pyongyang. In a statement published this week, the sister of the North Korean leader, Kim Yo Jong, warned the Biden administration against “causing a stink” if it wants peace. It came as South Korean and U.S. troops began a joint springtime military drill last week, and before the Secretary of State and Pentagon chief arrive in Seoul for talks. “No surprise that North Korea has shown zero interest in nuclear talks,” Robert Manning, a senior fellow with the Washington-based Atlantic Council, told VOA. He added “Kim Jong Un is mired in his deepest domestic crisis” including devastating floods as well as the coronavirus pandemic that led the country to seal its borders more than a year ago. Victor Cha, an analyst at the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, told reporters in a press call that he believed Blinken will reestablish the process of regular trilateral meetings and “trilateral cooperation among the three key allies in Asia” to address continuing threats from North Korea. Other analysts, including Drew Thompson, a former U.S. defense official and now a senior research fellow at National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said it seems like particularly poor timing to resume the six-party talks. “North Korea has been unresponsive to overtures, is not serious about denuclearization or even returning to its 2005 commitment to abandon its programs, so unless the other five parties are unified in their commitment to North Korea giving up its programs, it is unlikely to make any progress.”
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Gunmen Kill at Least 58 in Attack on Niger Market Sellers
Gunmen on motorcycles attacked a group of civilians returning from market day in a volatile corner of Niger, leaving at least 58 people dead and then burning granaries to the ground, the government said Tuesday. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Monday’s massacres, though extremists belonging to the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara group are known to be active in the Tillaberi region where the villages were attacked. The victims were returning home from a large livestock market in Banibangou, near Niger’s troubled border with Mali. The suspected extremists also destroyed nearby granaries that held valuable food stores. The announcement was read on Niger state television Tuesday evening by government spokesman Abdourahmane Zakaria , who declared three days of national mourning for the victims. Monday’s attacks underscore the enormous security challenges facing Niger’s new president, Mohamed Bazoum, who won the election in late February to succeed outgoing leader Mahamadou Issoufou. Not only are jihadis active in the Tillaberi region, but the counterterrorism offensives against those extremists have helped give rise to ethnic militias, analysts say. Intercommunal tensions have been exacerbated as a result, particularly near the border between Mali and Niger. Monday’s attack echoed a January massacre that left 100 people dead in two villages also in the Tillaberi region that hadn’t been claimed by any extremist group or militia. Extremists staged mass attacks on Niger’s military in the Tillaberi region, killing more than 70 in December 2019 and more than 89 in January 2020. It’s near the area where four U.S. Special Forces soldiers were killed along with five Nigerien colleagues in 2017.
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US: Russia, Iran Meddled in November’s Election; China Held Back
A just-released assessment by U.S. intelligence officials finds Russia and Iran, joined by a handful of other countries and groups, did seek to influence the outcome of the November 2020 presidential election. But the assessment also concludes that, despite repeated warnings by a number of top officials, China ultimately decided to sit it out. The declassified report, issued Tuesday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, is the U.S. intelligence community’s final take on foreign meddling in the hotly contested race, in which then-presidential candidate Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump. FILE – A newspaper with a front picture of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden is seen at a newsstand in Tehran, Iran, Nov. 8, 2020.Initially completed and shared with the Trump administration in a classified form in January, the unclassified version, required by law, seeks to give U.S. voters an overview of the threats and of their impact on American democracy. While the assessment concludes no adversary managed to infiltrate critical systems or change how votes were cast, the conclusions on China could lead to new questions about how the intelligence was initially presented to the public. “We assess that China did not deploy interference efforts and considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the US Presidential election,” the newly released ODNI report said, adding it had “high confidence” in its finding. “China sought stability in its relationship with the United States, did not view either election outcome as being advantageous enough for China to risk getting caught meddling, and assessed its traditional influence tools — primarily targeted economic measures and lobbying — would be sufficient to meet its goal of shaping U.S. China policy regardless of the winner,” the report stated. Earlier warnings Those findings contrast with earlier warnings from intelligence officials who spent months warning voters of the potential threats, specifically calling out efforts by China along with Russia and Iran. “China is expanding its influence efforts to shape the policy environment in the United States, pressure political figures it views as opposed to China’s interests, and counter criticism of China,” then National Counterintelligence and Security Center Director FILE – Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe waits on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Dec. 12, 2020.In August, then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe grouped China with Russia and Iran in an interview with Fox Business News. “I don’t want to say this is only about China,” Ratcliffe said at the time. “China, Russia, Iran, other actors, are all trying to interfere or influence our elections for their own gain.” He added, however, that Beijing’s efforts stood apart. “China’s using a massive and sophisticated influence campaign that dwarfs anything that any other country is doing,” Ratcliffe said. Another top Trump official, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, echoed those thoughts less than a month later. “The intelligence community has made very clear, first you have China, which has the most massive program to influence the United States politically,” O’Brien told reporters at the time. White House Defends Trump’s Concerns About Mail-In Voting National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien defended the president’s warning of fraud while dismissing an intel bulletin that suggested Russia is using mail-in voting to sow confusion ahead of the November electionTrump, himself, also played up the notion China was seeking his defeat. “China would love us to have an election where Donald Trump lost to sleepy Joe Biden,” Trump said during a news conference last August. “They would own our country.” Declassified report In the newly declassified report, however, U.S. intelligence officials concluded Beijing did not use its well-developed influence machine to alter the results. “We did not identify China attempting to interfere with election infrastructure or provide funding to any candidates or parties,” the report said. It said Beijing had previously sought to influence U.S. politics, including in the 2018 U.S. elections. “We did not, however, see these capabilities deployed for the purpose of shaping the electoral outcome,” the report said. Report Puts Russia, China and Iran in Line for Sanctions for Election Meddling
Voters who went to the polls last month in the United States' midterm elections can rest assured that their votes were registered and counted properly.However, a new report by the U.S.
While stating it had high confidence in its findings regarding China, the ODNI report admitted there was some disagreement. “The National Intelligence Officer [NIO] for Cyber assesses that China took at least some steps to undermine former President Trump’s reelection chances, primarily through social media and official public statements and media,” it said, explaining the NIO gave more weight to indications that Beijing preferred Biden, seeing him as more predictable than Trump. The NIO also argued, with moderate confidence, that evidence suggested China increased its influence operations from June to August 2020, while calibrating its effort so as to “avoid blowback.” Still, several former intelligence officials who spoke to VOA about the ODNI report said its prevailing view in regard to China was not surprising. “[Former Director of National Intelligence] John Ratcliffe had the political mission of downplaying the whole Russian influence issue, with one way of doing that being to play up the idea that Chinese influence was at least as likely and significant as anything the Russians did,” said Paul Pillar, a former senior CIA officer who has been critical of Trump. Pillar, now with Georgetown University, said, in his view, the more notable conclusion from the ODNI report was how Russia sought to push Trump’s candidacy. FILE – Then-nominee for national intelligence director Avril Haines speaks during a confirmation hearing in Washington, Jan. 19, 2021. (Joe Raedle/Pool via AP)”Foreign malign influence is an enduring challenge facing our country,” Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said in a statement Tuesday. “Addressing this ongoing challenge requires a whole-of-government approach grounded in an accurate understanding of the problem, which the Intelligence Community, through assessments such as this one, endeavors to provide,” she added. A separate report Tuesday, from the departments of Justice and Homeland Security, reaffirmed earlier findings that foreign adversaries failed to impact the tallying of ballots. “We … have no evidence that any foreign government-affiliated actor prevented voting, changed votes, or disrupted the ability to tally votes or to transmit election results in a timely manner; altered any technical aspect of the voting process; or otherwise compromised the integrity of voter registration information of any ballots cast during 2020 federal elections,” the report said. The second report also rejected claims made after the November 2020 U.S. election that foreign governments, including Venezuela, Cuba and China, were in any way in control of critical election infrastructure to manipulate the election’s outcome. Such claims “are not credible,” the Justice Department and DHS concluded. Some key lawmakers, though, reacted to the reports by warning it is more critical than ever for the U.S. to maintain its guard. “The problem of foreign actors trying to influence the American electorate is not going away,” Democratic Senator John Warner, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. “Given the current partisan divides in this country, [it] may find fertile ground in which to grow.”
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UN: South Sudan Political, Military Leaders to Blame for Inter-Communal Violence
Military and political officials in South Sudan supported well-armed militias in the Greater Jonglei region and must be held accountable for fueling community-based violence that killed more than 700 people between January and June of last year, according to the Office of the U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights. In a joint report released Monday, the OHCHR and the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) called on the South Sudan government to hold to account not just those who committed the killings and abductions, but also local chiefs and military and political leaders who fueled intercommunal violence and supplied weapons to local militias. FILE – Peacekeepers from the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) provide security in Bentiu, South Sudan, June 18, 2017.”The risk that these community-based militias will reignite armed violence is too grave to ignore. It is of paramount importance that the government takes effective steps to ensure that members of the security forces are prevented from supplying weapons from government stocks to these militias,” said U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet in the report. FILE – United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet attends the opening of 45th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European U.N. headquarters in Geneva, Sept. 14, 2020.The 36-page report details armed violence and human rights violations committed by militias from the Dinka, the Nuer, and the Merle communities in Jonglei state and the Pibor Administrative Area. Six-hundred-eighty-six women and children were abducted and at least 39 women were raped, according to the report. Marta Hurtado, spokesperson for the U.N.’s human rights office, said the violence was organized and fueled by a number of actors who created an environment that allowed the violations to occur. “We are talking an array of people from traditional chiefs to spiritual leaders, from military and political elites, from the government and from the opposition; a really big array of people helping the violence, even the diaspora through financing and through promoting hate speech,” Hurtado told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus. Repeated attempts to contact government spokesperson Michael Makuei for comment on the U.N. report were unsuccessful. Although grass-roots reconciliation efforts and peace talks have been held between some of the affected communities, the report states the government has not undertaken “any meaningful action” to investigate and prosecute those responsible for human rights abuses in Greater Jonglei and the Pibor Administrative Area. The government must speed up the process of creating a unified army as provided for in the 2018 peace agreement in order to prevent more violence from occurring, according to Hurtado. “While these processes have to continue of creating a one and only state-controlled army, what should be done from now on is to control the weapons, to avoid that state-owned weapons arrive to these militias, and of course as a second step to avoid other weapons arriving to these militias to prevent further violence that could endanger the fragile peace agreement in the country,” Hurtado told VOA. The violence also displaced tens of thousands of people. Civilian property and humanitarian facilities were looted or destroyed, and at least 86,000 cattle worth over $35 million were stolen, according to the U.N. report. UNMISS and OHCHR called on the government to finalize the appointment of local administrators and local assemblies throughout Jonglei state and the Greater Pibor Administrative Area to investigate all charges of human rights violations and abuses and to prosecute those responsible.The report says “immediate and strong” steps should also be taken to facilitate the release and reunification of abducted women and children with their families.
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Russia’s Opposition Confronts a Future Without Navalny
It’s been two months (Jan. 18), since Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny returned home following a lengthy recovery abroad from a near fatal poisoning attack. Navalny — and western governments — blame the Russian government for the attempt on his life — a charge the Kremlin denies. Yet a Russian court has since sentenced Navalny to just over two and a-half years in prison for alleged past parole violations. The question now: can Russia’s opposition thrive — or even survive — without its leading figure? From Moscow for VOA, Charles Maynes reports.Camera: Ricardo Marquina, Agencies, Produced by: Ricardo Marquina/Rob Raffaele
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Mozambique Militants Beheading Children as Young as 11, Save the Children Says
Children as young as 11 are being beheaded in Mozambique, Britain-based aid group Save the Children said Tuesday, as part of an Islamist insurgency that has killed thousands and forced many magnitudes more from their homes.Save the Children said it had spoken to displaced families who described “horrifying scenes” of murder, including mothers whose young sons were killed. In one case, the woman hid, helpless, with her three other children as her 12-year-old was murdered nearby.“We tried to escape to the woods, but they took my eldest son and beheaded him,” the 28-year-old, who Save the Children called Elsa, is quoted as saying.“We couldn’t do anything because we would be killed, too.”Another mother, a 29-year-old Save the Children calls Amelia, said her son was just 11 when he was killed by armed men.Reuters could not immediately reach Mozambique police or government spokespeople for comment.Mozambique’s northernmost province of Cabo Delgado has since 2017 been home to a festering insurgency, linked to Islamic State, that has escalated dramatically in the past year.While beheadings have always been a hallmark of the attacks, throughout 2020 the insurgents began regularly engaging the military to capture and hold key towns. Brutality also continued, with mass killings including the murder of about 52 people at once in the village of Xitaxi in April.Altogether almost 2,700 people on all sides have died in the violence, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a consultancy that tracks political violence. Almost 670,000 people have been displaced, Save the Children said.The United States last week declared the Mozambique group a foreign terrorist organization over its links to Islamic State, saying the group reportedly pledged allegiance to it as early as 2018. Islamic State claimed its first attack in Cabo Delgado in June 2019.The U.S. embassy in Mozambique said Monday that U.S. special forces will train Mozambican marines for two months, with the country also providing medical and communications equipment, to help Mozambique combat the insurgency.Amnesty International found earlier in March that war crimes were being committed by all sides in the conflict, with government forces also responsible for abuses against civilians – a charge the government has denied.Chance Briggs, Save the Children’s country director in Mozambique, said reports of attacks on children “sicken us to our core.”“The violence has to stop and displaced families need to be supported as they find their bearings and recover from trauma,” Briggs continued.
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Biden Begins ‘Help is Here’ Tour
U.S. President Joe Biden traveled Tuesday to a suburb of Philadelphia to promote a $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid package, which was his first major legislative victory. “We’re in a position where it’s going to bring immediate relief,” the president told the minority owners of a flooring company in Chester, Pennsylvania. “You should be aware more help is on the way, for real.” During the pandemic, according to officials, Smith Flooring received Paycheck Protection Program loans and it also qualifies for additional programs under the American Rescue Plan, which the president signed into law last week. President Joe Biden waves from the top of the steps of Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., March 16, 2021, as he prepares to depart for a trip to Pennsylvania.National polls have shown that the relief package has wide support, even among Republicans, but Biden’s travels this week, part of what’s being called the “Help is Here” tour, demonstrate he is not taking its popularity for granted. Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, are taking part in the effort as well. They met with small business owners at an empanada shop in Colorado on Tuesday. The previous day Harris visited a vaccination site on the campus of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and a local Mexican restaurant. The vice president was asked by a reporter in Las Vegas why the administration feels compelled to sell the plan, which enjoys widespread public support. “It’s not selling,” Harris replied. “It’s kind of like you buy a product — you’re already sold on the product, but you need some directions out of the box.” Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff arrive at Maria Empanada, in Denver, March 16, 2021.Both Biden and Harris are to make appearances in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday. “In the coming weeks, President Biden will lay out his economic recovery plan to invest in America, create millions of additional good-paying jobs, and build back better than before,” the White House said in a statement issued Tuesday. Biden on Tuesday reiterated that within the next week or so his administration would get out 100 million checks that are part of the rescue plan and reach 100 million coronavirus vaccine shots since he took office. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, on the same day, said the president should not take too much credit for what the lawmaker called “the optimistic springtime that lies before us.” FILE – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky walks from the Senate floor to his office on Capitol Hill, Jan. 6, 2021.”The groundwork we laid last year is proving an historic success,” McConnell said. ”Where the Biden administration is continuing to help streamline distribution, they should of course get some credit. But their effort to sprint to the front of this year-long campaign should not fool anybody.” The appearances of Biden, Harris and other top administration officials are intended to highlight to voters how the aid, approved by both chambers of Congress despite uniform Republican opposition, could help them. Republican lawmakers objected to the size of the deal and said that some of the funding is not tied directly to trying to end the pandemic in the United States. First lady Jill Biden went to the state of New Jersey on Monday where she joined Governor Phil Murphy at a school in Burlington. FILE – U.S. First Lady Jill Biden delivers remarks at the playground of the Samuel Smith Elementary School in Burlington, New Jersey, March 15, 2021.”We are going to safely open schools. We are going to get people back to work. We’re going to lift up the families who are struggling to get by,” she said at the Samuel Smith Elementary School. The American Rescue Plan is one of the largest economic assistance packages in U.S. history but not a single Republican, in either the House or the Senate, voted in favor of it. Many of the opposition party complained that much of it had little to do directly with the suffering caused by COVID-19. “The American Rescue Plan includes a $350 billion bailout for states, rewarding those with poor fiscal management and punishing those who operated responsibly during the pandemic. Funds can be used for virtually anything a state chooses to spend money on, with next to nothing in terms of constraints or restrictions,” said Republican Senator Mike Crapo in a statement on Monday. The ranking member of the Senate finance committee and his fellow Idaho Republican senator, Jim Risch, have introduced a bill to eliminate a provision in the legislation that prevents states from using relief funds to cut taxes. Millions of adult Americans, all but those in upper-income tax brackets, are receiving $1,400 stimulus checks, with tax credits for children. Billions of dollars are being sent to state and local governments and businesses that have been hit hard by the year-long pandemic. Additional aid is being spent to boost vaccinations of millions of Americans, where more than 536,000 Americans have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
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Asian American Group Receives Nearly 3,800 Reports of Hate and Bias
In Brooklyn, New York, a white man catcalled an Asian American woman, aggressively followed her down the block, yelling in her face “ch.nk” and a sexually derogatory term.In Washington, D.C., a man punched an Asian woman in the back in a Metro subway station, repeatedly shouting “Chinese b..ch” and physically threatening her and her boyfriend.In Las Vegas, a ride-sharing service driver told his Asian passenger, “Damn, another Asian riding with me today, I hope you don’t have any COVID.”The three incidents are among nearly 3,800 firsthand accounts of hate and abuse directed at Asian Americans since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic a year ago that originated in China, according to a coalition of Asian American advocacy organizations.In a new report released on Tuesday, Stop AAPI Hate said it recorded 3,795 anti-Asian hate incidents between March 19, 2020 – shortly after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic – and February 28, 2021. More than 500 of the incidents were recorded in 2021.“The number of hate incidents reported to our center represent only a fraction of the number of hate incidents that actually occur, but it does show how vulnerable Asian Americans are to discrimination,” Stop AAPI Hate said.Stop AAPI Hate was launched a year ago by a coalition of three Asian American groups to help Asian Americans report hate incidents during the pandemic.Asian American advocates say the wave of hate was fueled in part by former President Donald Trump’s frequent use of xenophobic language such as “kung flu” to refer to the coronavirus.In January, President Joe Biden issued a memorandum condemning the surge in anti-Asian hate crimes since the beginning of the pandemic.Verbal harassment and shunning made up 68.1 percent and 20.5 percent of the incidents, respectively, while physical assaults constituted 11.1 percent of the total incidents.While the reported incidents took place in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, California – the state with the largest Asian American population – accounted for 45% of the incidents. New York, home to the second largest Asian community, accounted for 14%.Chinese Americans were the most frequently targeted group, reporting 42.2% of the incidents, followed by Koreans (14.8%), Vietnamese (8.5%), and Filipinos (7.9%), according to the report. Women were more than twice as likely as men to report incidents.The woman attacked in the Metro station in Washington told Stop AAPI Hate that the incident took place on an escalator in a transfer station.“A few days later, we saw a news story about how the owner of Valley Brook Tea in DC was harassed and pepper sprayed by the same man, calling him ‘COVID-19’ repeatedly,” the woman reported.No arrest was made in the case. The Metropolitan Police Department closed the case after the U.S. Attorney’s office declined to bring charges, according to an MPD spokeswoman.While most of the incidents reported to Stop AAPI Hate do not rise to the level of hate crimes, a spate of anti-Asian violence in recent weeks has alarmed advocates and sparked protests around the country.The FBI defines hate crimes as criminal offenses motivated by race, religion, sexual orientation and other factors. Examples include assault and vandalism.Hate Crimes Targeting Asian Americans Spiked by 150% in Major US CitiesThe increase in anti-Asian hate crimes came as overall hate crimes declined, according to California State University dataIn January, Vichar Ratanapakdee, an 84-year-old immigrant from Thailand, died after being viciously knocked to the ground in his San Francisco neighborhood. A suspect was later arrested and charged with murder.In response to the surge in anti-Asian violence, the Justice Department said last month that since the start of Biden’s administration it has trained hundreds of federal prosecutors and law enforcement officers to identify, investigate, and prosecute hate crimes and other civil rights crimes.“I want to be clear here: No one in America should fear violence because of who they are, or what they believe,” acting Deputy Attorney General John Carlin said during a press call last month.
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Russian Newspaper Calls on Authorities to Investigate ‘Chemical Attack’
The independent Russian investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta has called on Moscow authorities to investigate a “chemical attack” against its premises after a security camera recorded a person spraying its office entrance with an unknown liquid.The media outlet, which shares the premises with several other companies in the Russian capital, demanded the investigation on March 16, a day after a strong chemical odor swept through the building. Late on March 15, a video allegedly taken by a CCTV camera at the building circulated on the Internet showing a man in a Yandex.Food delivery uniform spraying an unknown liquid near the building’s entrance from a device on the back wheel of the bike he was riding.”Look, it is now a device for terrorist acts — a false courier sprays a poisonous gas that is in a container installed on a bicycle. The idea is clear: the employees step in the poison and then distribute it to all of the floors in the building,” Novaya Gazeta said in a statement.A spokeswoman at Yandex.Food told the website Mediazona that the company did not receive any orders from the address where Novaya Gazeta is located.Novaya Gazeta’s staff members have said the odor in the building was very similar to one that was present when the home and car of correspondent Yulia Latynina was sprinkled with an unknown chemical in 2017.That same year the newspaper received a letter with an unknown white powder inside, which later was shown to be harmless.In October 2018, unknown people brought three cages with sheep wearing vests with the inscription PRESS on them.Several days before that, unknown individuals threw a funeral wreath in front of the periodical’s building with notes threatening Denis Korotkov, a correspondent for the newspaper. Days later a sheep’s head was found near the office with a note threatening all reporters at Novaya Gazeta.Six Novaya Gazeta journalists, including well-known reporters Yury Shchekochikhin, Anna Politkovskaya, and Anastasia Baburova, have been killed since 2001.
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Thai Police Confiscate High-Priced House Cats in Drug Raid
Narcotics police in Thailand said Tuesday they confiscated six high-priced pedigreed cats as part of a raid on an illegal drug network, and they suspect the animals were part of an effort to launder illicit money. Police say the cats were confiscated Monday following a raid at a house in Thailand’s Rayong province. An officer told a Bangkok news organization the cats belong to the wife of a suspect police arrested in the raid, but she fled the scene before they arrived. They say she is also a suspect in the case and is wanted by police. Law enforcement officials — who displayed the cats for news media Tuesday — say the six purebred cats include five of the Scottish Fold breed and one Bengal. They believe the cats could be worth thousands of dollars. Police seized the house, land, a car and the six cats on suspicion of being assets used to launder money. The officials say the cats are part of those assets and would be entered into a public auction while the case was ongoing. The case has stirred debate on social media in Thailand whether confiscated pets should be put up for auction. Animal welfare groups urged authorities to suspend the auction and asked that the cats be taken into the care of animal groups that could help them find loving homes.
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South by Southwest Goes Virtual with More International Visitors
South by Southwest, the annual event in Austin, Texas, that brings together technology, music, politics and Hollywood, is happening digitally this year after being canceled last year due to COVID-19. Michelle Quinn reports.Producer: Matt Dibble
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In Wake of Brexit, UK’s Johnson Seeks to Strengthen Ties With Asia
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told parliament Tuesday that his government will seek to strengthen ties with countries in the Indo-Pacific region in the wake of the nation’s departure from the European Union.The shift is part of his government’s so-called Integrated Review of national security and international policy, a year-long study by his government that he highlighted for lawmakers. Calling it the most comprehensive review of British defense and foreign relations since the Cold War ended, Johnson said its purpose is to make the nation safer, stronger and more prosperous, while standing up for its values.”The review describes how we will bolster our alliances, strengthen our capabilities, find new ways of reaching solutions and relearn the art of competing against states with opposing values,” he told members of parliament.As part of Britain’s pivot toward Asia, Johnson said he has invited the leaders of Australia, South Korea and India to attend the G-7 summit in the British resort town of Carbis Bay, in June. Johnson plans to visit India next month and announced that Britain has applied to become a dialogue partner of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). He said Britain will also seek to join the Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement.The prime minister said his plan calls for Britain to invest at least $9.1 billion to fund advanced and next-generation research and development in areas including space, directed energy weapons, and advanced high-speed missiles.To reaffirm that Britain is “unswervingly committed” to leadership in NATO, Johnson said the government will increase its defense budget by more than $33 billion over the next four years and remain the largest European spender on defense in NATO, with expenditures now standing at 2.2% of its gross domestic production. Britain will deploy more of its armed forces overseas more often and for longer periods of time, while cybersecurity will also be strengthened, he said.Johnson also told lawmakers the United States remains Britain’s most important bilateral relationship in defense, intelligence and security.He added that while China would pose a great challenge to what he described as Britain’s “open society,” his government would continue to work with Beijing whenever it was “consistent with our values and interests.”
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UN: Killings of Peaceful Protesters by Myanmar Junta Soaring
Human rights officials are expressing alarm at the soaring death toll in Myanmar as the military junta’s security forces intensify their brutal crackdown on protesters. The past week has been particularly deadly. The U.N. human rights office says 11 people were killed on Monday and 57 over the weekend by security forces that used live ammunition against peaceful protesters. Since February 1, when Myanmar’s military toppled the democratically elected government of Aung Sun Suu Kyi, the U.N. agency confirms at least 149 people have been killed, though it says it believes the number of deaths to be much higher. Anti-coup protesters surround an injured man in Hlaing Thar Yar township in Yangon, Myanmar, March 14, 2021.U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani says her agency continues to receive distressing reports of people being arbitrarily arrested, forcibly disappeared and brutally beaten and tortured while in detention. By last count, she says more than 2,084 people remain arbitrarily detained. “At least 37 journalists have been arrested, of whom 19 remain in arbitrary detention,” she said. “At least five deaths in custody have occurred in recent weeks, and at least two victims’ bodies have shown signs of severe physical abuse indicating that they were tortured.” A day after Sunday’s deadly crackdown on protesters, Myanmar’s military authorities declared martial law in a number of townships in and around Yangon and Mandalay. That means military law now will apply to civilians, subjecting offenders to military tribunals that give them no right of appeal. Many countries and human rights activists have been calling for economic sanctions and an arms embargo on Myanmar’s military coup leaders. Shamdasani dismisses Myanmar’s claims that under international law, countries have no right to interfere in its internal affairs. She says that is an argument often raised by countries where serious human rights situations are occurring. Relatives of anti-coup protester victims wait outside the morgue for the return of their bodies at Thingangyun Hospital in Yangon, Myanmar, March 15, 2021.“Where the state fails to protect the human rights or where the state is carrying out human rights violations against its own people, it is the duty of the international community to do something about it, to take measures to bring the violence to an end, to take measures to ensure accountability. You cannot argue non-interference when you are shooting your own people,” she said.Human rights officials are calling on the military to stop killing and detaining protesters. U.N. rights chief Michele Bachelet is appealing to all those with influence to take measures to bring an end to the state violence against the Myanmar people.
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US to Keep Expelling Adult Migrants at SW Border, but Care for Children
Faced with a burgeoning migration crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border, the Biden administration vowed Tuesday to continue to expel most single adults and families trying to reach the United States but to help unaccompanied children find relatives in the U.S. or place them with vetted care givers.Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the U.S. is on pace to encounter the highest number of migrants arriving from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico recorded in the past 20 years. “The situation at the southwest border is difficult,” he said in a statement. “We will also not waver in our values and our principles as a nation. Our goal is a safe, legal, and orderly immigration system that is based on our bedrock priorities: to keep our borders secure, address the plight of children as the law requires, and enable families to be together.”“We are both a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants,” he said. “That is one of our proudest traditions.”The number of migrants at the border is quickly becoming an early defining moment for U.S. President Joe Biden. He stopped construction of the border wall championed by former president Donald Trump and has advanced what he says are more humanitarian immigration policies, while also continuing to reject entry for adult immigrants and families.FILE – Tents used by migrants seeking asylum in the United States line an entrance to the border crossing, March 1, 2021, in Tijuana, Mexico.He said authorities are trying to reunite the children with family members already living in the United States or with other sponsors who have been vetted to care for them. Initially after the apprehension of the children at the border, immigration officials by law are supposed to transfer them to the Department of Health and Human Services within 72 hours, but Mayorkas said that because of the growing number of migrants, that deadline is “not always met.” Mayorkas said poverty, high levels of violence, and corruption in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries “have propelled migration to our southwest border for years,” but that “adverse conditions have continued to deteriorate. Two damaging hurricanes that hit Honduras and swept through the region made the living conditions there even worse, causing more children and families to flee.”In addition, the Homeland Security chief claimed the Trump administration “completely dismantled the asylum system. The system was gutted, facilities were closed, and they cruelly expelled young children into the hands of traffickers. We have had to rebuild the entire system, including the policies and procedures required to administer the asylum laws that Congress passed long ago.” He said the Biden administration is building additional facilities in the southwestern states of Texas and Arizona to shelter unaccompanied children, while working with Mexico to expand its ability to house expelled families.Last weekend, Homeland Security said that for the next 90 days, the Federal Emergency Management Agency would help process the large number of unaccompanied migrant children.In Dallas, the city convention center will be used to house as many as 3,000 migrant boys, ages 15-17, for up to 90 days starting next week, with the U.S. providing food, security and medical care. Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax said in a statement that “collective action is necessary, and we will do our best to support this humanitarian effort.”The Health and Human Services agency will also house youths in Midland, Texas, at a converted oilfield workers camp with help from the American Red Cross, which sent 60 volunteers. Biden’s Immigration Reform Proposal ExplainedBill would create eight-year path to citizenship for millions On Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters “the Biden administration is trying to fix the broken system that was left to them by the Trump administration. The Biden administration will have a system based on doing the best possible job, understanding this is a humanitarian crisis.”Trump weighed in with his immigration thoughts at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference, contending that Biden “wants it all to go to hell.” “When I left office just six weeks ago, we had created the most secure border in U.S. history,” Trump claimed, ignoring the increased number of illegal crossings during his last months in office. “It took the new administration only a few weeks to turn this unprecedented accomplishment into a self-inflicted humanitarian and national security disaster by recklessly eliminating our border security measures, controls, all of the things that we put into place,” Trump argued. Aside from dealing with the current quandary at the border, Democrats in the House of Representatives this week are trying to advance two pieces of immigration legislation. One would establish a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children and have lived, attended school and worked in the country since then. The House is also considering a measure in which a migrant worker in the agricultural industry could earn temporary status to stay in the U.S. with an eventual option to become a permanent resident. Democrats strongly support both bills and also passed them in 2019. Even if they are approved again, however, their fate in the politically divided Senate is uncertain, at best.
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UN Launches Billion-Dollar Appeal for Nigeria’s Victims of Armed Conflict
The United Nations is appealing for $1 billion to help 6.4 million of Nigeria’s most vulnerable people, including two million who have been forced to flee their homes because of armed conflict.The bulk of the money will be used to provide life-saving assistance to millions of people in Nigeria’s northeastern states of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe. The insurgency by the militant group Boko Haram, which began in 2009, has expanded to include other armed groups.Jens Laerke, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), says the brutality and suffering inflicted upon millions in that area of ceaseless conflict show little sign of relief. He says people are hanging on by a thread and are in desperate need of help.“Over five million people there are at risk of acute hunger during the upcoming lean season as the worst outlook in four years. And that is due to escalating conflict, displacements and the disruption of livelihoods, which is made worse by the effects and restrictions of COVID-19,” Laerke said.The lean season, the period between harvests when food stocks are at their lowest, lasts from May to August. Famine has not been declared in any part of the country. However, the World Food Program reports suffering has reached emergency levels in parts of northeastern Nigeria.WFP spokesman Tomson Phiri warns armed conflict in the region is preventing people from growing food, leading to a potential hunger catastrophe. He says there has been significant cropland reduction in over 90% of the region over the past decade because people have fled their homes and abandoned their land.“Millions of people are already facing dangerous levels of hunger as their lives and livelihoods are being severely disrupted by non-state armed groups who are vying with each other and fighting against government forces for control of territory,” Phiri said.OCHA says the largest amount of money from the appeal, $354 million, will be spent on food. Other priorities, it says, include nutrition, water and sanitation, hygiene and protection. Money also will be used for livelihood programs to help people get back on their feet.
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UN Appeals for $1.7 Billion to Feed Millions in South Sudan
The U.N.’s Humanitarian Coordinator in South Sudan, Alain Noudéhou, has released an urgent appeal for $1.7 billion dollars to help 6.6 million people facing food insecurity. The U.N. released its South Sudan humanitarian response plan for 2021 Tuesday, with an urgent appeal for $1.7 billion dollars to combat growing food insecurity and other threats. The U.N.’s Humanitarian Coordinator in South Sudan, Alain Noudehou, said the funds were needed to help 6.6 million people by the end of the year. “We have three major goals. The first is to make sure to save lives and protect people in need of protection,” Noudehou said. “The second, you need to make sure we have access to services such as water and sanitation [so that] the health of people do not become sick from other diseases. And the third is, we have to start to look at how we help the people to recover from where they were with effects(?) in livelihood, going forward.” Noudehou noted South Sudan, Africa’s youngest country and one of its poorest, has been struggling with communal conflict, the added challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, and frequent flooding. “In addition to COVID 19, you recall 2020 was a year of another massive flooding that the country has experienced, displacing millions of people in 2020,” Noudehou said. “And that was in addition to the flooding that the country had faced in 2019 when, barely recovering from that, when the second flooding had started, and the third. You recall that the entire communal conflict also has basically sparked a little bit out of control during the year 2020.”Noudehou said they would prepare for the coming rainy season by fixing dikes and roads and moving emergency supplies into place to avoid being cut off by floods. He said South Sudan’s government needed to prioritize security to make sure that people who need assistance can receive it. Noudehou said if humanitarian agencies don’t get the funding in a timely manner their remaining resources may soon be depleted. Separately, the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) on Tuesday appealed for $1.2 billion dollars to support 2.2 million South Sudanese refugees living in camps in neighboring countries.
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France Battles a Third Wave of COVID Infections
Despite the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines, France is once again under pressure to take new measures to curb a new spread of the virus in the country. The situation is once again deteriorating rapidly in the French capital. Hospitals in the Paris region are close to capacity and health professionals are rushing daily to find beds for their COVID patients. As of Monday, more than 4,200 patients were in intensive care units across France. The pandemic’s third wave is a reality in France and health workers have been evacuating seriously ill COVID patients to other parts of the country to cope with bed shortages. Enrique Casalino, a medical director with Hopitaux de Paris, the largest health system in Europe, describes the epidemic situation as deteriorating in the Paris region where every 12 minutes a new patient enters an intensive care unit. Casalino thinks medical evacuation to other French regions is just a temporary solution that does not solve the current crisis. He says there are only two options: a quick and massive immunization campaign to safeguard 70% of the population, which he doubts is currently achievable in France. The other would be a strict lockdown to prevent the virus from spreading further.On top of a delay in the delivery of vaccines, France is among European nations that are pausing the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine due to public concerns about side effects.Lockdowns have already been imposed in some hotspots in France, including Dunkirk and Nice, but not in the capital region. A national nighttime curfew has been in force since the end of January, and bars, restaurants, museums, and movie theaters remain closed. Still, a general lockdown in the Paris region has not been ordered. Jerome Béglé, deputy director at Le Point, a French weekly, sees a lockdown of the Paris region as equivalent to a national lockdown as this region is the main economic center of France with 12 million people living there and a few tourists still visiting.With neighboring Italy imposing new restrictions Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron resisted the idea of a third national lockdown.Jean Castex, France’s prime minister says a national lockdown would be a last resort that cannot be ruled out due to the current situation. He says he would like to avoid one as it would place a heavy burden on the population.More than 90,000 people have died so far in France due to the COVID. The country is expected to reach a dreaded 100,000-death milestone next month.
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EU Critics on Course to Dominate Dutch Elections
Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders appeared until recently to have faded into political irrelevance, thanks partly to the country’s mainstream parties’ adoption of some of his populist positions. Rivals on the populist right, notably Thierry Baudet, started to eclipse Wilders. But the controversial firebrand seems to be on the brink of pulling off a strong electoral showing with his party, the Party for Freedom, PVV, likely to place second in Wednesday’s parliamentary elections, according to opinion polls.Pollsters say the PVV is on course to retain the 20 seats it won in 2017, and analysts and commentators say that if that holds true, it will amount to a comeback by Wilders, whose party has struggled to keep its political footing and stumbled in 2019 when it went from nine seats to five in elections for the national parliament’s upper house. Dutch anti-immigration, anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders speaks to the media following the verdict in his appeal in Schiphol near Amsterdam, Netherlands, Sept. 4, 2020.In the same year, his anti-immigrant and anti-EU party just scrambled to reach the electoral threshold to gain a single seat in the European Parliament. Wilders was dismissed as a has-been. Baudet was seen as the new face of alt-right in the Netherlands. Euro-skeptics gainingWilders also stood out less with other parties embracing, to varying degrees, euro-skepticism.A record number of 37 parties are competing for seats in the 150-strong lower house. All the eve-of-election polls are giving the right-wing liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, VVD, of incumbent Prime Minister Mark Rutte a clear lead in the elections. His party is projected to get at least 30 seats in the lower house.EU negotiations last year over a coronavirus recovery fund for member states ran into an impasse partly thanks to Rutte, who took on the leadership role of the so-called “frugal four” north European countries opposed to an $857 billion EU stimulus package. Rutte was nicknamed “Mr. No No No!” for his opposition to the package and he’s seen as the leader of what Eurocrats dub “the awkward squad.” Third place in the elections is likely to go to the Christian Democratic Appeal party, CDA, which has moved further to the right under the leadership of Wopke Hoekstra, the country’s finance minister, who was also an outspoken critic of the EU’s post-pandemic financial stimulus plan, which will see richer European countries help out poorer ones. Wilders said this week that the three largest parties after the election should immediately enter into coalition discussions, but Rutte has ruled that out, saying he won’t include the PVV in talks about forming a new government. The same happened in 2017 when the PVV was shut out of government.That, according to Wilders, is “undemocratic.” “Voters are in charge, not Mark Rutte,’ Wilders told NPO Radio 1 Monday. But he still harbors hopes, saying Rutte is a “full-blooded power broker” who will cut whatever deal he needs to stay in office. Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders of the PVV party and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the VVD Liberal party take part in a televised debate in Amsterdam, Netherlands, March 11, 2021.Some analysts question whether Wilders has any interest in actually joining a government. If he had, they say, he would have been more circumspect in his rhetoric in the lead-up to the polls. Controversial figureWilders says that he wants the Netherlands to return to “a country without headscarves, but with traditional Dutch coziness,” and backs the contentious tradition of Black Pete, when children and adults dress as “blackface” during the December holiday of Sinterklaas.
“We express that our own culture is best. And we’re proud of that! Unfortunately, the attack on the Netherlands’ culture went into high speed last year because of the glorification of dangerous activist groups like Black Lives Matter and Kick Out Black Pete,” Wilders says in the PVV manifesto. The folklore character of Black Pete is a helper of the Dutch version of Saint Nicholas and has been the focus of fierce debate for years in the Netherlands.Racial inequality has been debated in the election campaigning, mainly pushed by minor parties. Sylvana Simons, a former TV presenter who leads a small party called ‘Together,’ says she hopes those who gathered last year to support Black Lives Matter, which head to the polls.Simons, who was born in Suriname and at 18 months moved with her parents to the Netherlands, told Associated Press: “It was good to see that so many people said, ‘enough is enough’ and they came out and spoke out. And I do also hope that they will use that same voice when we have our general elections.” But pollsters say Simons’ party will struggle to gain even one seat.Housing shortages, the environment, health care and education have all figured in election campaigning. Rutte’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic has also been an issue. The 54-year-old’s favorability ratings had held up well for most of last year, but a prolonged lockdown has begun to dent his popularity in recent weeks. And Wilders has sought to profit from the Dutch impatience. “What are you doing Premier Rutte? You are holding an entire country hostage in fear and captivity,” Wilders has charged.
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Food, Fuel Prices Rising in Myanmar in Aftermath of Coup, Warns UN
The United Nations is warning that food and fuel prices in Myanmar are steadily rising due to the “current political unrest” triggered by last month’s military coup. The world body’s food assistance branch, World Food Program (WFP), issued a statement Tuesday that rice prices have risen across the country by an average of three percent from mid-January to mid-February. But the WFP says prices have ballooned anywhere between 20-35 percent in a few townships in Kachin state, the northernmost state of Myanmar. The agency also says the retail price of palm oil has spiked up to 20 percent since the beginning of February. The WFP said the unrest is having a negative impact on supply chains and markets. “These initial signs are troubling, especially for the most vulnerable people who were already living meal-to-meal,” said WFP Myanmar Country Director Stephen Anderson. “Coming on top of the COVID-19 pandemic, if these price trends continue, they will severely undermine the ability of the poorest and most vulnerable to put enough food on the family table.” Martial law extendedThe grim assessment comes as the junta has extended martial law in more areas of the main city of Yangon amid reports of more protesters killed by security forces. The advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), which has been tracking the violence, said at least 20 people were killed Monday in shootings by security forces. State-run MRTV news channel announced that the districts of North Dagon, South Dagon, Dagon Seikkan and North Okkalapa were under martial law, following a weekend of deadly protests. People transport a person who was shot during a security force crackdown on anti-coup protesters in Thingangyun, Yangon, Myanmar, March 14, 2021.United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday he “is appalled by the escalating violence in Myanmar at the hands of the country’s military,” according to his spokesperson. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jalina Porter said Monday the violence against protesters is “immoral and indefensible.” Authorities late Sunday imposed martial law on Hlaingtharya, a suburb of Myanmar’s main city, after several Chinese-owned factories were set on fire and about 2,000 people had stopped fire engines from reaching the buildings, according to Reuters, quoting army-run Myawaddy television. China is seen as supportive of the Myanmar junta. A view shows the fire at Hlaing Thar Yar factory, in Yangon, Myanmar, March 14, 2021, in this still image obtained by Reuters from a social media video.“The burning and looting of Chinese companies [are] abhorrent,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters Monday. “We hope the Myanmar side will take concrete measures to protect the safety of Chinese citizens in Myanmar. The top priority is to prevent the occurrence of new bloody conflicts and to achieve an easing of the situation as soon as possible.” Various reports quoting AAPP said most of the deaths Sunday took place in Hlaingthaya, with more than 30 people killed in the suburb. Nationwide, the AAPP said Monday that the death toll for Sunday had reached 74, making it the bloodiest day of demonstrations against the junta that seized power in a February 1 coup. The previous deadliest day was March 3, when 38 deaths were reported across Myanmar. Family members of Khant Ngar Hein grieve during his funeral in Yangon, Myanmar, March 16, 2021. Khant Ngar Hein, a 18-year-old student of medicine was shot on his chest on March 14, in Tamwe, Yangon, by security forces.Internet blocked
In an apparent bid to suppress news of the turmoil, mobile internet services were blocked Monday. Previously, the services were only turned off at night. The blockage of the internet forced the postponement of a scheduled court hearing in the capital, Naypyitaw, for deposed de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was set to appear via videoconference, according to her lawyer, Khin Maung Zaw. Suu Kyi has been detained since the coup and faces five criminal charges, including accepting $600,000 in illegal payments plus gold bars while in office. She is also charged with illegally possessing six unregistered walkie-talkie radios, operating communications equipment without a license, violating COVID-19 protocols by holding public gatherings and attempting to incite public unrest. The United Nations said Monday that at least 138 people have been killed since the coup more than six weeks ago, while the AAPP put the figure at 183. Military officials have claimed widespread fraud in last November’s general election, which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won in a landslide, as justification for the takeover. The fraud allegations have been denied by Myanmar’s electoral commission.
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Authorities Investigate Kidnapping of Three Teachers in Northern Nigeria
Authorities in northern Nigeria are investigating the armed kidnapping of three teachers from a primary school, four days after dozens of students were taken from another school in Kaduna state. The students ran away as gunmen arrived at their school in the town of Rema on motorbikes early Monday and took the teachers away Kaduna state’s security commissioner, Samuel Aruwan said during a press briefing. Initially, two students thought to be missing were located after the attack at the Rema Primary School, located in Kaduna state’s Birnin Gwari Local Government Area. The teachers’ abduction is the sixth time so called bandits kidnapped or attempted to take someone from a school in less than three months in northwest and central Nigeria, mostly by criminals seeking ransom. The military is currently seeking 39 students kidnapped last Thursday from another school in Kaduna. Authorities said the military rescued 180 other students from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization, a research institute in the country. The national government has been critical of local authorities paying ransoms in the kidnappings, without providing a successful remedy to the problem. Several schools in northern and central Nigeria have closed for security reasons. The seemingly endless spike in the number of abductions captured global attention when members of the extremist group Boko Haram kidnapped 270 girls from Nigeria’s northeastern school in Chibok in 2014. An estimated 100 of the girls are still unaccounted for.
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British Parliament to Vote on Whether Misogyny Constitutes Hate Crime
British lawmakers are set to vote Monday on whether misogyny constitutes a hate crime in the aftermath of the killing of a woman in London. Lawmakers are proposing an amendment to the Domestic Abuse Bill, which would require police in both England and Wales to keep track of cases of violence motivated by misogyny. Set to be debated in the House of Lords, Britain’s upper parliamentary chamber, the amendment has cross-party support. “This is our moment for change,” said parliamentarian Stella Creasy of the Labor Party, who proposed the amendment. “Rather than telling women not to worry about violence or to stay home at night if they want to be safe, it’s time to send a message that women should be equally able to live free from fear of assault or harm from those who target them simply for who they are.” Labor Party parliamentarian Alicia Kennedy added that “this is a simple measure that we could take now to start making sure every woman is safer at home and on our streets.” The change was inspired by the slaying of Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive, who was kidnapped and killed on her way home on March 3. Wayne Couzens, a police officer who has been charged with kidnapping and murder in her death, will appear in court Tuesday. FILE – A sign is seen as people gather at a memorial site in Clapham Common Bandstand, following the kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard, in London, Britain, March 13, 2021.A September report from the British Law Commission concluded that misogyny should be treated in the same way as discrimination against other groups. In Britain, protections — that can carry harsher sentences — already exist for race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and transgender identity. The bill also has the support of conservative and cross-bench parliamentarians, as well as of human rights organizations such as Citizens U.K., U.N. Women U.K., and the Fawcett Society.
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FBI: Nashville Bomber Driven by Conspiracies, Paranoia
The man who blew himself up inside his recreational vehicle in a Christmas Day bombing in Nashville was grappling with paranoia and eccentric conspiracy theories, but there are no indications he was motivated by social or political ideology, the FBI said Monday in closing out the investigation into the blast. The FBI statement sets out to resolve some of the lingering mysteries of an explosion that initially perplexed investigators and the public because it appeared to lack an obvious motive or fit a clear profile. Though the blast damaged dozens of buildings, it took place early on a holiday morning well before downtown streets would be bustling with activity and was preceded by a recorded announcement warning anyone in the area that a bomb would soon detonate. Anthony Quinn Warner chose the location and timing so that the explosion would have an impact while still minimizing the likelihood of injury, according to the statement from the FBI, which also concluded that the Antioch, Tennessee, man acted alone and set off the bomb to end his own life. The report found that Warner was driven in part by his longtime beliefs in several conspiracy theories and paranoia, as well as “the loss of stabilizing anchors and deteriorating interpersonal relationships.” The Associated Press has previously reported that investigators scrutinized Warner’s interest in conspiracy theories after being told by some of the people they interviewed that he believed shape-shifting reptiles take on a human form to gain control over society and that he discussed taking trips to hunt aliens. Despite online speculation that Warner may have been motivated by conspiracy theories about 5G technology, given the proximity of the explosion to an AT&T building and the resulting havoc to cellphone service in the area, FBI spokesperson Joel Siskovic said the investigation found no indication that AT&T had anything to do with Warner’s selection of the location. The FBI statement also said the investigation concluded that Warner’s actions were not related to terrorism.FBI and ATF personnel examine the area involved in a Christmas Day explosion Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn.”The FBI’s analysis did not reveal indications of a broader ideological motive to use violence to bring about social or political change, nor does it reveal indications of a specific personal grievance focused on individuals or entities in and around the location of the explosion,” the FBI said. The explosion occurred around 6:30 a.m. on Christmas Day local time. Police were responding to a report of shots when they encountered the RV blaring a recorded warning that a bomb would detonate in 15 minutes. Then, inexplicably, the audio switched to a recording of Petula Clark’s 1964 hit “Downtown” shortly before the blast. Three people were injured. Investigators conducted more than 250 interviews and combed through more than 2,500 tips, the FBI said. Authorities were able to identify Warner through DNA recovered from the blast site, quickly zeroing in on him as the culprit and concluding early on that he had acted alone. Even if Warner did not leave behind a clear motive, he did take steps in the weeks leading up to the bombing that suggested he did not expect to survive. For instance, he gave away his car, telling the recipient that he had cancer — though it was not clear if he did — and signed a document that transferred his home in a longtime Nashville suburb to a California woman for nothing in return. He told an employer he was retiring. A neighbor who made small talk with Warner about the upcoming Christmas holiday later recalled to the AP that Warner said something to the effect of, “Oh, yeah, Nashville and the world is never going to forget me.” Law enforcement actions received scrutiny in the days after the bombing when it was revealed that Nashville police in 2019 had visited Warner’s home after his girlfriend reported he was building bombs in a recreational vehicle at his residence. But the police did not make contact with him or see inside his RV. Nearly three months after the explosion, the blast site still remains closed off to traffic and Nashville’s bustling tourists. Boarded-up windows now decorate the Civil War-era buildings along the historic Second Avenue street for several blocks. Chain-link fences line the street, while cleanup efforts continue, signaling many more weeks, if not months, of repairs before businesses can start reopening.
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Critics Raise Alarm Over EU-China Deal
An investment deal between China and the European Union restricts Europeans from investing in Chinese media and entertainment companies but does not block Chinese firms from investing in European ones, according to newly released details. Despite mounting alarm about Chinese disinformation and propaganda campaigns in Europe, the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment pact, announced Friday, gives Chinese firms a significant advantage in the media sector, critics say. FILE – National security adviser Jake Sullivan speaks during a press briefing at the White House, Feb. 4, 2021.The deal, which was signed in principle in December, has drawn fire from Washington. Days before the agreement was struck, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan urged the Europeans to delay completing negotiations, calling in a tweet for “early consultation with our European partners on our common concerns about China’s economic practices.” Critics on both sides of the Atlantic say the deal will give China preferential access to European markets while Beijing continues to tamp down Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and maintain detention centers in Xinjiang province, where China’s Communist government has interned more than a million Uyghurs, according to rights groups. Growing criticismThe agreement still has several stages to go before adoption and needs to be ratified by the European Parliament. The rules governing investment access to the media and entertainment sector are quickly becoming the focus of criticism from some European lawmakers, mostly members of the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), the largest grouping in the European Parliament. In a statement, the EPP has urged European commissioners to “develop an EU-wide regulatory system to prevent media companies either funded or controlled by governments to acquire European media companies.” China has invested around $3.5 billion in European media firms in the past decade. EU officials say the investment deal is merely enshrining access rules that the bloc and China had agreed under World Trade Organization terms. FILE – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet remotely, in Brussels, Dec. 30, 2020.The deal “does not create any new rights for the Chinese investors in (the) media sector,” according to a European Commission spokesperson. Under the terms, Chinese investors in media companies should be treated the same as European investors and enjoy similar market access. But the deal does not afford European investors the same rights. French lawmaker Marie-Pierre Vedrenne, a liberal in the European Parliament, has “even more questions than before,” since further details of the investment deal became public last week. She said the EU is treating China as a partner, but Beijing is not reciprocating. Other lawmakers point to recent studies tracking Chinese influence that show when Chinese firms, mainly state-owned, invest in European media, China’s coverage of the new acquisitions turn more positive. In a study published last year, MapInfluenCE, a foreign policy research group operated by the Association for International Affairs, concluded that “local audiences in Poland, Czechia, and Slovakia have increasingly become direct targets of not only ‘mask diplomacy,’ but more complex propaganda efforts promote a positive image of China, strain transatlantic relations and directly attempt to rewrite narratives around sensitive issues.” Eleven member states, mostly central European, including Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, remain concerned about the deal and are reserving the right to treat Chinese investors differently. Media restrictionsChina is a major trading partner for the EU. Over the past 20 years, European companies have invested $174 billion in China. The European Commission said the investment agreement will provide overall improved market access and fairer rules for European companies in China, investors and service providers. FILE – European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis speaks at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, March 10, 2021.”The agreement provides a clear and enforceable framework of rules, which will give EU businesses greater access and more certainty when investing in China,” the bloc’s trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said in a statement last week. Critics of the deal say there is no level playing field when it comes to the media. China’s state-controlled CCTV channels are broadcast without hindrance across Europe, but restrictions are placed by China on European broadcasters. Outside the EU, Britain and China have disagreed over the media. Last month, the Beijing government banned BBC World News after the channel ran a string of reports on accusations of systematic rape of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. FILE – Britain’s Foreign Affairs Secretary Dominic Raab walks outside Downing Street in London, Britain, Feb. 3, 2021.British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab called the move an “unacceptable curtailing of media freedom.” The U.S. State Department condemned the decision, calling it part of a wider campaign to suppress free media in China. China’s National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA) said BBC World News had “seriously violated” broadcast guidelines, including a “requirement that news should be truthful and fair” and not “harm China’s national interests.” Earlier this year, British media regulator Ofcom revoked state broadcaster China Global Television Network’s (CGTN) license to broadcast in Britain. The details of the EU-China investment pact will likely add to the Biden administration’s dismay over the EU’s decision to advance the deal. U.S. President Joe Biden wants a “united front” when it comes to China to increase leverage on Beijing. Analysts have warned for weeks that the EU and the Biden administration will not see eye to eye on the best ways to handle an increasingly assertive China.
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