The last surviving leader of the Khmer Rouge, Khieu Samphan, has made his final appeal against his conviction for genocide as the long-running United Nations-backed Cambodia tribunal held its last public hearings before winding down. Amid tight security and health restrictions imposed to guard against the COVID-19 pandemic, Khieu Samphan delivered a dramatic 16-minute defense in which he categorically refused to accept his 2018 conviction for genocide against Cambodia’s Muslim Cham and ethnic Vietnamese.“I cannot accept the accusation that I was involved in a plot to commit crimes against my compatriots, including the Cham or the Vietnamese,” he said.“Many years of sitting as a defendant at the end of this long case it is important for me to inform you and especially inform the Cambodian people that I never wanted to commit a crime against my compatriots or anyone else,” he said.“No matter what you decide I will die in prison. I will die always remembering the suffering of my Cambodian people. I will die seeing death. I am alone in front of you. I am judged symbolically rather than by my actual deed and as an individual. That’s the end.”With that, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia ended 15 years of public hearings and went into its final recess.Courts spokesman Neth Pheaktra said a decision on the appeal was not expected until the fourth quarter of next year, and in the meantime the court will finalize outstanding legal issues and cases that would not proceed.“We still have some administrative work to finalize between the Cambodian government and the United Nations before the court will close. It means, complete its mission,” he told VOA.The Khmer Rouge split from the Indochinese Communist Party after secret meetings were held at the back of the Phnom Penh railway station in 1960 and then pushed Cambodia into a civil war as the conflict in neighboring Vietnam was gathering pace.Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot seized power in 1975 and held it until early 1979, when a Vietnamese invasion forced the Khmer Rouge into the remote jungles near the Thai border. Up to 2.2 million people, a third of this country’s population, had perished.Ex-Khmer Rouge Official Appeals Genocide Verdict in Cambodia His defense team is seeking to overturn a 2018 verdict finding him guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimesPol Pot died under house arrest in 1998. It was only then that a war crimes tribunal became a serious prospect, leading to the establishment of the Extraordinary Chambers in 2006.Senior Khmer Rouge leaders, including former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary, his wife Ieng Thirith and former army chief Ta Mok, died behind bars, awaiting trial.Only Khieu Samphan, 91, survives. He was convicted for genocide alongside Nuon Chea, known as Brother No. 2, and second in command of the Khmer Rouge, who died two years ago.Another Khmer Rouge leader, Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, was also convicted of crimes against humanity. He ran the S21 death camp, where 24,000 people were processed for extermination in the Killing Fields. The court heard there were 196 such camps across the country.Helen Jarvis, a former chief of the court’s Public Affairs and Victims Support Sections, said it took a “Herculean” effort to get the tribunal up and running amid wrangling with the U.N. and over funding issues.“It was a very important historical event that needed to be done. It was long overdue to recognize the crimes that had taken place here, crimes against humanity, genocide. It needed to be done. I think it has been done,” she said.Jarvis said the Extraordinary Chambers compared favorably with other tribunals, noting its $330 million cost to date is about a quarter of what was spent on the Rwandan war crimes tribunal and about half of the budget for the tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.The other tribunals were held under the auspices of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, with no local component and a long way from where the atrocities were committed. However, the Khmer Rouge court was a hybrid tribunal made up of local and international judges and it was held in Cambodia.That created its own issues.Prosecutors have been divided along international and Cambodian lines over whether to prosecute four lower-level Khmer Rouge officials, which means those cases cannot proceed.“The most important thing is that the Cambodian people have been there, have been part of it right through. It wasn’t something done like former Yugoslavia or Rwanda, done outside the country,” Jarvis said.“It was done in Cambodia with Cambodia’s full participation, a 500-seat courtroom which was full every day,” she said.Ou Virak, president of the Future Form think tank in Phnom Penh said the tribunal had played an important role in Cambodia’s development.  “It was a success, it was necessary, it was an establishment of fact and truth and in some ways that will be studied by historians but more importantly by the Cambodian population,” he said.Ou Virak also said the trials will provide contemporary and future historians with much greater insights into the regional political dynamics of the 1970s by major powers – the United States, the Soviet Union and China, which backed the Khmer Rouge.  “There are a lot more people now trying to understand the roles of different major powers, different parties back then including the involvement of America as well as China.“Because of that I think there will be more interest in the tribunal, not because of historical atrocities, but more so because of its relevance to the current geo-political discussion,” he said.Even if Khieu Samphan wins his appeal he will remain behind bars after exhausting the appeals process for his conviction for crimes against humanity.Either way authorities can now plan commemorations for Pol Pot’s victims, who are expected to be cremated in accordance with traditional Buddhist rites, delivering some closure for one of the great tragedies of the 20th century.David Potter contributed to this report.
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Every day for a year, a Japanese diplomat has posted a near-identical Instagram video of the paper crane he has folded that day.”Today is my 365th day in Seattle,” says Hisao Inagaki, consul general in the western US city, in a video posted Friday.”I have folded a 365th crane while praying for everyone’s health and peace.”It was a triumphant moment for Inagaki, 60, who arrived in the United States in August last year as the country was in the depths of the Covid-19 health crisis, and person-to-person contact was tricky.”I started recording origami cranes because of the pandemic,” he told AFP in a video interview.”I wanted to use my social media to send a message to everyone expressing my sympathies.”So began his Zen-like meditation, in which every identically framed video shows Inagaki delivering the same message, with only the numbers — and his shirts — changing.Paper cranes have been created for centuries in Japan, where they symbolize longevity.”It is thought that folding 1,000 paper cranes is a prelude to good things,” says Inagaki, adding that 1,000 is not a precise number, and stands instead for “a lot.”Not counting a two-day outage that kept him off the platform on days 193 and 194, Inagaki has remained faithful to his plan — and his script.Day 195 marked a slight deviation, when he added an enthusiastic: “I’m back!” to the start of the video, before returning to his pattern.Friday’s post saw the diplomat — wearing a suit for the occasion — showing off the numbers “365” constructed out of paper cranes.”To keep (posting) every day, I thought it is better to be simple,” Inagaki says.That simplicity makes Inagaki’s Instagram account almost hypnotic, with each 10- or 11-second video a self-contained piece of performance art.Each folded crane is dated and preserved in a large box, but at the end of his Seattle posting, Inagaki says he would like to donate his works.”I want to give them to someone… to provide these folded cranes to a nursery” or an old people’s home, he said. Until then, he will keep on folding — much to the delight of his nearly 900 followers.”I look forward to your videos every day,” wrote one follower on Day 360.”Lovely,” wrote another. “I’m glad you live in my city.”
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Malaysia’s king on Friday appointed Ismail Sabri Yaakob the country’s new prime minister, returning a member of the corruption-mired United Malays National Organization to the top job three years after Malaysians voted the party out of office.King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah said Ismail Sabri had secured the support of 114 of the 220 sitting members of the House of Representatives. He replaces Muhyiddin Yassin, whom he served as deputy prime minister and who resigned Monday after conceding that he had lost majority support in parliament.FILE PHOTO: Malaysia’s Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin speaks during opening remarks for virtual APEC Economic Leaders Meeting 2020, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Nov. 20, 2020.Muhyiddin was appointed prime minister by the king in February 2020 after helping engineer the collapse of the coalition government that beat UMNO at the polls in 2018. But his Bersatu party’s own coalition with UMNO was fragile from the start, with some members of the larger UMNO bristling at playing a junior role in the alliance.“UMNO engineered the collapse of the previous government and now they are reaping the rewards of the position of the prime minister,” said Adib Zalkapli, Malaysia analyst for consulting firm Bower Group Asia.But as Malaysia’s third prime minister in as many years, analysts say Ismail Sabri’s coalition, comprising the same mix of parties as the last, will likely prove just as shaky.“In the Malaysian context, it’s basically the status quo,” Adib said.Wong Chin Huat, a political analyst and professor at Malaysia’s Sunway University, is also expecting a short run for the new prime minister.“Pressure will be mounted on him to have an election once the [pandemic] situation improves. But his power base may be challenged even before then because his coalition enjoys only 52% majority in the House and is very fragmented by parties as well as factions,” he said.Elections are due by 2023 but could be called sooner. The king ruled out elections to choose Muhyiddin’s immediate successor as a precautions against the spread of the coronavirus.Malaysians take part in a rare anti-government rally in Kuala Lumpur on July 31, 2021, despite a tough Covid-19 coronavirus lockdown in place restricting gatherings and public assemblies.The country of 32 million is suffering the highest rate of new daily COVID-19 cases per 1 million people in Southeast Asia. It recorded 178 deaths on Thursday and a record 22,948 new cases, pushing the country’s total number of cases since the start of the pandemic up to nearly 1.5 million.Public anger at the government’s pandemic response has been mounting with the rising caseload. But with the same parties running the government, Adib said Ismail Sabri’s Cabinet was also likely to bear some similarities to Muhyiddin’s, promising little change in policy.“Very likely we will see some of the similar faces — whether they did well or not so well — who will be back. So, I think there will be continuity as far as the management of the pandemic is concerned,” he said.Days before resigning, in a last-ditch effort to cling to power, Muhyiddin offered to push through a list of political and economic reforms opposition parties have been calling for in exchange for their support but failed.Wong said the offer came too late and seemed insincere, but added he would be looking to see if Ismail Sabri picks up on some of the proposals in order to woo opposition lawmakers and hedge against the threat of those in his own coalition who might pull out.He and Adib said having UMNO back in the prime minister’s seat was also raising concerns that the corruption cases opened against party heavyweights over the past three years may be dropped or stymied.A number of senior UMNO officials including former Prime Minister Najib Razak and party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi are facing dozens of charges. Najib was convicted on seven charges and sentenced to 12 years in jail in July 2020 but remains out on bail and in Parliament while appealing the decision. He and the others deny any wrongdoing and claim the cases are politically motivated.The day he announced his resignation, Muhyiddin blamed his coalition’s collapse on his refusal to “compromise with kleptocrats.” He did not name anyone, but the remarks were seen as a dig at some UMNO members; some of them, Najib and Ahmed Zahid included, publicly pulled their support for Muhyiddin weeks earlier.“It’s definitely something that everyone is talking about, whether the cases will continue or not,” Adib said.“Partly people do not believe that the judiciary, while it has been improved, has become totally independent,” Wong added.The professor said reforming the Attorney General’s Chambers, which oversee prosecutions, could prove “low-lying fruit” for Ismail, a relatively easy way to both shore up support with power-players within his coalition who want to see the corruption cases through and voters who rejected UMNO at the polls.“For Ismail Sabri, to strike a delicate balance within his coalition and also to demonstrate to the public he can deliver something, embarking on the AGC reform is the most important thing,” he said. 
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Japanese actor Sonny Chiba, who wowed the world with his martial arts skills in more than 100 films, including “Kill Bill,” has died. He was 82.Chiba, known in Japan as Shinichi Chiba, died late Thursday in a hospital near Tokyo where he had been treated for COVID-19 since Aug. 8, Tokyo-based Astraia, his management office, said in a statement Friday. It said he had not been vaccinated. Chiba rose to stardom in Japan in the 1960s, portraying samurai, fighters and police detectives, the anguished so-called “anti-heroes” trying to survive in a violent world. He did many of the stunt scenes himself. His overseas career took off after his 1970s Japanese film “The Street Fighter” proved popular in the U.S. American director Quentin Tarantino listed the work as among his “grindhouse,” or low-budget kitsch cinema, favorites. Tarantino cast Chiba in the role of Hattori Hanzo, a master swordsmith in “Kill Bill.”Chiba appeared in the 1991 Hollywood film “Aces,” directed by John Glen, as well as in Hong Kong movies. Chiba’s career also got a boost from the global boom in kung fu films, set off by Chinese legend Bruce Lee, although critics say Chiba tended to exhibit a dirtier, thug-like fighting style than Lee.“A true action legend. Your films are eternal and your energy an inspiration. #SonnyChiba #RIP,” American actor Lewis Tan said on Twitter. New York-based writer and director Ted Geoghegan called him “the great Sonny Chiba.” “Watch one of his films today,” Geoghegan tweeted, followed by images of a fist and a broken heart. Other fans mournfully filled Twitter threads with clips of his movies and photos.  Born in Fukuoka, southwestern Japan, Chiba studied at Nippon Sport Science University trained in various martials arts, earning a fourth-degree black belt in karate. Chiba set up Japan Action Club in 1980, to develop a younger generation of actors, including protege Hiroyuki Sanada, who is among Hollywood’s most coveted Japanese actors, landing roles in “The Last Samurai” and “Rush Hour 3.”Chiba is survived by his three children, Juri Manase, Mackenyu Arata and Gordon Maeda, all actors. A wake was canceled as a pandemic measure, and funeral arrangements were still undecided, his office said.
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Myanmar’s coup leader, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, is aiming for 50% of country’s population to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of this year, but there are difficulties and obstacles on the ground to achieving that goal.Since July 28, the State Administration Council, which overthrew democratically elected government led by the National League for Democracy, has been administering vaccinations, using the Chinese-made Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines, across the country.From July to August 8, Beijing sent 4.5 million doses to Myanmar, including 2.5 million donated Sinopharm doses and 2 million Sinovac vaccines purchased by the military. Two million more doses will be arriving this month, as the military purchased a total of 4 million Sinovac doses.The Health and Sports Ministry started its vaccination program in the last week of July. Medical workers, volunteers, prisoners and those above 65 years old are in the priority group to be vaccinated. The state newspaper The New Light of Myanmar reported August 6 that more than 1.8 million people, 6.08% of the targeted population, had been vaccinated.Myanmar has more than 30 million people over the age of 18 to be vaccinated, 50% of whom, 17 million people, are targeted to be vaccinated at the end of this year, Health and Sports Ministry spokesman Dr. Than Naing Soe told VOA.“To vaccinate 50% of the total population at the end of this year, we need to vaccinate 5 million people a month,” Min Aung Hlaing said at an August 2 meeting.  Amid this uncertain situation, Than Naing Soe recently told VOA that the government is confident it will meet the target. The SAC is planning to receive vaccines from China, India, Russia, and international and regional organizations. Two million doses purchased from Russia will arrive in coming months and efforts are being made to obtain the remaining vaccines from India. Under the previous NLD government, Myanmar purchased 30 million doses from India and has already paid $75 million, half of the initial order value. It had received 2 million Indian Covishield doses in January. “Now we are giving about 150,000 injections per day. There is no issue with receiving vaccine yet. If the situation is better than this, at the end of this year, we can reach 70% of the targeted population,” Than Naing Soe told VOA August 9.According to the ministry, 1.8 million people were vaccinated between January 27 and July 21, using 3.5 million vaccines from India — 1.5 million donated and 2 million purchased — and 300,000 Sinovac doses from China.FILE – People work in a laboratory of Chinese vaccine maker Sinovac Biotech, developing an experimental COVID-19 vaccine, during a government-organized media tour in Beijing, China, September 24, 2020.Lack of trustPublic opinions on the military’s vaccination program and Chinese vaccine differ. Some see getting Chinese vaccination is better than nothing. Some say they would not be vaccinated to boycott military council’s immunization program.In addition, anti-Chinese sentiment has been high in Myanmar since the coup, as China has shown support for the military council.A 78-year-old retired military officer, Myint Lwin, had the chance to be vaccinated in March. He did not take it, though, because of distrust of the Chinese vaccine.“Now the death toll is much higher. I feel it is safer to be vaccinated than nothing,” Myint Lwin said. He got the Sinovac vaccine on August 4. Many others feel the same way – they distrusted the vaccine before but are now willing to take it, with Myanmar’s death toll having hit 12,234 as of August 10. The death toll does not list those who died at home and it is expected that the actual death rate would be three times that announced by the military. Thirty-eight-year-old Mo Mo, who asked to be identified by only part of her name and who runs a restaurant in Yangon, told VOA she would not be vaccinated with Chinese vaccines under the military council’s immunization program.“My family does not recognize the military regime. So, we have no reason to deal with them,” she said. The second reason, she said, is that they do not believe in the effectiveness of the Chinese vaccine.“I have heard we will be able to get the Indian vaccine at the private hospitals very soon. Until we get that vaccine, we have to take care of ourselves by wearing double masks, taking antibiotics, washing our hands and staying at home,” Mo Mo said. It appears that the military regime has not been able to convince the public to participate in its immunization plan. Some do not trust the military, some reportedly fear the military will try to kill them with the injections, directly or through later side effects.  The situation is made worse by a shortage of health workers.To fill the gap, the junta has asked health staff on strike in opposition to the coup to join the fight against the pandemic, although the military keeps targeting and arresting heath workers who are members of the opposition Civil Disobedience Movement.”No one will return to the hospitals under such horrifying conditions,” a CDM physician who used to work for the general hospital in the Mandalay region and who requested anonymity told VOA recently. He refused to comment on whether public should take vaccines, which he said is an individual matter. “It would be best if 50% of population were vaccinated at the end of the year. But it will not succeed without public cooperation” he added. 
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Experts are split on how the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan could affect North Korea. Some argue that the collapse of Kabul, triggered by the withdrawal of U.S. forces, could encourage North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, while others suggest the fall of Kabul may work against Pyongyang because getting Washington’s attention would be harder given the complex aftermath of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. After maintaining a military presence in Afghanistan for 20 years, the U.S. fully vacated its largest military base, Bagram Airfield, on July 2 and transferred control to Afghan forces.  Then, in early August, Taliban forces swept across Afghanistan and began taking control of major provincial capitals. On Sunday, the Taliban claimed the capital city of Kabul, and Afghanistan came under its control. FILE – An Afghan army soldier walks past Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, MRAP, that were left after the American military left Bagram air base, in Parwan province north of Kabul, Afghanistan, July 5, 2021.In the past, North Korea has often used major crises to ramp up anti-U.S. rhetoric. Demanding the troop removal was a recurring theme. And as the Taliban pushed from provincial capitals to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, North Korea resumed its rhetoric against the presence of U.S. troops in South Korea as the allied nations engaged in annual joint military exercises.  “For peace to settle on the peninsula, it is imperative for the U.S. to withdraw its aggression troops and war hardware deployed in South Korea,” FILE – South Korean army K-9 self-propelled howitzers park in Paju, near the border with North Korea, March 24, 2021, after North Korea fired short-range missiles just days after the sister of Kim Jong Un threatened the U.S. and South Korea for holding joint military exercises.Propaganda fodder Harry Kazianis, senior director of Korean studies at the Center for the National Interest, a think tank in Washington, D.C., said the U.S. troop withdrawal and the subsequent fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban could embolden North Korea to direct their “propaganda efforts to say the U.S. should leave (South) Korea as well.” He added: “North Korea clearly does not hope to win some sort of war against the U.S., but it clearly hopes that if it waits Washington out, (the U.S.) will eventually accept it as a nuclear weapons state or at least unofficially accept it.”  FILE – U.S. and South Korean jets fly over South Korea during a joint military drill called Vigilant Ace, in this handout photo released by the South Korean Defense Ministry, Dec. 6, 2017.Evans Revere, a former State Department official who has extensive experience negotiating with North Korea, said Pyongyang has ratcheted up efforts to weaken the U.S.-South Korea alliance. He warned that North Korea should not miscalculate the situation in Afghanistan.  “The North Koreans would be wise not to draw wrong conclusions about what they are witnessing here, because America is still a very strong, very powerful, and a very capable country, and the North Koreans should not allow this unfortunate sequence of events that we’ve seen in recent days to give them a wrong message,” Revere said.  Revere said North Korea has two key aims in its relations with the U.S. “The North Koreans have long wanted to see the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Korean Peninsula,” said Revere, who is now affiliated with the Brookings Institution, a think tank based in Washington.  “North Korea’s goal is to undermine the alliance and bring it to an end. That has not changed over the years. And what we’ve seen in recent years is that the North Koreans have become much more active in trying to bring about this situation” than in previous years, added Revere. Targeting the alliance Ken Gause, director of the Adversary Analytics Program at the CNA research center in Arlington, Virginia, said the recent developments in Kabul could bolster Pyongyang’s efforts to break the alliance between Washington and Seoul.  “North Korea may see the U.S. as wounded right now, and maybe there are some benefits to North Korea in terms of adding pressure and driving a wedge between the U.S. and South Korea,” said Gause. Gause thinks it will become more difficult for Pyongyang to get sanctions relief from the Biden administration — something it has hoped to obtain since the Trump administration — now that Washington must handle the aftermath of Afghanistan.  “What does this do in terms of the Biden administration’s willingness to engage with North Korea and put sanctions on the table, I would say, is probably much weaker now than it would have been before Afghanistan,” said Gause.  FILE – This picture taken on Jan. 14, 2021, and released by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency shows what appears to be submarine-launched ballistic missiles during a military parade.Gause said he expects the Biden administration will be in “lockdown mode, trying to figure out how to move forward on its various foreign policy fronts.” He added, ”They’ve got other issues that are higher up on that agenda than North Korea right now.” Retired U.S. Army General James Thurman, the commander of U.S. forces in South Korea from 2011 to 2013, said what happened in Kabul testifies to the importance of military readiness against North Korean aggression. “I’m confident in the South Korean military, very confident, having spent nearly three years over there training with them,” Thurman said.  “It’s a completely different set of circumstances. But I think our adversaries are emboldened when they see something like this take place,” Thurman added, referring to the fall of Kabul. South Koreans weigh in The sudden collapse of Kabul sparked some concern among residents of Seoul, South Korea’s capital, triggering debates over national security. Kim Yo-whan told VOA’s Korean service on Tuesday that she is concerned the chaos of Kabul could be repeated in South Korea, where groups are advocating for the departure of U.S. forces. “The Taliban took control of major regions soon after the U.S. military withdrew, and that could easily happen in South Korea,” said Kim, who owns a small business. “The U.S. forces in South Korea are the last line of defense toward free democracy” in the region, she added. Yoon Sae-jung, a schoolteacher, thinks otherwise. She told VOA, “The U.S. will not decide easily that it will withdraw from South Korea” because “South Korea is geopolitically important” to counter China. Lee Kwon-yeol, an office worker, also thinks the U.S. will not withdraw because “South Korea and Afghanistan are different strategically.” On Tuesday, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said President Joe Biden “has no intention of drawing down our forces from South Korea.” The U.S. military presence in South Korea has lasted about 70 years, from the time it entered the Korean Peninsula to fight against North Korea, which invaded the South in 1950. Approximately 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed there to defend against any potential aggression from the North.South Korea to Boost Funding for US Troops Under New Accord, US SaysThe proposed six-year ‘Special Measures Agreement’ will replace the previous arrangement that expired at the end of 2019Its military alliance with South Korea was solidified by a mutual defense treaty signed after the war ended, in 1953.Taeksung Oh contributed to this report.
 
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Australia’s delta variant outbreak is spreading into Outback areas, where the vast majority of new infections are among aboriginal people.  In western New South Wales, 60% of cases are in Indigenous communities, where vaccination rates are low and vaccine hesitancy is high.There are COVID-19 health campaigns in various Australian aboriginal languages, but in western New South Wales state, fewer than 10% of First Nation people are fully vaccinated, well below the national average.Health officials have said that vaccine hesitancy has been promoted by misinformation online and concerns about possible side-effects of the AstraZeneca drug.Indigenous elder Frank Doolan told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that he has watched as the virus has spread through Dubbo, a New South Wales city 400 kilometers northwest of Sydney.“I can’t even contemplate catching COVID, really. I kind of think if that happens in that regard, then I’m dead,” he said.The community’s fears about the spread of the virus are shared by Dubbo Mayor Stephen Lawrence.“We always knew that our aboriginal community was going to be especially vulnerable to COVID-19 and especially hard to reach, in terms of vaccination, and look, that has certainly turned out to be the case,” he said.The Australian government says Indigenous people in remote areas remain a priority for vaccines, and that the military will be deployed to help in the inoculation program. However, this outbreak of the delta variant is now threatening communities already hit by chronic illnesses, including diabetes, as well as lung and heart disease.Indigenous Australians make up 3.3% of the national population, according to official figures.Australia has recorded about 40,000 coronavirus cases and 970 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.Authorities said Thursday that more than half of Australians aged over 16 have now had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Twenty-eight percent are fully inoculated.Millions of Australians are in lockdown, including residents in the nation’s two biggest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, as well as the national capital, Canberra. 
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North Korea declared a no-sail zone for ships off its east coast earlier this week, suggesting it may have been planning a missile launch or other weapons test that apparently never occurred, according to South Korean reports.  The warning was issued for Sunday through Monday in the northeastern regions of the sea off North Korea’s east coast, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported Thursday, quoting unnamed military sources. “Such an advisory is usually issued ahead of missile launches or other weapons tests to warn vessels to stay clear of certain areas expected to be affected,” the news agency reported. “But no actual ballistic missile launches or artillery firings took place during the period, according to officials at Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff,” it added. South Korea’s Joongang Ilbo newspaper also reported North Korea issued the navigational warning, adding Pyongyang may have attempted missile launches Sunday. It offered no other details.  VOA has not obtained confirmation of any warning or possible launch attempt. A spokesperson for South Korea’s National Defense Ministry provided a written statement to VOA that North Korea is conducting summer military training. “South Korean and U.S. intelligence are closely monitoring the situation,” the statement read.  Tensions, drills Senior North Korean military general Kim Yong Chol last week warned of a “huge security crisis” after the U.S. and South Korea announced they would move ahead with annual summer military drills.  Pyongyang sees the exercises as a provocation and often uses them as an occasion to conduct its own weapons tests or issue verbal threats. This year, North Korea appeared to use the exercises to increase pressure on South Korea.People watch a TV showing an image of North Korea’s new guided missile during a news program at the Suseo Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Friday. March 26, 2021.Weeks before the U.S.-South Korea drills, North Korea announced it was reopening several inter-Korean hotlines, in what both sides called the first step toward improved relations. Around the time the drills began, though, North Korea stopped answering the hotlines. South Korea’s left-leaning president, Moon Jae-in, frequently speaks of his desire to leave a legacy of peace with North Korea. Moon is running out of time to do so; his single, five-year term ends in May.  Provocations coming? South Korea’s National Intelligence Service recently said it expects North Korea could soon test a submarine-launched ballistic missile. Others speculate Pyongyang may prefer a less provocative launch, possibly involving a short-range missile or artillery. This week’s navigational warning may suggest the North is preparing a major test, according to some observers.  “I recall [North Korea] issuing similar notices ahead of satellite launch attempts in years gone by, but not ahead of regular ballistic missile testing,” tweeted Chad O’Carroll, founder of NK News website. Pyongyang’s warning could also be a false alarm, warned Martyn Williams, a North Korea-focused fellow at the U.S.-based Stimson Center. “It could also be that the warning was just intended to stir the pot. The U.S. and South Korea are running an exercise now and [North Korea] is not happy about it,” he tweeted. 
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Four University of Hong Kong students were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of promoting terrorism after they publicly mourned a man who stabbed a police officer and then killed himself in July.  
 
The detainees, between 18 and 20 years old, were members of a student union that live-streamed one of their meetings last month, during which 30 union members passed a motion “appreciating the sacrifice” of the man who died and held a moment of silence in his honor.  
 
The livestream was met with backlash from the university and the Hong Kong government, prompting the union to recant the motion and several of its leaders to apologize and step down.
 
Speaking at a press briefing on Wednesday, Steve Li, the senior superintendent in the police national security department, said the motion sought to rationalize and glorify terrorism.  
 
Li added that police plan to interrogate the other union members who voted in favor of the motion, which he said encourages suicide.   
 
The attacker celebrated by the union stabbed a police officer in the back on July 1, the one-year anniversary since Beijing imposed a strict national security law on Hong Kong. The officer suffered a punctured lung but survived, while the assailant fatally stabbed himself in the chest.
 
Chris Tang, secretary for security, described the assault as a domestic terrorist attack, and police warned people not to mourn the attacker in a statement.  
 
“Advocating members of the public to mourn for the attacker is no different from supporting terrorism,” police said. “It will incite further hatred, divide the society and eventually breach social order and endanger public safety, threatening everyone in Hong Kong.”
 
The Hong Kong National Security Law was introduced last year in response to massive pro-democracy protests in 2019. China has been slowly tightening freedoms in the semi-autonomous territory in recent years, despite promising in 1997 to give the region 50 years of political freedom.  
 
The law has enabled the government to crack down on pro-democracy activists, leading to the closure of a large newspaper, arrests of over 100 activists and the stifling of large public protests.  
 
Individuals who are convicted of promoting terrorism in Hong King face a five- to 10-year prison sentence, according to Article 27 of the security law.   
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Australia is sending troops and aircraft to Kabul on a rescue mission to evacuate its citizens and Afghans who worked alongside its military during the decades-long war.  About 600 people will be flown out of Kabul if Australia’s rescue mission goes as planned, including up to 400 local employees. Reports Wednesday have said that an Australian military transport aircraft has landed in the Afghanistan capital, Kabul, and then departed for a base in the Middle East. However, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has conceded that Canberra won’t be able to help all Afghans who worked with and supported Australian troops, in the wake of the Taliban’s return to power.  “I want you to know that we will continue to do everything we can for those who have stood with us, as we have to this day. But I want to talk openly to veterans that despite our best efforts, I know that support won’t reach all that it should. On the ground events have overtaken many efforts, we wish it were different,” Morrison said.French President Macron meets Australian PM Morrison in Paris, Aug. 9, 2021.Officials in Canberra have said that they were considering offering humanitarian visas to prominent women and Afghan public servants who feared for their safety and may look to Australia for a safe haven.    Speaking in the South Australian city of Adelaide, former Afghan interpreter Raz Mohammad, said urgent action was needed to help those trapped in Afghanistan.  “It is just a matter of the (sic) time that we will get the news that there will be mass murdering happening here. Australia needs to increase the numbers of their humanitarian visas as the United States, Canada and some of the other European countries have announced,” Mohammad said.Immigration officials in Canberra have also said that Afghan nationals in Australia would not be forced to return to Afghanistan when their temporary visas expire given the unstable situation in the country. Opposition Labor leader Anthony Albanese says they should be allowed to stay in Australia permanently. “We need to give them the certainty of Australian citizenship on a permanent basis,” Albanese said. Australia has resettled more than 1,800 Afghan interpreters and other staff since 2013.   In November 2001, Australia joined the United States and its allies to remove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan.    More than 26,000 Australian soldiers served during the long conflict, and 41 died.  It was Australia’s longest war.  
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New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern put the nation on a three-day lockdown Tuesday after a single case of community-spread COVID-19 was confirmed in Auckland, the country’s largest city.The new case — New Zealand’s first in six months — was diagnosed in a 58-year-old man who had visited the nearby Coromandel area, though it is not known how he contracted the virus that causes COVID-19.At a news briefing, Ardern said it will not be known for certain if the case was caused by the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus until genetic testing is completed. She said Auckland and Coromandel will be locked down for seven days while the rest of the country is on a three-day lockdown.  “Delta has been called a game-changer, and it is,” Ardern told reporters. “It means we need to again go hard and early to stop this spread. We have seen what can happen elsewhere if we fail to get on top of it. We only get one chance.” If it is confirmed, New Zealand would be among the last nations in the world in which the variant has appeared.Under New Zealand’s Level 4 lockdown rules, schools, offices and all businesses will be shut down, and only essential services will be operational. The nation’s last stay-at- home orders were lifted in March.The nation of 5 million people has been among the best in the world at containing the virus that causes COVID-19. The country has seen just 2,914 cases and 26 deaths, according to U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking the global outbreak. A large part of that success is due to New Zealand closing its borders for the past 18 months to nonresidents.(Some information in this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.)  
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Malaysia’s king has begun the process of selecting a new prime minister to succeed Muhyiddin Yassin and lead the country out of a political crisis.King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah summoned the leaders of six political parties to the royal palace Tuesday, including longtime opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.The king also called on all lawmakers in the 222-seat parliament to submit the name of the person they want to become prime minister.Malaysia’s king is a ceremonial figurehead, but he appoints the person he believes has the support of the majority of lawmakers.Muhyiddin and his entire cabinet resigned Monday after just 17 months in office, the shortest tenure of any prime minister in Malaysia’s history.  He said he was stepping down because he had lost support of the majority of lawmakers.King Al-Sultan Abdullah is keeping Muhyiddin on as caretaker prime minister, saying it is too risky to hold elections as the country struggles with rising COVID-19 infections.Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin arrives at the National Palace for a meeting with the king, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Aug. 16, 2021.The king selected Muhyiddin as prime minister in March 2020, after then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s ruling coalition collapsed a month earlier. But he has been beset by constant challenges to his leadership within his fragile coalition and rising anger over his government’s poor response to the pandemic.Malaysia has one of the world’s highest COVID-19 infection rates and deaths per million, with 1.4 million total infections and 12,510 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.Muhyiddin’s tenuous grip on power began unraveling when a group of lawmakers with the United Malays National Organization, the largest party in the coalition, withdrew its support. The UMNO, once Malaysia’s long-serving ruling party dating back to the country’s independence in 1957, has a handful of politicians facing corruption charges, including former prime minister Najib Razak.Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.  
 
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