Hu Ge, a Chinese actor who is well-known in China for dramas including Flowers, was recently confirmed to serve as the deputy director of the Central Propaganda Committee of the China Democratic League. He was invited to Taiwan in June 2024 to participate in a film exchange activity.
Click here for the full story in Mandarin.
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HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM — Critics warn that Vietnam’s ongoing push to restructure the country’s media will allow authorities to have tighter control over news outlets and more effectively spread propaganda.
The media restructuring started in 2019 when former Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc signed the “National Press Development and Management Planning until 2025” policy. According to the plan, 180 press organizations will be shut down, and 8,000 reporters and editors will lose their jobs.
Phil Robertson, director of Asia Human Rights and Labor Advocates, told VOA the media restructuring has become more severe under General Secretary To Lam, who took over as leader of the Communist Party after the July 2024 death of his predecessor, Nguyen Phu Trong.
“There’s little doubt that this so-called ‘reform’ will result in the Vietnamese people getting even less real news,” Robertson wrote in an email. “This is precisely the path one expects an authoritarian like To Lam to take, doubling down on government control of what the people hear and see.”
To Lam’s broader ambitions for government reform include consolidating 14 ministries into seven. Under the government’s plan, dubbed Resolution 18, each ministry will be allowed to have one official news publication, further cutting the number of news outlets in the country. The move could cut the number of news outlets in half, some analysts say.
The government plans to concentrate resources into six national media conglomerates. The six outlets include Nhan Dan — the newspaper of the Communist Party — as well as the outlets of the Defense Ministry and Public Security Ministry.
Vietnam Television will become the sole national television channel, absorbing smaller broadcasters. On Jan. 15, broadcasts for 13 channels operating under Vietnam Multimedia Corporation, or VTC, ended, along with Voice of Vietnam TV and Nhan Dan TV. VTC was the country’s second-most-popular television broadcaster and had been operating for 20 years.
One 21-year-old journalism student was working as an intern at VTC in Hanoi when it shut down at midnight on Jan. 15. He said all the staff gathered on the first floor and had a countdown until all the TV monitors were turned off. Afterwards, they had fireworks. He said approximately 1,000 VTC employees lost their jobs that night.
“Everyone was crying,” he said, asking to be referred to as Justin. “After 20 years working at the station, doing a lot of collaboration, doing a lot of programs, doing a lot of special news, they have been kicked out for no reason. That’s how they are feeling.”
A regular VTC viewer in northern Vietnam who described herself as a housewife said it’s painful to see the broadcast shuttered.
“Honestly, I don’t want any channel to close,” she wrote on Facebook in Vietnamese. “I consider those channels as family members. Losing a channel is like losing a person.”
‘Bitter medicine’
On Dec. 1, To Lam spoke during a national conference on the implementation of Resolution 18. He stated the restructuring is designed to streamline the political system and remove institutional bottlenecks.
“This is really a difficult issue,” To Lam said. “It will involve thoughts, feelings, aspirations and affect the interests of a number of individuals and organizations.
“The implementation in many units will certainly encounter difficulties,” the General Secretary said. “However, we still have to proceed because to have a healthy body, sometimes we have to ‘take bitter medicine.’”
Trinh Huu Long, a democracy advocate and co-founder of the Taiwan-based nonprofit Legal Initiatives for Vietnam, said the government is rushing to finalize its media restructuring and the consolidation of government ministries.
“Everyone is working around the clock,” he said. “They’re planning to finish everything in March, when the Congress will hold a special session to rubber stamp this massive restructure.”
Nguyen Hong Hai, a senior lecturer at Hanoi’s VinUniversity, told VOA that while working in the public sector, he saw the need for reform firsthand.
“There’s the fact that there are a lot of employees who are not working, in the real sense, and there’s a lot of waste,” he said. “Every society needs reforms. But the thing is, how to do it effectively?”
Justin, the journalism student in Hanoi, supports the government reforms although he said change is happening “too fast” and without new opportunities for those who lost their livelihoods. That includes his uncle, who worked for VTC for some 20 years.
“We have cried, but we still 100% agree with what the government decided,” he said. “We just want to comment, ‘Please, if you want to kick me out, give me a new job.’ … Do not change so rapidly so that people will be shocked, like right now, kicked out from the job and with no other proposal for the future.”
Pushing propaganda
Long said that as Hanoi focuses its resources into six national media conglomerates, authorities will have more power to push Hanoi’s agenda.
“The government will invest in a small number of state agencies to make them a lot more effective in propaganda,” Long said. “The number one function of every state-media outlet is to promote and defend the [Communist] Party. Serving readers is secondary.”
In a November 2024 report, Legal Initiatives for Vietnam stated that there are currently 17 independent journalists behind bars in the country, all of whom were jailed within the last five years.
While all media outlets in Vietnam undergo government censorship, some outlets are funded by private corporations, although they must receive their licenses from government ministries. Long said these semi-privatized outlets, which have been the most professionalized and provided news which has not entirely aligned with Hanoi and government policy, are being pushed out.
“The quality is going to go south very, very quickly,” he said.
Long gave the example of Zing News.
In July 2023 the news site was suspended for three months after it was investigated by the Ministry of Information and Communications. The outlet came back after the suspension but was rebranded as Z News and the quality and frequency of its content was greatly downgraded, effectively making the outlet “irrelevant,” Long said.
He said that the outlet was punished for writing articles about Russia’s war on Ukraine that created “pro-Ukraine sentiment among the Vietnamese public.”
“They published a lot of articles about the Ukraine war that fell out of the [Communist] Party’s line, which is always to be pro-Russia,” Long said.
A researcher of Vietnamese media, who asked to remain anonymous due to safety concerns, told VOA that the digitizing of national media allows it to “masquerade” propaganda as news.
“I think it’s very depressing. … It’s going to be uniform news, and it’s going to be only from the government’s point of view,” the researcher said. “There’s going to be fewer and fewer people dedicated to work as journalists and seeking out the news that matters to the Vietnamese people.”
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New U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed China’s “dangerous and destabilizing actions in the South China Sea” with his Philippine counterpart on Wednesday and underscored the “ironclad” U.S. defense commitment to Manila.
“Secretary Rubio conveyed that (China’s) behavior undermines regional peace and stability and is inconsistent with international law,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement on the call with Foreign Minister Enrique Manalo.
The Philippines has been embroiled in wrangles at sea with China in the past two years and the two countries have faced off regularly around disputed features in the South China Sea that fall inside Manila’s exclusive economic zone.
Rubio’s call came after he hosted counterparts from Australia, India and Japan in the China-focused “Quad” forum on Tuesday, the day after President Donald Trump returned to the White House. The four recommitted to working together.
Quad members and the Philippines share concerns about China’s growing power and analysts said Tuesday’s meeting was designed to signal continuity in the Indo-Pacific and that countering Beijing would be a top priority for Trump.
In the call with Manalo, Rubio “underscored the United States’ ironclad commitments to the Philippines” under their Mutual Defense Treaty and discussed ways to advance security cooperation, expand economic ties and deepen regional cooperation, the statement said.
China’s foreign ministry said its activities in the waters were “reasonable, lawful and beyond reproach.”
Speaking at a regular press conference, ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the United States was “not a party” to the South China Sea dispute and had “no right to intervene” in maritime issues between China and the Philippines.
“Military cooperation between the U.S. and the Philippines should not undermine China’s sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea, nor should it be used to endorse the illegal claims of the Philippines,” Mao said.
The Philippines, a U.S. defense treaty ally, is among the first countries to engage with the new U.S. administration to discuss critical security matters, Manila’s defense department said in a statement.
Its defense secretary Gilberto Teodoro and U.S. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz met at the White House on Thursday to reaffirm the enduring alliance between their two countries.
Just ahead of Trump’s inauguration, the Philippines and the United States carried out their fifth set of joint maritime exercises in the South China Sea since launching the joint activities in 2023.
Security engagements between the allies have soared under Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who has moved closer to Washington and allowed the expansion of military bases that American forces can access, including facilities facing the democratically governed island of Taiwan, which China claims as its own.
Visiting the Philippines last week, Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya said a trilateral initiative to boost cooperation launched by Japan, the U.S. and the Philippines at a summit last year would be strengthened when the new U.S. administration took over in Washington.
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SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — South Korean investigators recommended Thursday that impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol be charged with insurrection and abuse of power, as they handed over the results of their probe into his ill-fated declaration of martial law to prosecutors.
The official charges against Yoon were “leading an insurrection and abuse of power,” the Corruption Investigation Office said after a 51-day probe into his Dec. 3 attempt to suspend civilian rule.
The CIO said it “decided to request the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office file charges against the sitting President, Yoon Suk Yeol, in connection with allegations including leading insurrection.”
Yoon had “conspired with the former Minister of National Defense and military commanders on December 3, 2024,” it said.
The leader, currently suspended from duties, “declared martial law with the intent to exclude state authority or disrupt the constitutional order, thereby inciting riots.”
Under the South Korean legal system, the case file of the suspect — identified as “Yoon Suk Yeol: president” — will now be handed to prosecutors, who have 11 days to decide whether to charge him, which would lead to a criminal trial.
The prosecutors’ office has “complied with the CIO’s request for a case transfer,” the investigators said.
Yoon was arrested in a dawn raid last week on insurrection charges, becoming the first sitting South Korean head of state to be detained in a criminal probe.
South Korea was plunged into political chaos by Yoon’s botched martial law declaration, which lasted just six hours before lawmakers voted it down. They later impeached him, stripping him of his duties.
Since his arrest, Yoon has refused to be questioned by the CIO, which is in charge of the criminal probe.
He has declined to cooperate with the probe and “consistently maintained an uncooperative stance,” Lee Jae-seung, deputy CIO chief, said in briefing to reporters.
Yoon’s security detail also “obstructed searches and seizures, including access to secure communication devices like classified phones,” Lee said.
The CIO said it had decided, in view of Yoon’s efforts to block their investigation, it would be “more efficient” for prosecutors to handle the case, as they have the authority to indict suspects.
His lawyers have repeatedly said the CIO has no authority to investigate insurrection.
Yoon’s legal team said Thursday that they urged prosecutors to “conduct an investigation that adheres to legal legitimacy and due process.”
‘Abused authority’
During the night of Dec. 3, Yoon purportedly ordered troops to storm the National Assembly and prevent lawmakers from voting down his declaration of martial law.
The CIO said its probe found that Yoon “abused his authority by compelling police officers from the National Assembly Guard Unit and martial law forces to perform duties beyond their obligations.”
He also “obstructed the exercise of lawmakers’ rights to demand the lifting of martial law,” it added.
Yoon has denied instructing top military commanders to “drag out” lawmakers from parliament to prevent them from voting down his decree.
Yoon, who remains head of state, is being held in a detention center.
In addition to the criminal probe, he is also facing a Constitutional Court case, where judges will decide whether to uphold his impeachment, which would officially remove him from office.
If the court rules against Yoon, he will lose the presidency and elections will be called within 60 days.
Yoon, who attended a court hearing this week, will appear again Thursday when the judges will call witnesses to hear details of how martial law unfolded.
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JAKARTA, INDONESIA — Indonesian rescuers retrieved four more bodies after they resumed their search Wednesday for people missing after floods and landslides on Indonesia’s main island of Java, bringing the death toll to 21.
Water from flooded rivers tore through nine villages in Pekalongan regency of Central Java province, and landslides tumbled onto mountainside hamlets after the torrential rains Monday.
Videos and photos released by National Search and Rescue Agency showed workers digging desperately in villages where roads and green-terraced rice fields were transformed into murky brown mud and villages were covered by thick mud, rocks and uprooted trees.
National Disaster Management Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari said flooding triggered a landslide that buried two houses and a cafe in the Petungkriyono resort area. The disasters all together destroyed 25 houses, a dam and three main bridges connecting villages in Pekalongan. At least 13 people were injured, and nearly 300 people were forced to flee to temporary government shelters.
The search and rescue operation that was hampered by bad weather, mudslides and rugged terrain was halted Tuesday afternoon due to heavy rain and thick fog that made devastated areas along the rivers dangerous to rescuers.
On Wednesday, they searched in rivers and the rubble of villages for bodies and survivors in worst-hit Kasimpar village, said Budiono, who heads a local rescue office.
Scores of rescue personnel recovered three mud-caked bodies, including a 5-month old baby, as they searched a Petungkriyono area where tons of mud and rocks buried two houses and a cafe. Another body was pulled out from under a broken bridge near a river in Kasimpar village. Rescuers are still searching for five people reported missing.
Landslides and floods were also reported in many other provinces, Muhari said. On Monday, a landslide hit five houses in Denpasar, on the tourist island of Bali, killing four people and leaving one missing.
Heavy seasonal rain from about October to March frequently causes flooding and landslides in Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile floodplains.
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India recently inducted three new warships into its navy as it steps up efforts to counter China’s growing footprint in Indian ocean countries. Anjana Pasricha reports from New Delhi.
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JAKARTA — Indonesia’s admission this month to the BRICS developing-country bloc, started by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, marks an expansion of the group to Southeast Asia.
Jakarta’s admission, which follows last year’s addition of Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, was announced January 6 by Brazil, the group’s presiding member. In October, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam became partner countries – meaning they are interested in becoming BRICS members but have not yet been accepted for full membership.
Indonesia is the only Southeast Asian country that has been accepted as a full member.
Teuku Rezasyah, a professor of diplomacy and foreign policy at Indonesia’s Universitas Padjajaran, said membership will allow Indonesia to work with other influential countries with substantial populations to reform multilateral organizations such as the United Nations.
“Currently, Russia and China are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. However, BRICS has become a strong foundation for Indonesia to generate support from countries like India, Brazil and South Africa in order to push through reforms of the U.N. Security Council,” he told VOA January 15.
Rezasyah said there have not been significant structural changes in the United Nations for 80 years.
The Security Council’s five permanent members – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – have veto power and they are “mostly Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian civilizations,” he said.
“The world’s first and fourth largest country by population which is India and Indonesia, who represent large Hindu and Muslim populations, are not always represented well in the Security Council,” he said.
Indonesian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Roy Soemirat pointed to areas in which Jakarta would like to see changes at the U.N.
“Indonesia continues to push for revitalizing the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council. There need to be changes in the working methods, limited use of veto power, and improve the issue of representation at the Security Council. The Security Council was last expanded from 11 to 15 countries in the 1970s. As more countries join the United Nations, the composition of the Security Council needs to change,” he told VOA January 18.
He added that Indonesia has been active in U.N. working groups on U.N. reforms, particularly as a nonpermanent Security Council member from 2019 to 2020. The United Nations unanimously agreed to push for improving regulations on using veto power in 2015. Along with France and Mexico, Indonesia has urged Security Council countries to be more transparent and voluntarily explain their reasons for a veto, Roy added.
Aspirations to reform the United Nations
Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Sugiono, in his annual address January 10, cited a lack of respect for international law and the U.N. Charter, saying the global economic architecture does not meet the modern challenges and needs most countries face.
Indonesia was one of the first countries to call for U.N. reforms, in a 1960 speech to the General Assembly by then-President Sukarno.
Mohammad Faisal, executive director of the Center of Reform on Economics, a Jakarta research group, said it will “still be a long way to truly reform the United Nations,” but that “the growing power of the emerging countries, including those under BRICS, will at least, make it more balanced.”
“So, the voices of the emerging and developing countries can be heard more optimally in the global arena,” he said.
Lalu Muhammad Iqbal, a foreign Spokesman of the Indonesian Foreign Ministry, was quoted by Antara wire service that he believes that the U.N. Security Council reform is essential because can make decisions that all member states must follow. However, there is no agreement among U.N. member states on a system for change.
Some member states propose changing the veto right, while others propose permanent or semipermanent member status.
Dinna Prapto Raharja, senior policy advisor at Synergy Policies – a public policy consulting firm – and a tenured Associate Professor in international relations noted developing countries’ various positions on U.N. reform.
“Everybody has their own champion of who should be the new permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, for instance. How the U.N. Security Council veto can be ended and who should get veto power. That’s why I think Indonesia has to come up with an idea for U.N. reform that is really feasible to achieve,” she said.
The foreign affairs ministry emphasized the importance of BRICS as a platform for voices of the Global South.
“BRICS is an important platform for Indonesia to strengthen South-South cooperation, ensuring that the voices and aspirations of Global South countries are heard and represented in the global decision-making process. We are fully dedicated to working together with all BRICS members, or with other parties, to create a just, peaceful, and prosperous world.” the ministry said in a January 7 press statement.
There are also concerns among members of the House of Representatives, Indonesia’s unicameral national legislature, and international relations analysts, that by joining BRICS, Indonesia is drawing closer to Russia and China while distancing itself from Western powers such as the United States and the European Union.
Vinsensio Dugis, head of the ASEAN Studies Research Center at Universitas Airlangga in Indonesia, said he is concerned that Western countries consider BRICS to be a forum led by China and Russia to oppose Western political and economic interests, which could cause Western countries to withhold future investment in Indonesia.
Combined, BRICS has a population of 3.5 billion people or 45% of the global population. Not including Indonesia, the economies of BRICS countries account for around 28% of the global economy. It is often perceived as challenging the political and economic dominance of rich and powerful countries in North America and western Europe.
Apart from reforming the United Nations, Indonesia said it is ready to send more peacekeeping forces to Gaza.
Soemirat, speaking before a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect Sunday, called the prolonged conflict in Gaza “an example of the U.N. Security Council’s failure to quickly fulfil its mandate to maintain international peace and security based on the U.N. Charter.”
Sugiono, in a January 16 posting on X, expressed hope that the ceasefire agreement that had been reached could be “a momentum to push for peace in Palestine.”
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Davos, Switzerland — With Donald Trump back as US president with his confrontational style, Chinese, European and Ukrainian leaders are expected to defend global cooperation on Tuesday at the annual gathering of the world’s elites in Davos.
There will no doubt be a Trump-sized elephant in the rooms at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the Swiss Alpine resort. even if some leaders avoid saying his name — although the man will speak himself by video link on Thursday.
Trump returned to the White House on Monday, bringing with him a more protectionist administration and fears he will deliver on promises to slap heavy tariffs on China and U.S. allies including Canada and the European Union.
In his inaugural address, he vowed Washington will “tariff and tax foreign countries.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will kick the day off.
She appeared, in a post on X as she arrived in Davos, to give a taste of what to expect, defending the “need to work together to avoid a global race to the bottom” and wanting to “forge new partnerships.”
China, Ukraine
China’s Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang — also a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s apex of power that rules the country — will speak immediately after von der Leyen.
China is taking a cautious approach to Trump. After Chinese President Xi Jinping’s conversation with Trump by phone on Friday, he said he hoped for a “good start” to relations with the new administration.
Although Trump said he would undertake sweeping trade penalties against China, he has also indicated he wants to improve ties — and even stepped in to reverse a U.S. ban of Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok on national security grounds.
Ukraine meanwhile is keeping a very close eye on what Trump’s second mandate will involve.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to call on world leaders and company executives to maintain — and even ramp up — their support for his country’s fight against Russia.
Zelenskyy on Monday said he is hopeful Trump will help achieve a “just peace.”
European ‘struggle’
Europeans are set to dominate the forum’s key speeches here on Tuesday.
Embattled German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will address the forum, likely his last as leader ahead of elections next month. Also speaking on Tuesday will be conservative leader Friedrich Merz, the favorite to succeed him as German chancellor.
Europeans are fretting the most about Trump’s return while countries from Brazil to China and India to Turkey believe he will be good for their countries and global peace, according to a survey last week from the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).
The report accompanying the survey of over 28,500 people across 24 countries serves as a warning for European leaders to act cautiously.
“Europeans will struggle to find internal unity or global power in leading an outright resistance to the new administration,” the ECFR report’s authors said.
‘Better understand’ Trump
Middle East conflicts will also be high on the agenda as Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani speak in separate sessions during the first full day of the forum.
As a fragile ceasefire holds in the Israel-Hamas war, the forum will host a discussion on how to improve aid delivery to the Palestinian territory of Gaza and how to kickstart the reconstruction and recovery after heavy bombardment.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will also deliver a special address on Tuesday, as the African continent’s most industrialized country shows it is open for business.
Despite suggestions Trump’s return would overshadow the forum that began on the same day as his inauguration in Washington, WEF President Borge Brende said the president had brought fresh interest to the gathering.
“It has increased the interest in Davos because people feel they need to come together to better understand what’s on its way,” Brende told AFP in an interview.
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SYDNEY — Australia’s Labor government on Monday pledged $1.24 billion in production credits to help support the country’s four aluminum smelters switch to renewable power before 2036.
Aluminum is one of the most polluting nonferrous metals to make, as its current production is mostly powered by coal. Green aluminum usually refers to metal produced using solar, wind or hydropower.
The country’s four aluminum smelters are run by Rio Tinto and Alcoa.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, in his latest election pitch, said the smelters would receive government support for each metric ton of low-carbon aluminum they produce. His center-left government has made renewable energy a major theme ahead of a national election, which must be called by May.
The Australian government is targeting 82% of power supply to come from renewables by 2030, but remains well short of the target, at 40% now, even after pledging to underwrite new wind, solar and battery projects with more than $24.5 billion.
“We want Australian workers to make more things here,” Albanese said in a statement.
“We’ve got all the ingredients right here for a world-leading metals industry – from the best solar and wind resources, to the critical minerals and facilities, as well as a highly skilled workforce.”
The Australian Aluminum Council said it had been seeking production credits for the aluminum sector, the sixth-largest producer of the metal in the world, to attract private capital and ensure the industry remains globally competitive amid rising costs and longer regulatory processes.
“These new aluminum production credits should provide some of the transitional support needed as Australia’s energy infrastructure and systems develop, and energy pricing returns to competitive levels,” Council CEO Marghanita Johnson said.
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BEIJING — China issued its first national action plan to build a “strong education nation” by 2035, which it said would help coordinate its education development, improve efficiencies in innovation and build a “strong country.”
The plan, issued Sunday by the Communist Party’s central committee and the State Council, aims to establish a “high quality education system” with accessibility and quality “among the best in the world.”
The announcement was made after data on Friday showed China’s population fell for a third consecutive year in 2024, with the number of deaths outpacing a slight increase in births, and experts cautioning that the downturn will worsen in the coming years.
High childcare and education costs have been a key factor for many young Chinese opting out of having children, at a time when many face uncertainty over their job prospects amid sluggish economic growth.
“By 2035, an education power will be built,” the official Xinhua news agency said, adding that China would explore gradually expanding the scope of free education, increase “high-quality” undergraduate enrolment, expand postgraduate education, and raise the proportion of doctoral students.
The plan aims to promote “healthy growth and all-round development of students,” making sure primary and secondary school students have at least two hours of physical activity daily, to effectively control the myopia, or nearsightedness, and obesity rates.
“Popularizing” mental health education and establishing a national student mental health monitoring and early warning system would also be implemented, it said.
It also aims to narrow the gap between urban and rural areas to improve the operating conditions of small-scale rural schools and improve the care system for children with disabilities and those belonging to agricultural migrant populations.
The plan also aims to steadily increase the supply of kindergarten places and the accessibility of preschool education.
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Ternate, Indonesia — A volcano in eastern Indonesia has erupted at least a thousand times this month, according to an official report Sunday as efforts were underway to evacuate thousands of villagers living near the rumbling mountain.
Mount Ibu, on the remote island of Halmahera in North Maluku province, sent a column of smoke up to four kilometers (2.5 miles) into the sky in an eruption Wednesday.
Indonesian officials raised its alert status to the highest level and called for the evacuation of 3,000 people living in six nearby villages.
It was one of 1,079 eruptions by the volcano recorded since Jan. 1 by Indonesia’s Geological Agency, sending columns of ash reaching between 0.3 and 4 kilometers above its peak, according to the agency’s data gathered by AFP.
The latest big eruption occurred Sunday at 1:15 a.m. local time as it spewed a towering cloud of ash 1.5 kilometers into the air.
“The ash was grey, with moderate to thick intensity, drifting southwest. A loud rumbling sound was heard all the way to Mount Ibu Observation Post,” the agency said in a statement.
It added that the volcano had erupted 17 times on Sunday alone.
Despite deciding to evacuate affected villagers, local authorities had only managed to evacuate 517 residents as of Sunday, pledging to persuade those who remained to stay in safe shelters.
Many have refused to evacuate, arguing that they were used to the situation and were in harvest season.
“There might be economic considerations, as many residents are in the middle of harvesting crops. However, we will continue to educate the community and encourage them to evacuate,” said Adietya Yuni Nurtono, Ternate district military commander in charge of a safe shelter.
Mount Ibu, one of Indonesia’s most active volcanos, has shown a significant increase in activity since last June.
Residents living near Mount Ibu and tourists have been advised to avoid a five- to six-kilometer exclusion zone around the volcano’s peak and to wear face masks in case of falling ash.
As of 2022, around 700,000 people were living on Halmahera island, according to official data.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity as it lies along the Pacific Ring of Fire.
Last November, Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki, a 1,703-meter (5,587-foot) twin-peaked volcano on the tourist island of Flores erupted more than a dozen times in one week, killing nine people in its initial explosion.
Mount Ruang in North Sulawesi province erupted more than half a dozen times last year, forcing thousands from nearby islands to evacuate.
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BANGKOK — Thailand’s plans to legalize online gambling are raising fears that criminal gangs will use the industry to move and launder their illicit proceeds as they have done with gambling operators in neighboring countries.
Prasert Jantararuangtong, Thailand’s minister of digital economy and society, said last week that a bill could be ready within a month. Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, widely seen as a major force behind the current government, led by his daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra, avidly endorsed the idea as well last week.
The averred impetus for the push has been both economic and legal.
Thaksin claimed a regulated online gambling industry could net the government nearly $3 billion in annual revenue. By bringing an industry already operating in the shadows into the light, Prasert said the move could also drive out the criminals currently behind many of the betting sites.
“The goal is to regulate underground gambling operations, bringing them into the legal framework and ensuring proper taxation,” Prasert told reporters.
The push for online gambling is moving ahead as the government is preparing to legalize physical casinos inside integrated resorts featuring hotels, shopping malls and other entertainment. A related bill is due for debate in the National Assembly soon, after winning approval from the prime minister’s Cabinet on Monday.
Gambling in Thailand is currently restricted to betting on state-run horse races and an official lottery.
Many have been warning that expanding the scope of legal gambling in Thailand, especially online, is rife with risk.
Bringing underground gambling operations under government regulation can do some good, Benedikt Hofmann, deputy representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, told VOA.
“But it also opens the door for ostensibly legitimate investments and use of the system by criminal actors for their illicit purposes, especially in a region rife with such actors. As we have seen in the Philippines, creating legal licensing and regulatory frameworks for gambling operators, like the POGO scheme, did not prevent the system from being taken over by highly problematic actors,” he said.
The Philippines launched POGO, the Philippines Offshore Gaming Operator, in 2016 to license online gambling operators, but shut down the program last year. In a state of the nation address in July, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said the industry had morphed into a hotbed of cyberscamming, money laundering and human trafficking.
Hofmann said online gambling sites often spring up from physical casinos and can turbocharge their criminal activities.
“Taking advantage of the online space, these operations function around the clock and are theoretically accessible from anywhere in the world, so the reach and volume of both licit and illicit funds processed are much larger. They also offer easier ways to integrate crypto transactions and reduce customer touchpoints, making them highly attractive for money laundering,” he said.
In a 2023 report, the UNODC said Southeast Asia’s transnational crime syndicates had effectively turned the region’s casinos and online betting sites into their own shadow banking network, using them to move and launder tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars a year in earnings from illegal gambling, drug trafficking, cyberscams and other organized crime.
Besides the Philippines, many of those casinos and betting sites operate just across the border from Thailand in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.
Amanda Gore, director of the Center for Global Advancement and a forensic accountant who has investigated financial crime around the world, said Thailand’s neighborhood puts the country at high risk of having its own online gambling industry exploited.
“Because they’ve got the same sort of geographical issues … the drug trafficking, the organized crime; it’s all in that area. So, they’re going to have to be extremely strict, and if they’re not then it’s probably going to end up going the same way as the Philippines,” she told VOA.
Gore said the operators behind these online gambling sites often move from jurisdiction to jurisdiction in search of the most permissive conditions, and warned that some of those recently shut out of the Philippines could look to Thailand next unless it passes strong laws and backs them up with strict enforcement.
“The key is going to be whether they have a strong enforcement presence behind those regulations and laws as well, because if they don’t, I think it’s going to be very, very vulnerable to the criminal groups in the region, particularly from the money laundering perspective,” she said.
Government officials have said they are aware of the risks and insisted they would only roll out the casinos and online gambling licenses with the necessary guardrails, but they have yet to provide any details.
Spokespersons for the prime minister’s office and the ministries of interior and digital economy and society did not reply to VOA’s requests for elaboration.
Rangsiman Rome, an opposition lawmaker in Thailand’s House of Representatives who chairs the committee on national security, told VOA that he supports the legalization of casinos and a limited online gambling industry in principle but believes the government is not yet up to the task of managing either safely.
“The current law, including law enforcement, is not enough to protect Thai society from the gray capital, the mafia or … money laundering,” he said. “Because now the money laundering already happens, it happens every day, and it looks like the Thai authorities don’t know how to stop this.”
Rangsiman said the government should give itself, lawmakers and the public more time to study and debate the pros and cons before pressing ahead, and that it should focus on rooting out the corruption in the agencies that would be tasked with enforcing any new laws on casinos and gambling first.
Thailand has arrested dozens of police officers for running or protecting underground gambling operations in recent years.
“We see a lot of corruption that happens in Thailand, so we have to fix this before we allow the casinos,” Rangsiman said.
Gore suggested Thailand study well-established gambling commissions such as the United Kingdom’s, which she said could offer useful lessons on how to sanction operators that fail to follow the rules.
The UNODC’s Hofmann said Thailand should also focus on making sure its regulators carefully vet casino investors and players, and consider foregoing online gambling and cryptocurrency payments altogether.
“Even then, risks will remain,” he said, “as we have seen with organized crime infiltrating casino sectors around the world.”
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LANGKAWI, MALAYSIA — Southeast Asian nations told Myanmar’s military government on Sunday its plan to hold an election amid an escalating civil war should not be its priority, urging the junta to start dialogue and end hostilities immediately.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations called on the warring sides in member nation Myanmar to stop the fighting and told the junta’s representative to allow unhindered humanitarian access, said Malaysia’s foreign minister as the country takes over chairing ASEAN this year.
“Malaysia wants to know what Myanmar has in mind,” Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan told a press conference after a ministerial retreat on the island of Langkawi.
“We told them the election is not a priority. The priority now is to cease fire.”
Myanmar has been in turmoil since early 2021 when its military overthrew the elected civilian government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, triggering pro-democracy protests that morphed into a widening armed rebellion that has taken over swaths of the country.
Despite being battered on multiple fronts, its economy in tatters and dozens of political parties banned, the junta plans this year to hold an election, which critics have widely derided as a sham to keep the generals in power through proxies.
Malaysia announced the appointment of former diplomat Othman Hashim as special envoy on the crisis in Myanmar, where the United Nations says humanitarian needs are at “alarming levels,” with nearly 20 million people — more than a third of the population — needing help.
Mohamad said Othman would visit Myanmar “soon.”
South China Sea a concern
Othman is tasked with convincing all sides in Myanmar to implement ASEAN’s five-point peace plan, which has made no progress since it was unveiled months after the coup.
ASEAN has barred the ruling generals from attending its meetings over their failure to comply. Myanmar is represented by a senior diplomat.
“We want Myanmar to adhere to the Five-Point Consensus, to stop hostilities and have dialogue, it’s very simple,” Mohamad said. “What we want is unhindered humanitarian aid that can reach all in Myanmar.”
Malaysia takes the chair of the 10-member bloc as it contends not only with the conflict in Myanmar but with Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea, the site of heated confrontations between ASEAN member the Philippines and China, a major source of the region’s trade and investment.
Vietnam and Malaysia have also protested over the conduct of Chinese vessels in their exclusive economic zones, which Beijing says are operating lawfully in its waters.
China claims sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, a conduit for about $3 trillion of annual shipborne trade. China and ASEAN have committed to drafting a code of conduct for the South China Sea, but talks have moved at a snail’s pace.
Mohamad said ministers welcomed progress so far but “highlighted the need to continue the momentum to expedite the code of conduct.”
The foreign minister of U.S. ally the Philippines told Reuters on Saturday it was time to start negotiating thorny “milestone issues” for the code, including its scope, whether it can be legally binding and its impact on third-party states.
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JAYAPURA, Indonesia — The woman carries bananas, yams and vegetables in a knotted bag on her head as she wanders through a market in a suburban area of Jayapura in eastern Indonesia.
Even in the Papua capital and bigger cities of the province, a noken bag where people carry their daily essentials is a common sight.
The distinctive bag, handcrafted from natural fibers like tree bark or leaves, is woven and knotted with threads of Papuan heritage. The U.N. cultural agency UNESCO recognized the traditional bag as needing urgent safeguarding in 2012 because there are fewer crafters making noken and more competition from factory-made bags.
Crafter Mariana Pekei sells her handmade bags daily in Youtefa market in Jayapura, along with other women from her village.
“It is difficult to craft from the tree bark,” Pekei said.
They collect the raw materials from melinjo trees or orchids, facing dangers like mosquitoes in the forest. They then process the material into thread fibers, including by spinning the fibers together in their palms and on their thighs, which can cause wounds and scar their skin.
“If it’s made of yarn, we can craft, knot it directly with our hands,” Pekei said.
The price of noken depends on the material as well as the craftsmanship. A small bag can be made in a day, but the bigger ones require more creativity from the maker and more precision and patience.
Sometimes, the noken is colored by using natural dyes, mostly light brown or cream with some yellowish brown.
“Those are the color of Papuan people and the Papuan land,” Pekei said.
With its seemingly simple yet intricate winding technique and the symbolism it holds, the noken has become a valuable item passed down from generation to generation.
For people from outside Papua, noken are much desired and can be found easily at markets or souvenir stores. Despite the high transportation costs, crafters often journey from their remote villages to Jayapura, determined to sell their noken and share their craft with the city.
But more than just a practical tool for carrying goods or souvenir, Pekei said that a noken serves as a powerful cultural symbol, representing the resilience, unity and creativity of the Papuan people.
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SYDNEY — Authorities declared a natural disaster Saturday in parts of eastern Australia where gales have toppled trees and knocked out power to tens of thousands of homes.
Heavy rain, lightning and winds as strong as 100 kph have swept across Sydney and other areas of New South Wales since Wednesday.
With many power lines felled, about 30,000 properties remained without electricity Saturday — down from a peak of more than 260,000, said the state’s emergency services minister, Jihad Dib.
“This is an incident that is affecting the whole state,” he told reporters.
Emergency services had responded to more than 7,000 incidents around New South Wales, he said.
“We know that it has not been an easy thing to go through.”
Disasters had been declared so far in three local government areas, he said, unlocking support for people seeking emergency housing, essential items, repairs and clean-ups.
Electricity network Ausgrid said 140,000 customers had lost power Wednesday and another 68,000 since Friday, with some areas experiencing winds of up to 100 kph.
Police reported that an elderly man was killed in the storms when his car was hit by a tree on Wednesday in Cowra, about 230 kilometers west of Sydney.
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PHUKET, THAILAND — Plastic bottles and empty beer cans roll on the sea floor in the waters around Phuket in southern Thailand, while ever more garbage piles up on the island itself, a tourist hotspot better known for its pristine beaches and stunning sunsets.
In one corner of the island, trucks and tractors trundle back and forth moving piles of trash around a sprawling landfill, the final destination for much of the more than 1,000 tonnes of waste collected on Phuket every day.
In a matter of months, the landfill has grown so large it has replaced the previous serene mountain view from Vassana Toyou’s home.
“There is no life outside the house, (we) just stay at home,” she said. “The smell is very strong, you have to wear a mask.”
To cope with the stench, Vassana said she keeps her air conditioner and air purifiers switched on all the time, doubling her electricity bill.
Phuket, Thailand’s largest island, has undergone rapid development due to its tourism sector, a major driver of the Thai economy as a whole. Of the country’s 35.5 million foreign arrivals in 2024, about 13 million headed to the island.
“The growth of (Phuket) city has been much more rapid than it should be,” said Suppachoke Laongphet, deputy mayor of the island’s main municipality, explaining how a tourism and construction boom has pushed trash volumes above pre-COVID levels.
By the end of year, the island could be producing up to 1,400 tonnes of trash a day, overwhelming its sole landfill, he said.
Authorities are pushing ahead with plans to cut waste generation by 15% in six months, expand the landfill and build a new incinerator, he said, as the island strives to become a more sustainable tourist destination.
But increasing capacity and incinerators is only part of the solution, experts say.
“If you just keep expanding more waste incinerators, I don’t think that would be just the solution,” said Panate Manomaivibool, an assistant professor in waste management at Burapha University.
“They need to focus on waste reduction and separation.”
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China reported 5% GDP growth in 2024, meeting its target. Analysts linked the growth to late-2023 stimulus measures and Q4 export surges but questioned the sustainability of strong consumer spending. Experts warn that economic growth may have peaked, with annual declines expected, potentially dropping to 2% by 2030.
Click here for the full story in Mandarin.
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Washington — The United States has been ramping up its Indo-Pacific region air bases to ensure they are protected against attack, a spokesperson for the U.S. Pacific Air Forces told VOA this week, amid concerns over vulnerabilities they face in countries such as Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea against potential Chinese strikes.
“While we are continually improving our theater posture, warfighting advantage, and integration with allied and partners, Pacific Air Forces stands ready every day to respond to anything that poses a threat to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” the spokesperson said.
“We continue to invest in infrastructure and technology to enhance the resilience and survivability of our bases and facilities across the theater including hardening airfields and buildings while investing in advanced security systems to protect our personnel and assets,” the spokesperson told VOA on Tuesday.
The Air Force was authorized with “$916.6 million to improve logistics, maintenance capabilities, and prepositioning of equipment, munitions, fuel, and material in the Indo-Pacific” through the fiscal 2024 Pacific Deterrence Initiative, the spokesperson added. The Pacific Deterrence Initiative is a set of defense priorities set up in 2021 by congress to support U.S. goals in the Indo-Pacific, primarily to counter China.
The comments were made in response to a report last week by the Hudson Institute claiming that U.S. aircraft at allied Indo-Pacific country bases could suffer major losses from Chinese attacks unless those bases are fortified.
If left unfortified, the U.S. air power in the region would be significantly reduced compared to China’s, according to the report, Concrete Sky: Air Based Hardening in the Western Pacific.
One of the reasons, according to the report, is that the U.S. is lagging behind China in the number of shelters that could hide and protect the aircraft from attacks.
China more than doubled the number of aircraft shelters since the early 2010s, having more than 3,000, according to the report. Across 134 Chinese air bases located within 1,000 nautical miles from the Taiwan Strait, China has more than 650 hardened aircraft shelters and nearly 2,000 nonhardened individual aircraft shelters.
A hardened shelter is a reinforced structure made of steel, concrete, and other materials to protect military aircraft from enemy strikes.
In comparison, the U.S. has added two hardened shelters and 41 nonhardened ones within 1,000 nautical miles of the Taiwan Strait and outside South Korea since the 2010s, continues the report.
This means if a war breaks out over Taiwan, U.S. aircraft could suffer more damage than China’s if they attacked each other’s bases in the region, which would prevent U.S. air operation for a duration of time, said analysts.
According to Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center’s Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy Program, attacks on U.S. bases in the Pacific region, including Japan could “prevent the U.S. Air Force from conducting fighter operations for about the first 12 days of a conflict from U.S. bases in Japan.”
Grieco continued, based on her own report published by the Stimson Center, that Chinese missiles could also take out runways and aerial refueling tankers, rendering them unusable over a month at U.S. bases in Japan and over half week at U.S. military bases in Guam and other Pacific locations.
“It’s not possible to harden a runway or taxiway,” that is exposed as easy targets to destroy, disabling aircraft from taking off, she said. This begs the question of whether it is worth investing in hardening facilities, she adds.
The Hudson Institute report says within the 1,000 nautical miles of Taiwan, China has added 20 runways and 49 taxiways since the 2010s while the U.S. added one runway and one taxiway.
Unhardened airfields
Among U.S. air bases in allied countries of Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea, those in the Philippines are the least protected, Timothy Walton, one of the authors of the Hudson report, told VOA.
“In Japan, Kadena and Misawa Air Bases are the most fortified U.S. bases, while the remainder are largely unfortified,” said Walton, a senior fellow at Hudson’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology.
“In the Republic of Korea, the two U.S. Air Force bases, Osan and Kunsan, are hardened. Airfields in the Philippines are unhardened,” he said.
Grieco said the U.S. would mostly rely on its bases in Japan, Guam, and other Pacific locations as South Korea would “restrict the use of U.S. bases in its territory in a Taiwan contingency out of concern about North Korean aggression and to avoid a rupture with Beijing.”
U.S. Representative John Moolenaar, the chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Senator Marco Rubio, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state, and 13 other lawmakers underlined last year the importance of hardened shelters to protect against Chinese attacks.
In a letter sent to Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro in May, they said, “U.S. bases in the region have almost no hardened aircraft shelters compared to Chinese military bases,” leading to U.S. air assets being “highly vulnerable to Chinese strikes.”
Aside from hardened shelters, analysts pointed to dispersing airfields as important.
Steven Rudder, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and former commanding general of U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Pacific, said, “When you look at the number of aircraft in the Asia Pacific, I am not sure that the ability to harden every single aircraft parking space would be as effective as a distributed force.”
Bruce Bennett, a senior defense researcher at Rand Corporation, said dispersing airfields are important against nuclear strikes.
Against conventional warhead missiles, shelters are “key to the protection,” said Bennett. “But if there’s a nuclear threat, you’ve got to have different airfields” as alternative locations to park and land aircraft and to provide logistic support such as fueling, maintenance, and repair, he said.
Bennett added the disparity in the number of aircraft shelters between the China and U.S. seems to stem from U.S. air superiority.
“What the U.S. Air Force tends to perceive is that we’ve got the ability to deal with the Chinese air force in an air-to-air combat” where China traditionally felt it would lose air-to-air combat against the U.S. and therefore wants to take U.S. aircraft on the ground before engaging in air while sheltering theirs heavily on the ground, Bennett said.
“The question becomes, as the Chinese aircraft get better and as they start fielding fifth generation fighter, will the U.S. need the ability to attack Chinese airfields with conventional weapons? I don’t think the Defense Department has considered it as one of important tasks,” Bennett said.
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SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — Impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Friday again refused investigators’ efforts to question him over his failed martial law bid, as the deadline on his detention neared.
Yoon threw the nation into chaos on Dec. 3 when he attempted to impose martial law, citing the need to combat threats from “anti-state elements.”
But his bid lasted just six hours, as the soldiers he directed to storm parliament failed to stop lawmakers from voting to reject martial law.
In the following weeks, Yoon was impeached by parliament and resisted arrest while holed up at his guarded residence, before becoming South Korea’s first sitting president to be detained.
The arrest warrant executed in Wednesday’s dawn raid on Yoon’s residence allowed investigators to hold Yoon for just 48 hours.
But they are expected to seek a new warrant Friday that will likely extend his detention by 20 days, allowing prosecutors time to formalize an indictment against him.
The Corruption Investigation Office is investigating him on possible charges of insurrection, which if found guilty could see him jailed for life or executed.
The new warrant, if filed Friday, would keep Yoon in detention until at least a court hearing and ruling for its approval over the weekend. If the court rejects it after the hearing, he would be released.
The CIO had called Yoon for questioning at 10 a.m. local time (0100 GMT) Friday, Yonhap news agency reported, but his lawyer Yoon Kab-keun told AFP he had refused to appear for the second consecutive day.
CIO officials did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment.
Another lawyer, Seok Dong-hyeon, told reporters Friday Yoon had already explained his position to investigators and had no reason to answer their questions.
“The president will not appear at the CIO today. He has sufficiently expressed his basic stance to the investigators on the first day,” he said.
Yoon was questioned for hours Wednesday but exercised his right to silence before refusing to appear for interrogation the next day.
Yoon’s supporters gathered outside the court Friday where investigators were expected to file for the new warrant, linking arms in an apparent attempt to block them, the Yonhap news agency reported.
Impeachment trial
Yoon had evaded arrest for weeks by remaining in his residential compound, protected by loyal members of the Presidential Security Service (PSS).
Hundreds of CIO investigators and police surrounded his compound on Wednesday in a second, and ultimately successful, effort to arrest him.
When he was detained, Yoon said he had agreed to leave his compound to avoid “bloodshed,” but that he did not accept the legality of the investigation.
The opposition Democratic Party celebrated Yoon’s arrest, with a top official calling it “the first step” to restoring constitutional and legal order.
In a Facebook post on Wednesday after his detention, Yoon repeated unfounded election fraud claims and referred to “hostile” nations threatening the country, alluding to North Korea.
Although Yoon won presidential elections in 2022, the Democratic Party won parliamentary elections in April last year by a landslide.
In a parallel probe, the Constitutional Court is deciding whether to uphold Yoon’s impeachment.
If that happens, Yoon would lose the presidency and fresh elections would have to be held within 60 days.
He did not attend the first two hearings this week.
The trial is continuing in Yoon’s absence and proceedings could last for months.
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The chief of the Indian army this week said that India is not yet looking to reduce troops at the India-China border in the winter season. The comment comes days after both countries agreed on six principles to ensure peace and stability at the border in a meeting in Beijing. But analysts believe a lack of trust and differences in strategic objectives would make the resolution process extremely difficult.
Click here for the full story in Mandarin.
BEIJING — Chinese authorities in Tibet have detected problems, including cracks, at five out of 14 hydropower dams that they have inspected since a magnitude 6.8 earthquake rocked the southwest region last week, an emergency official said Thursday.
Of the five affected dams, three have since been emptied, the Tibet emergency management official told a news conference.
In the county of Tingri, the quake’s epicenter, the walls of one hydrodam have tilted, prompting the evacuation of about 1,500 people from six villages downstream to higher ground, he said.
At another hydrodam, monitoring devices have been installed as it is being drained.
The earthquake, which has killed at least 126 people and injured hundreds, was a reminder of the risks from a hydropower-building spree by China and India in one of the world’s most remote, quake-prone regions.
Earthquakes have damaged dams in the past, particularly by setting off landslides and rockfalls. A massive earthquake in Nepal in 2015 shuttered almost a fifth of its hydropower for more than a year.
The Jan. 7 quake in Tibet, the fifth-deadliest in China since the 2008 Sichuan temblor, destroyed more than 3,600 houses and damaged religious structures, with aftershocks of up to 5.0 in magnitude still shaking the area.
Southwestern parts of China, Nepal and northern India are often hit by earthquakes caused by the collision of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates. Tingri, which sits atop the zone where the Indian plate pushes under Tibet, is particularly vulnerable.
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Taiwan plans to spend $4.56 billion to boost its startup ecosystem and has set up a liaison center in Silicon Valley designated to attract American venture capital and talent to Taiwan. Liu Chin-ching, minister of the National Development Council of Taiwan, told VOA of the importance of the bridge between the U.S. and Taiwan, adding that the Taiwan government would support new tech sectors such as quantum computing, silicon photonics and next-generation drones.
Click here for the full story in Mandarin.
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NEW DELHI — International power rivalry is playing out in the Indian Ocean region, India’s Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said on Wednesday, adding that a strong naval presence in the key trade route was his country’s biggest priority.
While Singh did not name any country, analysts say that China, which commands the world’s largest naval force with more than 370 ships, has been a security concern for India since ties nosedived in 2020 after 24 troops died in clashes along their Himalayan frontier.
The UK and the U.S. also have a joint military base in the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia.
Chinese and Indian troops have pulled back from two face-off points after a deal was struck in October following a series of talks, but India’s army chief told reporters this week that “a degree of standoff” still persists.
“A large part of the world’s trade and commerce passes through the Indian Ocean region. Due to geo-strategic reasons, the region is also becoming a part of international power rivalry,” Defense Minister Singh said during the induction of one submarine and two navy ships in the city of Mumbai.
He said 95% of India’s trade, in terms of volume, is linked to the Indian Ocean region. “In such a situation, the presence of a strong Indian Navy becomes our biggest priority,” he said.
India has sought to counter China as Beijing grows its influence in India’s neighborhood through investments and development projects in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
New Delhi plans to build a 175-ship strong naval force by 2035 with an increasing emphasis on using domestically made components, but analysts say the pace of construction is slow as compared to China, which builds almost 14 warships a year, while India constructs just four.
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South Korean authorities detained impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol early Wednesday. The move ends a weeks-long standoff over the current status of Yoon, who is being investigated for insurrection related to his short-lived declaration of martial law. More from VOA’s Bill Gallo in Seoul.
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