Comments by Philippine officials indicate that, with a growing Chinese maritime threat, Manila now hopes the Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States – which the Philippines once moved to terminate – survives, experts told VOA Thursday.
Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. last year announced the country had suspended the announced termination of the agreement. The 1999 pact provides for arms sales, intelligence exchanges and discussions on military cooperation. It allows U.S. troops access to Philippine soil for military exercises aimed at regional security and local humanitarian work. Those measures shore up a 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty.
Locsin said in a tweet earlier this month that negotiations over the pact were nearly finished, Philippine media reported last week. The talks began in February and coincided with China’s mooring of 220 fishing boats at a reef that Beijing and Manila dispute. Media reports quote Locsin saying the talks should be done within the coming week.
On April 10, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Philippine counterpart Delfin Lorenzana, and they “affirmed the value” of the agreement, the U.S. Defense Department says on its website.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, a skeptic of the United States who announced the deal’s termination in February 2020, said on national TV just over two months ago he wanted to hear public opinion on the topic. Many lawmakers have already opposed the pact’s termination — which has been suspended twice.FILE – This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows Chinese vessels at the Whitsun reef, in a disputed part of the South China Sea, March 23, 2021.Saving the deal
Philippine officials have not said negotiations would save the agreement, but specialists say they believe comments from Manila show officials hope it holds up.
“There’s an emerging consensus within the key agencies, and I think something that we can see in terms of public opinion as well,” said Herman Kraft, a political science professor at University of the Philippines at Diliman, pointing to comments by defense and foreign ministry officials.
The Philippine government now wants the agreement updated to spell out explicitly that the United States would intervene to help defend outlying islands where Chinese vessels are most likely to appear, an academic close to Philippine defense officials said.
The United States had governed the Philippines for more than five decades before allowing its independence after World War II. For Washington today, the Philippines represents one in a chain of Western Pacific allies that can work together to check Chinese maritime expansion. Former U.S. defense secretary Mark Esper had called the deal cancellation a “move in the wrong direction for the longstanding relationship we’ve had with the Philippines” in part because of the Asian archipelago’s location.
“Rather than maintain strategic ambiguity — this was the practice in the past — [Philippine officials] prefer some strategic clarity,” said Eduardo Araral, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s public policy school.Sino-Philippine maritime dispute
China and the Philippines dispute sovereignty over tracts of the South China Sea.
Their dispute eased in 2016 after Manila won a world arbitral court ruling against Beijing and Duterte pursued a new friendship with China. However, Philippine officials grew alarmed when about 100 Chinese boats showed up in 2019 near a Philippine-held islet in the sea and again when the fleet of 220 stopped at Whitsun Reef last month.
Ongoing “tension with China” gives the Philippine government a new incentive to keep the Visiting Forces Agreement, said Aaron Rabena, research fellow at the Asia-Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation in Metro Manila.
China, which maintains Asia’s strongest armed forces, cites historic documents to support its claim to about 90% of the disputed sea. Four other governments call all or part of the same sea their own. China has alarmed many over the past decade by landfilling islets for military installations.
Smaller claimants welcome a U.S. role in the dispute, and the United States — China’s superpower rival — doubled the number of warship passages through the sea in 2019 compared to 2018.
Delicate decision
A decision in Manila to uphold the agreement would upset China, which could in turn increase its boat count in the disputed sea, Kraft said. It could go as far as banning Philippine fishing operations, he said. The sea is valued for fisheries as well as undersea fuel reserves.
However, Duterte risks being seen as weak at home if he reinstates the U.S. pact after thundering against it in February 2020, experts say. Duterte, a long-time anti-U.S. firebrand, ordered an end to the deal after the U.S. government canceled a visa for a Philippine senator and former police chief who was instrumental in a deadly anti-drug campaign that generated outrage abroad.
Duterte might end up letting his foreign affairs and defense secretaries handle the whole Visiting Forces Agreement process, Kraft said. The Philippines could technically keep suspending its cancelation of the deal every six months until deciding what to do, Araral said.
The government could extend the review process into mid-2022, when Duterte must step down due to term limits, Rabena said.
“He doesn’t have to say yes to it,” Rabena said. “What he does sometimes is that he just allows his cabinet members to do their thing.”
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Author: SeeEA
Activist Says He Flew 500K Leaflets Across Koreas’ Border
A South Korean activist said Friday he launched 500,000 propaganda leaflets by balloon into North Korea this week in defiance of a contentious new law that criminalizes such actions.If confirmed, Park Sang-hak’s action would be the first known violation of the law that punishes anti-Pyongyang leafleting with up to three years in prison or a fine of $27,040. The law that took effect in March has invited criticism South Korea is sacrificing freedom of expression to improve ties with rival North Korea, which has repeatedly protested the leafleting.Police stations in frontline Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces said they couldn’t immediately confirm if Park sent balloons from their areas, which Park has used in the past and said he used in two launches this week. Cha Duck Chul, a deputy spokesperson at Seoul’s Unification Ministry, said the government would handle the case in line with the objective of the law, though police and military authorities were still working to confirm Park’s statements.Park said his organization floated 10 giant balloons carrying the leaflets, reading materials critical of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s government, and 5,000 $1 bills over two launches from frontline areas this week. He would not disclose the exact locations in the two border provinces he used, citing worries police would stop future attempts.”Though (authorities) can handcuff and put me to a prison cell, they cannot stop (my leafleting) with whatever threats or violence as long as the North Korean people waits for the letters of freedom, truth and hopes,” said Park, a North Korean defector known for years of leafleting campaigns.Park called the anti-leafleting legislation “the worst law” that “sides with cruel human rights abuser Kim Jong Un and covers the eyes and ears of the North Korean people that have become the modern-day slaves of the Kim dynasty.”Video released by Park showed him releasing a balloon with leaflets toward a dark sky and showed him standing in the woods with a sign that partly reads, “The world condemns Kim Jong Un who is crazy for nuclear and rocket provocations.”The anti-leafleting legislation was passed in December by Parliament, where lawmakers supporting President Moon Jae-in’s engagement policy on North Korea hold a three-fifths supermajority. It went into effect in March.It’s the first South Korean law that formally bans civilians from floating anti-North Korea leaflets across border. South Korea has previously banned such activities only during sensitive times in inter-Korean relations and normally allowed activists to exercise their freedom of speech despite repeated protests from North Korea.Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, last year furiously demanded South Korea ban the leafleting and called North Korean defectors involved in it “human scum” and “mongrel dogs.”Despite the law, ties between the Koreas remain strained amid a standstill in broader nuclear diplomacy between Pyongyang and Washington. North Korea has made a series of derisive statements against Seoul, including Kim Yo Jong calling Moon “a parrot raised by America” after he criticized the North’s recent missile launches.
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Thousands of Myanmar Villagers Poised to Flee Violence to Thailand, Group Says
Thousands of ethnic Karen villagers in Myanmar are poised to cross into Thailand if, as expected, fighting intensifies between the Myanmar army and Karen insurgents. Karen rebels and the Myanmar army have clashed near the Thai border in the weeks since Feb. 1, when Myanmar’s generals ousted an elected government led by democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi, displacing villagers on both sides of the border.”People say the Burmese will come and shoot us, so we fled here,” Chu Wah told Reuters. The Karen villager said he crossed over to Thailand with his family this week from the Ee Thu Hta displacement camp in Myanmar.”I had to flee across the river,” Chu Wah said, referring to the Salween River that forms the border in the area.The Karen Peace Support Network says thousands of villagers are taking shelter on the Myanmar side of the Salween and they will flee to Thailand if the fighting escalates.”In coming days, more than 8,000 Karen along the Salween River will have to flee to Thailand. We hope that the Thai army will help them escape the war,” the group said in a post on Facebook.Karen fighters on Tuesday overran a Myanmar army unit on the west bank of the Salween in a predawn attack. The Karen said 13 soldiers and three of their fighters were killed. The Myanmar military responded with airstrikes in several areas near the Thai border.Thai authorities say nearly 200 villagers have crossed into Thailand this week. Thailand has reinforced its forces and restricted access to the border.Hundreds of Thai villagers have also been displaced, moving from their homes close to the border, to deeper into Thai territory for safety.”The situation has escalated so we can’t go back,” said Warong Tisakul, 33, a Thai villager from Mae Sam Laep, a settlement, now abandoned, opposite the Myanmar army post attacked this week.”Security officials won’t let us; we can’t go back.”
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China’s Climate Goals ‘Realistic,’ ‘Ambitious’
At a climate summit short on specifics, China stood out.Live now! A giant screen shows news footage of Chinese President Xi Jinping attending a video summit on climate change from Beijing, China.China must shut, retrofit or put into reserve capacity as much as 364 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power, and its carbon intensity of power generation must be halved, from 672 gCO2/kWh today to 356 gCO2/kWh, according to London-based climate data provider President Joe Biden speaks to the virtual Leaders Summit on Climate, from the East Room of the White House, April 23, 2021, in Washington.Biden set out a goal for the U.S. to cut emissions by 50% to 52% from 2005 levels at the start of a two-day gathering that began on April 22, Earth Day, and was attended virtually by leaders of 40 countries, including big emitters India and Russia.The U.S. plan puts it on track to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global warming to 1.5 C compared with preindustrial levels. Former President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement on June 1, 2017. Rejoining the Paris Agreement signed by 197 nations was one of Biden’s top priorities, and he signed an executive order initiating a 30-day process to reenter the pact hours after his inauguration on January 20.Greenhouse gases are those in Earth’s atmosphere that trap heat. They let sunlight pass through the atmosphere, but they prevent the heat that the sunlight delivers from leaving the atmosphere, according to NASA. The main greenhouse gases are water vapor, CO2, methane, ozone, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons.The other greenhouse gases, especially methane, are also big contributors to global warming. That’s why the U.S. and the European Union countries are targeting greenhouse gas emissions. In 2018, European leaders set a target for climate neutrality by 2050 that covers all emissions. China’s carbon dioxide emissions, which account for about a quarter of the world’s total, are about twice those of the United States. Scott Moore, director of the Global China Program at the University of Pennsylvania and a former U.S. official in the Obama administration, said no matter how contentious the relationship between Washington and Beijing on many fronts, climate change gave China an area for working constructively with the U.S. on a global challenge.Moore, who participated in negotiations with China on the Paris Agreement, told VOA that cooperating with the U.S. on climate change gives China an opportunity to pressure Washington on other issues.”They want to link cooperation on climate change with some type of concession on human rights or political freedom. That’s obviously a nonstarter in terms of U.S. policy,” he said.When commenting on U.S.-China cooperation on climate change in January, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said that the cooperation, “unlike flowers that can bloom in a greenhouse despite winter chill, is closely linked with bilateral relations as a whole.”
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New Zealand Criticized for ‘Five Eyes’ Alliance Stance on China
New Zealand says it is “uncomfortable” using the 70-year-old “Five Eyes” intelligence grouping, which includes the United States, Britain, Australia and Canada, to criticize China. Some critics accuse the government in Wellington of selling out to Beijing..The Five Eyes alliance was formed in 1941 to share secrets during World War II. Now, however, disagreements within the U.S.-led alliance are emerging about using the spy network to exert political pressure on China. New Zealand, the group’s smallest member, has expressed reluctance to sign joint statements from its alliance partners condemning Beijing’s crackdown on the democracy movement in Hong Kong and its treatment of its minority Uyghur Muslim population in Xinjiang province. The declarations have infuriated China’s government.
New Zealand’s foreign minister, Nanaia Mahuta, believes the Five Eyes alliance is not the best forum to voice those concerns. “Can I say we do value the Five Eyes relationship. We receive a significant benefit from being a part of that relationship and they are close allies and friends in terms of common values and principles. But whether or not that framework needs to be invoked every time on every issue, especially in the human rights space, is something that we have expressed further views about,” said Mahuta,However, critics, including some British lawmakers and influential newspapers, have accused the government in Wellington of selling “its soul to China.” They accuse New Zealand, which earns about 29% of its export revenue from China, of choosing its economic ties with Beijing over a longstanding alliance with like-minded nations. Media commentators in New Zealand have described the dilemma; speak out against China and suffer economic damage, as Australia has found, or stay silent and see the end of a “moral foreign policy” of which the nation was proud. Australia experienced a decline in coal and wine exports to China due to tariffs and restrictions imposed by Beijing. Alexey Muraviev, head of the Department of Social Sciences and Security Studies at Curtin University in the Australian city of Perth, believes divisions within the Five Eyes network will benefit China. “When you see quarrels among long established and trusted allies, it gives China confidence that its policies divide and rule, its policies of effectively buying peoples’ and countries’ loyalties through major investment though special trade deals, through guaranteeing access to China’s tourists, China’s dollars, China’s market is working,” he said. New Zealand is insisting the Five Eyes group remains vital for its border security, defense and cyber safety. It believes a broader coalition of countries is needed to address human rights concerns in China and elsewhere. Analysts believe that divisions within the intelligence alliance show how the West is struggling to manage the economic and military rise of China. Senior Australian and New Zealand government officials are due to meet next month to discuss the Five Eyes alliance, and other bilateral issues.
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Australian PM: Multibillion Dollar Military Spending Not a Warning to China
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison says multibillion-dollar investments in military bases in northern Australia are designed to enhance regional peace, rather than as a deliberate response to China’s growing assertiveness. In response, officials in Beijing have called Australian politicians the “real troublemakers.”Australia is beefing up its military bases in the Northern Territory, including facilities to train aboriginal recruits, and others that host joint exercises with U.S. Marines stationed in the region. Speaking at the Robertson army barracks in the Northern Territory, Prime Minister Scott Morrison insisted a 10-year $6 billion plan to improve defense facilities was meant to keep the peace in an “uncertain” region rather than preparing for conflict. He was responding to questions from the media about recent tensions with Beijing over Taiwan.“All of our objectives here through the activities of our defense forces are designed to pursue peace. That is the objective of our government,” he said. Morrison denied huge investment in military bases in northern Australia was aimed at sending a message to China. Government ministers and analysts have said Chinese military expansion in the South China Sea and its crushing of democratic dissent in Hong Kong have been of great strategic concern to Canberra.A Chinese Coast Guard patrol ship is seen at South China Sea, in a handout photo distributed by the Philippine Coast guard, April 15, 2021.Morrison has also, though, defended comments by Australia’s new defense minister, Peter Dutton, who said the possibility of conflict with China over Taiwan should not be “discounted.”Dutton’s remarks have further inflamed diplomatic tensions between Canberra and Beijing, already strained by geopolitical and trade disputes.Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian Wednesday called Australia’s politicians the “real troublemakers” and declared Australia’s concerns about the threat posed by China as “unethical.”Beijing has, in the past, accused Australia of peddling “anti-China hysteria.”Bilateral ties are now so bad that it is reported that Australian government ministers have for months been unable to speak with their Chinese counterparts, who refuse to take their calls.Caitlin Byrne, the director of the Griffith Asia Institute at Griffith University, argues that a more measured and delicate approach is needed.“I think not just cautious and careful diplomatic language, but also, you know, sometimes we need to potentially work quietly and less with a megaphone,” said Byrne.Australia has had to juggle commitments to a longstanding military alliance with the United States with valuable commercial ties with China, its biggest trading partner.Political squabbles with Beijing have had damaging economic consequences.Canberra’s call last year for a worldwide investigation into the origins of COVID-19 that was first detected in China caused fury in Beijing. There followed sweeping tariffs and restrictions on a range of Australian exports to China, including wine, beef and coal.
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Biden Rallies Skeptical Allies to Get Tougher on China
Through his first 100 days in office, U.S. President Joe Biden has preserved many key aspects of his predecessor Donald Trump’s tougher approach toward China. Some U.S. allies in Asia, though, are still deciding whether to join Washington’s effort to counter Beijing, as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports from Seoul.
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China Launches Main Part of Its 1st Permanent Space Station
China on Thursday launched the main module of its first permanent space station that will host astronauts long term, the latest success for a program that has realized a number of its growing ambitions in recent years. The Tianhe, or “Heavenly Harmony,” module blasted into space atop a Long March 5B rocket from the Wenchang Launch Center on the southern island province of Hainan, marking another major advance for the country’s space exploration. The launch begins the first of 11 missions necessary to complete, supply and crew the station by the end of next year. China’s space program has also recently brought back the first new lunar samples in more than 40 years and expects to land a probe and rover on the surface of Mars later next month. Minutes after the launch, the fairing opened to expose the Tianhe atop the core stage of the rocket, with the characters for “China Manned Space” emblazoned on its exterior. Soon after, it separated from the rocket, which will orbit for about a week before falling to Earth, and minutes after that, opened its solar arrays to provide a steady energy source. The space program is a source of huge national pride, and Premier Li Keqiang and other top civilian and military leaders watched the launch live from the control center in Beijing. A message of congratulations from state leader and head of the ruling Communist Party Xi Jinping was also read to staff at the Wenchang Launch Center. The launch furthers the “three-step” strategy of building up China’s manned space program and marks “an important leading project for constructing a powerful country in science and technology and aerospace,” Xi’s message said. The core module is the section of the station where astronauts will live for up to six months at a time. Another 10 launches will send up two more modules where crews will conduct experiments, four cargo supply shipments and four missions with crews. At least 12 astronauts are training to fly to and live in the station, including veterans of previous flights, newcomers and women, with the first crewed mission, Shenzhou-12, expected to be launched by June. When completed by late 2022, the T-shaped Chinese Space Station is expected to weigh about 66 tons, considerably smaller than the International Space Station, which launched its first module in 1998 and will weigh about 450 tons when completed. Tianhe will have a docking port and will also be able to connect with a powerful Chinese space satellite. Theoretically, it could be expanded to as many as six modules. The station is designed to operate for at least 10 years. Tianhe is about the size of the American Skylab space station of the 1970s and the former Soviet/Russian Mir, which operated for more than 14 years after launching in 1986. The core module will provide living space for as many as six astronauts during crew changeovers, while its other two modules, Wentian, or “Quest for the Heavens,” and Mengtian, or “Dreaming of the Heavens,” will provide room for conducting scientific experiments including in medicine and the properties of the outer space environment. China began working on a space station project in 1992, just as its space ambitions were taking shape. The need to go it alone became more urgent after was excluded from the International Space Station largely due to U.S. objections over the Chinese program’s secretive nature and close military ties. After years of successful rocket and commercial satellite launches, China put its first astronaut into space in October 2003, becoming only the third country to independently do so after the former Soviet Union and the United States. Along with more crewed missions, China launched a pair of experimental, single-module space stations — Tiangong-1, which means “Heavenly Palace-1,” and its successor, Tiangong-2. The first burned up after contact was lost and its orbit decayed, while the second was successfully taken out of orbit in 2018. The Tiangong-2 crew stayed aboard for 33 days. While NASA must get permission from a reluctant Congress to engage in contact with the Chinese space program, other countries have been far less reluctant. European nations and the United Nations are expected to cooperate on experiments to be done on the completed Chinese station. The launch comes as China is also forging ahead with crewless missions, particularly in lunar exploration, and it has landed a rover on the little-explored far side of the moon. In December, its Chang’e 5 probe returned lunar rocks to Earth for the first time since the U.S. missions of the 1970s. Meanwhile, a Chinese probe carrying a rover is due to set down on Mars sometime around the middle of next month, making China only the second country to successfully accomplish that after the U.S. The Tianwen-1 space probe has been orbiting the red planet since February while collecting data. Its Zhurong rover will be looking for evidence of life. Another Chinese program aims to collect soil from an asteroid, a key focus of Japan’s space program. China plans another mission in 2024 to bring back lunar samples and has said it wants to land people on the moon and possibly build a scientific base there. No timeline has been proposed for such projects. A highly secretive space plane is also reportedly under development. China has proceeded in a more measured, cautious manner than the U.S. and Soviet Union during the height of the space race. One recent setback came when a Long March 5 rocket failed in 2017 during development of the Long March 5B variant used to put Tianhe into orbit, but that caused only a brief delay.
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Delegation of Powers to Thai PM Raises Concern of Authoritarian Turn
Sweeping powers handed to Thai Prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha this week to control a rebound of the coronavirus is raising concern the country could slide deeper into authoritarianism under the guise of battling the pandemic. A decree published by the official Royal Gazette website late Tuesday transferred ministerial powers covering 31 laws to the direct control of Prayuth, a former army chief, “temporarily in order to suppress the [virus] situation and protect the people.” Those include control over immigration, health and procurement, but also over several areas of defense and cybersecurity. A passerby wearing a face mask passes a closed massage shop in Khao San road, a popular hangout for Thais and tourists in Bangkok, Thailand, April 26, 2021.Army chief Prayuth seized power from an elected government in 2014 and rebranded himself as a civilian leader. He won an election in 2019 under a controversial constitution drafted by the army designed to limit the electoral potency of his opposition and has had his legislative agenda waved through parliament by a Senate he appointed. After nearly seven years at the helm, the gaff-prone Prayuth is deeply unpopular among the public and has faced mass youth-led protests calling for his resignation amid wider reforms to excise the royalist army from politics for good — in a country that has seen 13 coups since 1932. Thai Police Use Tear Gas, Rubber Bullets to Break Up Protest Pro-democracy camp wants release of detained activists, constitutional changes and reform of monarchyThose protests have for now been virtually extinguished on the streets by legal moves against its leaders, but remain vigorous online in memes, cartoons and sharp critiques of the government. Prayuth, though, remains favored by King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s palace, which wields immense power from behind the scenes. A third round of the pandemic is already the worst yet for Thailand, with the public braced for a health crisis after about 2,000 cases a day and 84 dead in the latest wave.Those are small numbers by world standards, but are the worst yet to hit a country that thought it had quashed the outbreak. Vaccination remains slow, with just 240,000 people out of a population of almost 70 million receiving a second shot, while the virus rebound has cast doubt on plans for a reopening of the key tourist industry over coming months. With joblessness rising, and criticism of the government mounting, Prayuth has gathered more direct power than at any time since his election as a civilian leader. “Old habits die hard,” said Sunai Phasuk, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division. Prayuth has “seized power from cabinet ministers to establish one-man-rule using COVID-19 outbreak as a pretext. It is a silent coup,” he said. Crucially, Sunai warned Prayuth’s control of cybersecurity could be used to “shut down critical opinions from the media and public about the government’s response to the crisis.” With the public preoccupied with riding out the virus wave it has fallen on opposition politicians to question the concentration of powers under Prayuth. “Seizing more power to manage COVID?” Sereepisuth Temeeyaves, leader of Thai Liberal Party, asked reporters on Wednesday. “Prayuth has one brain and two hands … how can he manage the whole country himself?” he said. Others were more scathing of the perceived attack on Thailand’s withered democracy. “In 2014 you seized power and ran the country into the ground,” Watana Muangsook, a lawmaker for the opposition Pheu Thai MP tweeted. “Today you’ve seized power over the law to manage Covid. #Timetogetout,” he tweeted.
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UN Calls on Countries to Take Action to Prevent Drowning
The U.N. General Assembly encouraged all countries Wednesday to take action to prevent drownings, which have caused over 2.5 million deaths in the past decade, over 90% of them in low-income and middle-income countries.The resolution, co-sponsored by Bangladesh and Ireland and adopted by consensus by the 193-member world body, is the first to focus on drowning. It establishes July 25 as “World Drowning Prevention Day.”The assembly stresses that drowning “is preventable” using “low-cost interventions” and calls on countries to consider introducing water safety, swimming and first aid lessons as part of school curricula. It encourages nations to appoint “a national focal point for drowning prevention,” develop countrywide prevention programs, and enact and enforce water safety laws.Unlike Security Council resolutions, General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding but they do reflect global opinion.According to the United Nations, the world’s highest drowning rates are in Africa while the highest number of drowning deaths are in Asia.”Drowning is a social equity issue that disproportionately affects children and adolescents in rural areas, with many countries reporting drowning as the leading cause of childhood mortality and drowning being among the 10 leading causes of death globally for 5- to 14-year-olds,” the resolution says.It notes “with concern” that the official global estimate of 235,000 annual deaths from drowning excludes drownings attributed to flood-related climate events and water transport incidents. This has resulted “in the underrepresentation of drowning deaths by up to 50 percent in some countries,” it says.The assembly says that “water-related disasters increasingly affect millions of people globally,” in part due to the escalating impact of climate change, “and that flooding affects more people than any other natural hazard, with drowning being the main cause of death during floods.”Bangladeshi Ambassador Rabab Fatima told the assembly after the resolution’s adoption: “The imperative to act on drowning is not simply moral or political. The economic cost is equally untenable.”
He said drowning is a leading cause of child mortality in Bangladesh and in the South Asia region, and the resolution’s call for preventive action is urgent.Ireland’s U.N. ambassador, Geraldine Byrne Nason, called the resolution and designation of July 25 as a day for the world to focus on preventing drowning a moment “to highlight the immediate need for strategic and significant international action to save lives and prevent hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths.”Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the World Health Organization’s global ambassador for noncommunicable diseases and injuries, said: “Encouraging governments to adopt effective measures to prevent drowning will save thousands of lives and call attention to this urgent public health issue.””We have the tools to prevent these deaths – and need to act on them now,” he said in a statement.
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Is EU-China Investment Deal ‘Dead as a Doornail’?
China may have sabotaged its own prospects for securing a sought-after investment agreement with the European Union when it penalized a long list of politicians, researchers and institutions – including a key member of Germany’s Green Party – in response to recent EU sanctions.The Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, or CAI, was agreed to in principle at the end of last year but remains as much as a year from final ratification by the European Parliament, where support from Germany is seen as crucial to its approval.Recent polling shows the Greens – who are considered much tougher on China than the current administration in Berlin – as well positioned to participate in or even lead the next German government after elections expected in late September.And that could leave the investment deal as “dead as a doornail,” according to Green Party lawmaker Reinhard Buetikofer, who heads the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with China and appeared at the top of a list of EU individuals and institutions targeted for sanctions by Beijing last month.Speaking at a recent FILE – A Chinese officer stands outside the British Embassy in Beijing, March 26, 2021. Days earlier, China sanctioned British entities following the U.K.’s joining the EU and others in sanctioning Chinese officials over alleged rights abuses.But EU-Chinese relations soured dramatically on March 22 after the European bloc announced travel bans and asset freezes for four Chinese officials over their roles in the mistreatment of their nation’s Uyghur minority.China immediately retaliated with a much larger set of sanctions targeting a number of EU lawmakers, researchers and institutions, including Buetikofer.“Europe is heading into an intense political season, and China has made itself a much higher political priority for many with the sanctions,” Brussels-based political economist Jacob F. Kirkegaard told VOA in a written interview. “This bodes very badly for CAI in the near term.”Kirkegaard continued: “It all depends frankly on the German elections – if for instance the Greens actually win and supply the next chancellor, the CAI is surely dead. It may even be dead if the Greens [which seems highly likely] enter the government.”The analyst predicted that when Merkel steps down, and “more importantly [when] a new coalition comes to power, things will change; the only question is how much.”FILE – Reinhard Buetikofer attends a congress of the German Green party in Bielefeld, western Germany, Nov. 16, 2019.Theresa Fallon, the founder and director of the Center for Russia Europe Asia Studies in Brussels, cautioned in a telephone interview against considering the EU-China investment deal completely dead.While its current prospects appear dim, “a lot can happen in a year,” said Fallon, a former member of the Strategic Advisers Group for the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe. She added that the debate over the investment deal reflects a larger discussion taking place within the EU on the appropriate response toward China.While commercial interests are a factor in the eagerness of Germany and some of its European partners to do business with China, Fallon said that until recently some in Europe had looked at closer relations with China as a potential check on hegemonic U.S. power.Chinese actions lately, however, have compelled the Europeans to “see China as it is, not as what they imagined it to be,” she said. “What are we really doing? Is this the type of world order we want, with China at the top? We talk about strategic autonomy, but autonomy from what?”Nabila Massrali, EU spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy, told VOA the bloc continues to regard trade with China as important and sees the CAI as “part of our toolbox” to rebalance its economic relationship with Beijing.However, “economic interests will not prevent us from standing up for global values, including where necessary, through sanctions,” she said. Massrali pointed out that the EU moved before the U.S., Britain and Canada in imposing its sanctions last month.
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Experts Weigh In on Expanded Myanmar Civil War Prospects Amid ASEAN Plan
Myanmar remains on the path to an expanded, nationwide civil war unless there is a coordinated response from all parties concerned, according to experts.Since February’s coup, large waves of Myanmar’s population have opposed the takeover, with street protests and strikes against the military.In response, the armed forces have detained thousands of people, including National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi, while hundreds of protesters and bystanders have been killed.Myanmar has seen three major revolts against the armed forces since 1988, but in its ethnic states, conflict has been rampant for more than 70 years.“Armed Forces Day” in the country recently saw one of the bloodiest days since the coup, leaving at least 100 dead. But days later on March 31, the army promised a one-month cease-fire. Humanitarian groups in the country’s ethnic states, however, have reported that military attacks are continuing, which have killed dozens and displaced tens of thousands.’No Cease-fire’ in Myanmar’s Ethnic Minority States, According to Humanitarian GroupFree Burma Rangers also say thousands displaced by airstrikes, ground attacks in violation of junta-declared cease-fireIn a bid to solve the crisis, an emergency high-level summit commenced last week between ASEAN leaders. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is a 10-member union and political regional group promoting economic and security cooperation.A conclusion to the meeting saw a five-point consensus agreed upon that includes the immediate cessation of violence, dialogue for a peaceful solution, meditation and humanitarian assistance provided by ASEAN, and a visit by the union’s special envoy to Myanmar to all parties concerned.But protesters in Myanmar have vented their opposition to the five-point plan. Nyinyi Lwin, a political analyst, insisted the proposal must involve Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), ethnic minorities and the Rohingya people.“The ASEAN resolution of a five-point road map may change the political landscape if it is supported by the people of Myanmar,” Nyinyi Lwin told VOA.Nyinyi Lwin, now based in Washington, and the chief editor of Arakan News, a Myanmar news site, added: “The people do not trust ASEAN leadership. … As long as people doubt ASEAN, the civil war is still on the grounds.”First open election in 2015Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, was governed under military rule until 2011. In 2015, the NLD won the country’s first open democratic election.But the Myanmar military contested the results of last November’s general elections, claiming unsubstantiated electoral fraud. On February 1, the military, also known as Tatmadaw, took control of the country.As anti-coup protests commenced, the junta deployed armored vehicles and fired live ammunition at demonstrators. Martial law and daily internet shutdowns have also been implemented.The pro-democracy campaign, the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), has seen thousands of professionals go on strike against the military regime.In April, the NUG was formed, claiming to be the legitimate government of Myanmar, existing in parallel with the junta, officially the State Administrative Council.The recent summit in Jakarta came after the United Nations said that Myanmar’s strife could become on par with the conflict in Syria.Key differenceJosh Kurlantzick, a fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent think tank in New York, said international action is the key difference between Myanmar and Syria.“I don’t see it as exactly similar to Syria,” he told VOA. “I think Myanmar could, indeed, have a wider civil war, one that stretches across the country and involves not just the ethnic armed organizations but areas of armed resistance in central Myanmar, in Burman, or Bamar-dominated Myanmar.The Syrian civil war began in 2011 when pro-democracy demonstrations calling for the removal of the Syrian government met with a violent response from the Syrian army. This sparked an armed rebellion by opposition forces and rebel groups. Foreign intervention also has been rife, with the U.S, Russia, and Iran all involved. More than 500,000 people have been killed or are believed to be missing, with millions as either refugees or internally displaced, according to a BBC report.“There are parallels, in terms of Myanmar potentially becoming a failed state, leading to massive refugee outflows, civil conflict, but I don’t think there are real analogies in the international involvement angle in a Myanmar civil conflict,” Kurlantzick added.Analysts say Russia is increasing arms sales to the Myanmar military, however, and it is standing by the junta.Russia Seen Advancing SE Asian Ambitions Through Myanmar GeneralsEthnic rebels back protestersPolitical analyst Aung Thu Nyein said it’s difficult to see direct international intervention from neighboring countries, as ASEAN “has no history of intervening in the affairs of its members.” But he admitted Myanmar could be buffeted as it finds itself in the “middle of a storm” amid sustained tensions between the U.S. and China.“The civil-military relation is the worst ever in Myanmar history, and people not only have lost trust in the military, but they also hate it,” he said. “The animosity will not be dying down soon, and as I said, it could lead to limited violence, spiraling downward to a failed state. I said an implosion, rather than an explosion, because the CPRH [parallel civilian government] and the opposition government have little opportunity to receive external aid,” he added.
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Experts: China Christens 3 Warships to Tighten Control in Disputed Sea, Warn US
Analysts say Chinese President Xi Jinping’s in-person commissioning of three major warships on Friday represents a bold step toward tightening naval control over contested Asian seas and another pushback against what Beijing perceives as the United States’ growing influence in the region. State media in Beijing say the three vessels, described as a destroyer, a nuclear-powered strategic ballistic missile submarine and an amphibious assault ship, formally entered the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy. The “unprecedented” commissioning “represents the rapid development of the PLA Navy and Chinese shipbuilding industry amid the grave military struggle pressure China is facing,” the Beijing-based Global Times reported. Chinese officials see the ships as a new way to help deter the United States from sending its own vessels to the seas near China’s coasts, warn other Asian countries who contest Beijing’s maritime sovereignty and slowly gain military control inside the “first island chain,” say some analysts. The chain runs from the Kuril Islands of Russia through Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. Particularly at stake is the South China Sea, a 3.5 million-square-kilometer waterway contested by China and five other, militarily weaker nations: Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. The sea stretches from Hong Kong south to Borneo. “The commissioning of those ships and the fact that Xi Jinping himself went to baptize the new naval units is a way to announce to the region and the world that the PLA Navy has evolved into a combined, multifunctional and efficient marine combat force capable of near coast defense, near seas active defense and far seas operations alike,” said Fabrizio Bozzato, senior research fellow at the Tokyo-based Sasakawa Peace Foundation’s Ocean Policy Research Institute.A Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldier wearing a protective face mask stands guard in front of the Great Hall of the People before the second plenary session of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC), in Beijing, May 25, 2020.Chinese officials cite historical usage records to back their claims to about 90% of the sea, which is prized for fisheries and undersea fossil fuel reserves. China has alarmed the other Asian claimants by developing islets in the sea for military infrastructure and sending previously deployed ships into their exclusive economic zones. China has the strongest armed forces in Asia, prompting the other maritime claimants to look toward the United States for support as China becomes bolder offshore. Concern in Beijing that former U.S. President Donald Trump might have been planning an attack in the disputed sea or near Taiwan drove China to warn current President Joe Biden that it’s up for “any challenge,” said Yun Sun, East Asia Program senior associate at the Stimson Center in Washington. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii confirmed with VOA that 10 U.S. warships reached the South China Sea last year following 10 in 2019. Just five were logged in each of the two years before 2019. Beijing’s highly publicized ship deployment was aimed first at showing Chinese people their country has added strength and “material wealth” under Xi, Sun said. The rest of the world was supposed to notice for a different reason she said. “The other message, to the outside world, is a deterrence message, that any country in the Chinese view intervening in the South China Sea issue should pay attention to China’s strengthening maritime military capability and also be prepared for the consequences of any potential transgression in the Chinese eyes,” Sun said. The three ships won’t necessarily scare Southeast Asian claimants to the disputed sea as much as any moves that suggest China might harm oil and gas equipment in the waterway’s exclusive economic zones, said Shariman Lockman, senior foreign policy and security studies analyst with the Institute of Strategic and International Studies in Malaysia. Malaysia is a particularly active explorer for undersea fuels. “For us, the oil and gas sector is all important, so if there is any indication whatsoever that indicates that they are to remove structures from waters, that sort of stuff worries people,” he said. China eventually wants to “break through” the first island chain, said Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. He said adding naval power is one way to advance that cause, which could be a long process. As of 2012, the Chinese navy had 512 ships, according to the British think tank International Institute of Strategic Studies. It now has more than 700 ships, the database Globalfirepower.com says. “The Chinese way of doing things is much more nuanced,” Oh said, comparing it to other powers. “I wouldn’t say subtle but certainly nuanced – ‘if I can’t get my way the hard way, then I would do it the soft way.’ Then they’d do more if they can get away with it.”
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Heirs of Late Samsung Electronics Chairman to Pay Massive Inheritance Tax
The family of the late Lee Kun-hee, the chairman of South Korea’s Samsung Electronics, says it will pay $10.8 billion in taxes on the inheritance from his massive estate, the largest paid in South Korean history. Lee died last October leaving an estate estimated at more than $23 billion. The family, which includes his wife and three children, says it will split payments of the hefty tax bill in six installments over five years, with the first payment coming this month. It is believed they will use the shares they hold in the vast family-run conglomerate as a means to pay the taxes.People pass by Samsung Electronics’ shop in Seoul, South Korea, April 28, 2021.The Lee family will also donate the late patriarch’s vast collection of fine art to two state-run museums and other organizations to help ease the burden of the tax bill. The collection includes rare Korean artifacts and works by such legendary artists as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Paul Gauguin and Claude Monet. The family has also agreed to donate $900 million to build a new hospital devoted to treating infectious diseases, fund research on vaccines and treatment, and support a program that treats children suffering from cancer and rare diseases. Under the elder Lee, Samsung Electronics became the crown jewel of the Samsung conglomerate, the biggest in South Korea, with holdings in such sectors as shipbuilding, insurance and trading. Samsung Electronics is the world’s largest maker of semiconductors, smartphones and other consumer electronics. But the family has been mired in a host of corruption scandals, with Lee’s son, Jae-yong, currently serving a two-and-a-half year prison sentence in connection with the scandal that brought down former President Park Geun-hye.
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Myanmar’s Anti-Junta Protesters Turning to Rebel Armies for Military Training
As the death toll from the military crackdown against peaceful protesters in Myanmar mounts, some in the Southeast Asian nation are turning to armed combat to fight back. They are trading peaceful resistance against the coup in the cities and heading to the country’s remote borderlands to join a patchwork of rebel armies. One of the oldest and largest ethnic armed groups, the Karen National Union (KNU), told VOA protesters coming from the lowlands of central Myanmar have been trekking to the rebels’ hilly jungle redouts for training since late March. “We train people who want to be trained and who want to fight against the military regime,” said Maj. Gen. Nerdah Bo Mya, chief of staff of the Karen National Defense Organization, an armed wing of the KNU. “We are [on] the same boat, helping one another. [We] help each other to survive and get rid of the military regime and to re-establish what we call the democratic government,” he said. The general said ethnic Karenni, Rakhine and Shan rebel groups were doing the same. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a local rights group, says security forces have killed more than 750 people by opening fire on the mass demonstrations that swept the country in the wake of the February 1 coup. The military junta disputes the number, putting the figure well under 300, and claims to be responding to the protests with all due restraint. The protests have wilted from the pressure, but a dogged civil disobedience movement continues to cripple much of the public and private sectors, from banks to hospitals. Earlier this month the U.N.’s human rights chief, Michele Bachelet, warned that the country could still tip into an all-out civil war with “echoes of Syria.”Anti-coup protesters hold a banner that reads “What are these? We are Yangon residents!” as they march during a demonstration in Yangon, Myanmar, April 27, 2021.A call to armsOne KNU trainee said he had given up on peaceful resistance. “I don’t like protesting anymore. No, it doesn’t work. We just get shot. It’s over 700 people already,” he told VOA, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal from the military. The 26-year-old said he left Yangon for the KNU’s bases along the Thai border soon after the coup, and that a friend who stayed behind was later hit in the head and killed by a stray bullet from security forces shooting at protesters up the street. The young man from Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city and commercial capital, said he believed in meeting force with equal force. “I need to know how to hold a weapon. It’s not fair if we fight them with a knife or something like that. We should be trained. They are well trained, they are soldiers, they can shoot pretty well. For us, we need training, otherwise we can’t do anything,” he said. The trainee said he would head back to Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city and commercial capital, as soon as the KNU deems him ready. “After we are trained here, we will go back, and we will do something. We have to fight for our freedom, otherwise a lot of people will just die, just die, they just protest, and they just die. It’s not worth it,” he said. “If we could fight them, it’s worth it.” Courting disasterNerdah Bo Mya would not say how many protesters his group was training but claimed that between the KNU and the other rebel armies doing the same they numbered in the thousands.Richard Horsey, a Myanmar analyst and senior adviser to the International Crisis Group, said they were more probably in the hundreds, so likely to make any urban fighting “relatively small-scale.”“It’s not easy to set up an urban guerilla force from scratch, especially with people who have not had previous military training,” he said. “While I do think there could be some violent incidents, and there already have been, that’s very different from being able to launch a sustained urban guerilla campaign.”The stiffest armed resistance outside of areas held by the ethnic rebel armies has sprung up in Sagaing Region, in Myanmar’s northwest. Local news reports say residents there have formed their own “civil army” and managed to supplement their homemade air guns and old hunting rifles with some AK-47 and M-16 automatic assault rifles. The military has reported casualties on its side.Demonstrators are seen before a clash with security forces in Taze, Sagaing Region, Myanmar, April 7, 2021, in this image obtained by Reuters.“How sustained that will be, I’m not sure. But it’s happening, and I think it could happen in other parts of the country as well,” Horsey said.If the rebel groups prove reluctant to arm the protesters themselves, decades of civil war have created a substantial black market in military weapons those with the cash and connections could tap, he added.Whether or not Myanmar goes the way of Syria, Horsey said the country was edging toward “catastrophic state failure” with widespread hunger and displacement on the horizon.“All of this is a very real prospect, as is continued or increased violence,” he said, “and all of that should be very alarming to the region and to the world.”
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China Urges Australia Not to Abandon Support for Taiwan Reunification
China cautioned Australia to abide by its ‘One China’ policy after a senior Australian on Sunday warned of a potential conflict over Taiwanese independence. Speaking on an Australian news talk show, Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton said he couldn’t rule out a military confrontation over Taiwan.”I do not think it should be discounted. I think China has been very clear about the reunification and that has been a long-held objective of theirs and if you look at any of the rhetoric coming out of China from spokesmen particularly in recent weeks and months in response to different suggestions that have been made, they have been very clear about that goal.”Currently, relations between Australia and China, its most valuable trading partner, are at their worst in decades. There have been trade and political tensions as well as disagreements over human rights. Canberra’s call last year for an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus, which was first detected in China in 2019, offended Beijing. It interpreted Australia’s demand as criticism of its handling of the pandemic. Bilateral ties have deteriorated ever since. There is now friction over Taiwan, which is seen by Beijing as a breakaway province that will eventually be reunified with the Chinese mainland under what it calls the ‘One China’ policy. Australia does not recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state or regard the authorities in Taiwan as a national government. However, the United States has raised concerns about Chinese aggression towards Taiwan. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken asserted that Washington has a “serious commitment to Taiwan being able to defend itself.” In response to Dutton’s comments, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, “Abiding by the ‘One China’ principle is a prerequisite for China-Australia relations. Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory, and the Taiwan issue is purely China’s internal affairs that involves China’s core interests and allows no foreign interference.” Last week, Australia abandoned deals made with the state of Victoria linked to China’s Belt and Road initiative. Observers say the billions-worth of infrastructure investment projected by the Chinese government aims to expand its global economy and influence, but the project has left some countries with significant debt.Officials in Canberra said they were protecting Australia’s national interest, but the Chinese embassy in Australia called the move “provocative.” Analysts believe that Canberra is being punished for trying to stand up to China, which has imposed restrictions and tariffs on a range of Australian farming goods, as well as coal.
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Myanmar Rebels Claim to Have Captured Army Base Near Thai Border
A Myanmar ethnic rebel group says it has taken over an army outpost near the eastern border with Thailand. Fighting broke out early Tuesday morning in an area near the Salween river, which separates Myanmar and Thailand. Villagers on the Thai side of the river reported hearing heavy gunfire before dawn. Padoh Saw Taw Nee, a spokesman for the Karen National Union, said the group seized the army outpost around 5 a.m. local time (2230 GMT). Witnesses on the Thai side of the river said they saw at least six Myanmarese soldiers running from the base. Karen rebel forces have engaged in intense fighting against the Myanmar army since it overthrew the democratically-elected civilian government on February 1, attacking military and police stations in Karen state. The military responded by launching airstrikes against Karen rebels, displacing about 24,000 civilians in recent weeks. Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 7 MB480p | 10 MB540p | 14 MB720p | 28 MB1080p | 55 MBOriginal | 72 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioMyanmar Exiles Are Seeking Refuge in Kayin StateThe Karen are one of Myanmar’s many ethnic rebel forces who have sided with protesters who have staged daily mass demonstrations across Myanmar demanding the return of de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her elected government to power. The military cited widespread fraud in last November’s general election — which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won in a landslide — as its reason for overthrowing the government.
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Relatives Pay Respects to Sailors Who Died in Sinking of Indonesian Submarine
Relatives of the sailors who died in the sinking of a German-made KRI Nanggala-402 submarine grieved their lost loved ones on the shore of Bali Monday and urged authorities to recover their bodies, according to Reuters reports.The Indonesian navy began working out how to salvage the remains of the submarine and retrieve the bodies of the 53 sailors, whom the military officially declared dead Sunday, according to The Associated Press.”We have already given our son to the government. Now that he has fallen in this operation, we hope the government will return his remains to us after all the official ceremonies,” Wayan Darmanta, an uncle of one of the crew members, was quoted as saying in a Reuters report.Indonesian President Joko Widodo earlier gave his condolences to the families of the crew members of the Nanggala-402. Widodo also said the government would pay for the education of the crew members’ children, according to Reuters.Navy chief of staff Yudo Margono said the crew was not at fault for the sinking, blaming “forces of nature.””The KRI Nanggala is divided into three parts,” Margona said, describing the sub’s condition on the seafloor. “The hull of the ship, the stern of the ship, and the main parts are all separated, with the main part found cracked. There are scattered parts of the submarine and its interior in the water.”The German-built KRI Nanggala-402 had gone missing Wednesday and was found Sunday on the seabed. The submarine lost contact while preparing to conduct a torpedo drill.
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COVID-19 Lockdown Ends in Australian City of Perth
A snap three-day COVID-19 lockdown is set to end Monday in the Australian city of Perth. The shutdown was ordered Friday after the man — a traveler who returned from overseas — escaped from a quarantine hotel housing other passengers returning from abroad. The Australian Medical Association said authorities are not doing enough to protect returned travelers in enforcing mandatory quarantine from infections and hotel facilities were not built to contain the spread of the virus. Perth’s lockdown will end Monday after Western Australia recorded no new community coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours. Businesses and schools will be allowed to reopen. Some restrictions will remain for the next four days. Masks will be mandatory, and gatherings will be limited to 20 people. The lockdown was imposed Friday after the virus spread in the corridors of an isolation hotel in the Western Australian state capital. A 54-year-old man staying adjacent to a couple with coronavirus, who had returned from India, was infected. Officials have said the traveler was allowed to leave the hotel after testing negative for the virus and after a two-week isolation period. But he returned a positive result a few days later. Two other people are known to have been infected as health authorities have raced to track hundreds of other close or casual contacts of the man, who spent days in Perth before flying to Melbourne. Australia has banned foreign travelers for more than a year to curb the spread of COVID-19, but citizens and permanent residents are allowed to return, where they face mandatory quarantine. Australia is now limiting arrivals from India because of the worsening coronavirus crisis there. FILE – Australian Broadcasting Corp. journalist Bill Birtles walks into a hotel for quarantine in Sydney, Australia, Sept. 8, 2020.The country’s association for doctors and medical students, the Australian Medical Association, or the AMA, believes that hotels are not properly equipped or built to contain the spread of the virus. AMA president Dr. Omar Khorshid is calling on Australia’s federal and state governments to set up purpose-built isolation facilities. “I suspect everyone has thought that the vaccine program would mean the end of the need for quarantine,” he said. “But as we are seeing more and more mutations in the virus and these huge outbreaks, for instance, what is happening in India, the reality is that we are going to need quarantine for some time even once our population is vaccinated. So, what we would like to see is our national Cabinet, which is now meeting again twice a week, you know, come together and work out a pathway towards dedicated quarantine facilities that can be used either in this pandemic or in future pandemics.” Australia has managed to avoid the worst of the global pandemic. Fewer that 30,000 COVID-19 cases have been diagnosed and more than 900 deaths recorded, according to health authorities.
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Myanmar’s Deposed Leader Aung San Suu Kyi Makes New Court Appearance
Myanmar’s deposed de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi made another court appearance Monday as the country’s regional neighbors increase pressure on the military junta to bring an end to the deadly chaos.Lawyers for the 75-year-old Suu Kyi also appeared via video conference in a courtroom in the capital Naypyitaw for a procedural hearing.Suu Kyi has been detained since the February 1 coup and is facing six criminal charges, the most serious of them a charge of breaking the country’s colonial-era secrets law that could put her in prison for 14 years if convicted.Her lawyers say on Monday she again demanded a face-to-face meeting with her legal team, which has not occurred during her detention.Two other leaders from the overthrown civilian government, President U Win Myint and Dr. Myo Aung, Naypitaw Council Chairman, also appeared before the court via video conference. The next hearing for all three will be held on May 10.The military cited widespread fraud in last November’s general election — which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won in a landslide — as its reason for overthrowing Suu Kyi’s government.The coup has sparked daily mass demonstrations across Myanmar demanding the return of Suu Kyi and her elected government to power.The junta has responded with an increasingly violent and deadly crackdown against the protesters. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a nongovernmental monitoring organization, estimates that more than 700 people have been killed since the coup.Leaders of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) regional bloc, of which Myanmar is a member, held an emergency summit Saturday in Jakarta with Senior General Min Aung Hliang, the junta’s leader. The group issued a rare statement demanding the junta end the violence, begin a dialogue with all relevant parties and allow entry of a special ASEAN envoy.But it stopped short of a demand for the immediate release of all political prisoners.
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Indonesian Brigadier General Killed in 2-week Papua Clash
An Indonesian brigadier general was killed in an ongoing clash between security forces and a rebel group in restive Papua province, authorities said Monday.The clashes started April 8 in Indonesia’s easternmost Papua province after rebels set fire to three schools and shot to death a teacher in Beoga village in Puncak district. Another teacher was also killed a day later as rebels fired at teachers’ housing complex and burned down a house of a tribal chief in Beoga.Police, military and intelligence forces joined Operation Nemangkawi to find the attackers, who authorities believe belong to the West Papua Liberation Army, the military wing of the Free Papua Organization.Rebels have been fighting a low-level insurgency since the early 1960s, when Indonesia annexed Papua, a former Dutch colony. Papua was formally incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 after a U.N.-sponsored ballot that was seen as a sham by many.Papua’s intelligence agency chief Brig. Gen. Gusti Putu Danny Nugraha was shot in the head and died in a rebel ambush, said Col. Iqbal Alqudusy, the Operation Nemangkawi’s spokesperson.The ambush occurred while the general was patrolling Beoga’s neighboring village of Dambet with 13 other personnel on motorcycles Sunday afternoon after rebels set fire to an elementary school and houses in the village, he said.He said security forces managed to evacuate the body on Monday morning while a joint military and police force was hunting “an armed separatist criminal group.””We are on the highest alert as instructed to all troops on the ground,” Alqudusy said.In televised remarks, President Joko Widodo expressed condolences to the family and the Indonesian people for the general’s death.Flanked by the vice president and chiefs of military, police and intelligence agency, he ordered government forces to hunt down the rebels.”I emphasize that there is no place for armed criminal groups in Papua and in all corners of the country,” Widodo said from the Merdeka Palace in the capital, Jakarta, on Monday.Attacks by rebels in several districts in Papua have spiked in the past year, including in the Grasberg mine.The Grasberg mine’s vast gold and copper reserves have been extracted for decades by Freeport-McMoRan, damaging the surrounding environment while providing significant tax income for the Indonesian government.But Indigenous Papuans have benefited little and are poorer, sicker and more likely to die young than people elsewhere in Indonesia.
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Thailand Sets Daily Record of COVID-19 Deaths for Second Day
Thailand on Sunday set a record for the daily number of COVID-19 deaths for the second consecutive day, as authorities step up the response to a rapid third wave of infections after about a year of relative success slowing the spread of coronavirus.Thailand will slow down issuing travel documents for foreign nationals from India due to the outbreak of a new coronavirus B.1.617 variant, said Taweesin Wisanuyothin, a spokesman for the government’s COVID-19 taskforce.“For foreigners from India entering Thailand, right now we will slow this down,” said Taweesin, adding that 131 Thai nationals in India already registered to travel in May will still be allowed into the country.Thailand reported 2,438 new coronavirus cases and 11 new deaths, bringing the total number of infections to 55,460 and fatalities to 140 since the pandemic started last year.Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on his Facebook page on Saturday said provincial governors can close public venues and impose curfews if necessary to stop the virus spreading.Authorities in the capital city of Bangkok have ordered the closure of venues including parks, gyms, cinemas and day care centers from April 26 through May 9.Shopping malls remain open, but the Thai Retailers Association has restricted store opening hours in Bangkok as well as in 17 more of the country’s 73 provinces.Thailand kept its number of infection cases far lower than many other countries throughout last year, but a new outbreak, spurred partly by the highly transmissible B.1.1.7 variant, has resulted in over 24,000 cases and 46 deaths in just 25 days.The rising figures have prompted concern over the number of hospital beds, particularly as government policy is to admit anyone testing positive for the novel coronavirus, even those without symptoms.Health officials have insisted there are still over 20,000 available beds nationwide.To free beds quicker, the prime minister has said health authorities are considering reducing the quarantine period for asymptomatic cases to 10 days from 14, with the remaining four days to be spent in self-isolation at home.
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Myanmar Shadow Government Welcomes ASEAN Call to End Violence
Myanmar’s shadow government of ousted lawmakers has welcomed a call by Southeast Asian leaders for an end to “military violence” after their crisis talks in Jakarta with junta leader Min Aung Hlaing.The general attended a high-level summit Saturday with leaders from the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to discuss Myanmar’s mounting crisis.Since the military ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a Feb. 1 coup, Myanmar has been in an uproar with near-daily protests and a nationwide civil disobedience movement.Security forces have deployed live ammunition to quell the uprising, killing more than 740 people in brutal crackdowns, according to local monitoring group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).The ASEAN meeting produced a consensus that there would be “an immediate cessation of violence in Myanmar,” the bloc said Saturday.It added that ASEAN will also have a special envoy to “facilitate mediation” between all parties, and this representative will be able to travel to Myanmar.But while they “heard calls for the release of all political prisoners,” a commitment to free them was not included in the consensus statement.A spokesperson from the shadow government — known as the National Unity Government (NUG) — on Saturday said ASEAN’s statement was “encouraging news.”“We look forward to firm action by ASEAN to follow up its decisions and restore our democracy and freedom for our people and for the region,” said Dr Sasa, the NUG’s minister of international cooperation, who is currently in hiding with the rest of his fellow lawmakers.The lawmakers — most of whom were part of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party — are wanted for high treason by the junta.Overnight, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the bloc will continue to call for the release of political prisoners.‘Business as usual’As Myanmar nears three months under the military regime, escalating violence by its security forces — especially in urban centers — has pushed protesters and prominent activists into hiding.The junta has also throttled communications across the country, imposing a nightly internet shutdown for 70 consecutive days and restricting mobile data to a mere trickle.By Saturday, the number of detainees climbed to 3,389, according to AAPP.Independent news outlet The Irrawaddy confirmed Sunday that a former editor, Thu Thu Tha, was arrested in Thanlyin, a port city across the river from commercial hub Yangon.“In spite of Min Aung Hlaing’s appearance in the ASEAN summit, it’s business as usual,” Irrawaddy’s founder Aung Zaw told AFP, adding that most of his staff are currently in hiding.On Saturday, as the junta chief attended the meeting with ASEAN leaders and foreign ministers in Jakarta, soldiers and police fired on protesters near Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw.One 50-year-old protester was held by the police and shot dead by a soldier; an eyewitness told AFP.Despite the threat of violence, protesters across Myanmar continued to take to the streets Sunday — from the northern jade mining city of Hpakant to eastern Karenni state.In central Myingyan — where brutal crackdowns have forced residents to hide in nearby villages — protesters smeared red paint on some of the city’s buildings to protest the bloodshed.“Give power back to the people,” read graffiti on the city’s sidewalks.‘Will the killing stop?’State-run newspaper New Light of Myanmar on Sunday reported on Min Aung Hlaing’s visit to Jakarta and said he discussed the country’s “political changes.”But it made no mention of ASEAN’s consensus for a halt to violence.The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, Tom Andrews, said it remains to be seen how effective the bloc’s engagement will be.“The result of the ASEAN Summit will be found in Myanmar, not [in] a document,” Andrews tweeted Sunday.“Will the killing stop? Will the terrorizing of neighborhoods end? Will the thousands abducted be released?”The junta has justified its power seizure as a means to protect democracy, alleging electoral fraud in November elections which Suu Kyi’s party had won in a landslide.
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Thousands Gather in Australia, New Zealand to Honor Military Sacrifices
Thousands of Australians and New Zealanders attended Anzac Day dawn services Sunday to honor their armed forces, a year after marking the solemn occasion from the isolation of their driveways.Both countries largely returned to in-person services after the cancellation of marches and ceremonies in 2020 because of coronavirus restrictions that led many to observe the annual memorial day at home.Anzac Day marks the 1915 landing of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps at Gallipoli, in what is now Turkey, during World War I to face the German-backed Ottoman forces.While most nations commemorate military victories, New Zealand and Australia focus on the ill-fated, eight-month campaign that cost the young nations more than 11,000 lives.At a gathering at the War Memorial Museum in Auckland early Sunday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern highlighted the sacrifices of women in war.”They were courageous and passionate during the most appalling conditions,” she said. “These were the women who paved the way for women to be fully integrated into our defense force we know today, in our air force, our navy and in our army.”Commemorations broadenedThe commemorations now extend to every conflict the countries have joined in the ensuing decades, including wars in Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan.Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said this year a “chapter in our history is coming to a close” after the announcement last week the country would withdraw its remaining troops from Afghanistan in line with the U.S. timetable to leave by September.Speaking at an official memorial in Canberra, Morrison said Australia’s longest war had come at “great cost” to the nation.”Forty-one Australian lives lost in Afghanistan, whom we especially remember and honor this morning,” he said.”More than 39,000 Australians have served on operations in support of Australia’s mission in Afghanistan, many carrying the wounds and scars of war, seen and unseen.”The two nations’ success in containing the spread of COVID-19 allowed many public remembrance services and parades to go ahead, though with limited crowds in Australia and ceremonies canceled in the locked-down city of Perth.
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