SYDNEY — Firefighters were desperately trying to stop a cluster of fast-moving blazes in southeast Australia on Tuesday, as thousands of acres of national park burned and a farming community was forced to evacuate.

Lightning strikes on Monday evening ignited several fires in the Grampians National Park, a forested mountain range about 300 kilometers west of Victoria’s state capital Melbourne.

A separate fast-moving fire in Little Desert National Park in the west of the state has torn through almost 65,000 hectares in less than 24 hours, emergency services said, scorching an area almost as large as Singapore.

That fire had forced the evacuation of rural Dimboola before threat levels were downgraded on Tuesday afternoon.

“I’m incredibly thankful that no lives have been lost and we have no reports of injury either,” emergency management commissioner Rick Nugent told reporters.

Chris Hardman from Forest Fire Management Victoria warned that weather conditions over the next few days are increasing the possibility the fires will spread.

“Right now firefighters are planning to do everything in their powers to protect communities,” he said.

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Kevin Parkyn said stifling heatwave conditions would settle over parts of Victoria on Saturday, escalating fire risks.

“When we look at the next seven to 10 days, the main message is that there will be a hot dome over Victoria.

“Once we get into the weekend don’t be surprised if we see heatwave conditions unfold across the state, and continue to intensify into next week.

“The landscape is dry, and if we continue to see these hot conditions, it will continue to dry the landscape out further.”

Hotter temperatures are fueling increasingly severe natural disasters across Australia, researchers have found.

Scientists have documented a marked increase in extreme fire weather across the country since the 1950s.

The unprecedented “Black Summer” bushfires of 2019-2020, for example, killed 33 people and millions of animals, razed vast tracts of forest and blanketed major cities in thick smoke.
…

Chinese researchers backed by a Hangzhou-based hedge fund recently released a new version of a large language model (LLM) called DeepSeek-R1 that rivals the capabilities of the most advanced U.S.-built products but reportedly does so with fewer computing resources and at much lower cost.

High Flyer, the hedge fund that backs DeepSeek, said that the model nearly matches the performance of LLMs built by U.S. firms like OpenAI, Google and Meta, but does so using only about 2,000 older generation computer chips manufactured by U.S.-based industry leader Nvidia while costing only about $6 million worth of computing power to train.

By comparison, Meta’s AI system, Llama, uses about 16,000 chips, and reportedly costs Meta vastly more money to train.

Open-source model

The apparent advance in Chinese AI capabilities comes after years of efforts by the U.S. government to restrict China’s access to advanced semiconductors and the equipment used to manufacture them. Over the past two years, under President Joe Biden, the U.S. put multiple export control measures in place with the specific aim of throttling China’s progress on AI development.

DeepSeek appears to have innovated its way to some of its success, developing new and more efficient algorithms that allow the chips in the system to communicate with each other more effectively, thereby improving performance.

At least some of what DeepSeek R1’s developers did to improve its performance is visible to observers outside the company, because the model is open source, meaning that the algorithms it uses to answer queries are public.

Market reaction

The news about DeepSeek’s capabilities sparked a broad sell-off of technology stocks on U.S. markets on Monday, as investors began to question whether U.S. companies’ well-publicized plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in AI data centers and other infrastructure would preserve their dominance in the field. When the markets closed on Monday, the tech-heavy Nasdaq index was down by 3.1%, and Nvidia’s share price had plummeted by nearly 17%.

However, not all AI experts believe the markets’ reaction to the release of DeepSeek R1 is justified, or that the claims about the model’s development should be taken at face value.

Mel Morris, CEO of U.K.-based Corpora.ai, an AI research engine, told VOA that while DeepSeek is an impressive piece of technology, he believes the market reaction has been excessive and that more information is needed to accurately judge the impact DeepSeek will have on the AI market.

“There’s always an overreaction to things, and there is today, so let’s just step back and analyze what we’re seeing here,” Morris said. “Firstly, we have no real understanding of exactly what the cost was or the time scale involved in building this product. We just don’t know. … They claim that it’s significantly cheaper and more efficient, but we have no proof of that.”

Morris said that while DeepSeek’s performance may be comparable to that of OpenAI products, “I’ve not seen anything yet that convinces me that they’ve actually cracked the quantum step in the cost of operating these sorts of models.”

Doubts about origins

Lennart Heim, a data scientist with the RAND Corporation, told VOA that while it is plain that DeepSeek R1 benefits from innovative algorithms that boost its performance, he agreed that the general public actually knows relatively little about how the underlying technology was developed.

Heim said that it is unclear whether the $6 million training cost cited by High Flyer actually covers the whole of the company’s expenditures — including personnel, training data costs and other factors — or is just an estimate of what a final training “run” would have cost in terms of raw computing power. If the latter, Heim said, the figure is comparable to the costs incurred by better U.S. models.

He also questioned the assertion that DeepSeek was developed with only 2,000 chips. In a blog post written over the weekend, he noted that the company is believed to have existing operations with tens of thousands of Nvidia chips that could have been used to do the work necessary to develop a model that is capable of running on just 2,000.

“This extensive compute access was likely crucial for developing their efficiency techniques through trial and error and for serving their models to customers,” he wrote.

He also pointed out that the company’s decision to release version R1 of its LLM last week — on the heels of the inauguration of a new U.S. president — appeared political in nature. He said that it was “clearly intended to rattle the public’s confidence in the United States’ AI leadership during a pivotal moment in U.S. policy.”

Dean W. Ball, a research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, was also cautious about declaring that DeepSeek R1 has somehow upended the AI landscape.

“I think Silicon Valley and Wall Street are overreacting to some extent,” he told VOA. “But at the end of the day, R1 means that the competition between the U.S. and China is likely to remain fierce, and that we need to take it seriously.”

Export control debate

The apparent success of DeepSeek has been used as evidence by some experts to suggest that the export controls put in place under the Biden administration may not have had the intended effects.

“At a minimum, this suggests that U.S. approaches to AI and export controls may not be as effective as proponents claim,” Paul Triolo, a partner with DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group, told VOA.

“The availability of very good but not cutting-edge GPUs — for example, that a company like DeepSeek can optimize for specific training and inference workloads — suggests that the focus of export controls on the most advanced hardware and models may be misplaced,” Triolo said. “That said, it remains unclear how DeepSeek will be able to keep pace with global leaders such as OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Mistral, Meta and others that will continue to have access to the best hardware systems.”

Other experts, however, argued that export controls have simply not been in place long enough to show results.

Sam Bresnick, a research fellow at Georgetown’s University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology told VOA that it would be “very premature” to call the measures a failure.

“The CEO of DeepSeek has gone on record saying the biggest constraint they face is access to high-level compute resources,” Bresnick said. “If [DeepSeek] had as much compute at their fingertips as Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, etc, there would be a significant boost in their performance. So … I don’t think that DeepSeek is the smoking gun that some people are claiming it is [to show that export controls] do not work.”

Bresnick noted that the toughest export controls were imposed in only 2023, meaning that their effects may just be starting to be felt. He said that the real test of their effectiveness will be whether U.S. firms are able to continue to outpace China in coming years.
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MELBOURNE, Australia — There’s all sorts of ways beyond merely the score to measure just how dominant Jannik Sinner was while outplaying and frustrating Alexander Zverev during the 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-3 victory Sunday that earned the 23-year-old Italian a second consecutive Australian Open championship. 

The zero break points Sinner faced. Or the 10 he accumulated. The 27-13 advantage in points that lasted at least nine strokes. Or the way Sinner accumulated more winners, 32 to 25, and fewer unforced errors, 27 to 45. The way Sinner won 10 of the 13 points that ended with him at the net. Or the way he only let Zverev go 14 of 27 in that category, frequently zipping passing shots out of reach. 

Well, here’s is one more bit of evidence: what Zverev said about Sinner. 

“I’m serving better than him, but that’s it. He does everything else better than me. He moves better than me. He hits his forehand better than me. He hits his backhand better than me. He returns better than me. He volleys better than me,” Zverev said. “At the end of the day, tennis has five or six massive shots — like, massive factors — and he does four or five of them better than me. That’s the reason why he won.” 

High praise from a guy who is, after all, ranked No. 2. Sinner has held the No. 1 spot since last June and is not showing any signs of relinquishing it. This was the first Australian Open final between the men at No. 1 and No. 2 since 2019, when No. 1 Novak Djokovic defeated No. 2 Rafael Nadal — also in straight sets. 

“It’s amazing,” Sinner said, “to achieve these things.” 

The “things” include being the youngest man to leave Melbourne Park with the trophy two years in a row since Jim Courier in 1992-93, and the first man since Nadal at the French Open in 2005 and 2006 to follow up his first Grand Slam title by repeating as the champion at the same tournament a year later. 

Sinner was asked later whether he felt more relief or excitement when he raised his arms after the last point was his. 

“This one was joy. We managed to do something incredible this time, because the situation I was in was completely different from a year ago here,” he said. “I had more pressure.” 

Probably true, but it’s hard to tell. 

Go to the start of 2024 and take stock. In that span, Sinner has won three of the five major tournaments, including the U.S. Open in September, meaning he now has claimed three straight hard-court Slams. His record is 80-6 with nine titles. His current unbeaten run covers 21 matches. 

“There’s always something that can get better,” said one of his two coaches, Simone Vagnozzi. “He is playing really well right now and everything comes easily. But there will be tough moments ahead.” 

The only thing that’s clouded the past 12 months for Sinner, it seems, is the doping case in which his exoneration was appealed by the World Anti-Doping Agency. He tested positive for a trace amount of an anabolic steroid twice last March but blamed it on an accidental exposure involving two members of his team who have since been fired. Sinner initially was cleared in August; a hearing in the WADA appeal is scheduled for April. 

“I keep playing like this because I have a clear mind on what happened,” Sinner said Sunday. “I know if I would be guilty, I would not play like this.” 

While he became the eighth man in the Open era (which began in 1968) to start his career 3-0 in Grand Slam finals, Zverev is the seventh to be 0-3, adding this loss to those at the 2020 U.S. Open and last year’s French Open. 

Those earlier setbacks both came in five sets. This contest was not that close. Not at all. 

“I’ll keep doing everything I can,” Zverev said, “to lift one of those trophies.” 

Just before Zverev began speaking into a microphone during the trophy ceremony, a voice cried out from the stands, making reference to two of the player’s ex-girlfriends who accused him of physical abuse. 

During the match, there truly was only one moment that contained a hint of tension. It came when Zverev was two points from owning the second set at 5-4, love-30. But a break point — and a set point — never arrived. 

A year ago, Sinner went through a lot more trouble to earn his first major, needing to get past Novak Djokovic — who quit one set into his semifinal against Zverev on Friday because of a torn hamstring — before erasing a two-set deficit in the final against 2021 U.S. Open champion Daniil Medvedev. 

This time, Sinner applied pressure with an all-around style that does not really appear to have holes. 

“The facts speak for themselves,” Zverev said. “He’s in a different universe right now.” 
…

TAIPEI, TAIWAN — As the Year of the Snake approaches, a pet store in Taipei is offering adventurous customers an opportunity to enjoy the company of snakes while sipping coffee, hoping to break down some of the prejudice against the animal.

Taiwan has been plastered with images of the reptile ahead of the start of the Lunar New Year, which starts on Wednesday and whose zodiac animal this year is the snake.

The snake has a mixed reputation in traditional Taiwanese and Chinese culture as a symbol of either good or bad.

Some of Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples venerate snakes as guardian spirits, and while the island is home to species potentially deadly to humans, including vipers and cobras, deaths are rare given the wide availability of anti-venom.

Luo Chih-yu, 42, the owner of the Taipei pet shop Pythonism which opened in 2017, is offering potential snake owners the chance to interact with snakes over a cup of coffee.

“I provide a space for people to try and experience, finding out whether they like them without any prejudice,” he said.

Liu Ting-chih took his daughter to the shop, who looked curiously at the animals in their cages.

“Through this activity she can learn how to take care of small animals and cherish them,” Liu said.

Sub-tropical and mountainous Taiwan is home to some 60 native snake species. 
…

WASHINGTON — Reports of Chinese citizens trafficked into scam centers along the Thai-Myanmar border are prompting renewed questions about Beijing’s reliance on Myanmar’s military regime to tackle transnational crime.

Analysts warn China’s strategy in Myanmar leaves citizens vulnerable while potentially bolstering criminal networks in the conflict-ridden Southeast Asia country.

Recent high-profile abduction cases have sparked outrage among the Chinese public, including the reported luring of Chinese actor Wang Xing to Myawaddy, a Thai-Myanmar border town, by scammers posing as film producers. Chinese embassies in Myanmar and Thailand have warned citizens about high-paying job offers that often lead to forced labor.

Thai officials reported that actor Wang Xing was trafficked into a scam syndicate operating in areas controlled by an ally of Myanmar’s military, the Karen Border Guard Force, or BGF.

Speaking to local media, Brigadier General Saw Maung Win of the BGF Battalion 3 confirmed that the BGF had handed Chinese actor Wang Xing over to Thai authorities but denied involvement in the trafficking, claiming only to have assisted in the rescue operation.

“These incidents involving Chinese citizens trafficked to Myawaddy are handled cautiously by Chinese authorities,” said Hla Kyaw Zaw, a China-Myanmar analyst. “But when action is required, China tends to pressure Thailand rather than directly addressing the situation in Myanmar.”

Jason Tower of the United States Institute of Peace echoed similar concerns.

“China’s support for the Myanmar military comes at great cost to its own population,” Tower said, referencing a publicly available database with close to 2,000 names of people across China who have gone missing in Myanmar in recent years.

Subsequently, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged Southeast Asian nations to take decisive action against online gambling and telecom fraud, emphasizing the need for “relevant” countries to fulfill their responsibilities without explicitly naming Myanmar.

At a meeting with ASEAN envoys on Jan. 16, he highlighted the growing threat these crimes pose, particularly along the Thai-Myanmar border, which has endangered citizens of China and other countries.

Chinese and Thai police have jointly arrested 12 suspects connected to trafficking, with investigations ongoing and efforts underway to apprehend more suspects.

On Friday, China’s Ministry of Public Security said it was “making every effort” to crack down on the scam compounds and “rescue trafficked people.”

China’s ‘carrot’ approach

Tower said that China appears to favor a “carrot” approach in its dealings with Myanmar’s military.

In 2024, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security awarded its highest honor, the Golden Great Wall Commemorative Medal, to Myanmar’s home affairs minister, Lieutenant General Yar Pyae, for joint efforts against transnational crime. However, analysts argue that despite China’s support, Myanmar’s military focuses on territorial battles rather than combating scam operations.

According to Tower, Myanmar’s military lacks the capacity and the political will to address these syndicates effectively because the Myanmar military must rely on militia leader Saw Chit Thu to maintain control over Myawaddy, a crucial trade hub.

Saw Chit Thu, the leader of the BGF, has been sanctioned by the United States, United Kingdom and European Union for his role in protecting Chinese gangs and scam operations.

Scam networks reshuffle

China’s aggressive crackdowns on scam networks along its northern border with Myanmar in recent years have pushed many scam operations to relocate to Myawaddy, Karen State, far from Beijing’s immediate oversight. Unlike northern Myanmar, where China has exerted direct pressure, Myawaddy’s geographical distance and political dynamics pose unique challenges to Beijing.

Hla Kyaw Zaw said that China has seen some success in cracking down on online scams near its borders, but these efforts are largely localized. The measures have been less effective in other areas, such as Myawaddy, and scams continue to thrive.

“China closely monitors illegal activities in and around Myawaddy but depends on Thailand’s cooperation to address these issues,” Hla Kyaw Zaw said.

In response to VOA’s inquiries regarding scam operations, the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar highlighted recent joint combat efforts by China and Myanmar against online scam operations.

According to the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar’s announcement on Tuesday, China will soon launch the second phase of its “Jingyao Joint Law Enforcement Operation” initiative, a multinational effort with Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam to combat telecom fraud and transnational crime, following a first phase that resulted in over 70,000 arrests regionally and the rescue of 160 victims, mainly from northern Myanmar along the China border.

Social media uproar

Chinese actor Wang’s abduction sparked outrage on Chinese social media platforms, along with a growing database of families whose relatives have disappeared under similar circumstances.

A joint letter from the families of 174 people believed to be trapped in Myanmar went viral on China’s social media platform, Sina Weibo, on Jan. 9.

A political and strategic dilemma

As scam networks grow more sophisticated, analysts say Beijing faces a challenging balancing act between protecting its citizens and maintaining its strategic interests in Myanmar. Experts such as Tower are urging Beijing to reassess its priorities.

“China’s strategy is failing,” Tower argued. “The reality is, as you can see, how easily Chinese [civilians] are still trafficked into the Myanmar military Border Guard Force territory,” he said. “It’s not able to deal with these problems with the military.”

However, balancing crackdowns without destabilizing the Myanmar regime presents a challenge.

“China seems to be losing on both fronts,” Tower said. “This is a really tricky issue. On one hand, China doesn’t want the Myanmar military regime to collapse. And it recognizes that if it goes back to using that stick, it’s going to speed up the collapse of the Myanmar military.”
…

China’s annual mass migration ahead of the Lunar New Year will peak with billions of trips anticipated during this year’s holiday, which begins Tuesday.

An estimated 9 billion trips are expected. This year’s holiday lasts from Jan. 28 through Feb. 4 and marks the arrival of the Year of the Snake. Authorities in China extended the annual break an extra day, so the public holiday will last eight days this year.

During the holiday, travel is expected to pick up domestically and internationally. The government said it expects trips by train to surpass 510 million, with 90 million more traveling by air. Inside the country, most will travel by car.

For trips overseas, travel to Southeast Asia has surged, with ticket volumes to Vietnam, Singapore and Indonesia rising by more than 50%, according to data from the World Travel and Tourism Council. Additionally, demand for travel to Hong Kong has nearly doubled, and Japan is seeing a 58% increase in airline ticket purchases.

While the Lunar New Year is known as a festive time characterized by colorful lanterns, parades and lion dances, it holds more than just cultural significance to Chinese authorities who see the period as an opportunity to boost a sluggish economy.

That is one key reason authorities increased the holiday to eight days. They also launched several efforts to help revive weak consumer spending, such as promoting winter-themed holiday destinations and ensuring affordable airfares, according to officials at a State Council press conference in Beijing.

Despite the efforts, Reuters reported businesses and consumers appear to be spending less than usual during the holiday season, citing concerns over a prolonged property slump and worries over job security.

Throughout the past year, China has implemented a series of measures aimed at addressing those concerns, including stimulus measures such as cutting interest rates, increasing pensions and widening trade-in programs for consumer goods.

One industry that appears to have gotten a boost from the festival season is cinema.

The film industry in China had struggled recently, seeing a 22.6% decrease in total box office revenue in 2024. However, according to data from Maoyan, a Chinese ticketing platform, movie tickets exceeded $55 million by Jan. 23, the fastest presales for the Lunar New Year season.

A large part of that increased demand has been from the film “Legends of the Condor Heroes,” starring Xiao Zhan, an actor and singer who is also a brand ambassador for luxury goods companies such as Gucci and Tod’s.

Shops and restaurants also hope to see an increase in spending that mirrors the film industry over the course of the holiday.

Some information in this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press.
…

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.”
…

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.
…

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.
…

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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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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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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