The number of suspected cases of measles on the Pacific island of Samoa has more than doubled over the past week to 3,530, and deaths related to the outbreak rose to 48 from 20 a week ago, the country’s Ministry of Health said Sunday.Samoa has become vulnerable to measles outbreaks as the number of people becoming immunized has declined with the World Health Organization (WHO) saying vaccine coverage is about 31%.The government started a mandatory vaccination program Nov. 20 after declaring a state of emergency because of the outbreak. The health ministry said in its statement that 57,132 people have since been vaccinated.Schools and universities have been closed and most public gatherings banned on the island state of 200,000, located south of the equator and half way between Hawaii and New Zealand.Of the 48 deaths, 44 where among children younger than 4. Since Saturday, there have been 173 new cases of measles recorded and four people have died.Neighboring New Zealand and a number of other countries and organizations, including the U.N. agency UNICEF, have delivered thousands of vaccines, medical supplies and have sent medical personnel to help with the outbreak.Measles, a highly contagious virus that spreads easily through coughing and sneezing, has been reported also in other Pacific nations, including Tonga and Fiji, but there have been no reports of deaths and the countries have greater vaccination coverage.Tonga’s ministry of health said in a statement late last week that there were 394 cases of suspected measles identified, but only eight people required hospitalization.Measles cases are rising worldwide, even in wealthy nations such as Germany and the United States, as parents shun immunization for philosophical or religious reasons, or fears, debunked by doctors, that such vaccines could cause autism.
 
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An unusually strong surge of U.S. Navy activity this month in the South China Sea shows that Washington is trying to teach China a set of rules for operating in contested waters, official statements and scholars say.The Navy sent two ships into the Asian sea, which is increasingly controlled by China but disputed by five other countries, last week after China sent its first domestically produced aircraft carrier into the same waterway for research and testing.
 
Washington wants to show China that it must keep the economically and politically strategic sea open rather than trying to take tracts of it for exclusive use, the U.S. Pacific Fleet and the analysts say, although experts see little threat of armed conflict.
 
“The United States is trying now to shape and shift Chinese behavior, and that’s really hard,” said Stephen Nagy, senior associate politics and international studies professor at International Christian University in Tokyo.
 
“This comprehensive pressure is a way to start to shift the behavior of the Chinese in a way that doesn’t spiral out it of control into some kind of conflict,” he said.China Calls on US to ‘Stop Flexing Muscles’ in South China SeaChina claims almost all the energy-rich waters of the South
China Sea, where it has established military outposts on
artificial islands Spike in naval presence
 
The Chinese aircraft carrier passed through the Taiwan Strait November 17 to conduct research and “routine training” in the “relevant waters of the South China Sea,” Beijing’s official Xinhua News Agency said a day later, citing a People’s Liberation Army spokesperson.
 
The carrier caught attention around Asia and in Washington  because it’s China’s second carrier overall and the first it has built on its own. China seldom announces it has sent a carrier to the sea.The U.S. Navy sent its two warships to the sea on November 20 and 21, it said in a statement. It described both missions as “freedom of navigation operations,” without giving details about what either ship did. 
The USS Gabrielle Giffords, a  littoral combat ship, approached Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands, the statement said. China has developed and occupied the reef for its own use, including military installations.  The second U.S. ship, the USS Wayne E. Meyer, a destroyer,
 sailed near the Paracel Islands, a chain controlled by China but that control is  disputed by Vietnam.
 
The U.S. Navy usually sends one ship at a time, with intervals of a month or so.
 
Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam dispute all or parts of China’s claims to the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea that stretches from Hong Kong south to Borneo. They prize the sea for its fisheries, energy reserves and shipping lanes.
 
International attention has fallen on China over the past decade because it keeps the strongest armed forces among the six claimants and maintains the most advanced infrastructure, such as military aircraft hangars,  among the sea’s hundreds of tiny islets. Beijing cites historical records to back its claims.
 Trying to show China
 
Beijing dismissed a 2016 ruling against it by a tribunal constituted under the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague over the South China Sea  world arbitration ruling that asked it to follow international maritime laws.
 FILE – Chinese dredging vessels are purportedly seen the waters around Mischief Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea in this video image taken by a P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft provided by the U.S. Navy, May 21, 2015.The November 20 U.S. mission was to show that Mischief Reef as a low-tide islet is not “entitled to a territorial sea,” meaning exclusive use of surrounding waters, under international law, the Navy’s statement said.
 
By going to the Paracels, Washington wanted to show “international law does not permit continental States, like China and the United States, to establish baselines around entire island groups,” it said.
 
U.S. officials will constantly monitor China at sea, said Andrew Yang, secretary-general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies think tank in Taiwan. “It’s a continuous effort to show the U.S. is very much adhered to the freedom of navigation operations,” he said. He also said that China probably sent its newly commissioned aircraft carrier to the sea as a practice run rather than as any kind of provocation.
 
No one expects China to quit its maritime claims, but eventually China and the United States might reach a “shared understanding of rules of behavior” for disputed seas, Nagy said.
 
He compared that outcome to Cold War U.S.-Soviet understandings.
 
“The U.S. Navy will continue to fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows and demonstrate resolve through operational presence in the South China Sea and beyond,” Pacific Fleet spokesperson Rachel McMarr told VOA.
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They left Vietnam carrying dreams of small fortunes and the heavy burden of family expectations.But they died in a box, and came home in coffins.For the 39 migrants who set off from one of the poorest parts of their Southeast Asian country in search of work in Britain, the promise of riches outweighed the risks of the perilous journey through Latvian forests and Belgian streets, to the oxygen-starved truck container in which they met their fate.The bodies were discovered in late October, in the back of a refrigerated lorry, just outside London.On Saturday, the last bodies were repatriated to Vietnam.Here are the stories of three of the victims.FILE – Catholics attend a mass prayer for 39 people found dead in the back of a truck near London, at My Khanh parish in Nghe An province, Vietnam, Oct. 26, 2019. The last of the 39 migrants returned home Saturday.The lost boyTeenager Nguyen Huy Hung had longed to see his parents, both of whom had left Vietnam to find work in Britain’s nail salons.“It should have been a family reunion,” said a neighbor who declined to be identified. “His parents reached Britain safely and smoothly. They’d already paid smugglers to arrange his trip. “He was too young to suffer from tragedy.”Hung was one of two 15-year-old victims. Raised in a small fishing village in Ha Tinh province, rooms in the family home had been rented out because most of his family, apart from Hung’s grandparents, had relocated overseas for work.Hung flew from Hanoi to Russia on Aug. 26, his sister, who works in South Korea, said in a Facebook post days after news of the incident emerged.By Oct. 6, he was in France, she wrote, but they lost contact Oct. 21, two days before the container was found.The family had paid 10,000 pounds ($12,900) to get him to Europe, his sister told Reuters. They were to pay more money to people smugglers in Vietnam once he reached Britain, she added.Hung’s body was repatriated Saturday.But with no documentation and their hopes of being reunited with their son in Britain shattered, Hung’s parents will miss his funeral.Nguyen Dinh Gia shows a barbell was used by his son Nguyen Dinh Luong, who was found dead in the back of British truck, at home in Ha Tinh province, Vietnam, Oct. 27, 2019.The carpenterRudimentary dumbbells made from rusted iron and mossy lumps of concrete are some of the few objects Nguyen Dinh Gia has to remind him of his son.Luong was an honest boy, Gia said. At 20, Luong didn’t drink, he didn’t smoke, and he had never had a girlfriend.Luong loved sports, and his ramshackle weights. In October 2017, he left Ha Tinh province and found work in a nearby province as a carpenter, a skill he learned from his brother.“He didn’t try to get into university,” Gia said. “Not many children around here do.”From there, Luong traveled to Hanoi where he boarded a flight to Russia.He stayed there until April 2018, when he drifted to Ukraine where he spent his nights with other migrants in a warehouse. He would contact his father sometimes, Gia said.“I felt comfortable knowing he was safe, living there,” Gia added.Weeks later, Luong left for Germany. He moved by road, but he walked for seven hours too.“It was a one-day journey and everyone with him was Vietnamese,” Gia said.There, Luong begged his father to pay for him to go to France, where he stayed until this October, when he decided to join friends working in Britain.“I tried to persuade him not to go,” Gia said. “I told him the money he had earned in France was huge for the family.”Gia had paid $18,000 to people smugglers to get his son that far. A few days before he boarded the doomed truck, Luong called home.Gia said he was in good spirits.Luong’s body was repatriated Wednesday and he was buried Thursday.“After waiting for so many days, my son has finally arrived,” Gia said.A relative looks at an image of Anna Bui Thi Nhung, who was found dead in the back of a British truck last month, at her home in Nghe An province, Vietnam Oct. 26, 2019.The dreamerBui Thi Nhung had been dreaming of Europe.She hoped to be reunited with her boyfriend, in Britain.Her Facebook posts in the days before she died showed her in Brussels, where she drank bubble tea on the steps of the old stock exchange.Like the other two, she flew from Vietnam to Russia, then crossed into Latvia. From there she moved to Lithuania, then Poland, Germany, and Belgium, friends and neighbors told Reuters.It wasn’t her first attempt.“My life is full of ups and downs. I want to fly to Europe, but I can’t,” she wrote, four months earlier. “I don’t want to stay home, marry young and live penniless,” Nhung told friends who had suggested she stay in Vietnam and raise cattle instead. “I’ll try my luck next time.”According to her friends, Nhung first wanted to find work in Germany, and spent a year in Vietnam learning to paint nails. “A girl has to have a job otherwise no one will marry her,” she wrote.On her third try, Nhung finally made it to Europe. The trip ended in disaster.“I’m about to start a new journey,” Nhung wrote to friends a few days before they lost contact with her.Nhung’s friends have memorialized her Facebook page to keep her stories alive. Many of her friends are scattered overseas, working in Europe’s nail bars.“Please don’t blame us,” one of her friends told Reuters. “Don’t blame the 39 victims in the back of the truck.”Nhung made her final journey home on Saturday.She was 19 years old.
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North Korea made perhaps its most direct recent threat to resume longer-range missile tests, warning Saturday it may soon launch a “real ballistic missile” in the vicinity of Japan.Pyongyang has carried out 13 rounds of short- or medium-range launches since May. Most experts say nearly all of the tests have involved some form of ballistic missile technology.The latest test came Thursday, when North Korea conducted its fourth launch this year of what it called a “super-large, multiple-rocket launch system.”Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, right, delivers a speech as Pope Francis listens in Tokyo, Nov. 25, 2019.Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe condemned the launch as a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions, which prohibit North Korea from any ballistic missile activity.On Saturday, the official Korean Central News Agency published an article condemning Abe’s statement, saying the test involved a “multiple launch rocket” and not a ballistic missile.“Abe may see what a real ballistic missile is in the not distant future and under his nose,” KCNA said in a statement attributed to North Korean foreign ministry official.North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has set an end-of-year deadline for the United States to offer more concessions in nuclear talks that have been stalled since February.As that deadline approaches, North Korean officials have repeatedly issued veiled warnings about bigger provocations, though none appear to have been as direct as Saturday’s statement.North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversees a super-large multiple launch rocket system test in this undated picture released by North Korea’s Central News Agency, Nov. 28, 2019.Direct threatNorth Korea last tested an intercontinental ballistic missile in November 2017 and conducted a nuclear test in September 2017.In April 2018, Kim announced a self-imposed moratorium on ICBM and nuclear tests, saying North Korea “no longer need(s)” those tests.Recently, North Korean officials have issued reminders that North Korea’s pause on ICBM and nuclear tests was self-imposed and can be reversed.This year has been one of North Korea’s busiest in terms of missile launches. The North has launched 13 rounds of weapons since May.U.S. President Donald Trump has said he has “no problem” with the tests, since they are short-range and cannot reach the United States.Some U.S. allies in the region disagree. Japan, which is within reach of North Korea’s short-range missiles, has consistently condemned Pyongyang for the tests.North Korea has shot back, issuing fiery statements at Abe.Saturday’s KCNA article referred to Abe as a “political dwarf without parallel,” a “rare-to-be-seen deformed child,” and “puppy affected by mange.”KN-25North Korea’s most recent test involved the KN-25, a solid-fueled, road-mobile, multiple rocket-launch system.Many analysts consider the KN-25 to be a “ballistic missile” system, because it fires such large weapons.“The ‘super-large’ rocket blurs the distinction between multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS) and short-range ballistic missiles,” according to the CSIS Missile Defense Project.By repeatedly testing the KN-25, defense analysts say North Korea has successfully reduced the amount of time it takes to launch successive rockets from the system.“The faster it fires, the quicker it can get out of Dodge before counter-fire arrives,” Jeffrey Lewis, an expert in nuclear nonproliferation with the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, said on Twitter.During the first two tests of the KN-25 in August and September, 15 to 20 minutes passed between launches. In a subsequent October test, that number was reduced to 3 minutes. On Thursday, Seoul’s military estimated there were only 30 seconds between shots.
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It was only after her partner’s death that He Meili realized the full meaning of marriage.As a lesbian couple in China, He and Li Qin kept their ties largely unspoken, sometimes introducing themselves as cousins. This rarely bothered He until Li succumbed to complications from lupus in 2016, and Li’s parents demanded that He hand over the deed for their apartment and other property documents under Li’s name.He, a 51-year-old nonprofit worker in southern China’s Guangzhou city, has joined LGBT activists and supporters in an appeal to lawmakers to allow same-sex marriage, using a state-sanctioned channel to skirt recent government moves to suppress collective action.”I realized if LGBT people don’t have the right to marry, we have no legal protections,” she said. “Others will also experience what I did — and be left with nothing.”Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, space for civil society and advocacy has shrunk. Human rights activists and their lawyers have been detained, while internet censorship has increased.LGBT activists have turned to a novel tactic: submitting statements to the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature, which is soliciting opinions from the public on a draft of the Marriage and Family portion of the Civil Code through Friday.”A lot of people told me that this is the first time they’ve participated in the legal process,” said Peng Yanzi, director of LGBT Rights Advocacy China, one of several groups running the campaign.The Marriage and Family section is among six draft regulations for which the legislature began seeking comments at the end of October. As of Thursday afternoon, the website showed that more than 200,000 suggestions had been submitted either online or by mail, the greatest number of any of the outstanding drafts. It was not clear what proportion of the suggestions pertained to same-sex marriage.FILE – Sun Wenlin, right, and his partner Hu Mingliang leave the court after a judge ruled against them in China’s first gay marriage case in Changsha in central China’s Hunan province, April 13, 2016.In social media posts, campaign participants held up their Express Mail Service envelopes along with rainbow Pride flags. In their suggestions, they shared stories of coming out, the challenge of gaining family members’ acceptance and running into legal roadblocks when trying to share their lives with someone of the same sex.A teacher wrote about experiencing discrimination at his workplace; others wrote about not being allowed to make medical decisions for their ailing partners.”This is not just a symbolic gesture,” Peng said. “It really has an impact on our everyday lives.”Peng’s organization has outlined a desired revision to the language in the Civil Code, changing the terms throughout from “husband and wife” to “spouses” and from “men and women” to “the two parties.” Rather than adding specific language about same-sex marriage, the revisions seek to eliminate gendered terms from the legislation.’Harder to ignore’While activists and experts acknowledge that legalizing same-sex marriage is still a far-off reality in China, they said appeals through the official channel will push the government to take the demand more seriously.”There’s a near-zero chance the suggested changes will be accepted and implemented, but this campaign makes China’s LGBT community’s demands for equality harder to ignore,” said Darius Longarino, a senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center who has worked on legal reform programs promoting LGBT rights in China.”Calls for gay marriage often get dismissed as being too marginal and unimportant to get onto the political agenda, or as being inconsistent with Chinese traditional culture,” Longarino said.Few legal protections are available for same-sex couples in China. One party can apply to be the other’s legal guardian, but those accompanying rights are a small fraction of those enjoyed by married couples, Longarino said. He gave the example of a lesbian woman who bears a child in China, with no way for her partner to become a second legally recognized parent of that baby.At a briefing in August, a spokesman for the National People’s Congress Standing Committee’s Legislative Affairs Commission suggested that same-sex marriage does not suit Chinese society.”China’s current marriage system is built on the basis of a man and a woman becoming husband and wife,” said Zang Tiewei, director of the commission’s research department, when asked whether same-sex marriage will be legalized.”This regulation is in line with China’s national conditions and historical and cultural traditions,” Zang said. “As far as I know, at the moment most countries in the world don’t recognize the legality of same-sex marriage.”Censorship, stigmaLGBT advocates have garnered growing support from the Chinese public, using social media to raise awareness even as they face frequent censorship. They won a victory over the censors in April 2018, when one of the country’s top social networking sites backtracked on a plan to restrict content related to LGBT issues. Users flooded Weibo with hashtags such as “#I’mGayNotaPervert” after the Twitter-like platform said “pornographic, violent or gay” subject matter would be reviewed.But misconceptions and discrimination persist. A 2015 survey by the Beijing LGBT Center found that 35% of mental health professionals in a sample group of nearly 1,000 believed that being gay is a mental illness. Around the same percentage supported the use of conversion therapy. When “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the hit biopic about Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury, came to China, viewers were treated to a version without any references to Mercury’s sexuality or his struggle with AIDS.Hua Zile, the chief editor of an LGBT-focused Weibo account with 1.69 million followers, said he hasn’t publicized the same-sex marriage campaign on his microblog because he worries about the dispiriting effect it will have on the LGBT community when it inevitably fails.”We can’t reach the sky in a single leap,” Hua said. “We should try to make progress step-by-step, or else we’ll constantly be disappointed.”After He’s partner passed away, it pained her to think about how they kept their status in the shadows.Through their 12-year relationship, it was He who accompanied Li on doctor’s visits. She stayed with her at the hospital when lupus made her nauseous and delirious with fever, and she helped her reach their fourth-floor walk-up after her legs grew weak.In He’s mind, they were married. But in reality, many people didn’t even know they were dating.Friends told He that she could file a lawsuit to recover some of her and Li’s shared property. She hired a lawyer to start the process, which required painstaking documentation of their relationship and signed statements from their neighbors and friends attesting to their long-term bond.”It was like tearing open a wound over and over again,” He said. “I had to keep coming out about my sexuality. If we were married, all of this would be understood.”In the end, He gave up on the lawsuit. It was too exhausting, she said, to have to prove their love to everyone.
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A volunteer firefighter in Australia has been accused of arson following an unprecedented bushfire crisis.  Fire chiefs say the alleged arson south of Sydney was the “ultimate betrayal” of emergency crews risking their lives on the front line.  They said the accusations could tarnish the reputation of the entire service.  Investigators believe the teenage suspect lit the blazes and then later returned as part of his duties as a volunteer firefighter. Dozens of fires continue to burn in the states of Queensland and New South Wales, where more than 50 people have been charged with arson since August. Another 150 suspects are being interviewed by investigators.More than 2 million hectares of land, including vast areas of forest, have been scorched in eastern Australia’s bushfire crisis.   Hundreds of homes have been destroyed, and six people have died.The Australian Institute of Criminology has estimated that around half of the nation’s bushfires are either arson or suspected arson.Most offenders are male.  Many are children.  Some have been the victims of sexual or physical abuse, while much work has been done to explore the motivations of adult firebugs. “Usually they are marginalized, they are confused. It is thought that they have very low intelligence, but I suspect that that is only because we are catching the ones that have low intelligence,” said Paul Reid, a criminologist at Monash University. “They tend to have deep depression, and (are) very socially awkward.  They usually have a history of drug use and violence.”Arsonists are responsible for thousands of bushfires in Australia every year and they can face long jail terms if found guilty.  Convictions are rare, though, because evidence is often destroyed by the fire and there are few, if any, witnesses.
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Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, a giant of his country’s post-World War II politics who pushed for a more assertive Japan while strengthening military ties with the United States, has died. He was 101.The office of his son, Hirofumi Nakasone, confirmed that Nakasone died Friday at a Tokyo hospital where he was recently treated.As a World War II navy officer, Yasuhiro Nakasone witnessed the depths of his country’s utter defeat and devastation. Four decades later, he presided over Japan in the 1980s at the pinnacle of its economic success.In recent years, he lobbied for revision of the war-renouncing U.S.-drafted constitution, a longtime cause that no postwar leader has achieved to date.FILE – U.S. President Ronald Reagan, left, and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone attend their meeting at the Cipriani Hotel, in Venice, June 8, 1987.From US critic to allyNakasone began his political career as a fiery nationalist denouncing the U.S. occupation that lasted from 1945 to 1952, but by the 1980s he was a stalwart ally of America known for his warm relations with President Ronald Reagan.He boosted defense spending, tried to revise Japan’s U.S.-drafted pacifist constitution and drew criticism for his unabashed appeals to patriotism.In the 1950s, he was a driving force behind building nuclear reactors in resource-poor Japan, a move that helped propel Japan’s strong economic growth after World War II but drew renewed scrutiny in the aftermath of the meltdowns at a nuclear plant in Fukushima swamped by a tsunami in 2011.Navy officer to parliamentThe son of a lumber merchant, Nakasone was born May 27, 1918, the last year of World War I. He went to Tokyo Imperial University before entering the Interior Ministry and then the navy, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant commander during World War II.In his last news conference as prime minister, he said his political ambitions were sparked after the war by “the conviction I felt as I gazed bewildered at the burned ruins of Tokyo.”“How can this country be revived into a happy and flourishing state?” he said.He established his nationalist credentials by campaigning for parliament riding a white bicycle bearing the “rising sun,” or the “Hinomaru” national flag, which Japan’s wartime military had used. He won a seat in 1947, becoming the youngest member of parliament at age 28.Nakasone became a leading figure in the Liberal Democratic Party that has dominated postwar politics. During more than a half-century in parliament, he served as defense chief, the top of the powerful Ministry of International Trade and Industry, and secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party before becoming prime minister.Nakasone assailed the U.S.-drafted postwar constitution, demanding revision of the document’s war-renouncing Article 9 and urging a military buildup.FILE – Workers are seen in front of storage tanks for radioactive water at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, Feb. 18, 2019.Nuclear powerHe was a key figure behind crafting and ramming through government funding for nuclear research in 1954, less than a decade after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing 200,000 people in the last days of the war. In 1955, he helped pass legislation designed to promote nuclear power.“Atomic power used to be a beast, but now it’s cattle,” he told a parliamentary session in 1954.In a 2006 speech marking the 50th anniversary of Japan’s first nuclear institute in Tokaimura, Nakasone said he was intrigued by nuclear power as he tried to figure out why Japan lost the war.“My conclusion was that one of the biggest reasons was (the lack of) science and technology,” he said. “I felt strongly that Japan would end up being a lowly farming nation forever unless we take a bold step to develop science and technology.”After the Fukushima disaster in 2011, there was a public backlash against nuclear energy, but Nakasone said it remained indispensable to maintain Japan’s industrial growth.New kind of leaderAs prime minister from 1982 to 1987, Nakasone broke the mold of the Japanese politician. His outspokenness appealed to voters, and he was praised for putting a human face on Japanese politics.His tongue sometimes got him in trouble. He sparked outrage in 1986 by suggesting Japan was an economic success because it didn’t have minorities with lower intellectual levels.He was the first Japanese prime minister to visit South Korea, a country with bitter memories of its 1910-1945 colonization by Japan. That was his first trip abroad as leader, a break from his predecessors, who made Washington their first stop.Despite that gesture, Nakasone was staunchly committed to Japan’s alliance with the U.S., and his warm friendship with Reagan was known as “Ron-Yasu” diplomacy.His premiership coincided with a period of major trade disputes with the West. Responding to U.S. complaints that Japanese markets were closed, Nakasone initiated packages to reduce tariffs and other import barriers, including a long-term plan to shift Japan’s export-dependent economy to focus more on domestic growth.He also privatized the sprawling Japan National Railways, today’s Japan Railways group, as well as the state telephone and tobacco companies.Controversial movesNakasone’s nationalist legacy includes the first official visit in 1985 by a postwar prime minister to Yasukuni Shrine, which honors the war dead, including Japan’s convicted war criminals. His visit fueled disputes with China and South Korea over World War II history that persist to this day.Nakasone overcame opposition from Japan’s strong pacifist forces to boost defense budgets, and excluded military technology cooperation with the U.S. from Japan’s ban on arms exports.“Japanese cowered under the (postwar U.S.) occupation and occupation policies,” Nakasone said just before stepping down as prime minister in 1987. “It is important to revive from that cowered spirit — that is healthy nationalism.”But Nakasone also said Japan should remain a war-renouncing nation.“We must stick to our commitment as a pacifist nation. We have caused tremendous trouble to our neighboring countries in the past war,” Nakasone said in a 2011 interview with public broadcaster NHK. “Our commitment to peace must be the centerpiece of Japan’s domestic and diplomatic policies.”Both nationalist and wrestling with the same issues — stronger military, constitutional revision and trade friction with the U.S. — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been compared to Nakasone by some Japanese media and analysts. But the Japan that Abe leads today is no longer at its peak and China is now a rival to the U.S., and Abe is seen more hawkish toward Beijing’s aspirations.Elder statesmanIn later life, Nakasone became one of Japan’s leading elder statesmen. He promoted his longtime dream of revising the U.S.-drafted constitution and pronouncing his views on national and international affairs. He had attended an annual May rally campaigning for a constitutional revision until he skipped one just before turning 100, when he had a hand injury and couldn’t use his cane to rise from his wheelchair.He retired from parliament in 2003, at age 85, when he was pushed to retire from parliament after then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi urged him to step aside in upcoming elections to make way for a younger lawmaker.Nakasone complied, but he accused Koizumi of discrimination and lack of respect for his elders. He publicly read a haiku poem. In his 100th birthday message, Nakasone said that he was not done yet, and that same haiku still best described his spirit:Even after dusk,
Cicada persists in song,
While it still has life.Nakasone is survived by his son Hirofumi, a parliamentarian, two daughters, and three grandchildren.
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Hong Kong braced for a fresh round of protests over the weekend as police said they would withdraw from a university on Friday that has been the site of some of the worst clashes between protesters and security forces in nearly six months of unrest.The protests, announced by demonstrators on social media, 
are planned from Friday, through the weekend and into next week. 
A big test of support for the movement is expected on December 8 
with a rally planned by Civil Human Rights Front, the group that 
organized million-strong marches in June. Relative calmThe Asian financial hub has seen a week of relative calm since local elections on Sunday delivered an overwhelming victory to pro-democracy candidates. Anti-government protests have rocked the former British colony since June, at times forcing businesses, government, schools and even the international airport to close. Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityHundreds of police officers entered the ruined campus of Polytechnic University on Thursday to collect evidence, removing dangerous items including thousands of petrol bombs, arrows and chemicals that had been strewn around the site.Chow Yat-ming, a senior police officer, said Thursday night that the police would be able to finish their investigations by Friday. All officers would leave the site thereafter, enabling people to freely enter and exit the campus. Polytechnic University, located on Kowloon peninsula, was turned into a battleground in mid-November, when protesters barricaded themselves in and clashed with riot police in a hail of petrol bombs, water cannon and tear gas. About 1,100 people were arrested last week, some while trying to escape. Police said they found more than 3,000 Molotov cocktails and hundreds of bottles of corrosive liquids on the campus.It was unclear whether any protesters remained at the university on Friday, but police have said arrests are not a priority and anyone found would first be given medical treatment. Chinese meddling seenDemonstrators in Hong Kong are angry at what they see as 
Chinese meddling in the freedoms promised to the former British 
colony when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.China denies interfering and says it is committed to the “one country, two systems” formula put in place at that time and has blamed foreign forces for fomenting unrest.China warned the United States on Thursday that it would take “firm countermeasures” in response to U.S. legislation backing 
anti-government protesters in Hong Kong, and said attempts to interfere in the Chinese-ruled city were doomed to fail.
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A former employee of the British Consulate in Hong Kong, Simon Cheng, who accuses China’s secret police of kidnapping and torture, has filed a complaint to Britain.’s Office of Communications (Ofcom) against China Global Television Network (CGTN) for having broadcast what he called his forced TV confession.Observers say Cheng’s case follows similar complaints earlier by British citizen Peter Humphrey and missing Swedish bookseller Gui Minhai, all of which highlights the Chinese broadcaster’s alleged violation of many sections of the British Broadcasting Code.
 
Ofcom is also looking into CGTN’s  alleged biased coverage of Hong Kong’s months-long pro-democracy protests.
 
If convicted, CGTN — the international arm of Chinese state media CCTV  — may be given punishments or even lose its license to broadcast in Britain, which will  hurt its expansion plan in Europe, they add.
 Trial by Media
 
Cheng’s Ofcom complaint, obtained by VOA, stated that a 54-second-long news report about his alleged solicitation of prostitutes, aired by the channel’s China24 program last Thursday, was inaccurate, unfair and one-sided.  
For example, the newscaster started by saying that Cheng was on trial in August, which he denied.“This is a direct lie. There has been no trial, not even an indictment,” Cheng said in the complaint.“In fact, I was, according to Chinese police, placed in ‘administrative detention,’ which is not a judicial process at all, it is an extra-judicial measure,” he added.
Cheng was released in late August after a 15-day incommunicado detention.The CGTN also aired what it called “video evidence” of Cheng’s illegal solicitation of prostitution, that is, surveillance camera footages, released by the police, in which, Cheng insisted that he was visiting a massage parlor, not a brothel.
Such a mistake could have been easily verified or at least Cheng’s responses should have been included to balance the report.No Journalistic Merit“Broadcasting such a ‘confession’ has no journalistic merit and is not the behavior of a real media outlet,” Cheng said in the complaint.“CGTN did not solicit comments, inputs or responses. Nor was I in any way approached to give my consent to this defamatory and inaccurate broadcast,” he added.Forced TV confessions have long been a problematic practice in China, said Lo Shih-hung, professor of communications at National Chung Cheng University in Taipei.
 
“Many past cases have shown [the accused] giving confession, apologizing or repenting in front of the CCTV’s camera. This has never been a due practice in any democratic country where the rule of law prevails,” Lo said.
 
“On one hand, the report isn’t balanced. On the other, the accused is deprived of rights to a fair trial, which infringes basic human rights,” he added.
 
Rights group Safeguard Defenders said that that the CGTN report was meant to smear Cheng as it was aired one day after he broke silence and openly disclosed in full in an online statement and media interviews how he was kidnapped, detained, tortured and forced to confess. 
 
According to Cheng, the confession was extracted and recorded in the last four days of his detention under circumstances where he was threatened to serve a two-year sentence on charges of endangering national security if he failed to give answers that pleased the police. Smear tactics“The broadcast, which presents accusations as facts, is intended to smear Simon, reduce his credibility,” the rights group said in a press statement.
Safeguard Defenders has documented a series of forced TV confessions as a phenomenon since China’s top leader Xi Jinping came to power.The group, which has experience in assisting Cheng and several others filing Ofcom complaints, is confident that CGTN will be convicted.“It’s very difficult for Ofcom not to convict CGTN. So, the question then of course is, well, what’s the punishment?” said Peter Dahlin, director of Safeguard Defenders.“It can go anywhere from a warning to a fine, to losing their license. We’ve seen this happen before with Iran’s Press TV [losing] their license for broadcasting one of these forced confessions,” he added.In July, a Kremlin-funded news channel, formerly known as Russia Today, was fined 200,000 pounds by Ofcom for its failure on seven occasions of presenting due impartiality in its news reports.Expanding influence in EuropeAccording to Dablin, CGTN is taking these Ofcom complaints very seriously as sources inside its headquarters in Beijing revealed that emergency meetings had been called to address previous complaints.And before Cheng, the broadcaster had refrained from airing such confessions for a period of time, he said.The rights activist said that, being on the Ofcom’s radar will mean a big setback to the CGTN’s plan of expanding its influence in Europe given its American arm has already registered as a foreign agent in the U.S.And he hopes the move will help many others avoid such unfair media treatments.Lo said CGTN can still expand into other European countries should its license be revoked in London, but a conviction of any sort will no doubt hurt its reputation as a news outlet.VOA’s calls, voice message and email to CGTN’s contact person, Alice Tang of Star China Media Ltd. in Hong Kong, went unanswered.An email to the broadcaster’s headquarters in Beijing produced no reply.  
The Ofcom said, in an email reply to VOA, it usually spends 25 working days on assessing whether to entertain a complaint and another 90 working days on concluding its consideration or adjudication of such a complaint.
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President Donald Trump has signed two separate bills backing pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong, despite a trade deal in the balance and threats from Beijing.The House and Senate passed both bills last week nearly unanimously.One law requires the State Department to certify annually that China allows Hong Kong enough autonomy to guarantee its favorable trading status. It threatens sanctions on Chinese officials who do not.The second bill bans the export of tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and other non-lethal ammunition to Hong Kong police.Beijing has threatened unspecified countermeasures if Trump signed the bills, saying the U.S. is interfering in China’s internal affairs.”The negative consequences will boomerang on itself,” China warned.But Trump, appearing on Fox News late Tuesday, called Chinese President Xi Jinping “a friend of mine. He’s an incredible guy.””I signed these bills out of respect for President Xi, China and the people of Hong Kong,” Trump said in a later statement. “They are being enacted in the hope that leaders and representatives of China and Hong Kong will be able to amicably settle their differences, leading to long-term peace and prosperity for all.”Trump had twice called the large street protests in Hong Kong “riots” — a word the protesters say plays into the hands of Chinese authorities.But Trump took credit for thwarting Beijing’s threat to send in 1 million soldiers to put down the marches by saying such a move would have a “tremendous negative impact” on trade talks.Protests erupted in Hong Kong in June over the local government’s plans to allow some criminal suspects to be extradited to the Chinese mainland.Hong Kong withdrew the bill in September, but the street protests have continued, with the demonstrators fearing Beijing is preparing to water down Hong Kong’s democracy and autonomy, nearly 30 years before the ex-British colony’s “special status” expiresSome of the protests have turned violent, with marchers throwing gasoline bombs at police, who have responded with live gunfire.
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A TikTok post by a young woman, pretending to give eyelash curling advice while actually condemning China’s crackdown on Muslims in Xinjiang, has gone viral on the Chinese-owned app that has been accused of censoring anti-Beijing content.The clip by US teen Feroza Aziz, who describes herself as “17 Just a Muslim”, had millions of views across several social media platforms by Wednesday.But Aziz said she has been blocked from posting on the hugely popular video platform TikTok for a month after uploading Sunday’s clip slamming China, a claim disputed by the app.Part three to getting longer lashes #tiktok#muslims#muslimmemes#Uyghurmuslims#freepalestinepic.twitter.com/OoFpDpYPvj— feroza.x (@x_feroza) November 25, 2019Human rights groups and outside experts say more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities have been rounded up in a network of internment camps across the fractious region of Xinjiang.China, after initially denying the camps existed, describes them as vocational schools aimed at dampening the allure of Islamist extremism and violence through education and job training.Aziz starts her video telling viewers: “The first thing you need to do is grab your lash curler.”US Warns China’s Detention of Uighurs to Counter Terrorism Will Backfire

        A senior U.S. official has rejected China’s claim that the mass internment of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in China’s Xinjiang region is part of a counter-terrorism program and says it will backfire. The United States co-hosted an event on the sidelines of the U.N. 

However, she soon changes the subject, saying: “Then you’re going to put it down and use the phone you’re using right now to search what’s happening in China, how they’re getting concentration camps, throwing innocent Muslims in there, separating families from each other, kidnapping them, murdering them, raping them, forcing them to eat pork, forcing them to drink, forcing them to convert.”This is another Holocaust, yet no one is talking about it. Please be aware, please spread awareness in Xinjiang right now,” she adds, before returning to the eyelash curling tutorial.A previous account owned by Aziz, reportedly from New Jersey, was blocked by TikTok over another alleged violation, but the app denied the current profile had been frozen.”TikTok does not moderate content due to political sensitivities,” a spokesperson told AFP.”In this case, the user’s previous account and associated device were banned after she posted a video of Osama Bin Laden, which is a violation of TikTok’s ban on content that includes imagery related to terrorist organizations. Her new account and its videos, including the video in question, were not affected.”As of Wednesday morning, the post had more than 1.5 million views and 501,900 likes, and 600,000 comments.Two follow-up videos in which Aziz again addressed the Xinjiang camps had both received more than 7,000 views.The eyelash-curling clip had reached far more people on Twitter, where versions of the same video received more than 6.5 million views.Aziz told Buzzfeed: “As a Muslim girl, I’ve always been oppressed and seen my people be oppressed, and always I’ve been into human rights.”Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang decline to comment.”How could I know what’s happening on the (social media) account of one individual?” Geng said at a regular press briefing, adding that Beijing has always urged Chinese companies to comply with international rules and local laws.
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The dispatch of two Philippine coast guard ships to the Sulu Sea might normally register as a quick blip on the radar of world maritime movement. But shipments of illegal drugs and support for violent Muslim rebels cross that sea from other countries into the Philippines, which struggles to contain both. The Chinese navy is growing stronger not far away, too, and China disputes tracts of sea with the Philippines.The Philippines has historically had a weak defense, especially at sea. Research database GlobalFirePower.com ranks the Philippine armed forces 64th strongest in the world. Neighbors China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam all rank higher.
 
Manila’s Sulu Sea patrol, which started November 18 and will also cover the adjacent South China Sea, shows the country is accelerating its defense buildup because of the offshore threats, , analysts believe. The severity of problems that reach the archipelago from abroad are giving officials extra willpower now, they say.
 
“If it’s not done fast, we won’t have a very potent, a very credible deterrent armed forces or coast guard, so we have to put our money where our mouth is,” said Aaron Rabena, research fellow at Asia-Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation, a Manila research organization.
 Drugs and rebels
 
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said in March that illegal drug use had worsened in part because supplies were being smuggled in, domestic news website Philstar Global reported. He swore when elected in 2016 to eradicate drugs, and his critics say thousands of drug suspects have already been killed without trial.
 FILE – Filipino men place their hands over their heads as they are rounded up during a police operation as part of the continuing “War on Drugs” campaign of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in Manila, Philippines, Oct. 7, 2016.“Maybe Duterte realized his war on drugs cannot be won without stopping the inflow of drugs coming from Latin America and coming from the Mekong region, because a lot of drugs have been shipped in the back door and it’s quite difficult to police,” said Eduardo Araral, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s public policy school. “So, fighting the drug war requires upgrading the coastal capabilities of the coast guard.”
 
The coast guard said on its website it helped last week detain the captain and crew of a merchant ship carrying 53,000 metric tons of a “toxic substance” from South Korea.
 
Sympathizers of the Middle Eastern terrorist group Islamic State use the Sulu Sea to reach Muslim antigovernment rebels in the southern Philippines, Duterte said last year. Violence there since the 1960s has killed more than 120,000 people.
 
Despite a 2014 peace accord with one dominant rebel group and the later creation of a semiautonomous Muslim region, terrorist attacks still flare up around the southernmost major Philippine island, Mindanao. In June, for example, suspected suicide bombers hit a military camp and killed three soldiers.
 Checking China
 
And in the South China Sea, known in Manila as the West Philippine Sea, hundreds of Chinese vessels gathered near a Philippine-held islet in waters the two sides contest. A Philippine fishing vessel capsized in June after colliding with a Chinese ship. The Philippines holds 10 islets in disputed tracts of the sea.
 
“The fact they put priority into the Sulu Sea is important because it really is probably second only to the West Philippine Sea in importance when you look at it from the perspective of maritime activity,” said Jay Batongbacal: international maritime affairs professor at University of the Philippines. “There’s a lot of activity there, so it’s good that they’re pouring resources into it.” 
Long-term modernization
 
Philippine officials have pledged military modernization since 1995 with an act of Congress approved that year, but budgeting has always been inconsistent.  Duterte’s predecessor used arbitration rather than a stronger defense to resist China at sea, Rabena said.
 
The  threats from offshore are giving those pledges extra impetus now, experts say. A three-way deal to patrol the Sulu Sea together with neighbors Indonesia and Malaysia should add to that momentum, Rabena said.FILE – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte speaks during his fourth State of the Nation Address at the Philippine Congress in Quezon City, Metro Manila, July 22, 2019.Last year Duterte earmarked $5.6 billion for defense modernization through 2022. Earlier this month an Armed Forces of the Philippines official told a House of Representatives briefing the country should raise defense spending to 2% of GDP, which was $331 billion last year. Its current 1.1% lags the regional average.
 
An expanding tax base is expected to help fund military improvements, Araral said.
 
Defense has been “accelerated” further by hardware donations from abroad, he said. Washington has donated military equipment in the past. Japan, another country that  wants to hold off China at sea, has pledged to send the Philippines two patrol vessels and lend it five surveillance planes.
 
The United States is helping the coast guard now develop a training center in several phases. There’s already a classroom, engine maintenance laboratory and barracks for outboard motor maintenance.  The U.S. Embassy in Manila said in October. U.S. Coast Guard teams will offer training.  
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