Mutare, Zimbabwe — Government officials in Zimbabwe have been scrutinizing a Chinese mining company that has been operating a gold mine in the country’s east since at least 2021. The scrutiny comes as residents voice concern about the impact on health and the environment.

The company in question is Sino Africa Huijin Holdings, which faces accusations of severe environmental destruction and community harm. Its gold prospecting operations have been taking place in an area known as Premier Estate in the Mutasa District of Manicaland.

Villagers and community groups have complained about the blasting that has taken place at the mine. Nearby residents have reported widespread ecological damage, including the decimation of a mountain and the displacement of wildlife. They also say tremors from the blasts have caused structural damage to homes.

Residents further complain of dust pollution and the potential contamination of water sources due to alleged leaching of cyanide. Cyanide leaching is a method of extracting gold from ore that can pollute water resources. 

Adding to these concerns, Sino Africa is accused of forging community signatures on their Environmental Impact Assessment document, raising questions about the transparency and legitimacy of their operations.

The complaints prompted the government to shut down the mine’s operations twice in 2024. In the past two months, however, mining has resumed. 

“We are between a rock and a hard place. If it’s possible, let them compensate us and relocate us because it’s no longer appealing,” Ishewedenga Moyo, one of 30 residents living within some 300 meters of the Sino Africa Huijin mine, told VOA in December.

“The vibrations and noise generated by mining blasting are disrupting wildlife habitats and ecosystems, damaging biodiversity, and causing cracks in our homes,” Moyo added.

Government-ordered suspensions 

A Manicaland Joint Command Task Force, composed of a number of government entities, ordered the temporary closure of Sino Africa Huijin’s gold mining operations twice. Officials say the shutdowns were enforced to ensure the mine met all necessary requirements. 

The first suspension occurred in October and lasted two weeks. Sino Africa Huijin made pledges to improve the situation and was allowed to resume operations. Then, the task force ordered the mine to close a second time in mid-November.

Traditional Chief James Kurauone of the Mutasa district told VOA on Dec. 11 that officials forced Sino Africa Huijing’s operations to stop each time because the company “failed to address critical concerns raised by the local community.”

“These concerns that led to the temporary closure included severe air pollution, destructive blasting activities impacting local homes, and the company’s failure to fulfill its corporate social responsibility obligations,” said Mutasa in recent comments. Mutasa added that he plans to convene a meeting with mining officials and members from the community to discuss a path forward in a couple of weeks.  

Mining compliance  

Mining operations resumed on November 25 at the conclusion of discussions among government officials, community leaders and company representatives.

Daniel Panganai, the current HR manager of Sino Africa Huijin, was involved in the discussions. He told VOA in mid-December that the company “complied with all the requirements outlined in writing, but I cannot divulge much information at this time.”

Misheck Mugadza, the Manicaland minister of state, also said in December that Sino Africa Huijin committed to adhering to all mining and environmental regulations. He said the Chinese company had acted on its social responsibility obligations by donating to the local hospital and drilling a well to provide water to the local school.

The government is closely monitoring the company’s operations, Mugadza said, and some households have already received full compensation for damages. He further stated that the company is obligated to compensate all affected residents.  

Chinese investments in Zimbabwean mines

The controversy surrounding the Sino Africa Huijin mine is not isolated, according to a September report by the Center for Natural Resource Governance, or CNRG, a Harare-based community rights organization.

The report, which assessed the impact of Chinese investment on Zimbabwe’s mining industry, found that “Chinese mining ventures have led to widespread environmental degradation, disregard for the cultural rights of host communities, and, in many cases, the violation of the country’s labor laws, often with apparent impunity.”

Chinese investors control an estimated 90% of the of Zimbabwe’s mining industry, according to the report.  

“In 2023 alone, Sino investments in Zimbabwe’s mining sector saw 121 investors contributing a staggering $2.79 billion,” said CNRG Executive Director Farai Maguwu, who was quoted in a post on the organization’s website.

Separately, another area resident voiced criticism of the government’s response to the mining.

“There are times when the mine uses explosives of higher magnitude, and there will be tremors,” said area resident Thobekile Mhenziwamukuru. 

“When we call the government officials about the crisis, they always go directly alone to the Sino mine offices without any community leaders, then they will come and address us, just saying they will use explosives of low magnitude next time and we now know that it’s now their cash cow.

“Even in terms of closing and reopening of the mine, instead of solving our grievances, there is no fairness in everything because money is being exchanged to slow the progress and we hope higher offices in government will come to rescue us,” she concluded.

Maguwu accused local lawmakers of corruption, saying, “Instead of enforcing the law, they are cashing in on this illegality by forcing them to close down, demanding bribes for reopening, and then returning to close them down again and demand another bribe.”

Despite repeated phone calls and visits to the offices of government stakeholders to address these accusations, including the Ministry of Mines and the Environmental Management Agency, VOA received no response.

“This cycle goes on and on while the environment is being sacrificed,” Maguwu said.
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BEIJING — A strong earthquake killed at least 53 people in Tibet on Tuesday and left many others trapped as dozens of aftershocks shook the region of western China and across the border in Nepal.

The official Xinhua News Agency said 62 other people were injured, citing the regional disaster relief headquarters.

About 1,500 fire and rescue workers were deployed to search for people in the rubble, the Ministry of Emergency Management said.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake measured magnitude 7.1 and was relatively shallow at a depth of about 10 kilometers (6 miles). China recorded the magnitude as 6.8.

The epicenter was about 75 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Mount Everest, which straddles the border. The area is seismically active and is where the India and Eurasia plates clash and cause uplifts in the Himalayan mountains strong enough to change the heights of some of the world’s tallest peaks.

The average altitude in the area around the epicenter is about 4,200 meters (13,800 feet), the China Earthquake Networks Center said in a social media post.

State broadcaster CCTV said there are a handful of communities within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of the epicenter, which was 380 kilometers (240 miles) from Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and about 23 kilometers (14 miles) from the region’s second-largest city of Shigatse, known as Xigaze in Chinese.

About 230 kilometers (140 miles) away in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, the earthquake woke up residents and sent them running out of their homes into the streets. No information was immediately available from the remote, mountainous areas of Nepal closer to the epicenter.

There have been 10 earthquakes of at least magnitude 6 in the area where Tuesday’s quake hit over the past century, the USGS said.
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Beijing — Corruption is the biggest threat to China’s Communist Party, President Xi Jinping said on Monday, in a clear warning that the ruling party is resolved to tackle a long-running problem that is now entrenched in many strata of Chinese society.  

China was rocked last year by corruption probes into high-profile individuals ranging from a deputy central bank governor to a former chairman of its biggest oil and gas company, adding to unease in an economy struggling to secure a firm footing and a society grappling with a fading sense of wealth.  

The list also included a top Chinese admiral, Miao Hua, whose fall from grace comes at a time when Beijing is trying to modernize its armed forces and boost its battle readiness.  

Not only is corruption still pervading China, it is actually on the rise, Xi said at the start of a three-day congress of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, CCDI, the country’s top anti-graft watchdog.

“Corruption is the biggest threat to our party,” he warned.

To underline the scale of the problem, the CCDI said in recent days that a record 58 “tigers,” or senior officials, were probed last year.

Of those investigated, 47 were at the vice-ministerial level or above, including Tang Renjian, former minister of agriculture and rural affairs, and Gou Zhongwen, former head of the General Administration of Sport.  

Even former high-ranking officials were not spared, such as Wang Yilin, who stepped down as chairman of state-owned China National Petroleum Corp in 2020 on reaching retirement age.  

The crackdown will continue, said Andrew Wedeman, a professor at Georgia State University.

“I don’t see how Xi could afford to back off at this point,” Wedeman said. “A dozen years after he set out to cleanse the senior ranks, Xi is still finding widespread corruption at the top of the party-state and the PLA.”

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has also been swept by a wave of purges since 2023. Li Shangfu was removed as defense minister after seven months and his predecessor Wei Fenghe was expelled from the party for “serious violations of discipline,” a euphemism for corruption.

Challenges

Wedeman said it appeared that the pool that Xi is drawing on as replacements also included corrupt officials.  

“If Xi is promoting corrupt officials, this suggests the party’s internal vetting apparatus is not functioning effectively or, more seriously, is itself corrupted.”

China admits its anti-corruption efforts face new challenges, with traditional forms of corruption such as accepting cash becoming more insidious.

“A businessman might offer me money directly, and I’d refuse,” said Fan Yifei, a former deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve.

“But if he gives it in the form of stocks or other assets, not directly to me but to my family, that’s a whole different matter,” state media quoted Fan as saying.

Even the lowly “flies” and “ants” in China’s vast bureaucracy will not be spared, a program aired on Sunday by the national television broadcaster showed.  

The first of four episodes of “Fighting Corruption for the People” that ran ahead of the CCDI meeting focused on grassroots corruption, including a case of how a primary school director profited from kickbacks from on-campus meals and another on how a rural official took bribes from farm project contractors.  

“Compared to the ‘tigers’ far away, the public feels more strongly about the corruption around them,” said Sun Laibin, a professor at Peking University’s School of Marxism.

The anti-corruption fight must reach the “hearts” of the masses, he said on the program, so that they can “deeply feel” the care of the party.
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Seoul — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday opened a visit to crisis-riven South Korea where he will seek delicately to encourage continuity with the policies, but not tactics, of the impeached president.

Blinken arrived in the snow-covered capital on what will likely be his final trip as the top U.S. diplomat before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

He will meet his counterpart Cho Tae-yul on Monday, the same day a warrant expires to arrest suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol who unsuccessfully tried to impose martial law on December 3.

Blinken is highlighting President Joe Biden’s efforts to build alliances and will head afterwards to Tokyo, making it crucial in the eyes of his advisors not to snub South Korea, which has a fraught and often competitive relationship with Japan, also home to thousands of American troops.

Yoon had once been a darling of the Biden administration with his bold moves to turn the page on friction with Japan and his eye on a greater role for South Korea on global issues.

Yoon joined Biden for a landmark three-way summit with Japan’s prime minister and — months before declaring martial law — was picked to lead a global democracy summit, a signature initiative for the outgoing U.S. administration.

Yoon also memorably charmed his hosts on a state visit by belting out “American Pie” at a White House dinner.

Blinken may face some criticism from the South Korean left for the visit but should be able to navigate the political crisis, said Sydney Seiler, a former US intelligence officer focused on Korea now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Blinken has a high enough profile to be above the fray, and can keep the focus on challenges such as China and North Korea, he said.

“Blinken can dodge a lot of these domestic South Korean landmines relatively easily and contextualize it not as trying to help the ruling party or artificially create a sense of normalcy where it otherwise isn’t,” Seiler said.

In a statement, the State Department did not directly mention the political crisis but said Blinken would seek to preserve trilateral cooperation with Japan, which has included enhanced intelligence sharing on North Korea.

Blinken’s visit comes at a time of change for both countries, with Trump returning to the White House on January 20.

Paradoxically, while Biden worked closely with the conservative Yoon, Trump in his first term enjoyed a warm relationship with then progressive president Moon Jae-in, who encouraged the U.S. president’s groundbreaking personal diplomacy with North Korea.

The Biden administration has stressed since the crisis that it is reaching out to South Korean politicians across the divide, amid the uncertainties on who will lead Asia’s fourth-largest economy.

Progressive opposition leader Lee Jae-myung — who himself faces election disqualification in a court case — supports diplomacy with North Korea.

But the former labor activist has also taken stances that differ from those of both Biden and Trump.

Lee has criticized deployment of U.S.-made THAAD missile defenses, which Washington says are meant to protect against North Korea but which China sees as a provocation. 

South Korea’s left has long championed a harder stance on Japan over its brutal 1910-1945 occupation of the Korean peninsula.

U.S. officials said they had no warning of Yoon’s imposition of martial law, which brought masses of protesters to the streets.

Blinken, addressing reporters last month, said the crisis showed the strength of South Korea’s institutions built in the three decades since it embraced democracy. 

“I think Korea is one of the most powerful stories in the world about the emergence of democracy and democratic resilience, and we’ll continue to look to Korea to set that example,” Blinken said.
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Her greatest fear, dormant for decades, came rushing back in an instant: had she adopted and raised a kidnapped child?

Peg Reif’s daughter, adopted from South Korea in the 1980s, had sent her a link to a documentary detailing how the system that made their family was rife with fraud: documents falsified, babies switched, children snatched off the street and sent abroad.

Reif wept.

She was among more than 120 who contacted The Associated Press this fall, after a series of stories and a documentary made with Frontline exposed how Korea created a baby pipeline, designed to ship children abroad as quickly as possible to meet Western demand. The reporting shook adoption communities around the world with details about how agencies competed for babies — pressuring mothers, bribing hospitals, fabricating documents. Most who wrote were adoptees, but some were adoptive parents like Reif, horrified to learn they had supported this system.

“I can’t stand the thought that somebody lost their child,” Reif said. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I don’t know how to make it right. I don’t know if I can.”

Forty years ago, she was struggling with infertility. She and her husband pinned their dreams for a family on adopting a baby from Mexico, paid an agency thousands of dollars and waited for months. Then the agency’s directors were arrested, and they learned that those Mexican babies had been taken from their families against their will. Reif was heartbroken but recalls even now looking at her husband and saying, “Thank God we don’t have a child who was stolen.”

But now she isn’t sure of that. Because then they adopted two Korean children, and brought them to their home in rural Wisconsin, first a son and then a daughter. The two were not biological siblings, but both arrived with strangely similar stories in their files: their young unmarried mothers worked in factories with fathers who disappeared after they got pregnant.

Back then, Reif still believed the common narrative about foreign adoption: it saved children who might otherwise live the rest of their lives in an orphanage, die or be damned to poverty.

“I don’t believe that anymore,” Reif said. “I don’t know what to believe.”

Cameron Lee Small, a therapist in Minneapolis whose practice caters to adoptees and their families, said many are feeling an intense sense of betrayal. Individual adoptees had long shared stories of falsified identities. But the revelations this year pointed to systemwide practices that routinely changed babies’ origin stories to process adoptions quickly, including listing them as “abandoned” even when they had known parents.

Small, who was also adopted from Korea in the 1980s, summarized what he’s been hearing from adoptees: “I’m kind of back to nothing. What do I believe now? Who can I believe?”

Reif’s daughter, Jenn Hamilton, spent her life thinking she was unwanted, often quipping, “That’s what happens when you’re found in a dumpster as a baby.”

It has taken a toll on her all her life: She’s been happily married for nine years, she said, but she has this insatiable insecurity: “I constantly find myself asking my husband, ‘Are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong?’ Do you want to leave me?'”

She has no idea anymore if abandonment was ever really her story, with revelations of abuses so systemic that even the Korean government likened it to “trafficking.”

“You can’t make that many mistakes. It has to be intentional. It was this huge tree of deception,” she said. “I feel disgusted.”

Holt International, the U.S.-based agency that pioneered adoptions from Korea, did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this story.

Reform is sweeping across Europe — countries have launched investigations, halted foreign adoptions and apologized to adoptees for failing to protect them. But the United States, which has taken in the most adopted children by far, has not done a review of its own history or culpability.

The U.S. State Department told AP this summer that it would work with its historian to piece together its history, and detailed initial findings that some documents might have been falsified. But it said there was no evidence that U.S. officials were aware of it. The State Department has since said that it has “been unable to identify any records that could provide insight into the U.S. government role in adoptions from South Korea in the 1970s and 1980s.”

Korea’s National Police Agency confirmed an increase in adoptees registering their DNA for family searches — both at domestic police stations and diplomatic offices across North America and Europe — in the weeks following the release of the AP stories and documentary in September. More than 120 adoptees registered their DNA in October and November, compared to an average of fewer than 30 a month from January to August.

Korea’s government has maintained that adoptions were a necessary tool to care for needy children, including babies of unwed mothers or other children deemed as abandoned. However, Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare acknowledged to AP that the adoption boom in the 1970s and 80s was possibly fueled by a desire to reduce welfare costs.

Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been investigating government accountability over foreign adoption problems since 2022, prompted by complaints filed by hundreds of adoptees, and is expected to release an interim report in February. The Commission has posted the AP stories on its website.

A law passed in 2023 mandates that all adoption records be transferred from private agencies to a government department called the National Center for the Rights of the Child by July, to centralize the handling of family search requests. The center has confirmed that private agencies hold about 170,000 adoption files, but director Chung Ick-Joong doubts it will acquire a space to store and manage all these records in time, due to financial constraints and other challenges. The agency expects family search requests to increase dramatically – “possibly by tenfold,” according to Chung — yet has funding to add only five staff members to its team of six searchers.

Chung acknowledged that flaws in adoption laws had persisted for decades, and Korea only required adoptions to go through courts and birth records to be preserved after 2012.

“It’s difficult to determine who was responsible for the inaccuracies in records before then,” he said. “The adoption agency might have been at fault, the biological parents may have lied, or something might have gone wrong at the orphanage … no one truly knows what the truth is.”

Korean adoption agencies have mostly declined AP’s requests for comment in recent months, often citing privacy concerns.

Advocates insist that most adoptive families thrive, with both the parents and children happily living their lives without questioning the industry as Reif and Hamilton have.

Hamilton grew up in a rural, almost exclusively white community in Wisconsin, and back then all she wanted was to be accepted. But having children of her own changed that. When her first child was born, she looked at him, and it took her breath away.

“It can’t explain it, like this is the first person I know in my life that I’m biologically related to,” she said.

She wanted to learn her own history, so her children could know theirs. She wrote a letter to her adoption agency, which within weeks connected her with a woman they said was her mother. It was emotional, shocking.

But soon she felt like she had more questions than answers. The woman’s name didn’t match the one listed on paperwork, and the name she gave for the father was also different. Birthdates didn’t match, the birthplace didn’t either. They had not met in a factory, she said, they had been pen pals.

Hamilton asked the woman to take a DNA test, but she said she didn’t know how to access one. Hamilton came to believe this woman was not her birth mother.

The AP’s reporting found numerous cases where agencies connected adoptees with supposed birth families, only for them to later discover after emotional meetings that they weren’t related at all.

Hamilton has been trying to untangle the DNA results on her father’s side, contacting people distantly related, cousins once removed, half great aunts.

“It becomes an obsession,” Hamilton said. “It’s like a puzzle that you start, and you have to find the missing pieces.”

Lynelle Long, the founder of InterCountry Adoptee Voices, the largest organization of adoptees in the world, said governments at the very least need to legally mandate that agencies provide adoptees with their full and redacted documents, without the payment now often required.

Long said parents like Reif have an important role, because in Western countries, laws always favored the desires of adoptive parents — designed to make adoptions quicker and easier. Many clung to the narrative that they saved needy orphans who should be grateful, she said, especially in the U.S., where the reckoning rocking Europe has not taken hold.

“We really need adoptive parents in the United States, if they have any inkling of guilt or shame or loss, to step up, take responsibility and demand that legislation be put in place to criminalize these practices and prevent it from ever happening again,” Long said.

Hamilton is close to her parents; she just renovated the basement to accommodate their visits. She’s sad for herself, she said, but she’s sadder for her mother, who is desperate to learn if her children actually had parents somewhere, searching for them.

“And I’m like, ‘Why, so you can send us back?” Hamilton said. “I don’t want to be a victim.”

She said she’s glad she was adopted, and does not long for that different, alternative life in Korea.

Reif loves her children profoundly, she said. But she doesn’t think she would adopt from abroad again, if she’d known then what she knows now.

“I’d rather be childless than think I have somebody else’s child that didn’t want to give them up,” she said. “I think of somebody taking my child. Those poor families, I just can’t imagine it.”
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BEIJING — A fire at a food market Saturday in northern China killed at least eight people and injured 15 others, state media said.

The fire at the Liguang market in the city of Zhangjiakou, northwest of Beijing, broke out midday Saturday and was mostly extinguished by 2 p.m., Xinhua News Agency reported, citing a government official in the Qiaoxi District, where the market is located.

“The injured have been sent to hospital for treatment and are currently not in life-threatening danger,” the government official said. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Such traditional markets are often tightly packed with shoppers seeking prices lower than at supermarket chains.

Fire sources can range from gas bottles to charcoal used to roast meat and discarded cigarettes while aging infrastructure, such as underground gas lines, has also been blamed for fires and explosions.

Footage shared online and geolocated by Agence France-Presse showed people outside the market fleeing the blaze while thick smoke billowed skyward.

Other videos showed firefighters battling the flames and carrying victims away from the scene.

Deadly fires are relatively common in China due to lax building codes and an often-slipshod approach to workplace safety.

A blaze in the major city of Chengdu in October left 24 people hospitalized with breathing difficulties, state media reported.

In July, a fire at a shopping center in the southwestern city of Zigong killed 16 people.

Zhangjiakou, located in Hebei province bordering Beijing, hosted events during the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

Some information in this report is from Agence France-Presse.
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Prosecutors in China pressed charges this week against a Myanmar-based telecom scam ring, which was busted last year. The group is accused of using armed forces to abduct and force Chinese nationals to work for the fraudsters. Despite of China’s crackdown efforts, such fraud operations remain rampant.

Click here for the full story in Mandarin.
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Washington — President Joe Biden has made good on his months of public opposition to the proposed purchase of American company U.S. Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel, announcing Friday he is blocking the $14.9 billion takeover.  

The acquisition would “place one of America’s largest steel producers under foreign control and create risk for our national security and our critical supply chains,” he said in a statement. He did not elaborate on how the deal would jeopardize national security.

The collapse of the proposed acquisition represents a victory for workers of the company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, an electorally crucial swing state. In March, the powerful United Steelworkers union endorsed Biden, who at that time was still running for reelection in the November election. 

“This was clearly a political decision that President Biden had been chewing over for a long time. He is determined to demonstrate that he’s going to protect American workers, and particularly in the steel sector,” said Matthew Goodman, director of the RealEcon Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations. 

“It is an important sector, and it is subject to unfair trade practices, but it’s hard to really understand the national security logic of blocking this transaction,” he told VOA. 

Federal law gives the president power to block a transaction based on the recommendation of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, chaired by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and made up of other Cabinet members. Last month, CFIUS failed to reach consensus on the possible national security risks of the deal. 

Biden made the announcement in his remaining days in office, despite some analysts and advisers warning that his rejection of the deal could damage relations with Japan, a key U.S. ally and trade partner. Especially with a looming trade war under the incoming Trump administration who has vowed to slap high tariffs on trading partners. 

“We need allies especially in the war — a potential war against China,” said John Ferrari, nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.  

“Japan is a staunch ally in the Pacific. They have prowess in ship building and in manufacturing, and so we need them,” Ferrari told VOA. “Allowing them to invest in the United States would make us stronger.” 

President-elect Donald Trump, who is set to come to power on Jan. 20, also opposes the acquisition. In a November social media post, he vowed to block the deal and to use tax incentives and tariffs to grow U.S. Steel. 

Both Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel have vowed to pursue legal action, citing that the U.S. government failed to follow proper procedures in considering the acquisition. 

“The President’s statement and Order do not present any credible evidence of a national security issue, making clear that this was a political decision,” the companies said in a statement. “Following President Biden’s decision, we are left with no choice but to take all appropriate action to protect our legal rights.” 

The announcement followed other protectionist moves by the administration. Last year, Biden tripled tariffs on steel imports from China. 

“For too long, U.S. steel companies have faced unfair trade practices as foreign companies have dumped steel on global markets at artificially low prices, leading to job losses and factory closures in America,” the president said in his statement Friday. 
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washington — Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has a complex legacy on the Korean Peninsula, former U.S. officials say, including the vital role he played in defusing a crisis between the United States and North Korea in 1994.

Thomas Hubbard, former U.S. ambassador to South Korea from 2001 to 2004, told VOA Korean by phone Wednesday that Carter’s interventions in North Korea significantly lowered tensions, despite somewhat negative reactions from President Bill Clinton’s administration.

“His initial involvement in the early 1990s when he went to North Korea, met with Kim Il Sung, he opened an opportunity that lowered the chances of war and led to the Agreed Framework,” said Hubbard, referring to Carter’s meeting in June 1994 with late North Korean founder Kim Il Sung.

Hubbard was a principal negotiator of the Agreed Framework signed by the U.S. and North Korea in Geneva in October 1994, aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

VOA Korean sought comment from the Permanent Mission of North Korea to the United Nations, but did not receive a response.

Carter, who was the 39th U.S. president and served from 1977 to 1981, visited Pyongyang as North Korea’s declaration of withdrawal from the International Atomic Energy Agency created the first major crisis over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

He crossed the inter-Korean border in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) from the South Korean side with his wife, Rosalynn, and held talks for two days in Pyongyang with the North Korean leader.

Carter was the first former U.S. president to visit the isolated country and to meet North Korea’s head of state.

Controversial mission

At the time, North Korea threatened to expel IAEA inspectors, demonstrating its intent to develop nuclear weapons, and the United States pushed for U.N. sanctions on North Korea. It was speculated that Clinton was planning a preemptive attack on North Korea.

After the talks between Carter and Kim, North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for a resumption of dialogue with the U.S. The breakthrough led to the first nuclear deal between the U.S. and North Korea in 40 years, although the agreement fell through in 2003.

Daniel Russel, former assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said in an email to VOA Korean on Monday, “It is not hyperbole to say that it felt like the brink of war. We were right at the edge of the cliff.”

As a young diplomat, Russel and then-U.S. Ambassador to South Korea James Laney helped prepare Carter for his trip across the DMZ.

North Korea warned that sanctions would be treated as “an act of war” and started the process to withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Russel said.

“The immediate crisis was averted. We had been really close to a war, and Jimmy Carter saved us from that,” he said.

Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction during the Obama administration, said Carter’s mission was “ultimately successful, but the Clinton administration was unhappy because Carter didn’t try to get any constraint on North Korea’s nuclear program as part of a resolution of that immediate conflict.”

Hubbard offered a similar view.

“What made it controversial, I think, is that Carter accepted some positions that went beyond the Clinton administration’s positions with North Korea, and then he announced them publicly on CNN before even informing us,” Hubbard said. “That was quite a shock.”

CNN, which closely followed Carter’s visit to Pyongyang, first reported that Carter told the North Koreans the U.S. had stopped pursuing international sanctions against North Korea, which Clinton soon flatly denied.

Carter visited North Korea twice more in 2010 and 2011 on private humanitarian missions. While his visit in 2010 secured the release of American teacher Aijalon Mahli Gomes, who had been imprisoned in North Korea for seven months, he failed to meet with Kim Jong Il, who succeeded his father, Kim Il Sung, on either trip.

While his post-presidential efforts on the Korean Peninsula are more widely known, Carter’s presidency had another moment of controversy, as his push for the withdrawal of U.S. ground troops from South Korea shook the U.S.-South Korea alliance.

Push for human rights

When he assumed the presidency, Carter was determined not to overlook the human rights abuses of U.S. allies. He found it problematic that the United States would support a country under a repressive government. To him, South Korea was such a country then.

“One of the big things Carter campaigned on was human rights,” Samore said. “At the time, South Korea was ruled by a military government, and he wanted to reduce relations with countries that were not democracies.”

The former president, who pledged to withdraw U.S. troops from South Korea during his presidential campaign, had a war of words with then-South Korean President Park Chung-hee over the issue during his 1979 visit to South Korea, according to diplomatic documents from both countries.

According to a declassified document from the White House, Park criticized the planned withdrawal of U.S. Forces Korea, arguing the idea itself had emboldened North Korea. To this, Carter suggested that South Korea should increase defense spending.

Joseph DeTrani, former special envoy for the Six-Party Talks with North Korea from 2003 to 2006, told VOA Korean on Monday by phone that one of the factors behind Carter’s decision was the burgeoning U.S. relationship with China, which fought against the U.S. during the 1950-53 Korean War in support of North Korea.

“We were normalizing relations with the People’s Republic of China. There was a sense that war was not going to break out on the Korean Peninsula,” said DeTrani, who also served as director of East Asia operations at the Central Intelligence Agency.

“Those people who follow developments on the Korean Peninsula felt that was not the right decision,” he said.

U.S. troop withdrawal from the East Asian ally was ultimately not realized, largely over opposition from the U.S. Congress and the military.

“President Carter was interested in waging peace everywhere, wherever there is conflict. He didn’t believe there was the necessary need for Americans to station so many troops in so many places,” Yawei Liu, senior adviser on China at the Carter Center, told VOA Korean by phone on Monday.

Carter died Sunday at his home in Georgia at age 100. The official state funeral for Carter will be held January 9 in Washington.

South Korea’s foreign ministry expressed condolences at Carter’s passing.

“He was particularly interested in promoting peace on the Korean Peninsula and actively worked on it,” it said in a statement released Monday.
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Bangkok — As Thailand faces a growing influx of refugees from Myanmar following the military coup, MP Rangsiman Rome, chair of the Thai House Committee on National Security and deputy leader of the People’s Party, emphasizes the need for urgent reform.

“The immediate step is to register the people,” Rome tells VOA, citing corruption and the lack of legal recognition that leave many refugees vulnerable. “By recognizing them, we can give them access to education and work, while ensuring they contribute by paying taxes.”

In this exclusive interview with VOA, Rome discusses Thailand’s challenges with migration, corruption and the need for coordinated government action to address the crisis.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

VOA: What are your criticisms of the government’s handling of this crisis, and what should they do differently?

Rangsiman Rome: The civil war in Myanmar is devastating, forcing many to flee into Thailand. Unfortunately, Thailand wasn’t prepared, and refugees now live in the shadows without legal status. We can’t return them due to international and domestic laws, so we’ve been working with [nongovernmental organizations] to provide humanitarian aid, but a long-term solution is necessary.

Thailand shares a 2,400-kilometer border with Myanmar, and instability there allows for illegal activities like drug smuggling and human trafficking, affecting Thailand and the region. ASEAN [the Association of Southeast Asian Nations] must pressure the State Administration Council [SAC], Myanmar’s junta, to support peace and democracy in Myanmar.

In the short term, Thailand must register the 6 million Myanmar people here, providing them with legal status, work and education. Right now, the government’s policy on this issue remains unclear.

VOA: What immediate steps should be taken?

Rome: Registering the Myanmar people who are in Thailand would be a good first step. One of the problems that we are facing is corruption. A lot of refugees have to pay the money to the police or other authorities in order to work. If the Thai government would recognize these people living in Thailand, it would make it so they can not only access health care and education, but also they will be able to work and therefore have the responsibility to pay taxes. At the same time, we need to reach out to our friends like Japan, the U.S. and Australia for help with managing this situation, such as humanitarian aid.

VOA: A recent Lower House report highlighted legal loopholes contributing to human rights violations. What changes do you propose?

Rome: When we register them, we can make sure that our law will protect them. Abuses can happen because we don’t recognize them. So, [if] anything happens to them, they cannot report it; but if they are registered, they can earn, can live like normal people in Thailand.

At the same time, if you want to solve this, we have to talk about how it starts. In Myanmar we find out that as many as 2 million refugees are in the IDP [internally displaced people] camps because of the ongoing bombardment by the SAC. If everyone in the international community would come together to pressure the SAC to stop this, maybe a million refugees could return to their homes again. So, we need to not just manage the refugees in Thailand, but we have to deal with the situation in Myanmar.

VOA: Ministries have been criticized for working in “silos.” How do you plan to improve coordination?

Rome: As chair of the National Security Committee, I ensure that our recommendations benefit Thailand. We aim to play a larger role in the U.N. Human Rights Council, but we must manage the refugee situation appropriately to maintain our reputation.

We are working with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ensure Myanmar refugees can live safely in Thailand. Additionally, the SAC has been using Thailand’s banking system to launder money for weapons, and we’ve been pushing the foreign minister to take action on this.

VOA: Access to health care, education and basic services for migrants remain major issues. How do you assess the government’s efforts, and what would you do differently?

Rome: The policy around education in Thailand is not very clear. For example, there have been cases where the government closed a day care because they were singing a song to the children in Burmese and they found that unacceptable. The problem is that it’s very hard for refugee children to access school in Thailand and not every school has the same policies.

The people at the border, they cannot have a Thai education, so the Thai authority is trying to create a separate Burmese program for them, but it doesn’t make sense to me. How can the Thai government make a Burmese program?

I think one of the very important things is we need to change this policy. Kids are innocent. They should have access to the Thai education system, and actually, we have space for them. We are an aging society. Schools are actually closing due to a lack of enrollment because of low birth rates. I think Thailand must change, and if I controlled the government, absolutely we would open the education system for Myanmar people to study in Thailand. I believe that if they are better educated, it benefits not only themselves but all of Thailand.

VOA: There was a protest in front of the Myanmar Embassy a few days ago where protesters were complaining about the large number of Myanmar refugees in Thailand. What do you think is driving this protest?

Rome: Thailand’s struggling economy has led to job losses, and with over 6 million Myanmar refugees here, tensions are rising. Corruption adds to the issue, with refugees forced to pay bribes just to live. Crimes involving Myanmar refugees are often publicized more, worsening relations between Thai and Myanmar people.

Registering the refugees would reduce corruption and ensure equal treatment under the law. Right now, Thai law restricts foreigners from working in many sectors, but if managed properly, Myanmar workers could contribute significantly to our economy. They are essential to Thailand and bringing them out of the shadows will help us all.

VOA: Given the current situation, what message would you like to share with the Myanmar migrants living in Thailand?

Rome: I understand that the people from Myanmar seek peace and safety here, hoping to provide for their families. The crisis in Myanmar forced them to flee and find opportunities elsewhere.

As an MP, I want Thailand to uphold human rights, but that’s difficult due to many factors — history, education and the economy. Still, I believe that Myanmar and Thailand, as neighbors, must work together. Real change requires improving the situation in Myanmar. I know the Myanmar people want peace and democracy, and I hope we can achieve that together.
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WASHINGTON — Satellite imagery showed that China’s newest nuclear-powered attack submarine sank alongside a pier while under construction, a senior U.S. defense official said Thursday.

The sinking of China’s first Zhou-class submarine represents a setback for Beijing as it continues to build out the world’s largest navy. Beijing has become increasingly assertive in pursuing its claim to virtually the entire South China Sea, which is crucial to international trade.

Meanwhile, China faces longtime territorial disputes involving others in the region including Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. The United States has sought to strengthen ties to its allies in the region and regularly sails through those waters in operations it says maintains the freedom of navigation for vessels there, angering Beijing.

The submarine likely sank between May and June, when satellite images showed cranes that would be necessary to lift it off the bottom of the river, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details about the submarine loss.

China has been building up its naval fleet at a breakneck pace, and the U.S. considers China’s rise one of its main future security concerns.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Friday he was not familiar with the topic and did not provide any information when asked about it at a Beijing press conference.

The U.S. official said it was “not surprising” that China’s navy would conceal it. The submarine’s current status is unknown.

The identification of the sunken nuclear submarine was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. Thomas Shugart, a former U.S. Navy submariner and an analyst at the Center for a New American Security, first noticed the incident involving the submarine in July, though it wasn’t publicly known at the time that it involved the new Zhou-class vessel.

Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by The Associated Press show what appears to be a submarine docked at the Shuangliu shipyard on the Yangtze River before the incident.

An image taken June 15 appears to show the submarine either fully or partially submerged just under the river’s surface, with rescue equipment and cranes surrounding it. Booms surround it to prevent any oil or other leaks from the vessel.

A satellite image taken August 25 shows a submarine back at the same dock as the submerged vessel. It’s not clear if it was the same one.

It remains unclear if the affected submarine had been loaded with nuclear fuel or if its reactor was operating at the time of the incident. However, there has been no reported release of radiation in the area in the time since.

China as of last year operated six nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, six nuclear-powered attack submarines and 48 diesel-powered attack submarines, according to a U.S. military report.

News of the submarine’s sinking comes as China this week conducted a rare launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile into international waters in the Pacific Ocean. Experts say it marked the first time Beijing had conducted such a test since 1980. 
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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — Ethnic Chin refugees from Myanmar in Malaysia are accusing the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR of abuse and of not providing necessary protection, potentially putting lives at risk. 

Hundreds of members of the Alliance of Chin Refugees held a demonstration Thursday outside the UNHCR office in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur.  

Chins, most of whom are Christians, are an ethnic and religious minority in Buddhist-majority Myanmar who face repression that has led to violent conflicts there. In recent decades, waves of ethnic Chins have fled the country, many to Malaysia. 

U.N. figures from last month show there are about 27,250 ethnic Chin refugees and asylum-seekers in Malaysia registered with UNHCR. But James Bawl Thang Bik, chairman of the Alliance of Chin Refugees, told VOA on Thursday there are tens of thousands more who are not registered.  

He also said the UNHCR takes too long to make decisions for asylum-seekers who have applied for refugee status. “The process can take years,” he said.  

VOA asked UNHCR Malaysia how long it typically takes for an applicant to get a decision on their case but did not receive an immediate answer. 

Further complicating matters, Malaysia has not signed the United Nations refugee convention and does not officially recognize refugees, viewing them as illegal immigrants. 

UNHCR registration provides some protection that typically prevents arrest, but the refugees are still not allowed to attend government schools or work legally — although many take off-the-books jobs, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation by employers, according to migrant rights groups. 

James Bawl Thang Bik said that after Myanmar’s 2021 coup approximately 50 ethnic Chin Myanmar soldiers and police officers fled to Malaysia because they refused to fight for Myanmar’s military. He said some of them have been arrested and are in detention in Malaysia because they lack UNHCR documentation.  

“If these former soldiers and policemen get sent back to Myanmar their lives could be in danger,” he said. 

“UNHCR needs to prioritize these types of cases and register them quickly.” 

UNHCR documentation also gives refugees access to medical care at public hospitals for lower prices than what foreigners typically pay but the Alliance of Chin Refugees said asylum-seekers without UNHCR documentation frequently need medical treatment but cannot get it.  

“The UNHCR needs to meet with these people immediately and give them the necessary status and documentation,” Bik said, mentioning cases of people with broken bones and serious infections. 

Responding to media inquiries after Thursday’s demonstration, the United Nations refugee agency released a written statement that said: “UNHCR wishes to emphasize that we recognize the frustration felt by many refugee communities living in the complex protection environment in Malaysia where they lack legal status, are unable to access legal work or formal education. … UNHCR is doing its utmost to protect and assist refugees. This includes prioritizing protection and assistance interventions for highly vulnerable refugees.” 

Additionally, Bik said he has received reports about security guards outside the UNHCR office punching and kicking ethnic Chins trying to get in without appointments.  

UNHCR responded in its written statement saying it has “zero tolerance” for this type of treatment but also said: “At this time, we have not received any reports of abuse by security personnel from any individual refugee from the Chin Community.”  

The alliance chairman dismissed the UNHCR’s response as false. “We have told them about mistreatment many times,” he said. 
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