• ijrepjournalism@gmail.com
  • contact@ij-reportika.com
Ij reportika Logo

Category: South Asia

Cambodian diplomat’s club stake to be examined by English Football League

Editor08 mins

The English Football League says that it will be making enquiries with Birmingham City Football Club following the revelation by RFA earlier this week that Cambodian diplomat Wang Yaohui secretly controls an eighth of the club’s shares. Under English Football League regulations, Birmingham City is obliged to disclose both to the league and publicly the identity of any person who directly or indirectly holds “any Significant Interest in the club.” Birmingham’s ownership disclosure does not name Wang, something that could cause problems for the club. Contacted on Tuesday, the English Football League’s communications manager Billy Nickson indicated in an email that the league was looking into the issues raised in RFA’s report. “All Clubs are aware of their obligations in respect of providing the appropriate and necessary disclosures in accordance with EFL Regulations,” Nickson wrote. “The EFL will take the matter up with the Club.” The EFL Championship is English soccer’s second highest division.  Born in China in 1966, Wang Yaohui is a naturalized Cambodian citizen and minister counselor at Cambodia’s embassy in Singapore. He has extensive business ties to one of Cambodia’s most powerful families, headed by ruling party Sen. Lau Ming Kan and his wife Choeung Sopheap. The couple are allies of Prime Minister Hun Sen. Wang’s stake in the soccer club is held through a company listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange called Birmingham Sports Holdings Limited, which owns 75 percent of the club. In December 2017, Wang acquired 8.52 percent of Birmingham Sports Holdings through a British Virgin Islands company called Dragon Villa Ltd. In the years since, filings with the Hong Kong stock exchange show he increased his stake to 17.08 percent, giving him a 12.8 percent interest in the club itself.  In its own disclosure statement, Birmingham City identifies Dragon Villa as being owned by a Chinese citizen named Lei Sutong. However, documents seen by RFA suggest that he is owner in name only. Corporate secrecy laws in the British Virgin Islands make it virtually impossible for members of the public to ascertain who the true owner of Dragon Villa is. However, filings lodged with the Singapore High Court reveal that it is in fact Wang. Gold Star Aviation Pte Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dragon Villa involved in the owning and operation of private jets. It is currently the defendant in a civil action in Singapore. Among its co-defendants is a Taiwanese-American named Jenny Shao, who Wang has granted power-of-attorney over his affairs since at least 2009. In a sworn affidavit submitted by Shao’s lawyers on her behalf and dated October 2020, she describes herself as Dragon Villa’s “authorized signatory.” She adds that Dragon Villa “is beneficially owned by Mr. Wang.” A beneficial owner is a person who enjoys the benefits of owning a company, even if it is held in someone else’s name. Former associates of Wang, who asked not to be identified citing security concerns, confirmed to RFA that Wang was Dragon Villa’s beneficial owner. The statement is also echoed in other affidavits lodged as part of the Singapore court case. Records also show that Dragon Villa has been involved in the ownership networks of several other Wang-linked enterprises. Should the EFL find the club violated regulations by failing to disclose Wang’s control of Dragon Villa – and therefore 12.8 percent of the club – then Birmingham City could face sanctions from the league. Wang Yaohui’s first Cambodian diplomatic passport bearing his Khmer name Wan Sokha. The passport was granted to him in 2015 in recognition of his role as an advisor to Prime Minister Hun Sen. Absentee owners Birmingham City fan Daniel Ivery has been raising concerns over Wang’s possible association with the club for years. He wrote on his blog Almajir on Tuesday that he had, “repeatedly attempted to raise this issue of Wang Yaohui with the EFL since December 2017.” Each time he raised the issue, he writes, the league refused “to even acknowledge that there may be an issue.” While it seems the league is now taking notice, it remains to be seen what, if anything, they will do about it. Ivery is not the only one who has been sounding the alarm over Birmingham City’s ownership. Local member of parliament Shabana Mahmood wrote to the UK Minister of Sport in January decrying “financial and professional mismanagement of absentee owners” at the club. For its part, Birmingham City has so far remained silent. The club acknowledged RFA’s enquiries for the first time on Wednesday when media manager Dale Moon promised to raise the issue with the club’s board and senior management – although he did not expect a statement to be forthcoming. “In all honesty,” Moon wrote, “given their historical stance on ownership, I don’t expect they will want to make any comment.” As of publication, no statement had been issued by the club.

Read More

Military carried out ‘collective punishment’ on ethnic civilians in eastern Myanmar

Editor08 mins

Myanmar’s military has subjected ethnic civilians in Kayin and Kayah states to “collective punishment” through aerial and ground attacks, detentions that lead to torture or extrajudicial executions, and the razing of villages, according to a new report by London-based rights group Amnesty International. The report, entitled “‘Bullets rained from the sky”: War crimes and displacement in eastern Myanmar’” and published Wednesday, found that clashes between the military and armed groups in the two regions reignited in the wake of the military’s February 2021 coup and worsened significantly from December to March this year. Hundreds of ethnic Karen and Karenni civilians have been killed in the fighting and more than 150,000 people have been displaced. “The world’s attention may have moved away from Myanmar since last year’s coup, but civilians continue to pay a high price. The military’s ongoing assault on civilians in eastern Myanmar has been widespread and systematic, likely amounting to crimes against humanity,” Rawya Rageh, senior crisis adviser at Amnesty International, said in a statement accompanying the report. “Alarm bells should be ringing: the ongoing killing, looting and burning bear all the hallmarks of the military’s signature tactic of collective punishment, which it has repeatedly used against ethnic minorities across the country.” Amnesty based its report on research it carried out in March and April this year, including interviews dozens of eyewitnesses and survivors of attacks as well as three defectors from the military. The group analyzed more than 100 photos and videos related to rights violations, in addition to satellite imagery, fire data and open-source military aircraft flight data. Amnesty said that since the coup, the military “has relentlessly attacked civilians” to punish those who purportedly support a particular armed group or the wider anti-junta uprising, while at other times “fir[ing] indiscriminately into civilian areas” where there are also military targets. “Direct attacks on civilians, collective punishment and indiscriminate attacks that kill or injure civilians violate international humanitarian law and constitute war crimes,” the group said. “Attacks on a civilian population must be widespread or systematic to amount to crimes against humanity; in Kayin and Kayah States, they are both, for crimes including murder, torture, forcible transfer and persecution on ethnic grounds.” Amnesty said it documented two dozen attacks by artillery or mortars between December and March that killed or injured civilians or that destroyed civilian buildings, adding that eyewitnesses said some of the attacks lasted “days at a time.” The group also documented eight air strikes on villages and camps housing refugees fleeing clashes in the first quarter of 2022 that killed nine civilians and injured at least nine others. Eyewitnesses described the attacks on locations where “only civilians appear to have been present” as extremely traumatic, leaving many unable to sleep or unwilling to return to their homes out of fear that they would be targeted again. A school destroyed by a military airstrike in Lay Kay Kaw, April 11, 2022. Credit: KNLA Cobra Column Extrajudicial executions, looting and burning Additionally, Amnesty’s reporting found that the military regularly carried out arbitrary detentions of civilians based on their ethnicity or because of their suspected support of an anti-junta group. Detainees “were tortured, forcibly disappeared or extrajudicially executed,” Amnesty said. The group specifically pointed to an incident that drew international condemnation in Kayah state’s Hpruso township on Christmas Eve last year, when the military stopped at least 35 women, men and children in multiple vehicles, killed them, and burned their bodies. An examination found that many of the victims had been tied up and gagged and were likely shot or stabbed to death. Amnesty has called for an investigation into the incident as a case of extrajudicial executions which, during armed conflict, constitute war crimes, the group noted. Other incidents mentioned in the report were related to what Amnesty called the military’s “systematic” looting and burning of villages in Kayin and Kayah state. Together, violence in the two regions has displaced more than 150,000 people, the group said, “including between a third and a half of Kayah state’s entire population.” The victims of this displacement are forced to shelter in “dire conditions,” it said, while aid workers are obstructed by the military from providing them access to much-needed food and health care. “Donors and humanitarian organizations must significantly scale up aid to civilians in eastern Myanmar, and the military must halt all restrictions on aid delivery,” said Matt Wells, Amnesty International’s crisis response deputy director for thematic issues. “The military’s ongoing crimes against civilians in eastern Myanmar reflect decades-long patterns of abuse and flagrant impunity. The international community — including ASEAN and U.N. member states — must tackle this festering crisis now. The U.N. Security Council must impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Myanmar and refer the situation there to the International Criminal Court.”

Read More

Myanmar’s junta shuts down publisher for distributing book on Rohingya genocide

Editor05 mins

Myanmar’s military regime has shut down a well-known publishing house in Yangon for importing and distributing a book on the 2017 Rohingya genocide, junta-controlled state newspapers said Wednesday. The regime accused Lwin Oo Sarpay Publishing House of violating the country’s 1962 publishing law by distributing and selling the book titled Myanmar’s Rohingya Genocide: Identity, History and Hate Speech by Ronan Lee, an Irish-Australian researcher at Loughborough University London. The junta shuttered the company’s book distribution center on May 28. State-owned media reported said Lwin Oo Sarpay was closed because it was distributing the book via Facebook. Since taking over Myanmar in a February 2021 coup, the junta has shut down media outlets critical of its regime and shuttered publishers that distribute books not in line with its own narrative. In recent weeks, the junta has shut down two other publishing houses, Shwe Lat and Yan Aung Sarpay, and the Win To Aung printing press. Human rights groups have produced a trove of credible reports based on commercial satellite imagery and extensive interviews with Rohingya about the military’s clearance operations in Rakhine state in 2017, including arbitrary killings, torture and mass rape. The violence drove more than 740,000 people to neighboring Bangladesh where they now living in sprawling refugee camps. Lee, a former member of Parliament for Queensland state, Australia, researched Rohingya refugees, including through field work in Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand, as part of his doctoral studies. His book, published in 2021, presents new evidence that the government of Myanmar enabled a genocide in Rakhine state and the surrounding areas, where most of the country’s Rohingya live. Drawing on interviews and testimony from the Rohingya, it assesses the full scale of the genocide of the Muslim minority group, including human rights violations, forced migrations and extrajudicial killings in 2017 under the previous leadership of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. In March, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken issued an official determination that Myanmar’s military committed genocide against the Rohingya in 2017, going a step further than the U.S. government’s previous findings that the military had committed ethnic cleansing. A resident of Yangon who reads books distributed by Lwin Oo Sarpay told RFA that the closure of the publishing house was politically motivated because the junta does not want citizens to know what really happened to the Rohingya. “Lwin Oo Sarpay has been distributing books on politics and history by local and foreign authors,” said the resident who did not want to be named for safety reasons. “Now that it is closed down and its [operating] license has been withdrawn, people will not learn what they should know.” The military has accused Lwin Oo Sarpay of violating Section 8 of the Printing and Publishing Law, which imposes restrictions on the content of publications and websites run by publishers and bans the import or distribution of foreign publications that contain banned content. In this case, the prohibited content was deemed as causing harm to an ethic group or among ethnic groups. RFA could not reach Lwin Oo Sarpay for comment.  Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Read More

Chinese forces step up exercises around Taiwan, South China Sea

Editor05 mins

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has intensified activities around Taiwan and in the South China Sea in an apparent response to the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, as well as its support for Taipei. The PLA’s Eastern Theatre Command recently conducted a multi-force patrol “in the waters and airspace around the Taiwan Island,” said an army spokesman. This is the third large-scale military exercise around Taiwan in the past 30 days. Senior Colonel Shi Yi, spokesperson for the PLA Eastern Theater Command, said the joint combat-readiness security patrol involved “multiple services and arms,” but did not specify the date. “These actions are a necessary response to the collusion activities between the U.S. and the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces,” Shi said. He added that the U.S. “has been making frequent moves on the Taiwan question recently,” and warned that by emboldening and supporting Taiwan, Washington “will put Taiwan in a dangerous situation and bring serious consequences to itself.” Last weekend two U.S. aircraft carriers – the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Ronald Reagan – reportedly conducted dual-carrier exercises in waters to the southeast of Okinawa, according to the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative (SCSPI), a Beijing-based think tank. Chinese analysts say the area could be a main maritime battlefield if the U.S. militarily intervened in a possible conflict across the Taiwan Strait. A U.S. delegation led by Senator Tammy Duckworth has just completed a three-day visit to Taipei to “talk about our support for Taiwan security.” The U.S will also make sure Taiwan “does not have to struggle alone,” Duckworth told Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who said that a cooperation plan between the U.S. National Guard and Taiwan’s armed forces was in the works. On the day of her arrival, 30 Chinese aircraft flew into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), making it the second-highest number of daily incursions since the beginning of the year. The senator’s visit has infuriated Beijing. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said China “deplores and rejects this and has lodged solemn representations with the U.S. side.”  South China Sea drills On Wednesday morning the PLA conducted a military exercise in waters south of Hainan island in the South China Sea, according to a navigation warning issued by the Hainan Maritime Safety Administration. A navigation warning is a public advisory notice to mariners about changes to navigational aids and current marine activities or hazards including fishing zones and military exercises. The warning did not specify what kind of military exercise took place but the coordinates provided indicate the location was just south of Hainan, not far from the Gulf of Tonkin that China shares with Vietnam. Meanwhile on Wednesday Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) condemned the harassment by the Chinese Coast Guard of a joint Filipino-Taiwanese research vessel in the South China Sea in April, calling it “a breach of a United Nations convention.” A day earlier, the Philippines summoned a senior Chinese diplomat to protest over the incident. From late March to early April, the China Coast Guard (CCG) tailed the Legend, a Taiwanese research vessel with Filipino scientists, as it mapped undersea fault lines in the waters northwest of Luzon Island in the South China Sea.

Read More

Refugees displaced by conflict in Myanmar now more than 1 million

Editor014 mins

The number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Myanmar has surpassed 1 million people for the first time in the nation’s history, including nearly 700,000 forced to flee conflict and insecurity since the military’s coup in February 2021, according to a new report by the United Nations. In an update published on Tuesday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that the new estimate of IDPs fleeing fighting between the military and ethnic armies or anti-junta paramilitaries includes around 346,000 internal refugees displaced mainly in Rakhine, Kachin, Chin and Shan states by conflict prior to the coup. “During the reporting period, various parts of Myanmar have witnessed an escalation in fighting, further entrenching the already fragile humanitarian situation,” the agency said in a statement. “The impact on civilians is worsening daily with frequent indiscriminate attacks and incidents involving explosive hazards, including landmines and explosive remnants of war.” According to OCHA’s findings, thousands of IDPs who have already fled their homes are being forced to move for a second or third time, while more than 40,000 people have crossed borders into neighboring countries since the coup. It counted nearly 13,000 civilian properties as having been destroyed in the fighting, which it said will complicated the return of refugees, even if the situation improves. “Consequently, complex needs are surfacing, requiring immediate humanitarian responses to save lives and protect those affected, supporting them to live in dignified conditions,” it said. Adding to the threat of violence, OCHA said that thousands in Myanmar have been hit by the increasing cost of essential commodities, such as food and fuel, noting that on average the price of diesel in mid-April 2022 was nearly 2.5 times higher than it was in February last year. “This inflation has affected people’s purchasing power and is starting to impact on the work of several clusters, particularly food security and shelter, who depend on commodities to implement their humanitarian programming,” OCHA said. To make matters worse, coastal areas of Myanmar — including Rakhine, Kayin, Kachin and Shan states — have been battered by strong storms and heavy rain since April, destroying civilian structures and compounding the vulnerabilities of IDPs in displacement sites. OCHA said that while by the end of the first quarter of 2022, 2.6 million people — or some 41% of those targeted in this year’s Humanitarian Response Plan — had been provided assistance, the funding situation for the plan is now “dire” and currently around U.S. $740 million short of its goal. “The consequences will be grave if this level of underfunding continues in the remainder of 2022,” it said. “Humanitarian partners will be forced to cut back on their support at a time when this assistance is needed the most, particularly as the monsoon season is just getting underway.” A child refugee suffering from diarrhea in Sagaing region’s Southern Kalemyo township, May 6, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist Nationwide hardships for IDPs OCHA’s update came as IDPs and aid workers told RFA’s Burmese Service that those displaced by conflict in Myanmar are facing severe hardship in securing food, shelter and healthcare as the monsoon season begins. They said that while local and international humanitarian organizations have been made aware of the needs, transportation complications — largely due to weather or conflict — have made it nearly impossible for aid to be delivered. A resident of Salingyi township in war-torn Sagaing region told RFA that IDPs are facing an increasing number of life-threatening illnesses because of a lack of access to basic supplies and medical care. “We are currently facing a shortage of food and tarps for shelter, as well as health problems,” said the resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal. “It is the rainy season now and we are afraid of malaria, as we are living in the forests.” The junta’s Health Ministry recently said it had recorded 1,516 cases of dengue fever leading to two deaths in Myanmar in the nearly five months from January to May 20, adding that it expects a significant increase in cases this year. An aid worker in Sagaing’s Debayin township, who also declined to be named, described the plight of refugees as “serious” — mostly due to worsening food shortages. “We don’t have much rice or cooking oil. [The military] set fire to everything,” they said. “With a couple of thousand to feed, we do not have enough supplies. We just must share what we have.” In Kayah state’s Phruso township, where clashes continue to occur frequently, an aid worker said that road closures due to weather have left more than 6,000 refugees dangerously short of food. “It was difficult even during the summer, and now we’re having transportation problems,” they said. “We can’t use the main road [due to fighting] and the roads we are using now are very bad. When it rains continuously, the cars can slip off the road. It happens a lot with vehicles delivering food.” Landslides and floods in Chin state’s Mindat township have also made travel difficult, residents said. Nonetheless, sources in the area told RFA that the military has continued operations in the area, ignoring the growing number of refugees. Junta deputy information minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, assured RFA that the authorities “are taking full responsibilities for delivering aid” when asked about the situation on Tuesday but blamed slow distribution on the need to “inspect” donations. “We could deliver aid to those in need in time, but … any aid coming to the country must go through ruling government agencies or groups that are sanctioned by the government to operate,” he said, referring to the junta. “The complaints [about delayed distribution] come from groups that want to skirt the regulations,” he added, without providing details. The decision to send international assistance to Myanmar through the junta was made at a May 6 meeting on the country’s humanitarian crisis by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Cambodia. In the meantime,…

Read More

Philippines summons Chinese diplomat over ship’s ‘harassment’ in South China Sea

Editor07 mins

Manila summoned a senior Chinese diplomat to protest the China Coast Guard’s alleged “harassment” of a joint Filipino-Taiwanese research ship in the South China Sea in April, officials here said Tuesday, in a fresh dispute as a new president prepares to take power in the Philippines.   The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) also said it was taking diplomatic action against other recent incidents of Chinese ships allegedly accosting Philippine and Philippine-commissioned ships in the contested waterway. Manila issued the statement days after the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think-tank, published a report on “three rounds of coercion in Philippine waters” by Chinese ships. In one of the incidents, a China Coast Guard (CCG) tailed the Legend, a research vessel with the Taiwan Ocean Research Institute under the Ministry of Science and Technology, as it mapped undersea fault lines in the waters northwest of Luzon Island in the Philippines from late March to early April, AMTI reported. The Legend was jointly deployed by the University of the Philippines National Institute of Geological Sciences and the National Central University in Taiwan. “The Department summoned a senior official of the Chinese Embassy in Manila to protest the harassment by CCG on RV Legend, which had been conducting an authorized marine scientific research (MSR) activity, with Philippine scientists on board,” the Philippine foreign office said in a statement. On Tuesday, the Chinese Embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a BenarNews request for comment. In another incident in April, a CCG ship allegedly followed a pair of Philippine-commissioned ships conducting a seismic survey of an area within the Philippine exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and extended continental shelf (ECS). That incident prompted Manila to halt all oil and gas exploration in both those areas in the South China Sea, the Department of Foreign Affairs said. In April, Manila’s energy department ordered Philippine company PXP Energy to suspend exploration by contractors in SC 75 and SC 72, an area where it had planned to drill an appraisal well. The ships were forced to survey a different area to the east, and they left the Philippines several days later, the DFA said. “The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs takes appropriate diplomatic action for violations of Philippine sovereignty [and] sovereign rights within our maritime jurisdiction,” the department said in its Tuesday statement. “Only the Philippine Coast Guard has enforcement jurisdiction over these waters. The presence of foreign vessels following tracks that are neither continuous nor expeditious, that are not consistent with Article 19 of UNCLOS on innocent passage, are against the interests of the Philippines,” it said, referring to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. “The detailed reports of these activities are being reviewed for the filing of appropriate diplomatic action.” ‘Our territorial right’ These protests come on the heels of yet another DFA protest filed Monday on China’s “unilateral imposition” of a 3½-month fishing moratorium in areas of the South China Sea. They also come as President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. gets set to take over as leader of the country after President Rodrigo Duterte’s term ends on June 30. Under Duterte, Manila and Beijing had a cozy relationship with the Philippine leader overlooking a 2016 international tribunal ruling affirming Manila’s sovereign rights to an EEZ and ECS in the South China Sea, and declaring Beijing’s sweeping claims to much of the entire sea invalid under international law. Beijing has rejected the ruling. Manila has, in recent years, filed a series of diplomatic protests with Beijing over the presence of Chinese ships in Philippine-claimed waters. Last week, Marcos vowed that he would assert the international tribunal’s ruling after taking office. He said there was “no wiggle room” on the issue of sovereignty – his strongest public comments so far about the dispute that involves China, the Philippines’ biggest Asian neighbor. “We will use it to continue to assert our territorial rights. It’s not a claim, it is already our territorial right and that is what the arbitral ruling can do to help us,” he said. “Our sovereignty is sacred and we will not compromise it in any way. We are a sovereign nation with a functioning government, so we do not need to be told by anyone how to run our country.” BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Read More

UN: 1 billion meth pills seized in East, Southeast Asia last year

Editor07 mins

Tons of methamphetamine have been produced, trafficked and used in East and Southeast Asia where a record 1 billion methamphetamine tablets were seized in 2021, a United Nations agency says in a new report, warning that the synthetic drug trade has expanded and diversified. Regional law enforcers seized more than 170 metric tons of methamphetamine in tablets and crystal form, an all-time high, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a report, “Synthetic Drugs in East and Southeast Asia.” In addition, the record 1 billion tablets were seven times more than the 143 million seized a decade ago, UNODC said, adding that more than 90 percent of the recent tablet seizures occurred in Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam. “The region is literally swimming in methamphetamine and I think it’s high time that the region starts taking a hard look at policies in place to address the problem,” Jeremy Douglas, Southeast Asia regional representative for the UNODC, told reporters at a news conference in Bangkok on Monday to announce the report. “So, there’s going to have to be a radical policy shift to address this problem or it’s just going to continue to grow.” The 1 billion tablets, which would weigh about 91 tons, were part of a regionwide seizure of 171.5 tons of methamphetamine, the UNODC report said, adding that about 79 tons of crystal methamphetamine, which is smoked by users, were seized last year. Methamphetamine is the region’s most popular drug. Douglas said the “scale and reach of the methamphetamine and synthetic drug trade … is staggering, and yet it can continue to expand.” Law enforcers display bags of seized methamphetamine tablets during the 50th Destruction of Confiscated Narcotics ceremony in Ayutthaya province, Thailand, June 26, 2020. Credit: Reuters. The so-called Golden Triangle – Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar – has long been a hotspot for drug production and trafficking, primarily because of lax policing, porous borders and political instability, authorities have said. “Organized crime syndicates and armed groups have exploited the pandemic and political instability in the Golden Triangle and border areas of Myanmar to expand production the past year,” Douglas said in a statement, referring to COVID-19 and the February 2021 junta overthrow of the Myanmar government. “There are very few drug labs found in the region outside the Triangle anymore, the supply continues to surge and governments and agencies continue to report the same source.” According to UNODC, Laos “has become a major transshipment point for trafficking into Thailand and other parts of the Mekong and the Asia Pacific.” At the same time, Malaysia “has also been used extensively for transit and trafficking to Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.” The increase in methamphetamine supply resulted in wholesale and street prices falling to all-time lows, especially in Malaysia and Thailand, the UNODC said. The drop in price “is particularly concerning as it has become much more accessible and available to those that could not afford it before,” said Kavinvadee Suppapongtevasakul, a UNODC regional drugs analyst. “The social consequences of increased use are significant, and health and harm reduction services remain limited across the region,” she said. “It is also likely that use has been seriously underestimated for years as most countries in the region do not monitor or study drug demand.” In a news release on Monday, a Thai official said addressing “the methamphetamine situation is a top priority” for the government. “We are working with UNODC and international and regional partners to update our laws and policies, develop important forensic, data and operational capacities, and address priorities including chemical trafficking,” said Thanakorn Kaiyanunta, deputy secretary-general at the Thai Narcotics Control Board. Primary meth source The report noted that Myanmar’s northern Shan state remains the region’s primary source of methamphetamine. Laos, dubbed “a soft target for traffickers” by Douglas, registered a more than a 669 percent jump in interceptions of meth tablets in 2021. In October 2021, police seized more than 55.6 million meth pills and 1,500 kg of crystal meth in a single raid in one of Asia’s biggest drug busts, according to state media. In January, authorities seized more than 36 million tablets and 590 kg of crystal methamphetamine. “Drug control authorities in the region have indicated that organized crime groups have also targeted Lao PDR for tableting of the drug,” the report said referring to the country by its proper name, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Read More

Analysts: US notches win in wooing ASEAN countries to join economic deal

Editor013 mins

The United States has scored a win in its efforts to counter Beijing’s influence in Southeast Asia by getting most members of the ASEAN bloc to join the Biden administration’s new Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity deal, analysts say. Although IPEF lacks the heft of a formal international trade agreement, according to analysts, the interest that seven members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have shown in it reflects their desire for greater U.S. engagement to balance out a regional economy dominated by China. Even in the weeks before President Joe Biden unveiled the deal at a conference in Tokyo, few ASEAN states were expected to join it, said one expert. “Well, I was surprised that so many ASEAN countries were initially part of the deal. This is a coup for the United States in a way,” Elina Noor, deputy director at the Asia Society Policy Institute in Washington, told BenarNews. The Biden administration has touted the framework as the bulwark of its economic strategy in the Indo-Pacific region. IPEF’s stated goals are ensuring the smooth and supple flow of goods, the use of the same digital economy standards, green and clean work processes and fair and honest business. “IPEF will strengthen our ties in this critical region to define the coming decades for technological innovation and the global economy,” the White House said in a statement launching IPEF on May 23. In addition to Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam – all members of the 10-nation ASEAN bloc – Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea also signed up as initial members. Hunter Marston, an international affairs analyst at Australian National University, had expected Singapore and Thailand to join the IPEF at the start, but that other ASEAN members would join later. “[I]t did surprise me a bit [that others joined initially]. … It was a major policy win for Biden,” Marston told BenarNews. “It shows that the region still supports the U.S. It is a signal there is a lot of interest in Washington’s continued engagement in the region. They see Washington’s engagement as critical to maintaining balance of power in the region.” China’s economic reach in Southeast Asia eclipses that of the U.S. China has been ASEAN’s largest trading partner for 12 consecutive years, with 2020 trade reaching nearly U.S. $517 billion, according to the regional bloc’s statistics, and $685 billion according to China’s statistics. By contrast, in 2020 U.S-ASEAN trade stood at $362 billion. Meanwhile, a regional survey of policy experts in ASEAN states conducted late last year showed that China is still seen as the most influential economic and political power, but that “has created more awe than affection.” Trust in Beijing dropped by about three percentage points, while trust in the U.S. rose by 18 percent compared with the previous year. “China is the only major power that has increased its negative ratings … the majority worry that such economic heft, combined with China’s military power, could be used to threaten their country’s interest and sovereignty” according to the State of Southeast Asia 2021 Survey published by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. In such a scenario, “if there is one thing the U.S. could do to reassure a Southeast Asia worried about U.S. commitment to the region, it is expand economic ties,” analyst Anne Marie Murphy at Seton Hall University told BenarNews before Biden launched IPEF. According to Marston, a security partnership alone would make ASEAN uncomfortable.  “It is less appealing without an economic component because an economic role gives ASEAN the pretense of working with the U.S. on other fronts not aimed at containing China,” he said. Four pillars But does the IPEF go far enough? “The framework doesn’t have a lot of substance,” Marston said. He was referring to how the IPEF is not a trade deal like the CPTPP, or Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or its predecessor, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The U.S. once belonged to and had led negotiations on the latter until President Donald Trump pulled the superpower out of the agreement. China isn’t part of the CPTPP, but has applied to join, and Singapore, an influential economic member of ASEAN, has backed Beijing’s bid. The major trading bloc in the region is the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which the U.S. isn’t part of, but which includes China, most ASEAN states, as well as other big Indo-Pacific economies. IPEF is no RCEP or CPTPP, in Marston’s view. “This is definitely not a trade deal,” he said. “Calling it an economic framework is better, as watery as it sounds. It’s like the COP 26 – a pledge to participate that doesn’t require any enforcement,” he said, referring promises to reduce carbon emissions that were made at the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference. That means the U.S. doesn’t offer its partners in the agreement access to its markets or any tariff breaks. Therefore, any business deal under IPEF – whether one insists on green protocols or anti-corruption mechanisms – has no binding clauses, unlike in a trade agreement where in exchange for market access, partners have to adhere to certain standards. IPEF is the opposite of a multilateral trade agreement, “the traditional grail of free-traders,” according to Robert Kuttner, a professor at Brandeis University. “Countries can decide which areas they want to join; and not all deals with all participating countries will be the same,” he wrote in an article in Prospect magazine. Some critics say that is the reason Washington found so many Southeast Asian takers as initial partners in IPEF. Analyst Robert Manning, who calls walking away from what was called the TPP “a major strategic mistake,” is one of them. “I wasn’t surprised [so many countries joined]. The U.S. lowered the bar on all four pillars. No one had to sign on to any standards,” Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, told BenarNews. The four pillars Manning referred to are resilient economy, or the creation of a…

Read More

Irrawaddy dolphin deaths on Bangladesh’s coast worry environmentalists, authorities

Editor011 mins

Growing up, Nuru Majhi and his friends used to see dolphins jumping in Bangladesh’s southern coastal waters. “But now we see a lot less dolphins,” the 58-year-old fisherman from Patuakhali district told BenarNews. “The main cause of death is due to fishing nets. The number of fishermen has increased 10 times compared to 30 years ago.” The deaths of two Irrawaddy dolphins earlier this month near Kuakata beach where Majhi fishes highlight the threat faced by the aquatic mammals in Bangladesh, which hosts the world’s largest population of the species, authorities and fishermen said. Bangladesh Forest Department officials recovered the remains of the dolphins on May 3 and 14, bringing the tally this year to at least eight. All were found in the same Kuakata beach area in Patuakhali, about 294 km (183 miles) south of Dhaka. Meanwhile on May 22, a local Bangladesh media report said that a pregnant female Irrawaddy dolphin had died after being hit by a trolling net. The report said the dolphin was found floating at the mouth of Andharmanik River in Patuakhali district that morning. The carcass of an Irrawaddy dolphin lies on the Kuakata beach in Bangladesh’s Patuakhali district, May 14, 2022. Credit: Dolphin Conservation Committee of Kuakata, Bangladesh. The trend worries government authorities, environmentalists and fishermen. Similar concerns have been raised as the Irrawaddy population has plummeted on the Mekong River near Cambodia’s border with Laos. “This is really a matter of concern for us that the Irrawaddy dolphins are dying,” Abdullah Al Mamun, the division forest officer in Patuakhali district, told BenarNews. Forest officials were examining the causes of the latest dolphin deaths, he said. The Irrawaddy dolphin, which is distinct for its roundish head and lack of beak, is found in freshwater along with brackish shallow coastal waters in South and Southeast Asia, from Bangladesh to Mekong region and the Philippines. The name comes from the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar where the first specimens were described, according to riverdolphins.org, a website on dolphin conservation and management. Roman Imtiaz Tushar, a Kuakata wildlife activist, said 24 Irrawaddy dolphins were found dead in 2021, 18 in 2020 and 12 in 2019. Majhi, which means “boatman” in Bengali, said no fisherman intentionally kills a dolphin. “Every dolphin’s death makes fishermen very sorry,” he said. “Dolphins are a very emotional type of animal. They move in groups. When one is entangled in a net, others come around the trapped dolphin.” Credit: International Whaling Commission Trapped in nets Sharif Uddin, a fisheries department official, said Kuakata and other adjacent coastal areas are rich in resources. “The number of fishermen in this area has increased over the years. So more dolphins are getting trapped in the fishing nets,” said Uddin, chief scientific officer for the marine fisheries survey management. In 2019, Dhaka adopted a Dolphin Conservation Action Plan to save the country’s population of Irrawaddy, a protected species, along with the Ganges River dolphin. The plan authorizes the fisheries department to work with fishermen, while the main task of saving and conserving the dolphins goes to the forest department. “In line with the action plan, we have started awareness campaigns among the coastal fishermen so they can immediately release the dolphins, if possible,” Uddin said. “So, if we can make them more sensitive, there is a possibility that some of the dolphins trapped in the nets could be saved,” he said. But locals said they do not always know whether a large fish or a dolphin has been entangled in their long nets and can rescue only those caught close to them. “Once caught, the dolphins die in a maximum of 10 minutes,” Majhi, the fisherman, said. A fisherman casts a net on the Mekong River, home to Irrawaddy dolphins, in Kratié province, Cambodia, March 24, 2007. Credit: Reuters Dolphins are mammals and need to take oxygen from the air at intervals of 10 minutes or less, according to M.A. Aziz, a zoology professor at Jahangirnagar University in Dhaka. “They cannot take oxygen from the water like fish.” “Some fishermen use very thin and transparent nets which the dolphins cannot always detect. When they run after fish, they cannot detect the presence of the thin fishing net and get entangled with it,” he told BenarNews. “As a result, they suffocate and die underwater in a short time.” Bangladesh’s coasts and the coastal rivers host about 80 percent of the world’s Irrawaddy dolphins, Aziz said. Globally, the Irrawaddy population is about 7,000, according to experts and international studies. Figures for Bangladesh range from 5,800 to 6,000, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the World Conservation Society. The Irrawaddy dolphins are classified as “endangered” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, with some river and coastal subpopulations designated as “critically endangered.” In February, the last known freshwater Irrawaddy dolphin on a stretch of the Mekong River near Cambodia’s border with Laos died after being snagged in a fishing net, said wildlife officials and villagers from both sides of the frontier. Overall, a few dozen of these dolphins survive in the Lower Mekong region. An Irrawaddy dolphin raises its tail swims in a river in Kratié province, Cambodia, March 24, 2007. Credit: Reuters. The Irrawaddy population along the Mekong has declined from an estimated 200 in 1997 to 89 in 2020, according to riverdolphins.org. IUCN said the dolphin population level was satisfactory in Bangladesh waters where they are frequently spotted near the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest, and the Meghna River estuary near Nijhum Dwip. It said the Irrawaddy’s regional habitat was affected by increasing salinity caused by climate change and freshwater withdrawals. The fresh water flow into the river system that is needed to produce a suitable mixture with salt water to create the proper habitation for dolphins has been reduced, environmentalists said. The forest department, which investigates each recorded dolphin death, has concluded that in most cases they were entangled in fishing nets or hit by trawlers. Tushar, the team leader at…

Read More

Hong Kong leader-in-waiting John Lee officially anointed by Beijing

Editor07 mins

Hong Kong’s leader-in-waiting John Lee received the blessing of ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping at the weekend following the former security chief’s selection for the role in a one-horse poll earlier this month. Xi received his letter of appointment in Beijing, and along with congratulations from Xi, who lauded the new system of “elections” that ensures only candidates with proven political loyalty to Beijing may stand. Xi “praised Lee for his patriotism, love for Hong Kong, and daring to take responsibility,” the CCP-backed Global Times newspaper reported. Xi said Hong Kong’s new electoral system had played a decisive role in ensuring “patriots” govern Hong Kong, the paper reported. Current affairs commentator Johnny Lau said the rhetoric during Lee’s Beijing trip indicates that the CCP under Xi has no intention of relaxing its grip on Hong Kong. “The suppression of Hong Kong has already had a negative impact on economic growth, people’s income and employment, international confidence and foreign investment,” Lau said. ‘Indistinguishable from other cities in China’ Political commentator Sang Pu said the national security law and the changes to Hong Kong’s electoral system were all Xi’s idea. “The new electoral system is about hands-on governance [from Beijing] and patriots ruling Hong Kong,” Sang told RFA. “It is Xi Jinping’s alone, because Xi Jinping made the final decision.” “The aim is to turn Hong Kong into a city that is indistinguishable from other cities in China, with its special characteristics and autonomy destroyed,” he said. Lee takes office on July 1, the anniversary of the 1997 handover to Chinese rule, amid speculation that Xi will make a visit to Hong Kong to mark the occasion. Analysts said the one-horse poll that returned Lee as successor to incumbent Carrie Lam wiped out any distinction between the city and the rest of mainland China, despite Beijing’s promises that Hong Kong would maintain its existing rights and freedoms and transition to fully democratic elections. Lee, a former police officer who oversaw a violent crackdown on the 2019 protest movement, was “elected” by a Beijing-backed committee under new rules imposed on the city to ensure that only those loyal to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can hold public office. Ninety-nine percent of the 1,500-strong committee voted for Lee, who was the only candidate on the slate. ‘National security education’ Lee has vowed to “start a new chapter” in Hong Kong, which has seen waves of mass, popular protest over the erosion of the city’s promised freedoms in recent years. He has also denied that anyone has been detained or imprisoned for “speech crimes” under a draconian national security law imposed on the city by Beijing from July 1, 2020, despite dozens of arrests amid an ongoing crackdown on rights activists, peaceful protesters and opposition politicians. The crackdown has seen several senior journalists, pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai and 47 former lawmakers and democracy activists charged with offenses from “collusion with a foreign power” to “subversion.” “National security education” — a CCP-style propaganda drive targeting all age-groups from kindergarten to university — is also mandatory under the law, while student unions and other civil society groups have disbanded, with some of their leaders arrested in recent months. Eleven defendants including Cantopop singer Leslie Chong pleaded not guilty in a Hong Kong court on Monday to charges of “rioting” in connection with the siege by armed riot police of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The defendants’ transit records and WhatsApp messages are being used to show that they went to nearby Yaumatei district during the siege in defiance of a police statement telling people to stay away. Protesters converged on the district to distract riot police and support protesters holed up inside the university campus. A video clip shown in court showed around 250 Molotov cocktails being thrown at police during the standoff, the prosecution told the court. Police later arrested more than 200 people at the scene, including Chong and his 10 co-defendants, who are aged 19-28 and include students, teachers and service sector workers. The prosecution alleged that the defendants’ presence in the vicinity constituted the crime of “rioting.” Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Read More

Investigative Journalism Reportika © March 2022 by Ij-Reportika is licensed under CC BY 4.0