China’s Ant Group Chief Executive Officer Simon Hu has stepped down from his role and will be replaced by Executive Chairman Eric Jing, the financial technology giant said Friday.”The Ant Group Board of Directors has accepted Mr. Simon Hu’s resignation request, due to personal reasons,” Ant said in a statement.Hu’s exit from the company comes as Ant is working on plans to shift to a financial holding company structure following intense regulatory pressure to subject them to rules and capital requirements similar to those for banks.That pressure thwarted Ant’s $37 billion IPO last year and has seen it formulate plans to shift to a financial holding company structure.
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The Philippines has gotten a measure of control over its once-runaway COVID-19 outbreak through strict lockdowns and a year of school closures, coupled with widespread use of face protectors, experts and citizens on the ground say.The Southeast Asian country known for its migratory population — Filipinos work throughout the developed world — has reported fewer than 2,000 new cases per day most of the time since October, down from as much as 6,275 cases previously. Daily counts fell below 1,000 at the start of January.Elsewhere in Southeast Asia, only Indonesia struggled last year with the same level of  daily COVID-19 caseload surges. Most countries around Northeast Asia, including the coronavirus’s apparent source, China, recovered early last year, despite isolated flare-ups.Border closures that remain in effect and enforced stay-home orders in the nation of 109 million’s larger cities get the most credit for bringing cases down, residents and a United Nations official say.Meanwhile, medical personnel are better equipped now to do tests for the virus and trace the contacts of the sick than they were a year ago, according to Aaron Rabena, research fellow at the Asia-Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation in the Philippines’ Quezon City.Adding support, ordinary Filipinos have accepted the use of face masks and face shields in public.Public school classes have not met in person for a year, said Behzad Noubary, Philippine deputy UNICEF representative.“These are the aspects that have contributed to [caseload declines] — the international closure, which has lasted a long time, and a really, really prolonged lockdown,” Noubary told VOA in a call on Thursday.“Schools have been closed a year now, no in-person classes since then, and most of the country has been in quite strict lockdown,” he said.In June, when caseloads were higher, stay-home orders had begun easing before hospitals could get their equipment ready and coordinate with each other to handle the coronavirus, said Maria Ela Atienza, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines Diliman.People still went outside without masks then, sometimes to find work in an increasingly desperate economy, as well as to join friends and relatives in tight spaces where the virus could quickly spread.Local authorities, however, now sometimes enforce stay-home orders so strictly they even force residents to turn back if they go out too far from their doorways, domestic media and people on the ground say.Meanwhile, metro Manila reportedly plans new curfews from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. starting Monday because of a recent spike in cases.Ordinary people are doing their share now in controlling cases, Rabena said.“It’s because the people have exercised more caution,” Rabena said. “Here, when you go out, you wear a mask and a face shield. Everybody is still careful. Compared to last year of course, this year is much better.”Marivic Arcega, operator of an animal feed distributor in the Manila suburb of Cavite, has gone all-out to keep herself and her surroundings safe.She employs only a “skeletal” staff plus a driver who does delivery, Arcega said. A son takes college courses online and another lives in central Manila but seldom comes home. When he does visit, Arcega said, he rides in a friend’s car rather than taking public transit. Her husband never goes out. Customers are told to keep a distance.“Us here at the store, no facemask, no entry, and then my cashier is enclosed in a booth, and we’re all wearing face shields,” said Arcega, 52. “I stay inside my office and don’t interact with the customers anymore. If they speak to me, [it is] from the door of my office. They don’t really come in.”The millions of vaccine doses that the Philippines has secured so far are boosting morale, Rabena said. The government aims to loosen neighborhood quarantine rules as more people become immunized, he believes.Officials hope to pull the Philippines out of a sharp recession caused by store closures and people being stuck at home rather than able to work outside. The country’s economy contracted 9.5% last year after sharp annual upturns in the previous half-decade.If family incomes shrink 30%, per a worst-case estimate, up to 45% of Philippine children would live in poverty, up from 24% now, Noubary said. The Philippines, he said, already has paid a “significant price” in terms of child poverty.UNICEF has supplied personal protective equipment and cleaning solutions to poor families and helped provide vaccines that are on the ground today. It is now nudging the government to reopen schools little by little in parts of the archipelago with low COVID-19 caseloads as online learning has caused 2.7 million children to drop out of the school system, Noubary said.
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Britain is preparing for tens of thousands of Hong Kong citizens to apply for special visas to settle in Britain after the government launched a new plan offering fast-track citizenship to some residents of the former British colony, in response to China’s crackdown on basic freedoms.An online application process was launched last month, and Britain says it expects around 300,000 Hong Kong citizens to apply in the first five years.Among them is Finn Lau, a 27-year-old exile who is now living in London and studying part time at a university.As a student in 2014, Lau was a key player in the “umbrella” pro-democracy protests against interference from China. A new job took him to Britain in 2019, just weeks before protests reignited over Beijing’s attempt to impose an extradition bill on the territory that would allow criminal suspects to be sent to mainland China.FILE – Protesters gather with flags to mourn the loss of Hong Kong’s political freedoms, in Leicester Square, central London, Dec. 12, 2020.Lau has just submitted his application.“Some people may think that the BN(O) scheme is not a direct tool that could [be used as] leverage against the [Chinese Communist Party], because the CCP won’t be hurt by the BN(O) scheme,” Lau told VOA.“But on the other hand, some people may think that this offers a kind of lifeboat to Hong Kongers. And perhaps there is a third group of people who may think that the BN(O) scheme or lifeboats could offer people [the chance] to carry capital out of Hong Kong, which is indirectly [antagonizing] … Beijing.”While grateful, Lau and other Hong Kong exiles want Britain to do more.“We just think that maybe some more actions could be carried out by the U.K. government. For example, maybe some sort of Magnitsky-style sanctions under which the assets of some Hong Kong government officials, like Carrie Lam, could be frozen by the U.K. government.”Britain has said it is considering such sanctions. Reacting to new legislation passed Thursday by Beijing, which will effectively allow China to choose candidates in Hong Kong’s elections, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said, “This is the latest step by Beijing to hollow out the space for democratic debate in Hong Kong, contrary to the promises made by China itself.“This can only further undermine confidence and trust in China living up to its international responsibilities and legal obligations as a leading member of the international community,” Raab said, adding that Britain was assessing the legislation for a possible breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration.Meanwhile, Lau and other exiles continue to fight for Hong Kong’s freedom — buoyed by Britain’s BN(O) visa. But Lau said that even on the streets of London, he does not feel safe from the long arm of China’s Communist Party.
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Eight years after he was jailed for sharing news about protests in Tibet, Kunchok Jinpa died in a Lhasa hospital.
 
Jinpa, who in 2013 was sentenced to 21 years in prison for “leaking state secrets,” had been transferred to a hospital without his family’s knowledge. The 51-year-old suffered a brain hemorrhage and was paralyzed, rights groups said.Kunchok Jinpa, who was sentenced to 21 years in prison in 2013 for sharing details about protests, died at a hospital in February. (Credit information withheld on request)His experience sheds light on the dangers for Tibetans who share news about the region with outside sources.
Governed by China as an autonomous region, Tibet is one of the least-free territories in the world, with Tibetans risking arrest for petitioning authorities, sharing images about the Dalai Lama on social media, or exposing corruption by local officials, according to the U.S.-based rights group Freedom House.
News outlets are controlled by China, and foreign journalists are allowed access to the region only on official media tours, meaning that Tibetans wanting access to independent news have to circumvent the Great Firewall—internet restrictions and regulations imposed by Beijing.
 
Regional authorities also are cracking down on the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) and popular messaging platforms such as WeChat that many in the region use to communicate.
 
In November, cyber police issued more regulations on online activity, including bans on using VPNs to access foreign websites, joining discussion groups, or using apps and devices to share or access information that promotes secession or undermines “national unity.”
 High-risk connections
 
One journalist, who asked to be identified only as Kelsang to protect his sources inside Tibet, told VOA he uses a VPN when he needs to contact people via WeChat.
 
Kelsang follows Chinese government WeChat pages to collect information on policies, and accesses websites and live stream apps such as Kuaishou so he can meet people from different places in Tibet and China and get a clearer understanding of the situation on the ground.
 
“I don’t mention my profession and try to collect information through casual chats,” he told VOA.
 
Though he keeps his sources anonymous, Kelsang said he learned that one contact, who ran an online platform focusing on environmental and development issues, was detained for six months and had his WeChat platform permanently blocked.
 
Kelsang said the police recently searched the phones of two other online contacts and accused them of communicating with “separatist people from outside”.
 
“After this incident, one of them blocked me,” he said.
 
The journalist said he has dropped news stories on sensitive issues to protect sources.
 
When India and China clashed in 2020 over borders in the Galwan valley – a disputed Himalayan border region – Kelsang received information suggesting a large number of Tibetans were forced to join military training, in preparation for a possible war.
 
“The family members of my source receive some financial aid from the Chinese government and they could suffer consequences if I filed the story,” he said.
 
Ultimately, Kelsang said he decided not to publish—a decision the outlet he works for makes on a case-by-case basis.
 
Authorities in the region can put pressure on activists by denying them access to basic amenities or an education for their children, said Pema Gyal, a researcher at the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy.
 
The India-based nongovernmental human rights organization, which investigates and reports on human rights issues in Tibet, is aware of at least 20 Tibetans in exile who have cut off contact with family members to try to protect them from retaliation, Gyal said.
 
Tashi Dhondup, a Tibetan living in exile in Dharamsala, India, cut direct contact with his family after authorities arrested the mother of his child in 2013 for keeping a photo of Dhondup with the Dalai Lama on her WeChat account.
 
Dhondup told VOA he has been wary of sharing details of other instances of retaliation against his family in case it led to further scrutiny or charges against them.
 
Last August, Dhondup’s younger sister, Lhamo, died shortly after being sent to a hospital from police custody. She was 36.
 
“I heard about her death from a cousin in the West. I was heartbroken when I came to know the cause of her death,” Dhondup said.
 
Lhamo had been accused of associating with a cousin accused of sending money to India. When police searched her home, they confiscated DVDs of religious teaching by the Dalai Lama and pictures of the Dalai Lama, Dhondup said.
 Pressure points
 
Other journalists say they watch for signs that contacts may be under pressure.
 
“I use WeChat and other Chinese microblogs to get in touch with my sources and try my best to protect their identities by distorting their audios,” said Gyaltsen Choedak, who reports on news inside Tibet for VOA.
 
“Lately I’ve noticed that my sources have become less open and don’t respond to queries. Many have stopped responding and some have blocked me,” he said.
 
One of them left a message saying, “Weather here is not so good … It may get better after March.” Choedak said he took that to be a reference to increased restrictions in March, which marks the anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan National Uprising against China.
 
Gyal said that Article 35 of China’s constitution guarantees “freedom of speech, of the press, [and] of assembly” but local authorities say they will “strike hard” against online activities deemed to split the country or undermine national unity.
 
Authorities already have used new powers granted in November to crack down on online activity.A student, identified by a rights group as Dadul, is seen hospitalized with both legs broken. He and two others, who co-founded a WeChat group, were arrested in February. (Credit information withheld on request)On February 17, three teenagers were arrested, one of whom, identified by a rights group as Dadul, was later hospitalized with broken legs. No official reason was provided for their arrest, but the Britain-based Free Tibet group says they believe it was for failing to register a WeChat group with local authorities, which is a violation of the new regulations.
 
For those reporting on Tibet from the outside, silence often is the main indicator that something is wrong.
 
In the last message that Jinpa posted to his WeChat account in 2013, he wrote: “Even if they arrest me, I am not afraid, even if they kill me, I have no regrets. But from now on, I will not be able to give reports. If there is no word from me, that means I have been arrested.”
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China’s national legislature has approved a package of changes to Hong Kong’s electoral process that gives the central government in Beijing tighter control over the city’s legislature, a move critics say will further diminish the city’s pro-democracy movement.  
 
The ceremonial National People’s Congress on Thursday approved the changes by a vote of 2,895 to nothing, with just one abstention.   
 
The changes include expanding the size of Hong Kong’s electoral commission, which selects the city’s chief executive and a number of members of the Legislative Council, from 1,200 to 1,500 members, and grants more voting power to the commission’s pro-Beijing members. The plan also increases the number of seats in the Legislative Council from 70 to 90, and strips the voting rights of several lower-level district councilors, many of whom are pro-democracy supporters.  
 
The proposed reforms would ensure the Hong Kong legislature is filled strictly with “patriots,” a term used  last month by Xia Baolong, the director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council.  
 
Hong Kong was scheduled to hold elections to the Legislative Council last September, but the government postponed them for a year citing the COVID-19 pandemic. 
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The detention of some 220 Rohingya refugees in the northern India city of Jammu, followed by a police statement that they would be deported to Myanmar, has triggered a panic among the Rohingya Muslim community who fled genocidal violence in Myanmar and took refuge in India.  Policed have told Rohingya refugees living in slums in Jammu city that more Rohingyas are to be rounded up and deported. The refugees have urged the Indian government not to send them back to Myanmar where, they say, their very lives would be in danger.  “My husband has been detained although he has a UNHCR (refugee ID) card. Police said along with other Rohingya he would be deported to Myanmar. No Rohingya want to return to Myanmar now. Myanmar is still unsafe for us,” Minara Begum, a Rohingya woman living in Kiryani Talab of Jammu, said after her 28-year-old husband, Abdul Ali, was detained Saturday. “I am very worried if my husband will ever be able to return to us. He worked as a day wager and was the sole breadwinner for the family. I cannot make out how I will live alone with our two little children now.”  Minority Rohingya Muslims have for decades fled to neighboring Bangladesh and other countries, including India, largely to escape discrimination, violence and poverty. Last year it was estimated that 40,000 Rohingya refugees lived in India, scattered across different states. Around 6,500 of them live in Jammu. However, an anti-Rohingya sentiment has been surging in predominantly Hindu India after the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to power in 2014. The ruling party regards the Rohingya as illegal immigrants and a security risk.  In 2017, in Jammu, local BJP leaders launched a campaign demanding all Rohingya who live in slums and eke out their living by doing menial jobs be expelled from the city.An anti-Rohingya poster in Jammu city as spotted in 2017. Several right-wing Hindu groups launched a campaign demanding the expulsion of all Rohingya refugees from the city. (VOA/Mir Imran)On Saturday, police in Jammu called some refugees saying that their biometric details would be collected. After the refugees reached the spot, they were detained. Police also arrested some other refugees from their slums in Jammu and the neighboring Samba district. The refugees are being held in a nearby detention center. Mukesh Singh, the local inspector general of police, said that after the nationality of the detained Rohingyas is ascertained, they would be deported to Myanmar. Fearing arrest, hundreds of Rohingya refugees planned to flee Jammu looking for safety. However, witnesses say police surrounded their camps and did not let them move out. “Three of my relatives have been detained. Police said that UNHCR card cannot save any Rohingya from deportation and that eventually Jammu will be free from all Rohingya. I fear my family will be arrested soon. It will be terrible if we are arrested and then pushed back to Myanmar,” Azizur Rahman, a Rohingya refugee, who lives in a Jammu slum with his three children and wife, said to VOA. “Like many other Rohingya families in Jammu we planned to set out for Delhi from where we decided to go to Bangladesh. But police stopped us. We are not being allowed to leave our camp.” Mohammad Sirajul, a Rohingya youth community leader living in a refugee camp in Delhi, said that the ongoing crackdown on the Rohingya refugees in India is unfair from a humanitarian point of view. “Since all Rohingya are stateless in Myanmar none from our community can have a Burmese passport. Police in India are asking for our passport and Indian visa. How shall we produce passport and visa when we are stateless?” asked Sirajul. “We fled Myanmar to escape a genocidal campaign against our community there. The entire world identifies us as the ‘most persecuted minority in the world’. But we are being hounded in India.”Some Rohingya children and an old woman outside a Rohingya refugee camp at a village in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal.(VOA/Shaikh Azizur Rahman)Rights groups say conditions in Myanmar are still not conducive for the ethnic Rohingyas and they have called on the Indian government to halt plans to deport the refugees. Any plan to forcibly return Rohingya to Myanmar would put them back in the grip of the oppressive military junta that they fled, said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director of Human Rights Watch. “Myanmar’s long-abusive military is even more lawless now that it is back in power. The Indian government should uphold its international law obligations and protect those in need of refuge within its borders. The increasingly brutal repression by Myanmar military, following the coup, puts any Rohingya returnees at serious risk of abuse,” Ganguly said. “Instead of putting more lives in harm’s way, India should join other governments in pressing the military junta to restore democratic rule.”        Hong Kong-based rights activist Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman said Rohingyas are being hounded in India because they are Muslim. “India has hosted non-Muslim refugees from many neighboring countries for decades, providing safety to them. Even refugees from the majority Buddhist community in Myanmar are living peacefully in India. But in an aggressively proactive move, India is preparing to deport the Rohingya Muslim refugees who survived genocide and lost their ancestral homes and assets in Myanmar,” Ashrafuzzaman, liaison officer of Asian Legal Resource Centre told VOA. “The actions by the Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government clearly indicate that their policies are discriminatory against Muslims.” 
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VOA’s White House bureau chief, Steve Herman, a decade ago this week, quickly made his way from Seoul to catch the last commercial flight into Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, to cover a catastrophe that was becoming more serious by the hour. A magnitude-9.0 earthquake triggered a tsunami that destroyed a nuclear power plant, unleashing a radioactive crisis.
 
The scope of one half of the disaster was apparent and appalling: Entire communities washed out to sea in a tsunami triggered by a huge earthquake.
 
The other half of the tragedy was invisible and potentially more calamitous: Nuclear radiation escaping from reactors of a crippled power plant swamped by a pair of towering waves.
 
Reporting the first part of the story was relatively easy. Thousands certainly dead and a half-million survivors on the move.
 
Accurately reporting the atomic angle was the bigger challenge. Journalists and their news outlets, Japanese and international, had an obligation to get the facts straight. Underplaying the radioactive threat could imperil lives in Japan and possibly abroad. Sensationalism, based on unconfirmed information, could trigger panic, something that would not only be irresponsible but undermine trust in the media.FILE – An aerial view of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is seen in Fukushima Prefecture, in this photo taken by Air Photo Service March 24, 2011.Trying to achieve that balance meant I did not report what would have been the biggest “scoop” of my career — that one or more reactors of the Fukushima-1 Nuclear Power Plant had melted down.
 
I got the tip in a phone call, shortly after arriving in Fukushima, from the retired executive of a Japanese utility in another part of the country that also operated nuclear plants.
 Dire scenario
 
“The core of at least one of the reactors at Fukushima is melting down,” he bluntly said without my prodding for an assessment. There was concern in his voice and hints of a coverup.
 
At that point, Japanese media relying on the Tokyo Electric Power Company, which operated the two Fukushima nuclear plants, and the Japanese government, were not reporting such a dire scenario.FILE – A sign points to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. (Steve Herman/VOA)I rang a Japanese politician plugged in to the top echelon of the governing party. Certainly he would have been informed if there were indications of a meltdown. He had not, however, been told such details and seemed skeptical there was a core reactor meltdown. I had long known this lawmaker, who later was to hold cabinet positions, and trusted he was not trying to steer me in the wrong direction.
 
Without a second source to confirm the sensational information, I did not report it. A day later, it would be evident that my primary source was probably correct when the chief cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano, admitted that a partial meltdown in Unit 3 was “highly possible.” The actual situation, as we would later realize, was worse.
 
During the initial days of the disaster, details of what had really happened to the nuclear plant were sparse. The readings from local radiation monitoring stations were worrying. These were not generally being reported by the national media and correspondents stationed in Tokyo were not able to see them.FILE – Security guards are seen at one of exterior doors leading to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. (Steve Herman/VOA)However, the information was being scrolled across the screens of the Fukushima-area TV channels. My Japanese fluency was good enough that I could read the names of the towns, allowing me to instantly and accurately tweet to the world the radiation footprint.
 
While the readings were not of a level to spark immediate, serious health concerns, they did show radiation was drifting from the plant in measurable quantities to the northwest.
 
A week after the tsunami hit the power plant, milk and water from the Fukushima area were found to have excessively high levels of radioactive iodine. Tap water in Tokyo, 225 kilometers from Fukushima, also carried elevated levels of radiation.
 Expressed concern
 
Colleagues and family members expressed concern and even alarm that I decided to remain in what they regarded as an unsafe perimeter amid the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. I replied I was being prudent, but not reckless.FILE – VOA’s Steve Herman records video on the perimeter of the 20km radiation exclusion zone in Fukushima prefecture, Kawauchi, Japan.My experience with nuclear-related issues went back to the late 1970s when as a local radio news reporter in Las Vegas, I regularly covered activities at the Nevada Test Site, where underground nuclear bombs were set off by the government. I had also been in the courtroom for a highly technical federal trial stemming from the accidental release of radiation into the atmosphere from the U.S. government’s 1970 Baneberry nuclear test.
 
This background gave me a basic education in nuclear physics and radiation. All radioactive isotopes are not alike, I knew. Plutonium, even in the most minute quantity, if inhaled, is deadly. However, it is very heavy and once it falls to the ground is likely to stay in that spot.
 
The noble gases, by contrast, take flight and can be detected far away. Of particular health concern was Iodine-131. I almost certainly had some exposure and consulted a physician friend in California.A picture taken on March 1, 2021, shows the main street of Namie, Fukushima Prefecture. The town was part of an exclusion zone around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant since the 2011 accident but has since partially reopened.“Don’t worry. You’ll be dead of something else in old age before you’ll get thyroid cancer from this,” he said, trying to be reassuring.
 
This all played into my calculations for deciding whether to enter the 20-kilometer radiation exclusion zone a month after the March 11 tsunami.
 On the ground
 
John Glionna of the Los Angeles Times and I teamed up to become the first American reporters to reach the grounds of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plants.
 
Police, who were at that time legally powerless to bar us entry to the exclusion zone, instructed us not to open our vehicle windows and to report to a radiation screening center in the town of Tamura afterwards, where we should wash our vehicle.
 
As we moved toward “ground zero,” we passed kilometers of fields from which farmers had fled. For most of the 20-kilometer journey, we spotted only police, military and other official vehicles. Even those we could count on one hand.FILE – VOA’s Steve Herman reporting from Namie, near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011.Not a single person was seen outside in the villages of Futaba and Okuma, which until a month prior had a combined population of about 18,500. The doors of some businesses remained open through which people hastily fled when the ground shook with unprecedented fury.
 
Some roads could not be traversed by car — pavement in places split by the quake. A railroad overpass lay crumpled next to one road. Power poles leaned at sharp angles.
 
After a drive up the slope to the main gate of Fukushima Daiichi, we were warily greeted by two guards outfitted in hazmat suits, helmets and dual-intake respirator masks.
 
Our attempts to ask questions were rebuffed. The only return communication was the hand signal to make a U-turn. The license plate of our vehicle was noted. It was manifestly clear we could not proceed farther and were not encouraged to loiter.
 
In the parking lot, I spotted a panel with one of those messages typically seen at industrial or construction sites. It was a billboard erected by the “TEPCO Fukushima 1 Nuclear Power Plant Safety Committee.”
 
The message, obviously unchanged since the catastrophe, made what could only be read in retrospect as an extremely ironic proclamation: “This month’s safety slogan: Be sure to check everything and do a risk assessment. Zero disasters for this year.” 
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A small village in Indonesia is sending less and less of their household waste to landfills. VOA’s Rendy Wicaksana reports on how they’re making environmental waves.Camera: Rendy Wicaksana  
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North Korea will receive nearly two-million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine through the World Health Organization’s COVAX program. Despite the country’s limited resources, some medical professionals are confident that the North’s doctors can successfully carry-out a vaccination campaign. But, human rights advocates say Pyongyang’s yearlong border closure has caused a humanitarian disaster. The COVAX Facility, a multinational program that delivers coronavirus vaccines to middle- and low-income countries, says it will supply North Korea with one point seven million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.  Kee Park, director of the Korean American Medical Association’s North Korea program, says doctors there have a lot of experience carrying out nationwide vaccination campaigns.  Park explains that AstraZeneca’s version is a good option, because it only needs to be stored at two to eight degrees Celsius, standard refrigeration temperatures that the North has in its medical infrastructure.  Park spoke with VOA News over the phone from Utah.   “They should be able to distribute AstraZeneca vaccine nationwide, and then maintain the cold chain that’s required to protect the vaccine from what we call denaturing or just inactivated. So they have the cold chain. So they have the technical know how and the capacity to distribute at least the AstraZeneca vaccine in a nationwide vaccination campaign,” Park said.Park, a neurosurgeon, says he has worked side by side with North Korean doctors on more than 20 trips to the country.  He says despite the North’s limited resources, medical professionals do the best they can with what they have available.   But Park says international sanctions against Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons program create setbacks for the country’s hospitals.  Even though medical supplies are technically exempt from import bans, Park explains that many aid groups still go through the process of vetting shipments. And, he says, that slows down public health campaigns.  “These UN agencies just they don’t take any chances. They don’t want to run afoul of any problems. And they get the exemptions to be fair. But, it creates additional layer of administrative hurdles, work that they get that it has to be put in to get these things delivered,” Park continued.Pyongyang credits its strict border closure with keeping out the coronavirus. North Korea says it has no COVID-19 infections – a claim that most outside observers do not believe.A staff member, left, of the Pongnam Noodle House checks the body temperature of a woman coming into its restaurant in Pyongyang, North Korea, Feb. 5, 2021.Sokeel Park, who heads the Seoul office of the human rights group Liberty in North Korea, says that during the pandemic, the regime has also enforced new limitations on domestic travel in the name of public health.    “Maybe actually, they’ve been able to control the pandemic itself with this level of draconian measures, both contact with the outside world and movement inside the country,” Sokeel said. Sokeel says he is worried Pyongyang will not lift these restrictions even after the pandemic is over.  The border closure has also prevented international aid workers from entering the country and has nearly halted trade with China. Park says this hurts the poorest North Koreans the most.    “This is creating a massive shortage in all sorts of goods, including basic necessities, we hear from some contacts inside the country that things like soap and toothpaste, and even foodstuffs are in shortage. And so we’re very worried about hunger. From what we hear, the last year has been a disaster,” Sokeel explained. Sokeel adds that without international monitors inside North Korea, he is concerned the COVID-19 vaccine will not be distributed fairly.   
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China’s top legislative body has formally announced plans to change Hong Kong’s electoral system to ensure that only “patriots” will govern the island. No other details of the plans have been made public.  Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi last week said the move is “necessary for a brighter future” in the city, while Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said the city’s postponed legislative elections could be delayed even further due to the electoral changes. The proposed changes are expected to grant more voting power to pro-Beijing members of the 1,200-member electoral commission that selects Hong Kong’s chief executive. The changes would strip the voting rights of several lower-level district councilors, many of whom are pro-democracy supporters. Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam speaks during a news conference over planned changes to the electoral system, in Hong Kong, China, March 8, 2021.The changes would ensure the Hong Kong legislature is filled strictly with “patriots,” FILE – Protesters against the new national security law gesture with five fingers, signifying the “Five demands – not one less” on the anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China from Britain in Hong Kong, July 1, 2020.Article 31 sets up Hong Kong as a special administrative region and makes it clear that the Basic Law holds sway in the territory. “This is tyranny of the majority. Dissidents will have no avenues to voice their opinions,” he continued, “I believe this will only provoke a backlash, letting anyone with a different opinion with Beijing to gather together and form a political power, which might impact the island’s long-term stability.”   Shen Dingli, a professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai, told VOA that since the passing of the National Security Law, Hong Kong has been under “One Country, One System.” “The current Chinese authorities believe that no matter (if) it’s ‘One Country, Two Systems’ or ‘One Country, One System,’ the essence is CCP (Chinese Communist Party) leadership,” he said. “Only by following the CCP can one be called a patriot. So, love your country equals to love the party equals to obey the orders by the party.”   Thousands of Hong Kongers have left the island since Beijing imposed the National Security Law last July.Thousands Flee Hong Kong for UK, Fearing China Crackdown The moves are expected to accelerate now that 5 million Hong Kongers are eligible to apply for visas to Britain, allowing them to live, work and study there and eventually apply to become British citizensNewly released figures from Taiwan’s National Immigration Agency show that 10,813 Hong Kongers were granted residency permits in 2020, almost double the previous year’s total.Australia, Canada and the United States have opened new immigration routes for Hong Kong residents. Britain, the island’s former colonial overlord, has invited holders of British National (Overseas) (BN(O)) passports to apply for a new type of visa that establishes a path to citizenship.  Official estimates say that within five years, as many as 1 million Hong Kongers will leave, according to The Guardian newspaper. “Hong Kong is now the same as China,” Shen said. “But I hope once day, people at both places can enjoy freedom.”  VOA’s Lin Yang contributed to this report.
 
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A Malaysian court on Tuesday agreed to let rights groups challenge the government’s plans to send detained Myanmar nationals home, where the United Nations says at least 50 people have been shot and killed in recent protests against a military coup.Malaysia sent 1,086 Myanmar nationals home on February 23, hours after the Kuala Lumpur High Court ordered a stay on deporting a group of 1,200.Rights groups Amnesty International and Asylum Access asked for the stay the day before, concerned that refugees and asylum-seekers may be among the group and that sending them back would put their lives at risk.Tuesday’s new ruling by the High Court grants an indefinite reprieve for the 114 Myanmar nationals among the original 1,200 who have yet to be deported.Brian Yap, a research consultant for Amnesty International Malaysia, said Tuesday’s decision means the 114 will stay in Malaysia at least until a judicial review of the government’s deportation plans runs its course.“In other words the government cannot deport these Myanmar nationals until the KL High Court has decided on this judicial review, which can take a few months or more,” he said. “There’s no exact date.”Malaysia Rights Groups Demand Explanation for Deportation of Myanmar Migrants More than 1,000 Myanmar nationals sent back home hours after high court ordered a stay pending appeal by human rights groups  The rights groups are not sure who the 114 people are, or even whether that’s the right number, as the Malaysian government has not granted the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees access to its immigration depots since August 2019. But they believe at least six refugees registered with the U.N. and dozens more asylum-seekers may be among them, based on names they’ve been provided by the Myanmar community in Malaysia.Yap said the rights groups will be asking for the full name and age of each of the 1,200, along with details on exactly why each of them was detained and where the 114 still in Malaysia are being held.Malaysia’s Ministry of Home Affairs referred questions about the case to an assistant director in the immigration department who could not be reached. An email to the department requesting comment went unanswered.Asylum Access Malaysia Director Tham Hui Ying welcomed the court decision and said it could also prove a watershed for the country, which does not officially recognize refugees but lumps them together with illegal immigrants.“What’s really important for us was that … the judge acknowledged that this was a matter of public interest and that this is not a frivolous case and that NGOs have standing in situations such as this to … challenge the actions of the government,” she said.“This decision allows us to challenge other potential deportations or attempts by the government to deport people,” she added.Tham said rights groups believe Malaysia is holding at least 3,000 more Myanmar nationals across the country and worry there may also be refugees and asylum-seekers among them at risk of being deported to a country in the grips of a bloody military takeover.Myanmar’s military toppled the country’s democratically elected government on February 1 after rounding up the top ranks of the ruling National League for Democracy, including de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The military claims, without evidence, that a 2020 general election the NLD won was riddled with fraud.Since the putsch, hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets and gone on strike across Myanmar to demand that the military restore the country’s elected government. Police and soldiers have met the protests with tear gas, rubber bullets and live rounds. A local rights group says authorities have also arrested hundreds of additional protesters, activists and journalists both during the day and on nightly home raids.Yap said Malaysia should take humanitarian and other conditions into account when deciding who to deport and hoped that Tuesday’s court decision will nudge the government to do so.“This decision, it doesn’t mean that the government cannot deport anyone at all,” said Yap.“It simply means that if there are grounds that this person cannot be deported then the government should not deport, and I think that’s really the whole basis of this challenge. It’s not a blanket challenge against all government authority to deport people,” he added. “But there are very specific circumstances where you shouldn’t deport.”A spokeswoman for the UNHCR in Malaysia said the agency also welcomed Tuesday’s court ruling and was still urging the government to let it meet with detainees.“We remain concerned that there may be refugees and individuals in need of international protection among those detained and facing possible deportation, and are currently seeking clarification from Malaysian authorities on the matter,” said Yante Ismail.“As a matter of urgency we have asked the authorities that all individuals in need of international protection should not be deported to a situation where their lives or freedoms may be at risk.”While Malaysia does not officially recognize refugees, it has typically allowed the U.N. to issue them cards meant to grant them some protection from being arbitrarily deported.Of the nearly 179,000 refugees the UNHCR had registered in Malaysia as of December, 154,000 were from Myanmar.
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The idea of universal basic income, where every citizen receives a regular amount of money from the government, has long been considered a fringe or radical idea in South Korea. The coronavirus pandemic may be changing that, as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports from Seoul.Contributer: Kim Hyungjin, Producer: Marcus Harton
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