In his address to the 20th Handover Ceremony in Macau last Friday, Chinese President Xi Jinping seemingly committed a gaffe that appeared to reveal his intention of setting the implementation of “one country, two systems” in Macau as a good example for neighboring Hong Kong and even Taiwan.
 
But analysts say that proving the scheme works by awarding the former Portuguese colony with favorable “economic goodies” won’t impress people in Hong Kong and Taiwan, who demand greater democracy.
 
“China wants to promote the ‘one country, two systems’ scheme, which has proved to be a total failure in Hong Kong. I don’t think China can keep fooling people in Hong Kong and Taiwan, none of which will accept the scheme,” Democratic Progressive Party legislator Wu Ping-jui said in Taipei.
 The Macau model
 
Last Friday, Xi said that Macau tells a story of the success in implementing the ‘one country, two systems,’ addressing a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the city’s return to China   
 Chinese President Xi Jinping, front left, and his wife Peng Liyuan, front right, wave after arriving at Macao Airport, Dec. 18, 2019.“The people in Macau have whole-heartedly embraced the ‘one country, two systems.’ Let’s recognize that the ‘one country, two systems’ is the best system for Hong Kong [sic] to maintain its long-term prosperity and stability,” Xi said.
 
Although Xi went on to say “after the return of Hong Kong and Macau to China, the handling of matters in those two special administrative regions is completely China’s domestic affairs,” his earlier reference to Hong Kong instead of Macau is widely seen as indirectly “scolding” rebellious Hong Kong and venting his “dissatisfaction with the situation in Hong Kong,” said Sin Chung Kai, treasurer of the Democratic Party in Hong Kong.     
 
Sin, formerly a legislator, said that Hong Kongers have long accepted the Macau model as a success for Beijing, which wants to accommodate its big spenders outside its borders in Macau while prospering the casino city’s population of 650,000 people to earn the world’s second-highest gross domestic product per person in terms of purchasing power. 
One country v.s. two systems
 
But the flaw in the Macau model is the widening the wealth gap in the city and its lackluster success in implementing the political scheme, whose principle of one country has completely overshadowed the emphasis on two systems either in Macau or Hong Kong, Sin said.  
 
“In reality, the disparity in Macau is serious… I don’t think the Macau people are very happy about the development although they don’t have much resistance because they’ve already been used to the influence of Beijing,” Sin said.
 
According to Ho Lat Seng, Macau’s chief executive, Xi has given his full support to the casino city’s development in Hengqin, an island west of Macau and south of Zhuhai, as part of Beijing’s massive plan to develop the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area into a world-class urban cluster that could rival global cities also situated on bays, such as San Francisco, New York or Tokyo.
 Economic goodies?
 
But during his three-day visit in Macau, the Chinese leader didn’t announce new policies or “economic goodies,” aimed at diversifying Macau’s gaming-dependent economy and developing it into a financial center to replace Hong Kong as the media had previously speculated.
 
Nevertheless, any such attempt of using Macau to dwarf Hong Kong will only prove to be futile as the former British colony has long established itself as a fully internationalized city with advanced financial expertise and a talent pool, according to Sin.
 
“Well, if I say Macau is a financial money-laundry hub, I think people will agree. But if you say Macau is a financial hub, I think people will laugh,” he said.
 
Sin said the fact that Beijing continues to misjudge Hong Kongers by focusing on economic incentives and ignoring their demands for free speech, the rule of law and democratic values is why Beijing will have a hard time winning the hearts and minds of Hong Kongers or putting an end to its months-long political turmoil.
 
He said it also highlights clashing values between Hong Kongers and their fellow countrymen on the mainland.    
 Clashing values
 
“They [mainlanders] talk about development; they talk about how great the country is… They talk about G2 etc… But people in Hong Kong won’t be proud of these things. So, it is a clash of value systems,” he said.
 
In other words, Macau can never replace Hong Kong, a noted Chinese writer Ngan Shun Kau argued in a column on the Stand News, a Chinese-language news website.
 
On the contrary, Hong Kong would completely replace Macau, had the proposal to set up casinos on Lantau Island — the largest island in Hong Kong located at mouth of the Pearl River — been implemented two decades ago. Hong Kong would be a more popular destination for mainland tourists and gamblers, he said.
 
Macau’s casino money is, in particular, of little attraction to Taiwan, which is already a high-tech powerhouse and a beacon of democracy in Asia, DPP’s Wu said.
 
“China has to find a place to showcase [the success] of the ‘one country, two systems’ or provide an excuse to the scheme’s failure in Hong Kong or the Communist Party’s rule of China,” Wu said.
 
“It’s a very stubborn political organization, which is trying to use the [Macau] model to build narratives for the world and its domestic audience. These are typical characteristics of an authoritarian regime,” he added.   
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The families of American newlyweds who were badly injured during a volcanic eruption in New Zealand said Tuesday the two are progressing as well as could be hoped for given the extent of their injuries.The couple, Lauren Urey, 32, and Matt Urey, 36, from Richmond, Virginia, remain hospitalized in New Zealand. They were visiting White Island two weeks ago on their honeymoon when the volcano erupted, killing 19 people and leaving more than two dozen others with severe burns from the scalding steam.Meanwhile, authorities on Tuesday called off the search for two bodies they believe were washed out to sea from the island soon after the eruption. Police Superintendent Andy McGregor said extensive shoreline and aerial searches had not turned up anything new.The families of the newlyweds issued a statement through New Zealand police.”There are no words to express how horrible this has been for everyone involved, but we are very lucky and grateful that although Lauren and Matt are severely injured, they’re still with us,” the families said.They said that while the two were progressing as well as could be hoped for, “they both have a tremendously difficult and long road to recovery ahead of them.”The families said in the statement they wanted to thank the healthcare professionals that helped save their loved ones, as well as police and the American consulate in New Zealand.The families said a GoFundMe page had been set up by the couple’s close friends to help with expenses such as lost wages and ongoing medical care. The campaign had on Tuesday raised $51,000 toward a goal of $100,000.On the GoFundMe page, organizer Aaron McKendry said on Dec. 14 that the couple had already undergone multiple surgeries and had many more to come in a process that would take months.White Island, also known by its Maori name, Whakaari, is the tip of an undersea volcano about 50 kilometers (30 miles) off New Zealand’s North Island and was a popular tourist destination before the eruption.Many people have questioned why tourists were still allowed on the island after New Zealand’s GeoNet seismic monitoring agency raised the volcano’s alert level on Nov. 18 from 1 to 2 on a scale where 5 represents a major eruption, noting an increase in sulfur dioxide gas, which originates from magma.Police reported earlier that crews on a police boat had spotted a male body in the water near the island two days after the eruption, but large waves prevented them from recovering it before it sank.Police have identified the pair believed to be washed out to sea as New Zealand tour guide Hayden Marshall-Inman, 40, and Australian teenager Winona Langford, 17.New Zealand authorities are investigating the circumstances around the disaster.
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Before Sim Ark gave birth to her second child, she didn’t think much about what a workplace needed to accommodate a new mother.Now that she’s a working mother rather than a stay-at-home mom as she was with her first child, Sim Ark knows.”I want to have a daycare facility right in my workplace so that I can visit my baby while working,” said Sim Ark, 29, who works at the You Li International factory in Bavet city, in Cambodia’s Svay Rieng province.Three months after giving birth to her son Ham Ya Oudom, after many calls from factory administrators, Sim Ark returned to work. She didn’t want to risk losing her job.Her absence from home during the day meant the baby switched from breastfeeding to bottle-fed meals of infant formula. At night, he switched back to breast milk unless Sim Ark found herself working overtime, which she says causes her milk to dry up.Everyone in Sim Ark’s house — Phing Tithya, her husband, 29; Sim Lat, her sister, 40; and So Yam, her mother, 80 — knows how to mix breast-milk substitute (BMS) with boiled water or bottled mineral water to feed Ham Ya Oudom, a healthy, hungry baby who is happy except when he wakes up. Then, unless one of his adults carries him on a walk around the house or the village, he cries.Sim Lat, 40, carries her nephew Ham Ya Oudom on a walk while waiting for his mom to come back from work, at Svay Ta Yean commune, Svay Rieng province, Cambodia, Oct. 11, 2019. (Khan Sokummono/VOA Khmer)Although Sim Ark and other garment workers would like to be able to breastfeed their children until they are at least 6 months old, as doctors recommend, they don’t know how to raise the issue with their employers.”I’m not sure how it look like if we had [a daycare facility in a factory]. Maybe a family member could come and help [in the facility] to look after the baby,” Sim Ark said, only to add, “then nobody would be available to do the work at home.”  Worrying changeThe change in Ham Ya Oudom’s routine when his mother returned to work helps explain why the rate of breastfeeding is declining in Cambodia, a change that worries child development experts.In 2010, 74% of Cambodia’s infants younger than 6 months were breastfed. By 2014, the most recent year available, Cambodia had gone from having one of the highest rates of breastfeeding to a middling 65%, according to the latest available government data confirmed by UNICEF.Cristian Munduate, UNICEF representative for Cambodia, in Phnom Penh, Oct. 17, 2019. (Khan Sokummono/VOA Khmer)It is “a drastic decline,” said Cristian Munduate, a UNICEF representative in Cambodia, who described breastfeeding as “the best practice for a child during its first 6 months of life — the first natural vaccine that a child receives.”Appropriate breastfeeding practices could prevent an estimated 823,000 child deaths every year worldwide, according to UNICEF, and breastfeeding contributes to improved cognitive development, school achievement and future earning potential, according to research published in the medical journal The Lancet. The current rate of breastfeeding is estimated to cost about $1 million a year in treating children with diarrhea and pneumonia and mothers with type II diabetes, according to a report by Alive & Thrive, a global initiative to ensure mother and infant health. Breastfeeding alleviates all three conditions.The Alive & Thrive report suggests Cambodia stands to lose $83 million a year because of future cognitive losses associated with inadequate breastfeeding.Law vs. realitySeveral factors contributed to Cambodia’s declining rate of breastfeeding. Among them, according to UNICEF, are the lack of peer and government support for breastfeeding, the difficulty of juggling infant care with a job, and the aggressive marketing of infant formula.With about 2.4 million women ages 15 to 34 participating in the country’s labor force, Cambodia has a law guaranteeing many women the opportunity to breastfeed, Munduate said.Yet law and reality have yet to mesh, as Lim Buyheak, 35, a Ph.D. candidate in clinical psychology at Vietnam National University, knows.She has breastfed her daughter Heng Vichetsoma since she was born five months ago. She bought an electronic breast milk pumping kit for $145 and attempted to use it to pump and store her breast milk. Pumping turned out to be so difficult, she gave up. She now works on her thesis from home just to be able to breastfeed her daughter.With like-minded young mothers, Lim Buyheak formed a Facebook group in November. It now has about 160 members who promote breastfeeding and support each other.
 
“When I breastfeed in public, I feel like I am odd,” Lim Buyheak told VOA by phone. “For instance, when I was at the AEON, everyone takes out feeding bottles to feed the baby, and I hold my shirt to the side to breastfeed” at the upscale Phnom Penh shopping mall.”At first, I felt a little bit shy as well,” she said. “Now I feel very good to have support from my friends.”Sim Ark and Phing Tithya, a baker in Sneang village, Svay Ta Yean commune, have two boys: Ham Yarith is 5 years old, and Ham Ya Oudom is 5 months old.Sim Ark’s unmarried sister Sim Lat cares for the boys while their parents work.Although Sim Ark’s factory allows postpartum mothers one hour a day for breastfeeding, her job is 20 kilometers from home, a 30-minute motor scooter ride away. She’s not alone in leaving her children with relatives.In another household, Ouk Sokha, 58, sings lullabies to lull her 10-week-old grandson to sleep. Ouk Sokha has tended 11 grandchildren over the past eight years as her five daughters and one son have left their babies with her along with cans of baby formula and feeding bottles.Ouk Sokha, 58, rocks her 11th grandson, who is two-and-a-half months old. She feeds her grandson baby formula while his mom works at a factory, at Svay Ta Yean commune, Svay Rieng province, Cambodia, Oct. 11, 2019. (Khan Sokummono/VOA Khmer)”I want my daughter to have the opportunity to earn money,” Ouk Sokha said. “If she had to breastfeed, there was no way she could go to work.”As a young mother, Ouk Sokha breastfed each baby while working in the family’s rice fields.”In my generation, we all breastfed,” she said. “Feeding [their infants] with baby formula is more preferable now.”Rocking the baby’s bamboo cradle, Ouk Sokha said she fed her grandson five bottles of formula per day.On average, the 10-week-old baby consumes seven cans of infant formula per month. Each can costs about $12. The Sot Sam Aun, 30, a doctor in at Samaki Roumdoul Referral Hospital in Svay Rieng province, Oct. 12, 2019. (Khan Sokummono/VOA Khmer)Doctors such as Sot Sam Aun, 30, at Samaki Roumdoul Referral Hospital in Svay Rieng, where about 20 women go for delivery service every month, said women receive counseling to avoid BMS unless they cannot produce milk because of health issues or “are getting busy.”However, BMS companies make presentations once or twice a year to midwives who work in the hospital and are often closer to the young mothers than doctors.”But we know that their marketing contradicts the [health] ministry’s guidelines, which emphasize the benefits of breastfeeding,” said Sot Sam Aun, so the BMS presentations “are not allowed to be held inside the hospital.”Although Cambodia prohibits the promotion of BMS in a hospital or health center, the Facebook page for Nutrilatt Cambodia shows mothers receiving BMS at high-end private clinics in Cambodia.Nutrilatt Cambodia Managing Director Tim Sovannara said gifts of BMS to new mothers are “preparation” for those times when a mother cannot  breastfeed because for whatever reason. “It is just a present for the delivery,” he said. “We did not force them to use it.”
 
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A new satellite image of a factory where North Korea makes military equipment used to launch long-range missiles shows the construction of a new structure.The release of several images from Planet Labs comes amid concern that North Korea could launch a rocket or missile as it seeks concessions in stalled nuclear negotiations with the United States.North Korea has warned that what “Christmas gift” it gives the U.S. depends on what action Washington takes.One of the new satellite images taken Dec. 19 shows the March 16 Factory near Pyongyang, where North Korea manufactures trucks used as mobile launchers for its long-range missiles.Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia nonproliferation program at the Middlebury Institute, tweeted that the construction appeared to be an expansion of the factory.Nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang have been stalled since a February summit between leaders Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un fell apart.Earlier this month, North Korea carried out two major tests at its long-range rocket launch and missile engine testing site in the country’s northwest.The other images released by Planet Labs show that site before and after the Dec. 7 test.
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While the international attention on China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang has focused mainly on ethnic and religious issues, Beijing’s economic development plans in the strategic region also play a key role in shaping the conflict, some experts and observers say.Home to more than 11 million Turkic-speaking Uighurs, Xinjiang covers an area of 1.66 million square kilometers that accounts for one-sixth of China’s land mass. Its oil, natural gas and coal reserves make up more than 20% of China’s energy reserves, turning the region into a national powerhouse.The government in Beijing since 2017 has launched a major campaign of mass surveillance and the detention of over one million Uighurs and other Turkic minorities in the so-called “re-education” camps.   Darren Byler, a Seattle-based anthropologist at the University of Washington who studies the Uighurs, charged that Chinese government’s economic development programs in Xinjiang to access natural resources have allowed a huge influx of majority Han migrants to the region. This has triggered more conflict with Uighurs who fear a demographic change in their land.
Uighurs: Some Quick Facts video player.
Embed” />Copy LinkThe programs, such as the Open up the Northwest Campaign in the 1990s, and the larger scale Open up the West Campaign in the 2000s, allowed Han corporate farmers to claim Uighur land and expand industrial scale agriculture in the Uighur-majority region, Byler told VOA.“In general, Uighurs were excluded from the most lucrative jobs in these new industries by state-authorized job discrimination. Uighurs saw the cost of living begin to rise because of the new forms of wealth in the region. Many had a difficult time entering the new market economy. This is at the heart of the conflict between Uighurs and the Chinese state,” said Byler.Xinjiang over the last 70 years has experienced a rapid demographic shift. The proportion of Han in the region has risen from nearly 9% in 1945 to about 40% today while the Uighur population has decreased from over 75% to only about 45%.Some experts say the geopolitical position of Xinjiang as China’s bridge to central and south Asia is yet another motive behind Beijing’s ambition to control the region and prevent any room for possible dissent.FILE – A man walks by a government billboard promoting Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative, outside a subway station in Beijing, China, Aug. 28, 2018.Belt and Road InitiativeXinjiang in the northeast borders Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. The region is at the heart of the $1 trillion infrastructure development and investments scheme, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), that was introduced in 2013 by China’s President Xi Jinping to connect China with over 150 countries throughout Asia, Europe, Africa and Americas.According to Sean Roberts, a professor of international development at George Washington University, Uighur’s attachment to their traditional lands and ways of life is seen by China’s Communist Party (CCP) as a risk to the successful implementation of the BRI.“The intention to make Xinjiang a central part of BRI created a new urgency in the CCP to prevent further Uighur dissent in the region. In many ways, what we are seeing today is an attempt to entirely eliminate any possible Uighur dissent to the transformation of their homeland that the BRI will inevitably facilitate,” Roberts told VOA.Xinjiang for decades has witnessed violent conflict centered around Uighurs’ aspiration for independence and China’s efforts to crush it. In 1955, Beijing recognized Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region but the move failed to bring a lasting stability.FILE – Workers walk by the perimeter fence of what is officially known as a vocational skills education center in Dabancheng, Xinjiang, China, Sept. 4, 2018.’Three evils’Chinese authorities, who have rejected international accusations of human rights abuses in the region, say their measures are necessary to combat the “three evils” of “ethnic separatism, religious extremism, and violent terrorism.”They say the alleged mass detention camps are nothing but a “vocational training” program aimed at teaching the people new skills and manners.Shohrat Zakir, Xinjiang’s governor, in a press conference earlier this month said all the people in the camps have been released after “graduating.” He claimed the Chinese government courses helped the people to improve the quality of their lives and find stable jobs.However, some watchdog organizations say they are finding new evidence suggesting that people held in the camps are exposed to forced labor.Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow in China Studies at the Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, told VOA that China’s claims about the graduated detainees does not mean a change in its policy towards Uighurs but rather “a second phase, and a long-term plan to deepen social control through various forms of coercive labor.”“I am not at all sure that they have in fact all ‘graduated’, but ‘graduating’ means that they might now go from their cell to a factory instead of a classroom,” Zenz said.FILE – Ethnic Uighur women leave a center where they attend what is billed as political education lessons, in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China, Sept. 6, 2018.Push to low-wage jobsAccording to James Millward, a Xinjiang researcher and professor of history at Georgetown University, mounting evidence on the coerced labor shows Uighurs are being pushed out of the private economy to low-wage factories such as cotton and making clothes. The move, he said, will likely serve the needs of Han businesses from eastern China.“The forced labor is probably a way to recoup some of the billions of yuan that have been spent on building the camps, hiring security personnel, and the great cost to the local economy of interning a large percentage of the local population, an especially acute problem in southern Xinjiang,” Millward added.
 
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held a meeting of top military officials to discuss boosting the country’s military capability, state news agency reported on Sunday amid heightened concern the North may be about to return to confrontation with Washington.Kim presided over an enlarged meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Military Commission, KCNA news agency said, to discuss steps “to bolster up the overall armed forces of the country … militarily and politically.”“Also discussed were important issues for decisive improvement of the overall national defense and core matters for the sustained and accelerated development of military capability for self-defense,” KCNA said.It did not give details on when the meeting was held nor what was decided.The commission is North Korea’s top military decision-making body. Kim rules the country as its supreme military commander and is the chairman of the commission.North Korea has set a year-end deadline for the United States to change what it says is a policy of hostility amid a stalemate in efforts to make progress on their pledge to end the North’s nuclear program and establish lasting peace.Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump have met three times since June 2018, but there has been no substantive progress in dialogue while the North demanded crushing international sanctions be lifted first.On Saturday, the state media said the United States would “pay dearly” for taking issue with the North’s human rights record and said Washington’s “malicious words” would only aggravate tensions on the Korean Peninsula.North Korea Slams ‘Reckless’ US Remarks on Rights RecordNorth Korea warns US will ‘pay dearly’ for its comments
TWEET: North Korea Slams ‘Reckless’ US Remarks on Rights RecordNorth Korea has also repeatedly called for the United States to drop its “hostile policy” and warned about its “Christmas gift” as the end-year deadline it set for Washington to change its position looms.Some experts say the reclusive state may be preparing for an intercontinental ballistic missile test that could put it back on a path of confrontation with the United States.The U.S. envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, has visited South Korea and China in the past week, issuing a public and direct call to North Korea to return to the negotiating table, but there has been no response. 
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Hong Kong riot police swept into several shopping malls on Saturday, chasing off and arresting some anti-government Hong Kong demonstrators who had gathered to press their demands in the peak shopping weekend before Christmas.
 
In a mall in Yuen Long, close to the China border, hundreds of black-clad protesters marked the five-month anniversary of an attack in a train station by an armed mob wearing white T-shirts which beat up bystanders and protesters with pipes and poles.
 
Police have been criticized for not responding quickly enough to calls for help, and for not arresting any alleged culprits at the scene. They later made several arrests and said the assailants had links to organized criminal gangs, or triads.
 
The protesters demanded justice for the attack, shouting “Fight for Freedom” and “Stand With Hong Kong”.
 
“The government didn’t do anything so far after 5 months …  I deserve an answer, an explanation,” said a 30-year-old clerk surnamed Law.
 
“Yuen Long is no longer a safe place … and we all live in white terror when we worry if we will be beaten up when dressed in black.” 
As dozens of riot police stormed into the mall to chase protesters off, a sushi restaurant had its window smashed and shops were forced to close.
 
Protests in Hong Kong are now in their seventh month, albeit in a relative lull. Residents are angry at what they see as China’s meddling in the city’s freedoms guaranteed under the “one country, two systems” formula when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
 
Many are also outraged by perceived police brutality, and are demanding an independent investigation into allegations of excessive force. Other demands include the release of all arrested demonstrators and full democracy.
 
On Friday night, police arrested a man who fired a single shot with a pistol at plain clothes officers in the northern Tai Po district. No one was injured.
 
A search of a nearby flat revealed a cache of weaponry including a semi-automatic rifle and bullets. Steve Li, a senior police officer on the scene, told reporters the police had information that the suspect planned to use the pistol during a protest to “cause chaos and to hurt police officers.”
 
In Tsim Sha Tsui on Saturday, groups of protesters also converged on a mall popular with mainland Chinese luxury shoppers.
 
“We can’t celebrate Christmas when our city is taken over by the police. When you see the police outside the mall, do you feel like shopping for presents?” said Bob, 17, a protester.
 
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North Korea Saturday lashed out at the U.S. State Department’s recent criticism of its human rights record, warning Washington would “pay dearly” for what it called “reckless” remarks.North Korea’s Foreign Affairs Ministry specifically took issue with a recent VOA interview of a senior State Department official who said the U.S. remains “deeply concerned” about North Korean human rights abuses.“Such malicious words which came at this time when the DPRK-U.S. relations are reaching a highly delicate point will only produce a result of further aggravating the already tense situation on the Korean peninsula, like pouring oil over burning fire,” the North Korean ministry said in a statement published in the Korean Central News Agency.The comments come at a particularly tense moment. North Korea, which has promised the U.S. an ominous “Christmas gift,” has threatened to walk away from nuclear talks and resume major provocations, such as a nuclear test or long-range missile launch.The U.S. is also gradually increasing pressure on the North. The State Department Friday renewed its designation of North Korea as a violator of religious freedom. The same day, U.S. President Donald Trump also signed legislation tightening sanctions on Pyongyang.North Korea hasn’t commented on those latest moves. Instead, it objected to a Thursday interview that VOA State Department correspondent Nike Ching conducted with Robert Destro, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor.“We remain deeply concerned about what’s going on in North Korea,” Destro told VOA. “I think the credible evidence that’s coming out of North Korea speaks for itself.”Destro defended the Trump administration’s policy of pursuing negotiations with North Korea while it criticizes its human rights record.“My view is that there’s nothing inconsistent with the president trying to engage with the North Koreans and to try and get them to change their behavior. That’s the whole point of the negotiations,” Destro said.North Korea’s foreign ministry called those remarks “reckless.”“If the U.S. dares to impair our system by taking issue over ‘human rights issue,’ it will be made to pay dearly for such an act,” the KCNA statement said.The statement accused the U.S. of being a “cesspit of all sorts of human rights violations,” but insisted North Koreans “fully enjoy genuine freedom and rights, being masters of the country.”North Korea is widely seen as being one of the world’s most repressive governments. It restricts nearly every aspect of its citizens’ civil and political liberties, including freedom of expression, assembly, association, religion, and movement.Joshua Stanton, a Washington-based lawyer and major proponent of more sanctions on North Korea, said the legislation is significant because it shifts enforcement authority from the Treasury Department, which has been reluctant to tighten sanctions on North Korea, to the Justice Department.“One way or another, whether Donald Trump still loves him or not, (North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s) reprieve is about to end,” said Stanton in a blog post.Stalled talksTrump and Kim have met three times since June 2018 but have failed to make any progress in nuclear talks. Earlier this month, North Korean officials suggested denuclearization was off the negotiating table.At their first meeting in Singapore, Trump and Kim agreed to “work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” Neither side has agreed on what that phrase means or how to begin working toward it and Pyongyang has since insisted it never agreed to unilaterally give up its nuclear weapons.Kim has given the U.S. an end-of-year deadline to provide more concessions. It has threatened to conduct a long-range missile test. That would end North Korea’s self-imposed moratorium on intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear tests, which it announced in April 2018.On Friday, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said the U.S. is closely watching North Korea. “North Korea’s indicated a variety of things, and I think you’re aware of all those. So we are prepared for whatever,” Milley said at a Pentagon briefing.Steve Biegun, the U.S. special envoy for North Korea, recently wrapped up a last-minute trip to the region, meeting with South Korean, Japanese and Chinese officials in an attempt to help save the talks.North Korea has not publicly responded to those requests. 
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Firefighters in the Australian state of New South Wales were bracing for “catastrophic” fire conditions on Saturday as temperatures well above 40C (104F) and strong winds were set to fuel more than 100 fires burning across the state.Authorities asked people to delay travel, at the start of what is normally a busy Christmas holiday period, warning of the unpredictability of the fires as winds of up to 70 kph (44 mph) were set to fan flames through the middle of the day.”Catastrophic fire conditions are as bad as it gets,” NSW Rural Fire Services Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told journalists.”They are the very worst of conditions. Given we have a landscape with so much active fire burning, you have a recipe for very serious concern and a very dangerous day.”Flowers and the helmets of volunteer firefighters Andrew O’Dwyer and Geoffrey Keaton, who died when their fire truck was struck by a falling tree as it traveled through a fire, are seen at a memorial n Horsley Park, Australia, Dec. 20, 2019.Greater Sydney and two surrounding areas were rated as catastrophic for Saturday, and other areas were at extreme or very-high fire danger ratings.Close to 10,000 emergency personnel would be working across NSW on Saturday, which the NSW Minister for Police and Emergency Services David Elliott said was likely the largest emergency deployment the state had ever seen.”They’re there, four days before Christmas, to keep families safe,” Elliott told media.A southerly wind change is expected late on Saturday afternoon. It is forecast to bring winds of up to 90 kph (56 mph), which Fitzsimmons said would initially worsen fire conditions before leading to a dramatic drop in temperatures.The Gospers Mountain mega fire, which has already burned almost 450,000 hectares (1.1 million acres) to the northwest of Sydney was upgraded to emergency status early on Saturday.The death of two firefighters on Thursday night when their fire truck was struck by a falling tree as it travelled through the front line of a fire brought the wildfires death toll in New South Wales to eight since the start of October.Shortly after the two deaths were announced, Prime Minister Scott Morrison issued a statement saying he would return as soon as possible from a family holiday in Hawaii, a trip that had drawn sharp criticism as the wildfires crisis deepened.Australia has been fighting wildfires across three states for weeks, with blazes destroying more than 700 homes and nearly 3 million acres (1.2 million hectares) of bushland.
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Two days of meetings between a team of Myanmar government representatives and Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh camps have not yielded progress on repatriation, several participants say.Myanmar’s government and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) sent delegations to meetings Wednesday and Thursday in southeastern Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district. But the representatives offered no new incentive for Rohingyas to return to their homes in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, said Mohammad Zubair, a central member of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights, an advocacy group.Speaking separately at the first Global Refugee Forum in Geneva on Wednesday, Myanmar diplomat Ei Ei Tin offered a more optimistic view of the issue. She said her government is “ready to receive the returnees and confident that, with the concerted efforts of all stakeholders and cooperation of the international community, we can start repatriation process in the near future and practical and sustainable solution can also be achieved.”Zubair, who lives in Lambashia camp within the sprawling Kutupalong megacamp in Cox’s Bazar, represented the rights group at a meeting with the visiting delegation Wednesday in Kutupalong.FILE – Rohingya refugees attend a ceremony to mark the second anniversary of the exodus at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Ukhia, August 25, 2019.Zubair said the Myanmar delegates reiterated their government’s refusal to recognize the name Rohingya for the predominantly Muslim ethnic group. According to Zubair, the Myanmar delegation said the government is considering relabeling Rohingyas as Rakhine Muslim instead of the government’s current designation as Bengali.Zubair said camp representatives argued that some individuals have official documents issued by the former British colonial government and by Myanmar’s own education ministry — identifying them as Rohingyas. The Myanmar delegation contended that the ministry does not speak for the Naypyitaw government.According to Zubair, the Myanmar delegation also said that as a sovereign country, Myanmar would not permit U.N. forces to protect the Rohingya returnees but would see to their safety with its own troops.Chan Aye, an official with Myanmar’s foreign ministry who led the government delegation, also spoke about safety and security for returnees, VOA’s Burmese Service reported. He said the military is fighting Arakan Army insurgents but not Muslim civilians, and maintained there is currently no mass displacement of Muslims in northern Rakhine state.FILE – Rohingya refugees cross a stream to reach their temporary shelters at No Man’s Land between the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, at Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Sept. 9, 2017.Reports by human rights groups and a U.N. fact-finding mission previously have alleged that in August 2017, the Myanmar military led a bloody crackdown on Rohingya communities that was conducted with “genocidal intent.” The U.S. says about 745,000 Rohingya have taken refuge at camps in neighboring Bangladesh and others have fled elsewhere.Myanmar has said its military was legitimately responding to security threats. In an address last week at the International Criminal Court of Justice, where Myanmar faces charges of genocide, its civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, said Myanmar troops might have used “disproportionate force” that led to the deaths of some civilians. She said any troops accused in those cases should be tried by Myanmar military courts.Myanmar and ASEAN delegates on Wednesday also visited Balukhali camp, where refugee leaders raised concerns about citizenship, fundamental rights and a requirement for a national verification card to re-enter the country, a refugee named Islam told the Burmese Service.Delegates also met Thursday afternoon with Hindu Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar.This story originated in VOA’s Bangla Service. The Burmese Service also contributed.
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Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison issued a rare public apology as he cut short a Hawaiian vacation on Friday after two volunteer firefighters were killed battling blazes that are ravaging much of the country’s east coast.Australia has been fighting wildfires in the east for weeks, with blazes destroying more than 700 homes and nearly 3 million acres (1.2 million hectares) of bushland.The death of the two firefighters overnight when their fire truck was struck by a falling tree as it travelled through the front line of a fire brought the death toll since the start of October to eight.”This is an absolutely devastating event in what has already been an incredibly difficult day and fire season,” the New South Wales (NSW) state Rural Fire Service said in a statement.FILE – Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, left, chats with farmer David Gooding on his drought-affected property near Dalby, Queensland, Australia, Sept. 27, 2019.Shortly after the pair’s deaths were announced, Morrison issued a statement saying he would return as soon as possible from a family holiday in Hawaii, a trip that has drawn sharp criticism in recent days as the wildfires crisis deepened.Morrison’s conservative Liberal-National coalition government has been under sustained pressure to defend its climate change policies as it has downplayed links to the unprecedented early arrival and severity of this year’s bushfire season.”I deeply regret any offense caused to any of the many Australians affected by the terrible bushfires by my taking leave with family at this time,” Morrison said in the statement.Morrison later told 2GB radio that the trip had been planned as a surprise to his young daughters to replace leave originally scheduled for January that he had cancelled because of official trips to Japan and India.Hundreds of protesters had gathered outside his Sydney residence on Thursday. One protestor, wearing an Hawaiian shirt, carried a sign reading, “ScoMo, where the bloody hell are you?” referencing the leader’s nickname and a well-known international advertisement for Tourism Australia.Australia is one of the world’s largest carbon emitters per capita because of its reliance on coal-fired power plants. It has pledged to cut carbon emissions by 26% from 2005 levels by 2030, but critics accuse Morrison of paying lip service to that commitment.In June, the government approved the construction of a new coal mine in Queensland state by India’s Adani Enterprises that is expected to produce 8 million to 10 million tonnes of thermal coal a year.As Morrison was apologizing on radio on Friday morning, opposition Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese was serving breakfast to firefighters near the front line of a fire in rural Bilpin.The RFS named the dead volunteer firefighters as Andrew O’Dwyer, 36, and Geoffrey Keaton, 32 – both fathers to 19-month- old children. Three other firefighters were injured in the truck crash.Earlier on Thursday, two male firefighters were airlifted to hospital with burns to their faces, arms and legs, while a female colleague was taken by ambulance to hospital after they were engulfed by flames.The fires have resulted in days of heavy pollution in Sydney, pushing air quality to unprecedented hazardous levels and resulting in viral images of heavy smoke haze over the usually sparkling harbour and landmarks like the Opera House.The fires are being spurred this week, by record temperatures across the country which led New South Wales, the most populous state with 7 million people, to declare a seven-day state of emergency.Thursday’s declaration gave firefighters broad powers to control government resources, force evacuations, close roads and shut down utilities.Temperatures eased on Friday but were expected to return to near-record highs on Saturday, which firefighters fear will stoke some of the around 100 fires burning across the state.Days out from Christmas, a time when many Australians head to the coast for the holidays, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian urged people to reconsider travel plans.”What is most important for us is that everyone is safe and if that means changing your plans for Christmas, we ask you do to that,” Berejiklian told reporters in Sydney.
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A breed of rice genetically engineered to combat vitamin A deficiency has received approval from regulators in the Philippines.Supporters say “Golden Rice” could remedy a condition that kills up to 250,000 children each year worldwide and blinds twice that number, according to the World Health Organization.It’s the first genetically modified organism (GMO) designed to fight a public health issue to get a green light from food safety officials in the developing world.Golden Rice has faced vigorous opposition from GMO opponents throughout its development, citing safety concerns and other issues. Protesters destroyed test fields in the Philippines in 2013.The Philippine Department of Agriculture Bureau of Plant Industry announced Wednesday that Golden Rice is as safe as conventional rice. Regulators in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have also cleared the grain of safety issues.After 20 years of development, “it feels absolutely tremendous” to reach this stage, said Adrian Dubock, Executive Secretary of the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board, the nonprofit working to take the crop from the lab to the field.Two added genes turn rice golden, one from maize and one from a soil bacterium. Under their direction, rice grains produce beta carotene, the vitamin A precursor that makes carrots and sweet potatoes orange. A third bacterial gene serves as a traceable marker.In the Philippines, vitamin A deficiency among children has increased from 15.2% in 2008 to 20.4% in 2013, despite a national supplement program, according to the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute, which is developing the crop.Golden Rice could provide up to half of a young child’s daily needs, IRRI says.FILE – Different varieties of rice are seen for sale at a food market in Paranaque, Metro Manila, Philippines, Aug. 31, 2018.Controversial cropBiotech boosters have presented Golden Rice as one of the best examples of what biotechnology can do, producing plants and animals that benefit humanity faster than conventional breeding can.Opponents have said the crops raise unknown risks, though the scientific consensus is that GMO varieties on the market today are safe, including Golden Rice.GMO critics are also wary that the for-profit corporations that have developed GMOs will have undue influence over the seed supply.Agricultural biotech company Syngenta previously owned key patents for Golden Rice but has donated them to the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board. Dubock said Golden Rice strains are for use only by public and nonprofit crop breeding programs and would not cost farmers any more than conventional rice.Dietary solutionCritics say the considerable time, effort and money spent on developing Golden Rice would have been better spent pursuing efforts to diversify the diets of the people who suffer from malnutrition.”There are very limited funds available for development in third-world countries. It really matters which route you choose to go, where you choose to put your funds,” said Bill Freese, science policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety.Programs that get more fruits and vegetables into the diets of low-income people would help alleviate several chronic ailments, not just vitamin A deficiency, he noted.Dubock agrees that “a diversified diet is the best solution,” he said. But he added that Golden Rice is a tool that works with how people are already eating.It’s not clear when Philippine farmers will be able to grow Golden Rice. Regulators still have to certify that the crop won’t cause problems in farmers’ fields. IRRI says it will submit its application early next year. 
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